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0c70407
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It was a meal that we shall never forget; more accurately, it was several meals that we shall never forget, because it went beyond the gastronomic frontiers of anything we had ever experienced, both in quantity and length. It started with homemade pizza - not one, but three: anchovy, mushroom, and cheese, and it was obligatory to have a slice of each. Plates were then wiped with pieces torn from the two-foot loaves in the middle of the tabl..
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Peter Mayle |
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7ccb273
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Depending on the inflection, ah bon can express shock, disbelief, indifference, irritation, or joy - a remarkable achievment for two short words.
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Peter Mayle |
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f9f4234
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Sunglasses must be kept on until an acquaintance is identified at one of the tables, but one must not appear to be looking for company. Instead, the impression should be that one is heading into the cafe to make a phone call to one's titled Italian admirer, when--quelle surprise!--one sees a friend. The sunglasses can then be removed and the hair tossed while one is persuaded to sit down.
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Peter Mayle |
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519fcdd
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A connoisseur of woe needs fresh worries from time to time, or he will become complacent.
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Peter Mayle |
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d0a4fd6
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Apart from the peace and emptiness of the landscape, there is a special smell about winter in Provence which is accentuated by the wind and the clean, dry air. Walking in the hills, I was often able to smell a house before I could see it, because of the scent of woodsmoke coming from an invisible chimney. It is one of the most primitive smells in life, and consequently extinct in most cities, where fire regulations and interior decorators h..
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provence
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Peter Mayle |
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78eae5c
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Next to the defeated politician, the writer is the most vocal and inventive griper on earth. He sees hardship and unfairness wherever he looks. His agent doesn't love him (enough). The blank sheet of paper is an enemy. The publisher is a cheapskate. The critic is a philistine. The public doesn't understand him. His wife doesn't understand him. The bartender doesn't understand him. These are only some of the common complaints of working writ..
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Peter Mayle |
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6ab09cb
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Apart from the peace and emptiness of the landscape, there is a special smell about winter in Provence which is accentuated by the wind and the clean, dry air. Walking in the hills, I was often able to smell a house before I could see it, because of the scent of woodsmoke coming from an invisible chimney. It is one of the most primitive smells in life, and consequently extinct in most cities, where fire regulations and interior decorators h..
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provence
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Peter Mayle |
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b56aa12
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The day when a Frenchman switches from the formality of vous to the familiarity of tu is a day to be taken seriously. It is an unmistakable signal that he has decided - after weeks or months or sometimes years - that he likes you. It would be chulish and unfriendly of you not to return the compliment. And so, just when you are at last feeling comfortable with vous and all the plurals that go with it, you are thrust headlong in to the singul..
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Peter Mayle |
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d85e744
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Beh oui. Better sticky than burned.
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Peter Mayle |
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7e45352
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The English murder their meat twice: once when they shoot it, again when they cook it. 'Drole, n'est-ce pas'?
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murder
english-cooking
meat
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Peter Mayle |
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03ed22d
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Only snobs kiss once, I was told, or those unfortunates who suffer from congenital froideur. I then saw what I assumed to be the correct procedure - the triple kiss, left-right-left, so I tried it on a Parisian friend. Wrong again. She told me that triple-kissing was a low Provencal habit, and that two kisses were enough among civilized people. The next time I saw my neighbor's wife, I kissed her twice. "Non," she said, "trois fois." I now ..
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Peter Mayle |
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209ef7e
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The French, it seems to me, strike a happy balance between intimacy and reserve. Some of this must be helped by the language, which lends itself to graceful expression even when dealing with fairly basic subjects.... And there's that famously elegant subtitle from a classic Western. COWBOY: "Gimme a shot of red-eye." SUBTITLE: "Un Dubonnet, s'il vous plait." No wonder French was the language of diplomacy for all those years."
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french-languange
reserve
intimacy
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Peter Mayle |
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a4e5bbf
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Rain they take as a personal affront, shaking their heads and commiserating with each other in the cafes, looking with profound suspicion at the sky as though a plague of locusts is about to descend, and picking their way with distaste through the puddles on the pavement.
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Peter Mayle |
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5885b94
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I have a terrible weakness for collecting snatches of other people's conversations, and occasionally I'm rewarded with unusual fragments of knowledge. My favorite of the day came from a large but shapely woman sitting nearby whom I learned was the owner of a local lingerie shop. ' ,' she said to her companion, waving her spoon for emphasis, ' .' You can't argue with that. I made a mental note not to rush things next time I was shopping for ..
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eavesdropping
lingerie
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Peter Mayle |
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dc00b10
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They always asked wistfully what the weather was like, and were not pleased with the answer. They consoled themselves by warning me about skin cancer and the addling effecr of sun on the brain. I didn't argue with them; they were probably right. But addled, wrinkled and potentially cancerous as I might have been, I had never felt better.
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Peter Mayle |
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fd238d8
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We had to be up early in the morning. We had a goat race to go to... We asked the old man confident in the knowledge that he, like every Frenchman, would be an expert. "The goats who make the most droppings before the race are likely to do well. An empty goat is faster than a full goat. C'est logique."
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Peter Mayle |
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9d62dc3
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As our lawyer friend had noticed, men kiss other men. They squeeze shoulders, slap backs, pummel kidneys, pinch cheeks. When a Provencal man is truly pleased to see you, there is a real possibility of coming away from his clutches with superficial bruising.
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Peter Mayle |
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0d5f1e2
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He then expounded a remarkable theory, which had occurred to him while he was playing the clarinet during one of the power cuts that the French electricity board arranges at regular intervals. Electricity, he said, is a matter of science and logic. Classical music is a matter of art and logic. Vous voyez? Already one sees a common factor. And when you listen to the disciplined and logical progression of some of Mozart's work, the conclusion..
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Peter Mayle |
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dccce27
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It is at a time like this, when crisis threatens the stomach, that the French display the most sympathetic side of their nature. Tell them stories of physical injury or financial ruin and they will either laugh or commiserate politely. But tell them you are facing gastronomic hardship, and they will move heaven and earth and even restaurant tables to help you.
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france
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Peter Mayle |
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ac9f1b9
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We had been here often before as tourists, desperate for our annual ration of two or three weeks of true heat and sharp light. Always when we left, with peeling noses and regret, we promised ourselves that one day we would live here. We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers, looked with an addict's longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting thr..
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Peter Mayle |
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70bd0b4
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Look at those vines,' he said. 'Nature is wearing her prettiest clothes.' The effect of this unexpectedly poetic observation was slight spoiled when Massot cleared his throat nosily and spat, but he was right;
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Peter Mayle |
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3d8ee14
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Oh, that,' he said. 'Poncet is grooming his ass.
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Peter Mayle |
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b84e6a4
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It was exciting at first... Then it became routine. I guess everything does, even if it's dangerous.
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Peter Mayle |
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a873a12
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The kitchen garden satisfies both requirements, a thing 0f beauty and a joy for dinner.
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potager
gardening
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Peter Mayle |
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ebd3080
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The people of Provence greeted spring with uncharacteristic briskness, as if nature had given everyone an injection of sap.
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spring
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Peter Mayle |
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9b01a0e
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And, as for the oil, it is a masterpiece. You'll see." Before dinner that night, we tested it, dripping it onto slices of bread that had been rubbed with the flesh of tomatoes. It was like eating sunshine."
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sunshine
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Peter Mayle |
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9ce2261
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We had a crisp, oily salad and slices of pink country sausages, an aioli of snails and cod and hard-boiled eggs with garlic mayonnaise, creamy cheese from Fontvielle, and a homemade tart. It was the kind of meal that the French take for granted and tourists remember for years.
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tourism
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Peter Mayle |
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8a14406
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What a marvelous sunset,' she said. 'Yes,' replied her husband. 'Most impressive for such a small village.
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Peter Mayle |
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bfa6362
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La Closerie, in Ansouis.
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Peter Mayle |
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3374f0b
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I called Monsieur Menicucci, and he asked anxiously about my pipes. I told him they were holding up well. "That pleases me," he said, "because it is minus five degrees, the roads are perilous, and I am fifty-eight years old. I am staying at home." He paused, then added, "I shall play the clarinet."
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Peter Mayle |
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3d54e7b
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probity
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Peter Mayle |
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bfca8d7
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Cavaillon--which, as any Provencal will tell you, is the "melon capital of the world"--with"
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Peter Mayle |
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f920557
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The town maps in the 1939 [Michelin] guide were so accurate they were used by the Allied forces in 1944 during the liberation of France.
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Peter Mayle |
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7364c57
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Out here in the country there was no avoiding the direct link between death and dinner,
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Peter Mayle |
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46021e7
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We might treat a rabbit as a pet or become emotionally attached to a goose, but we had come from cities and supermarkets, where flesh was hygienically distanced from any resemblance to living creatures. A shrink-wrapped pork chop has a sanitized, abstract appearance that has nothing whatever to do with the warm, mucky bulk of a pig. Out here in the country there was no avoiding the direct link between death and dinner.
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veganism
vegetarianism
meat
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Peter Mayle |
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c981ce9
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Dar, bineinteles, spusese el, se stie ca englezii isi omoara mieii de doua ori: o data cand ii taie si a doua oara cand ii gatesc.
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Peter Mayle |
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6ffded0
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Gu himself presides over the room- a genial, noisy man with the widest, jauntiest, must luxuriant and ambitious mustache I have ever seen, permanently fighting gravity and the razor in its attempts to make contact with Gu's eyebrows.
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Peter Mayle |
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2582a2e
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And then there is the most self-indulgent truffle recipe of all, which a friend claims is the closest thing on earth to having heaven in your mouth. You start with a generous slice of foie gras, and place it on a sheet of tinfoil. You then place your truffle on the foie gras and put it in the oven, where the truffle gradually sinks into the melting foie gras. The complex, slightly earthy taste of the truffle and the unctuous coating of foie..
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Peter Mayle |
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0c16c5e
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the demented clatter-like nuts and bolts trying to escape from a biscuit tin-of the small Citroen van that every farmer drives home at lunchtime...
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Peter Mayle |