Encore Provence (16 page)

Aligot
is the ideal restorative after eight hours of sustained manual labor in the fields, a day of skiing, or a fifteen-mile walk. Unfortunately, it tastes just as delicious if you have done nothing more physically demanding than change for dinner. It was odd to find such a solid peasant recipe in such a gastronomically sophisticated menu. Odd, and comforting; a reminder that food doesn’t have to be complicated to be good.

Next morning the mist was as thick as
aligot
, with visibility limited to a few dank yards. Although we had been denied the view as well as the famous chicken, we were happy to have seen, so close to home, another country. The traditions, the cooking, the landscape, the accents, even the appearance of the people—all were completely different. Provence felt distant and exotic. It was hard to believe that we would be back there under sun and clear skies, among dark Mediterranean faces, within a few hours.

Meals inspire comparisons, not just of the food, but of the overall experience. What makes a restaurant memorable? What makes you want to go back to it, to recommend it? How does it achieve those coveted stars? As we drove down through the Cevennes we came to the conclusion that we would never qualify as Michelin inspectors; we’d fail the furniture appreciation test. In our experience, the Michelin guide only awards multiple stars to establishments that combine excellence of cooking with a certain
level of decoration—you might call it
haut resto
—both in the equipment and the appearance of the staff. Chairs must be upholstered, and preferably specially designed. Waiters must be decked out in the restaurant livery. Sommeliers must wear ties. The financial investment in luxurious details—in crockery, table linen, glassware, cutlery, fresh flowers, elaborate menus, custom-made lighting—must be evident as soon as the customer (or the Michelin inspector) enters the room.

I’m sure this is all done with the best of intentions, and it clearly appeals to the French fondness for
apparence de richesse
. But it does tend to encourage the hushed, devout attitude, and an absence of what Régis likes to call
joie de manger
. All too often, the grand establishments suffer from a sad lack of gusto. It’s true that you can’t eat atmosphere. I don’t care. I’d rather have dinner in a happy room than a reverent one, and to hell with the decorative trimmings.

Which brings me, with great pleasure, to the Auberge de La Môle, a restaurant that deserves at least three of my personal stars. It isn’t in some of the major guides, possibly because of its straightforward approach to decor. At one time, it must have been a service station; a residual gas pump, now painted in blue and white, remains as an ornament on the terrace. Inside the entrance is a zinc bar polished by a thousand elbows, correctly equipped with assorted brands of pastis and a battery of those arcane aperitifs rarely found outside France. To reach the dining room, you walk through the kitchen, inhaling an aromatic prelude of what is to come: the scent of sauces and gravies, of grilling meat and roasting potatoes, and, in winter, of black truffles.

The dining room is simple, just this side of severe, with
a stone fireplace at one end. There is no attempt to be stylish or chic, nothing but the essentials—well-worn cutlery and tablecloths, unpretentious glasses, soft, faded napkins. The reassuring clatter of pots and pans comes from the kitchen as you contemplate the menu.

This won’t take long. The first course and the last two courses are selections—generous selections, as we shall see—and they come to your table without any decision on your part. All you are required to do is choose your main dish from half a dozen suggestions, and to exercise whatever restraint you can summon up in the matter of wines. The Raynal family has been running the Auberge for forty years, and one Raynal after another has worked diligently to build a formidable cellar. There are excellent local wines from the Var, at forty or fifty francs a bottle, sharing the long list with venerable works of art from Burgundy and Bordeaux at two or three thousand francs. Let your wallet be your guide.

Before our first visit to the Auberge, friends familiar with the cooking had warned us against too much enthusiasm during the early part of the meal. Pace yourselves, they had told us, or you’ll have to be carried out. But on that particular night it was cold and we were famished. We were also curious to see just how good the chef was, which naturally required us to taste everything. Some may call this gluttony; I like to think of it as dutiful research. We tucked our napkins under our chins. Even the wood smoke from the fire smelled appetizing.

Toast came first, but not in thin, limp, Anglo-Saxon slices. This was country bread cut thick, crisp and lightly browned on each side, warm and soft in the middle, edible transport for the terrines that were now arranged across the table. There were four of them—deep rectangular pottery
dishes, their contents ranging in texture and complexion from smooth and pale to chunky and dark, from pork to hare. A knife was stuck unceremoniously into each block of pâté. A jar of cornichons, those tiny, pungent French cousins of the American pickle, was set in front of us, and we were left to help ourselves.

There had been a murmured word of warning from the young girl serving us. An extra dish, she said, had been prepared tonight, wild mushrooms, gathered that morning. The chef would be serving them in a case of light pastry. We were advised to save some room. But it was easier said than done. There is something about homemade pâtés and good warm bread that encourages lengthy and thorough comparison. Is the pork as good as the hare? Or better? Opinion changes with each mouthful, and so one has to try again, slipping in a cornichon from time to time to punctuate the different flavors. Only the arrival of the mushrooms prevented us from making an entire meal out of the first course.

Our friends had told us about a faithful admirer of the restaurant, an elderly gentleman who turned up every week to eat Sunday lunch alone. He came by taxi from Toulon, a distance of forty miles or so, and his taxi waited outside during the two hours it took him to do justice to the menu before driving him back home. In other parts of the world, such gastronomic devotion might be considered unusual. But the French go out of their way to support their stomachs and their chefs, which is why you can often find extraordinary cooking in the most unlikely corners of the countryside.

There is an interesting theory about hunger—and we were finding it to be true—which goes something like this: After a certain amount of any one food, you become sated.
But with a change of flavor and a change of texture, your appetite revives in the most magical fashion. Thus it was with the next course, a confit of duck and a circular, golden-brown cake of potatoes. Layers of them, sliced thin, roasted in duck fat and “encouraged,” as the chef said, by the addition of garlic and chopped truffles. This, combined with the confit, would probably carry a health warning on more nutritionally correct menus—a cardiologist’s nightmare, seething with cholesterol, a virtual guarantee of an early grave. But for once, we said to ourselves as we mopped up the last of the gravy, we had statistics on our side. As it happened, there were several living statistics in the restaurant, men and women of advanced age and youthful appetite, testimony to the fact that France has one of the lowest rates of fatal coronary heart disease in the western world. Not for the first time, we raised our glasses to the French Paradox.

Sustained by that thought, but by now beginning to flag, we were presented with a platter the size of a manhole cover: cheeses, from hard to soft to almost liquid. Most of them had come straight from the farmer without passing through the sterilization processes so dear to the hearts of the food censors in Brussels (sometimes described as the bland leading the bland), and consequently tasted good enough to be illegal. They probably were.

And then, a pause. A chance to catch the breath, adjust the napkin, and gather strength for the chef’s parting shots—not one, not two, but three desserts: a small hot apple tart, a deep dish of crème caramel, and a bowl of pears simmered in red wine. Finally, coffee and a nip of Calvados.

I asked if there was any chance of a cigar. A basket piled
high with boxes was brought in from the cellar—Partagas and Cohibas, even those rare, fat No. 2 Montecristos, the great Cuban torpedoes. Havanas were served as generously as dinner had been, laid on the table in abundance for you to take your pick. The one I chose was in perfect condition, the Calvados had the proper whiff of apples, we were at peace with the world. L’Auberge de La Môle, we agreed, was the kind of restaurant the French do better than anyone else: highly professional, and yet it felt like the extension of a friend’s kitchen, casual, easy, and comfortable. The restaurants with a row of stars, as good as they are, tend to have a similar veneer, polished, perfect, and international. The Auberge couldn’t be anything but French.

Less than twenty miles from St-Tropez, the restaurant has had its share of summer celebrities who come to sit and eat in plastic chairs by the gas pump on the terrace. The Princess of Wales, the two Jacks (Chirac and Nicholson), Joan Collins, and a blonde sprinkling of Riviera girls,
les mimis de St.-Tropez
—almost famous, tanned to their toenails and accompanied by their elderly uncles. During August, the parking area next to the restaurant looks as though the local Porsche and Mercedes dealers are having a convention. Cell phones, titanium-framed sunglasses, and Vuitton beach bags litter the tables. Inside, at the bar, their backs to the glamour, local farmers and workmen argue about football or the Tour de France. And then they go home to lunch.

Of the many questions in life that I prefer to duck, one of the most frequent comes from that daunting creature, the serious traveler seeking advice. He—it’s almost always a man, for some reason—is not the kind to take his pleasures lightly. He approaches his vacation as though making a business trip without the customary protection of suit and tie and personal assistant, and he is profoundly suspicious of the random expedition or the unplanned moment. Gaps in his itinerary cause him to fidget until they are plugged, and the thought of anything being left to chance is enough to give him grave doubts about his secretary’s efficiency. He is the spiritual descendant of those
package-tour pioneers who used to take pride in doing Europe in five days. And when considering a visit to Provence, his first question, asked by phone and inevitably confirmed by fax, is: When is the
best
time to come?

I try to fend him off with questions of my own. Does he want to see the poppies and cherry blossoms of spring? Does he want to roast himself in the peak sunbathing season of July and August? Take in the Avignon festival of music and drama? Ride a bicycle up Mont Ventoux? Run naked through the Luberon? Tread the grapes—vicariously, of course—during the autumn days of the
vendange
, and see the vines begin to turn rusty gold? Does he have architecture and Roman remains on his agenda, or antiques markets and three-star restaurants?

Yes, he says, yes. I like the sound of everything. But I only have a week to fit it all in. So when is the
best
time to come?

I have struggled to find an answer, or at least an answer that will satisfy him; and I have failed, miserably and often. The closest I can get—a recommendation arrived at after years of haphazard research—is not a convenient string of days that can be blocked off in a diary. I suppose it’s more of an attitude of mind than a precise arrangement of dates and places, and is therefore often received by the serious traveler in puzzled silence. Provence, I tell him, is at its best after lunch.

A summer lunch for preference, because the first of two simple requirements for maximum enjoyment is sunshine. The second is a total absence of fixed plans. Only then can you take full advantage of the long and unencumbered afternoon that lies ahead.

The bill is paid, the last mouthful of rosé swallowed, the empty bottle upended in the ice bucket as a farewell salute
to the waiter. Now is the time to review the possibilities, taking into account the temperature, your energy level, and the nature of your inclinations—sporting, intellectual, cultural, or physical. (Another glass of wine is not a bad idea here, purely for inspirational purposes.) Despite the lack of theme parks, multiscreen cinemas, and shopping malls, Provence is not short of diversions. And while the selection that follows is highly personal, I hope it will serve to illustrate my belief that this is the best place in the world to amuse yourself doing almost nothing.

Almost every village possesses its own modest version of the sports arena. At its most basic, this is nothing more than a level patch of land perhaps twenty or thirty meters long with a dusty surface of gravel and hard-packed earth. If it is a well-established athletic facility—one, let’s say, that has been in service for a couple of hundred years—you are likely to find two additional refinements. The first is shade, provided by an orderly parade of plane trees that might have been planted by one of Napoléon’s military gardeners. The second is refreshment, available from the café that overlooks the playing area. (This is often called Le Sporting, and will usually have a row of
boules
trophies, bulbous and gleaming, on the shelf behind the bar.)