The Magic of Provence: Pleasures of Southern France

A look into the subtleties of French culture recounts the story of the author's joyous reunion with France, capturing the sights, flavors, and faces of Provence--the location of the sixteenth-century house she and her husband purchased and had completely renovated. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.. NOTA: El libro no está en español, sino en inglés.

The Prince and the Garbage Collector

Provence smiled on us that first morning, and, seldom

drinkers that we are, we were both drunk before noon.

The night before, my husband and I had arrived at our new hilltop village house in the Luberon, heart of Provence. We slept fitfully, not yet adjusted to the time difference, vaguely aware of roosters crowing most of the night. Their enthusiasm rose to greet the day, and later the sun, streaming in through open windows, woke us up, as the belfry bell rang eight times. When we rose, though, the rooms remained night-fresh and the tiles cool underfoot.

No food in the house, but we were both too jet-lagged to be hungry. Wayne left soon afterward to pick up a rental truck and drive to Marseille, hoping to get there during the short hours the customs office opens to the public, to collect crates of belongings we had shipped from the States. Alone, I wandered from room to room, discovering our still-unfamiliar domain, exulting in this adventure. Bliss and expectation danced in the air, like the brilliant motes caught in bars of sunshine traced by the shutters I had half closed against the rising heat of the day.

Almost directly above stood the castle that had enchanted us on our first--and only--visit to the village, its red standard emblazoned with the gold lion of Provence, snapping in the breeze. Suddenly, from an open window way up in the towers, a cascade of piano notes burst forth and descended, floating down the battlements. Someone was playing Chopin. Not the hesitant fingers of a child. A sure, expert hand was spinning light, airy music. Transfixed, I stood lost in reverie. Had we, unknowingly, stepped straight into some Camelot?

The sound of the kitchen door, noisily opened, drew me out of my trance. I would learn later that, in Provence, callers walk in that way, ignoring more ceremonial entrances, not bothering to knock, simply calling out: "Y a quelqu'un?" Anyone home? I found myself face to face with a tall, handsome blond man in his thirties, carrying a small, wicker-clad jug.

He didn't introduce himself but took my hand and bent low over it. "Salut," he said, "we heard you had arrived. Il faut arroser a, one must drink to that. Do you have any glasses?" From the still-empty dish closet, I unearthed two jam jars and rinsed them, all the time thinking: This can't be a village man, he is dressed much too casually. I suspected locals wouldn't come calling at the house of strangers, wearing cut-off jeans and a shirt knotted at the waist. Obviously, someone else. But who could that be?

He filled the glasses with rose wine. "Taste this," he urged. "Just picked it up at the winery down below. Our rose is the best in Provence. Can't travel, doesn't age well. But when it's fresh, it's the Virgin Mary in silk panties. Like it? It's still cool from the barrel."

The clear, pink wine smelled and tasted of fruit. It hit the tongue with just a hint of sparkle and, indeed, slithered down the throat as lightly as silk chiffon. "Well," added my visitor, "to your health, and welcome. Hope you like it here. Most Luberon villages already have a few American residents, but it looks like we're catching up at last." We? Him and who else, I wondered. "Cul sec," he concluded, "Bottoms up," and refilled our glasses.

I know enough to offer a seat to visitors, so I tried to coax him to the terrace, where he could at least sit on the low surrounding wall, or to the living room, maybe. But he wasn't interested.

"Much better here," he declared. "The tiles are nice and cool. Here, sit on the floor." And he showed me the way, sitting in the kitchen doorway, feet on the stone steps, patting the place next to him, the rose jug between us. Intimidated, yet entranced, I sat, too, on the kitchen stoop.

Who, who in the world could that be? His casually knotted shirt was sans buttons, but he wore a signet ring with an almost worn-off engraving. No clues there. Obviously, I don't know him, yet he seems vaguely familiar. A TV or movie actor? I am not that up on French personalities. Blonds are rare in this Mediterranean land of dark-haired, olive-skinned people. Still, that profile, the clear blue eyes, the high forehead and slightly heavy jaw, why do I think I've seen it somewhere before? A chain hung from his neck, with a heavy gold seal attached. Twisting my neck as inconspicuously as possible, I tried to make out the engraving on the face of the seal. Perhaps there would be initials there, a clue of some sort? Pretending to squirm into a more comfortable position I managed to sneak a peak. Engraved on the face of the seal I distinguished something like a double-headed eagle, perhaps the emblem of some royal house.

Of course, now, I could figure out why that handsome face, with its square jaw, brought a vague feeling of deja vu. In spite of the rose's mounting buzz, I finally put it all together. Something aristocratic, as well as the man's very casualness, betrayed the highborn. Yes, yes: a couple of years earlier, a feature in Town and Country had caught my attention. The lead photo pictured a beautiful young girl, smiling a dimpled smile, strolling on the terrace of a castle in Provence, arm in arm with her fiance. She was, told the story, the daughter of a great house, niece of a duke, and a budding concert pianist; he, the scion of the royal house of a neighboring European country. Although his father had, a decade or so earlier, lost his throne to a military takeover or some such political upheaval, he was still very much royalty. The wedding held at the Provence castle--the same one looming above and that I recognized from the images I had seen then--had gathered crowned and uncrowned heads, as well as the entire population of the village. Festivities had culminated in farandoles in the meadow below, and fireworks that lit up the Luberon valley.

Given the uncertainties of politics, the man sitting now on my kitchen stoop, refilling my glass once more, stood in immediate line to a throne, and might very well, one day, become king in succession to his father. Impossible? Not if the citizens of his country tired of the military junta, or whatever system that governed them without the glamour of a royal court, and decided it would be more exciting to possess, once more, their own king and queen, princes and princesses, to enliven the pages of their tabloids, rather than having to rely on England and others for tales of princely scandal.

How does one behave in the presence of royalty? I guessed one, at least, gets off the kitchen floor, and I did. He looked up.

"What's the matter? You don't care for the rose?"

I don't know how to curtsy. In any case, it would be hard to do in the direction of someone sitting on the floor.

"Monseigneur, Your Highness," I stammered, "I don't feel I should remain seated in the presence of a man who could be king." He laughed wholeheartedly.

"C'est pas demain la veille, That's not for tomorrow, or even the day after, so you can't very well remain standing until it happens. You'll have to sit down sometime. By the way, in French my name is Louis."

I told him my name.

"I know," he replied. "I understand you've been expected and everybody is curious. No one, though, would have had the nerve to barge in on you the way I did."

The piano, which had stopped playing for a moment, resumed its freshet of notes.

"Noise pollution?" he winked. "If it bothers you, I can tell my wife to close the window. She is practicing for a Chopin concert tour in the fall." He smiled. "And I'm told she's the best." No wonder that a moment earlier I had stood enthralled.

And then, he was ready to leave.

"By the way," he added, "I must not forget I was sent here on an errand. My wife's aunt, the duchess, would like to have you and your husband as her guests, for dejeuner at the ch?teau, a week from Wednesday. Quite informal, mostly family. I do hope you can come--and happy days in the Luberon," he concluded, pouring the last of the rose into our glasses. Then he bent low over my hand again, and walked out, whistling along with the piano.

Call me a snob, but I felt there should be glass slippers on my feet instead of sandals, and the rose did nothing to dispel the feeling that I had stepped through the rabbit hole, right into some fairy tale.

I was still shaking my head, trying to stop the spin of the rose (No, I thought, I couldn't possibly be drunk. It's just a pleasant little lilt), when the kitchen door opened again. The prince back so soon? I should have at least fixed my hair. No. A small white truck had pulled up in the narrow, one-way street in front of our house. The word Sanitation under the lion coat-of-arms indicated this must be the municipal garbage conveyance. A florid-faced, stocky man in a beret, a Gauloise stuck in the corner of his lips, was standing in the doorway. He touched his beret, shook my hand, and informed me that he, Monsieur Berange, with the assistance of a young helper (who didn't seem allowed off the truck), handled matters of garbage collection and public sanitation. He had noticed our volets, shutters, were open, therefore we were in residence and would need garbage pickup.

"We come by every other day, early a.m. Leave your ordures outside in a tightly lidded can, otherwise roaming cats and dogs will spill it all over, and, with the steep slope, empty cans and such roll all the way down to the lower village."

As I was thanking him, the arrival of Wayne's rental truck caused a major traffic jam in the narrow passage, and required a great deal of expert maneuvering on the part of both him and Monsieur Berange. The latter came back inside, clearly to meet the man of the house and ascertain his message would be competently received.

On his way back, Wayne had stopped at a market to purchase emergency supplies, and when he put the gro-

cery bags on the counter, Monsieur Berange noticed the neck of a pastis bottle (the Provence aperitif of choice) sticking out.

"Getting pretty close to aperitif time," he remarked pointedly. Wayne, quickly picking up on local mores, rinsed the two jam jars. In each, he poured an inch of pastis, and filled them at the tap.

"I see you like your pastis light, just the way I do sometimes, like when I am working," commented Monsieur Berange. They clinked glasses, and Monsieur Berange, politely touching his beret in my direction again, drained his. Getting the hint, Wayne poured refills, with a good two inches of pastis this time.

"Whoa!" cautioned M. Berange. "You want to make me drink like an Americain?" Nonetheless, he drained his second drink, smacked his lips, shook hands all around, and departed, assuring us he was "A votre service." No one had invited me to join in the libation, this was strictly a men's affair. Well-bred ladies don't quaff drinks with men in the kitchen. Unless, I thought smugly, it happens to be in the company of a prince. Just the same, my head was by now spinning fast, I seemed to have trouble standing quite straight, and, to tell the truth, was in no need whatsoever of a belt.

I couldn't wait to tell Wayne my story, which he just wouldn't believe. Jet-lagged, an inveterate light drinker--if drinker at all--quite unused to stiff drinks on an empty stomach at eleven a.m., his eyes were unfocused, he weaved on his feet, stood definitely off-kilter, and grabbed the counter for balance. I insisted:

"I'm trying to tell you that a prince came by this morning. He brought a jug of rose and . . ."

"A jug of rose? You drank rose all morning?"

"No, not all morning. Just a few glasses, I think."

"No wonder you look drunk."

"But listen, Wayne. He was a prince. He said . . ."

"You have to be very, very drunk," said Wayne severely. "Very, very drunk. A prince? That was not a prince. It was the garbage collector. I saw him. He just left."

And this is how we ended up laughing a lot, and sleeping off our liquor all afternoon. We woke up at six, sobered up and ravenous.

"Not just ravenous," yawned Wayne, pushing hair out of his eyes. "I am thirsty, too."

"A hair of the dog?" I teased, fully expecting a sermon on the evil of drink from my usually abstemious husband. I didn't know Provence was already weaving its spell, opening him to better enjoyment of each passing moment.

"As a matter of fact . . . no pastis, though, tonight. I'll leave that for earlier hours of the day. Tell you what: I'll fix us a kir while you get ready. Then, we'll go out to dinner someplace. I bet we won't have far to go to find good food. Now, hurry up, will you?"

Under the cool spray of the shower, I kept wondering whether or not I had had the visit of a prince that morning. One thing seemed clear, though: Chance had brought us to a place that might just be holding in store something very much like magi

At aperitif time, drink pastis or . . .

The Kir and Its Variations

Aperitif is the before-meal drink that is supposed to stimulate the appetite, and while pastis is widely consumed in Provence, kir is served there, too, as well as everywhere else.

When Chanoine (Canon) Kir was elected mayor of Dijon, he saw it as his duty to promote the region's best products: Burgundy wine and cassis. Cassis (blackcurrant) is the berry that ripens on bushes widely cultivated in Burgundy. So he created a delicious drink of white Burgundy wine and cassis liqueur, the kir, which took the name of its inventor.

to make a classic kir

In a footed wine glass, pour a generous tablespoon of crme de cassis. Fill to 3/4 with very cool, white Burgundy wine. (Chardonnay makes an excellent kir.)

the kir royal

Use tulip or champagne flute glasses that you've kept in the freezer so they'll frost nicely. Pour in the cassis and fill with very cold champagne.

variations on the kir

L'aperitif maison (the house aperitif). In a good restaurant, one should ask: "Do you have an aperitif maison?" Many do, and it is often a variation on the kir.