FALL ALWAYS EVOKES THE START OF SOMETHING NEW: FROM TEXT BOOKS TO TOUR BOOKS

Posted on September 24, 2012January 3, 2016 by Susan Manfull

Family and friends be forewarned: I am planning a big rendezvous in Provence Fall, for me, always marks the beginning of a new year in an evocative way that January never has. I suppose I never outgrew that heady feeling I got as I set my binders, lined paper, and new pens and pencils next to the door and eagerly anticipated the first day of school. In college, the stack got taller with all the new books for classes, instilling an even greater sense of possibility. (Maybe that’s the reason...

LOURMARIN’S JACQUELINE BRICARD TO HOST “LE BINÔME,” AN ENCHANTING EXHIBIT OF NAΪF ART THAT COMBINES PAINTING WITH PHOTOGRAPHY

Posted on September 16, 2012April 22, 2017 by Susan Manfull

If you have not yet received your invitation to the wedding of the year—Brad and Angelina, of course, who are rumored to be tying the knot in their French country home, Château Miraval, near Brignoles—and you still plan to be in Provence in September, drop by Jacqueline Bricard’s La Galerie d’Art Naïf in Lourmarin. On September 22—this date is for sure—Madame Bricard will open her gallery and welcome naïf painter Alain Donnat and photographer Yann Werdefroy who have teamed up to prod...

ENCHANTING EVENING IN PROVENCE: WINE TASTING AT CAVE AURETO AND DINNER AT “LE JARDIN DANS LES VIGNES” IN LA COQUILLADE (AT AN ENCHANTING PRICE, TOO!)

Posted on September 2, 2012December 30, 2015 by Susan Manfull

We began at Cave Aureto where we met our friend Pierre Schott, the retail cavistes of the winery’s cellar. After a very interesting tour of their uncommonly modern winery and a tasting flight of their award-winning wines, we made our way to the terrace overlooking the vineyards from which the grapes were harvest. Just before we eked out the last light of the setting sun, we moved to Le Jardin dans les Vignes, the wonderful restaurant that lies under the vine-covered arbor and stand...

ISLE-SUR-LA-SORGUE MARKET IS MY FAVORITE PLACE TO BUY ESPADRILLES

Posted on August 27, 2012January 23, 2016 by Susan Manfull

I know, I know: it’s the antiques that draw people from all over the world to the Isle-sur-la-Sorgue market. This pleasant but otherwise unremarkable Provençal town is the indisputable go-to place in the South of France for serious antique shopping and its huge market on Sunday mornings is a magnet for those looking for things like the perfect Louis XIV chest of drawers or a Napoleon Bonaparte bust in bronze. In my visits to the Sunday market over the years, I have been known to find room in m...

NO NEED TO GO TO PARIS ANY MORE—I’VE LEARNED TO MAKE MACARONS!

Posted on August 12, 2012December 30, 2015 by Susan Manfull

MacaRONS versus MacaROONS First, let’s establish that I am referring the famous Parisian macaron that, in recent years, has become trendy on this side of the big pond: the colorful meringue-based cookie that forms a sandwich around ganache, buttercream, or jam filling. The other cookie, the macaroon, is an American creation: the dense, thick single cookie made with coconut. Macaroons are delicious but they are no macarons. There is some confusion here because the English translation of “ma...

11 SHADES OF ROSÉ….MUCH BETTER THAN 50 SHADES OF GREY

Posted on August 6, 2012December 30, 2015 by Susan Manfull

We opened ten bottles of rosé within 24 hours last week. Good friends David and Mark were visiting their old stomping grounds here in Portsmouth. Since we had enjoyed so many rosés while we were together in Provence in 2008, we made those pink wines, now very trendy, our theme for a tasting. I’ve always been drawn to a good theme, a propensity that no doubt stems from growing up with my mother who had one for every rendezvous, be it birthdays—Huckleberry Hound, Raggedy Ann, The Munsters...

PÉTANQUE GOES WELL WITH PASTIS

Posted on July 29, 2012December 30, 2015 by Susan Manfull

A glass of Pastis next to a scoring tool for pétanqueWe played pétanque, drank pastis, and spoke a little French last weekend. The only sign that we were in Portsmouth, New Hampshire was the Norwegian Maple tree—a poor substitute for the stately Plane tree that is rarely far from any game of pétanque in Provence—but, it didn’t matter. Palm trees could have framed the terrain where the games took place. All eyes were on the players and their boules….well, unless they were on the pastis. C’...

LAVENDER FIELDS FOREVER? NOT IF THE CICADELLE HAS ITS WAY

Posted on July 23, 2012December 29, 2015 by Susan Manfull

At the height of lavender season in Provence—the largest lavender- producing region in the world—the industry is worried. The iconic flower is in trouble and the culprit is the cicadelle, a tiny insect with a voracious appetite. Production has plummeted in the last decade, dropping to as little as one third of what it was in 2000. Although lavender grows wild in many areas of the world and is cultivated in many countries (notably England, Spain, Bulgaria and the three west coast states of the U...

ROSÉ, WHITE, AND BLUE ON BASTILLE DAY

Posted on July 15, 2012December 29, 2015 by Susan Manfull

Superfluous piece of information for the benefit of readers who stumbled upon this blog in a completely unrelated search: Bastille Day, also known as La Fête Nationale or Le Quatorze Juillet, is a French national holiday that marks the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille (prison) in 1789 and the symbolic birth of modern France. It is celebrated on July 14th with fantastic pomp and circumstance in France, in many cities around the U.S., and in our home. Yesterday was Bastille Day. I ...

MILLE-FEUILLE IN MANHATTAN: PINCH ME ’CAUSE I THINK I AM IN PARIS!

Posted on July 1, 2012December 30, 2015 by Susan Manfull

Serendipity, according to the Oxford Dictionary on my iPhone, refers to “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” The French don’t have a direct translation; but “un heureux hazard nous a réunis” or “a happy chance has brought us together” works just fine.It was pure serendipity—un heureux hasard—that landed us in Mille-feuille, a bakery in New York’s Greenwich Village, last Sunday morning. We were early for a rendezvous with our daughter and...