Today’s post is coordinated with my friend David’s current Cocoa & Lavender post. David and I each chose a recipe from Provence Food and Wine: The Art of Living, a new cookbook by François Millo and Viktorija Todorovska. I went with the main meal and David went with dessert, a Tarte au Citron. “Bouillabaisse is a party,” said Viktorija Todorovska*. “It creates a party.” Yes it does! This luscious “fish stew” may have come from humble origins–it was a “plat des pauvres,” said François Millo**. But, today, the very word is much more likely to conjure up festivity, celebration, and fun. It certainly did for…

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Look up at the sky. Ask yourself, “Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?” And you’ll see how everything changes. And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The Little Prince   If you are a regular reader of The Modern Trobadors, I suspect that you know “the little prince.” It’s likely that you know him well. People who travel, like the little prince, open their eyes, their ears, and their hearts to the adventures the world has to offer and to the lessons introspection provides. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Alghero, Sardinia, May 1944 Collection…

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What does a town do with a vast web of stone quarries with a “Closed” sign on every door? The folks in Les Baux-de-Provence turned theirs into the largest permanent multimedia show in France. Carrières de Lumières (formerly called Cathédral d’Images) is a smashing success. Close to 400,000 visitors attended last year’s show. For over 2000 years, the quarries in Les Baux-de-Provence were a primary source of limestone for this area. The Romans exploited the quarries for material to rebuild the nearby Celto-Liguirian town of Glanum back in 200 BC and later the Municipal Arch and the Mausoleum that still stand across from Glanum. The…

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At some point, midway through the procession of holiday dinners at our home this year, the subject of ‘bon appétit’ raised its controvertible head. (Again.) You may not even have known, until now, that it had a controvertible head. You, dear reader, are likely part of the majority of people who merely thought of the phrase—to the extent that you gave it any thought at all—as a festive salutation from the host to “enjoy the meal” and, with this pronouncement, blithely assumed it was the signal to begin the meal. Ah, but you underestimated the significance of these two little words—to some people, these seemingly…

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Part three of a three-part series about what you may find in Provence after the “big supper” (otherwise known as the “Gros Souper”) on Christmas Eve. There’s simply nothing like a cup of tea to slow down the frantic pace of the holidays, soothe the harried nerves, and warm the seasonal spirit. We have been thoroughly enjoying Palais des Thés’ No 25 limited edition collection of four blends of tea—black, green, rooibos, and white—each  flavored with orange peels, red rose petals, almonds, cloves, vanilla pods, and cardamom and a fifth tea, chai, a blend of black tea with those  No 25 spices as well as cinnamon, ginger, pink pepper…

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“Ah, the stress of meeting a French person,” an American friend once said to me. Remembering fondly her first trip to France, she said she landed in Paris where, after several weeks of introductions and various encounters with newly-made friends, she thought she had mastered the fine art of  la bise…. And then, she traveled south to Provence where she discovered the salutatory kisses were not at all carried out in any predictable manner. Her confidence crumbled. Is it one or two or even three kisses? Is it right-side first or left-side first? For someone already struggling  to remember how to say a few words…

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I was settling into the chair at my desk earlier this week, fully prepared to wax enthusiastically in this post about the merits of visiting St-Tropez any time after August, when the telephone rang and changed the focus of my story. I was all set to grumble about the inconceivable amount of traffic in July and, especially in August when everyone on the continent seems to have set their GPS devices set for the French Riviera. The notorious two-lane D98 becomes a virtual parking lot of vehicles—Maseratis, open-top Ferraris by the dozen, big Bentleys, tiny Fiat Pandas, and camping-cars alike—inching forward en masse toward the…

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Throughout the concert, there were film clips of Piaf in concert, including on the Ed Sullivan Show Édith Piaf was surely smiling when Thursday night’s vibrant tribute to her life and music opened with a animated duet of La Foule by French singers Nolwenn Leroy and Zaz. La Foule—“The Crowd”—is about the chance encounter of two people in the midst of a festive crowd who, as quickly as they connect, they are separated. So much of Piaf’s life seemed fated for disappointment, but this sold-out Francofolies de New York Festival was beautifully orchestrated to ensure a remarkable celebration of her life and music. There were…

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Over the valley, from side to side, and ever so high in the air, stretch the three tiers of the tremendous bridge. They are unspeakably imposing, and nothing could well be more Roman. The hugeness, the solidity, the unexpectedness, the monumental rectitude of the whole thing leave you nothing to say at the time and make you stand gazing. You simply feel that it is noble and perfect, that it has the quality of greatness. From A Little Tour in France by Henry James (1884) People often write and ask me questions about Provence. A common one is “which site should we definitely see in…

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 August in Provence. It is hot and crowded. The line of cars inching their way along, hoping to snatch an open parking spot for the most popular markets is foreboding and the sea of people that fills the streets of those otherwise picturesque villages steals any of your remaining enthusiasm for the outing.  Reservations for lunch or dinner are impossible, a disappointment mitigated only slightly by the knowledge that the wait staff would be too cranky to bear anyway. And the lines of buses parked outside the famous sites are enough to deter even the most tenacious tourist. The lavender fields are likely to be barren. Even the sunflowers are looking…

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