Tag: Food

Le Herault – Languedoc #6

Talking food
One of the nicer things about food in France is that it is so fresh.  We had figs straight from the tree that were just delicious; peaches were firm and luscious.  You can hear the vegetables in the various markets saying “please buy me – look, I’m gorgeous AND I’ll excite your taste buds”.  And that’s what we did, we let the produce seduce us into cooking and preparing our own meals.  We didn’t eat out, we just bought the local produce and turned it into something delicious.  Even the bread sold in local bakers had an attitude.  I’d never seen so many types of bread as I did in St. Jean de Fos.  Some of the grizzlier specimens were sold by the kilo (which I’d never seen before and only rarely since): It was as if it was saying “You want some of me? – YOU’LL HAVE TO PAY!” – and when you did it was wonderful, crispy, chewy (teeth were in danger of bending under the impact of such texture), full of flavour and even the shapes had temperament. Needless to say, I haven’t eaten much of the cotton-wooly, namby-pamby pap we have1 to put up with back home and I have been tempted to start making my own again.  However, that takes time and effort, both of which are under pressure at this time.

One morning, early in the week, we spent the time just driving through the hills and mountains of the area – l’Herault. The river gorge that is formed here is very picturesque and had it not been so hot (it was getting warmer every day now and less cloudy) it might have been nice to set off walking in the hills with a picnic.

However, the roads are narrow, twisty and need a lot of care. The villages are pretty, but it’s hard to see where their living comes from.  The trees around the area were all pretty much the same, but very few of them olive trees. The farmers in the lowlands are being given grant to replace their old vines with olive groves, something they are doing with the usual French panache.  You will see mile after mile of vines, both young and old but here and there are small pockets of land planted with olive trees. Obviously, the grants are sufficient to make it worthwhile pulling up their least productive vines but not enough to alter the landscape too much2.  Nevertheless, I honestly think that if there was to be a grant for planting porridge trees, French farmers would find a way to claim the grant – but not at the cost of their vines.

We stopped at the river beach for the afternoon.  This is a very pretty place, formed where the mountain suddenly stops at the edge of the 30-mile plain that runs to the sea.  The momentum of the River Herault is suddenly stopped by the lack of gradient and large, very deep pool is formed, underneath what is known locally as Devil’s Bridge.  Here, like its namesake in Wales, there are a succession of bridges built (over time) one upon the other, at the gateway to the Herault Gorges.  The beach itself is shale and pebbles (uncomfortable) and the water is very cold.  Nevertheless, as the week went on it did warm up enough for me to swim.  We could I suppose, have carried everything we needed to the river and left the car behind but it was over a mile back to the flat, so we didn’t.  We drove the car to the beach and left it to melt in the hot sun.

Coming up – suicidal youngsters and the caves.

1 – And haven’t for a long long time now. https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/chorleywood-bread-sic-process/

2 – Wines from Languedoc were JUST becoming more popular at that time and looking back, it seems to have been an odd suggestion (ripping up vines).

Prague Day 2 – Bohemia #5

Day 4

Following a late breakfast, we set off back into Prague, again by tram.  This time, we weren’t going to knacker ourselves up walking all day.  We went for a drink in the same bar where we were mugged yesterday – just to show them that we had learned from yesterday’s spanking, yet found that the beers had gone up to 50 Zlotaks.  That still compared favourably to what we would pay at home and anyway, it was pleasant sat by the river, watching the boats go by.

We then went and booked a ‘City Tour’ by bus.  This took us to some of the places we had trudged around yesterday, but this time we had a running commentary this time and enjoyed our two hours very much.  It was certainly the first time I had ever paid to follow a man with a yellow umbrella, especially as the sun was bursting with heat.  To ease Ben’s hunger, we had a late-afternoon Bratwurst, a hot-dog sort of thing, which was disgusting.  We then went to look around one of the larger supermarkets in Prague. Not air-conditioned, but cool, compared with outside.  We found a deli-bar in the lower level, where beer was 12½ Zlotaks per 500ml glass – bonus!  We settled in here for quite a while, watching the customers come and go and the intriguing antics of the serving lady. [See comment on yesterdays post]. We christened her Ludmilla. She was a large lady with a penchant, at quieter times, for sneaking pieces of meat out of the salads and into her tummy! As time went by, we saw each meaty salad become more and more meat-free.

Given one more drink, we may well have stayed here to eat (it wouldn’t have cost more than a fiver to feed all three of us) but Ben didn’t fancy anything they had (he likes meat), so we decided to go back to the hotel for food.

This was a mistake. The food was still buffet service, like breakfast and had probably been there about three hours when we got to it.  The soup was pretty fair. If a little greasy, but the main course was a choice between pot-roast pork and lumpy meat in gravy with something else I cannot remember, but with sauerkraut and lots of boiled potatoes.

We got up early and set off for Berlin.  Breakfasted and washed, we were off by 09:00am and called at a small supermarket to buy food and drink for the day. We saw people queuing to get in, but there were no queues in the shop – which was weird. So, Stephen and I went in anyway and picked up the food and drink we wanted. A small comedy occurred when we tried to buy 6 slices of a nice lean meat they had on display.  No one spoke English, French or German (and of course we had no Czech), but we managed and even got laughs from all around.  We then queued up to pay.

It was now that we saw what the problem was. The Czechs no longer needed to queue for bread, or for meat as these items are freely available – they queue instead for SHOPPING BASKETS!  As one was discarded, it was taken up by someone else wanting to do their shopping.  So, please remember, back in 1995, there was a shopping basket shortage in Prague.  Perhaps if, instead of making gnomes for German men to take home after visiting the ‘Sexy Girl Fun Palace‘, they could have made shopping baskets?

We also had a ‘Czechout Girl’ teasing us (we think), she was so happy.

Prague, Day 1 – Bohemia #4

Day 3

… We missed the first day’s breakfast but the next two day’s fayre was interesting …

(This post is just one day)

Each morning we were offered two types of bread; long thin slices of white along with large slices of brown (but a particularly Czech type of brown bread). To go with these, we could have as much sliced meat as we liked (as long as we didn’t mind all the fat or its appearance), cheese and overcooked (nearly knackered) eggs – but of course we were used to knackered eggs already. The jams were interesting too, one I tried seemed to be rhubarb and apple with a hint of chilli.  Very small cereal bowls were provided for the two cereals available.  Coffee was left in a flask on your table at 07:00am when they opened the breakfast and bugger you if you wanted any more.

It sounds appalling when I read this back, but it really wasn’t all that bad1.  The hotel was ideally placed close to the number 9 or number 4 tram line into the city and for 15p. (return, we were told) we were easily transported into the city in about 20 minutes. The trams were quite fast when they wanted to be, but only had single seats up each side as this allowed more people to get on with their bikes (and no doubt, cows, sheep and furniture when moving house) or to stand. There weren’t quite as many bikes here in Czech as we saw later in the week, and that is probably because Prague is set in a deep valley through which the river Vlatava runs, a tributary of the Elbe.

We went down into Prague (or Prag as it says on the map we have, or Praha as seen on most city advertisements) that first afternoon and looked around. There were lots and lots of tourists, many more than we had anticipated, almost all of whom were (as Stephen liked to say) “bloody loud mouthed, noisy Americans”!  He would say it louder if they didn’t hear him the first time. (lol).

The weather had warmed up by now and we were quite hot.  Stephen carried the rucksack around today.  This contained all of our raincoats, as it had rained so much the day before. Ben carried the video camera and I had my heavy Zenith2 with me, so by the end of the day we were knackered.  We decided to stay in town and look around until we fancied our evening meal. It didn’t seem worth going back up to the hotel and then back down again to eat.  So, we stopped now and again for a beer.  Stories had it at the time that a pint of Czech beer can be had for around 15p. Right in the centre of Prague. But, we didn’t find that. At one place, by the river we did find beer at 15 zlotaks3 for a 500ml glass (approx. 37.5p). We were happy enough with this but when we came to pay we found that the packet of pistachio nuts we had eaten, cost just over £4.00. After being mugged in this way, we were much more careful whenever we stopped for a drink.

The city centre is beautiful, with lots of old and ancient buildings. The Charles Bridge (closed to traffic now) heaves with tourists and craftsmen and women. Everyone is there to view the 30 statues that line the bridge. Some are brass and some are stone4 and stand there on the bridge rampart for all to see. They are a little blackened with age and in need of a good clean up, but are worth seeing anyway. Over and then up from one end of the bridge are the parliament buildings, via what seemed like thousands of steps. We climbed these and had a good look around the cathedral at the top. The bright and colourful windows were magnificent. These windows were brighter and more colourful than Notre Dame’s rose window which we saw in February5. We eventually walked back down and off the other side of the bridge looking for the famous Wenceslas Square, but to no avail. We did find it later in our visit – it should really be called Wenceslas Rectangle as it is just one long and wide street bang in the middle of the business district.

We did find the Old City Square, on one corner of which, is the famous astronomical clock and a massive statue to something or other on the opposite corner. This old square was surrounded by buildings with Dutch Gables, in the very eastern European style. The square also hid another church which we christened ‘golden balls’ because of the unusual decoration around its towers.  We spent some time in this square, with a beer and just watching the world (and people) go by. Much to Ben’s frustration I think.  He may well have been better taking his young self, off on his own at this stage but he stayed with us.

Before crossing the bridge towards Old City Square, we had decided to take a boat ride up the river. I cannot remember how many Zlotaks that cost but it was reasonable and included a coffee and a piece of cake.  This was probably a local speciality, in the style of a Swiss roll and may well have been called a Czech roll.  The sun was gorgeous and we were able to see lots of the famous buildings up and down the river.

As we walked wearily back from the Wenceslas Rectangle and across the now thinning throng of tourists, we started to look for something to eat. Ben had been doing this for an awful lot longer I think. Everywhere was getting full and we eventually managed to get seats at a table just vacated by an English couple who worked in Prague. The restaurant was slightly up river from the main tourist haunts and situated on a large boat on the river itself. Our table was on the top deck and we had beautiful views of the floodlit buildings on the opposite bank. The food was fair to middling and relatively inexpensive, certainly cheaper than those meals we would buy later in the trip, in Berlin.

We returned to the hotel by racing tram, had a nightcap and went to bed. Sleep came easily enough after last night but it was disturbed by the heat and general mugginess of the weather.  Hot and humid.

1 – I probably typed this up originally, on arriving back home in England. I will have kept daily notes in a notebook. I’ve been back to Prague several times since this first visit and the catering has improved 20-fold.

2 – Neither video, nor photos seem to have survived into the 21st century.

3 – The Czech currency is Czech Krown (CK). We were so tired and confused this first day that none of us could come up with the same name twice. We referred to it as Zlotys, Kopeks, Marks, Croats, Kronas and eventually settled on Zlotacks as the more amusing and definitive name for a currency needing charisma. (Remember, this is all pre-€)

4 – These are gradually being replaced, to preserve the originals. http://praguemonitor.com/2016/11/14/prague-bridges-vulnerable-statues-replaced-copies

5 -I guess that this was when Stephen, Bev and I drove to Paris, to pick Emma up from her French work placement. She’d been working in a hotel in Besançon and had caught the train from there to be picked up in Paris.

Also worth a read: https://redqueenmusings.wordpress.com/2018/03/15/a-short-break-in-prague/ (thank you)

2nd Weekend – Tornados #7

Saturday 17th July

I still need to write and send a card to Gordon and Pam at Home Farm1.  Today, we went to E.Leclerc at Cogolin for food, which will hopefully last us through until Tuesday, so we don’t have to fight through the throngs at the Casino on Monday. I also needed to buy various tools etc. to mend the broken bed (I really do not remember that).  A hand drill @ approx. £4.00 was needed and bits, also about £4.00 (these turned out to be too small for the drill). I bought brackets and screws but will leave these now for Stephen.  The bed had been bodged before, but is now more secure than it had been. We will just have to be more careful with it.

We had brunch at the caravan before setting out for our daily visit to the beach. As I have forgotten my book (see yesterday’s entry) I am writing this and reading all the documents and leaflets in my hand bag (??), just for something to do. I have also been thinking about the various schemes I need to plan for next year2 and perhaps I can make notes now.  I managed to work out a calendar before it was time to leave at 17:00pm.

Took Emma to see a beach (lol – I guess that she had refused to leave the camp site with us before now), had tea. Sue felt a bit cold, but it’s still mild and light at 21:00pm.

Sunday 18th July

We stayed by the caravan until 13:00pm today as Sue wasn’t feeling too well.  I sunbathed outside, it was very hot. I write a letter to Cameron in and amongst.  We went to the beach later and it was hot, hot, hot. I finished reading MORT and began to read SOURCERY.  After tea, we drove out to look for a Sunday paper, without success3.  Bought petrol in Saint Tropez.

Monday 19th July

We went to St. Maxime today and parked in the port car park. The town is quite nice and we spent a couple of hours walking around.  We had a drink in a bar on the ‘front’ and read the morning papers (yesterday’s Sunday morning papers). We stayed in St. Maxime for lunch as it had clouded over and had begun to rain.  My main course was a ‘house special’ salad and consisted of mixed leaves with dressing, bacon, fennel and small, deep-fried ravioli. We then drove straight to the beach in La  Blanche4.  The sun was hot but still very much overcast.  When it rained, we simply put the towels away and sat it out.  It took us 50 minutes to get back from the beach because of traffic.

John Denton from Quarry Garage5 had been while we were out.  He left a note to say he would be back tomorrow.

We went back out to the Casino Hypermarket (we never learn, it’s Monday again and busy, busy, busy, even after 18:00pm) and came home with a hot chicken.  Some chips from on-site and there we are – tea.

Today, we saw two tornados.  I was out at sea, swimming out by the buoys, when I saw a column of sand blowing onto the beach from the car park.  The sand was blowing up in the air along a path about three metres wide.  As it hit umbrellas, bags and rubbish, it blew them up in the air as well. It looked as if an invisible, petulant child of a giant was throwing a tantrum as it walked down towards the sea.  When it did reach the sea, it turned sharp left and marched on down the beach past Neptune and Liberty café/beaches, throwing mats and umbrellas in the air as it passed.  A little later, we had both been in the sea when something similar happened. This time, we were able to sit, along with everyone else unaffected, and watch the spectacle from the beach.  One brolly was thrown at least 20 metres in the air and was kept aloft while the wind marched quickly down the beach.  Again, as it hit the sea, it turned away from us, but the brolly blew back towards us and landed point down, right by the couple sat alongside us.

Frightening.

1 – We had a caravan at that time, which stayed on a farm near York. http://homefarmyork.co.uk/

2 – At the time, I was employed part-time by Dewsbury College as a chef-lecturer. Each year, schemes needed updating/changing and whilst this was often done by full-time members of staff, we were quite a small department, so I pitched in.

3 – In those days, it seemed to take an age for the English papers to reach the Riviera. Nowadays, in Spain anyway, they seem to appear as quickly as the English editions. But also, nowadays I never want to buy one – all the news I need is on t’internet.

4 – I’m struggling to find exactly where this beach was today. The nearest place I can find with a similar name is Plage de la Bastide Blanche.

5 – Quarry Garage is where we had just recently bought the car from.

Books, Eating Out #6

Friday 16th July

This could be quite a long entry.

I am writing up Friday’s events on Saturday, the first time that this has happened this year. However, I am writing it on the beach as I have forgotten to bring a book to read.

I am halfway through MORT (Terry Pratchett) having finished EQUAL RITES earlier in the week.  ‘The Witching Hour’ by Anne Rice took some reading – all of last week and all of the journey down. Sue is now reading it and finding it riveting. I found two thirds of it interesting enough but the last 200-300 pages were boring and hard work.

Anyway, on Friday we called at Port Cogolin Market on our way out.  This was quite small but also very cheap.  We bought Sarah Triggs a bum bag here.  We then spent a long day on the beach. Sue is now using Factor 4 (F4) all over.  I used F2 oil all over, although on reflection, I should have used F4.  The F2 had to be reapplied quite often and anyway, it was making my tan redder than it usually is1.

We didn’t make tea yesterday – we went out.  We first tried the restaurant just up the road, but they didn’t take Visa2.  So, we drove up to Grimaud.  However, having walked around for the best part of an hour, we couldn’t find one that we liked or which would take Visa.  We did find one that would have been really nice; it overlooked the valley, had tremendous views and the menu was very tempting but when we asked about Visa the answer, was “non!”.  This is quite a depressing feature of this part of France.  For diners it’s either cash or nothing – in many places. We have tried various eating establishments without success and the most disappointing is the Camp Restaurant.  We would eat there more regularly if they took Visa, but … they don’t.

The trouble we have had with the car this week has tightened our cash supply somewhat and as credit card cash withdrawals are punitive, we needed a Visa-taking restaurant. We ended up driving back to Port Grimaud and after walking around for a while, we found a restaurant that DID take Visa.

We ate from the A ‘La Carte menu.  Sue had a whole Galia Melon with Parma Ham to start and I had Salade Lacustre, which really was awful. The concept was good and well-presented but all of the shellfish, inc. octopus and calamari were pickled!  We both chose spaghetti for main course, Sue had hers with Morelles and I had Carbonara, which was served ON the cream, with SMOKED bacon lardons, AND the egg yolk (which I would have mixed through the pasta, along with the cream) was sat on top – in half a shell. To be fair, it didn’t look appealing, but when it was all mixed together, it tasted wonderful. The service was slow but friendly but, as the bill took 20 minutes to arrive it was settled without tip.

Why we had spaghetti, I really don’t know.  We had dismissed such a choice up in Grimaud, but I really didn’t fancy any of the beef or veal being offered (only steaks) and the various fish dishes were unappetising. I really should have had the melon starter and a different salad (they were huge) as my main course.  Still, we learn as we go along don’t we?  Sue drove home.

1 – After reading and typing up this week’s notes from 1993, I hadn’t realised that I was such a beach-bum.

2 – “Prenez-vous la carte”? was such a mantra in those days. Looking back, it seems ridiculous, especially as France was the first place I ever encountered one of those portable card machines we see everywhere now – the ones they bring to your table. At the time and for a long time afterwards waiters used to disappear with your card and eventually return with a bill and a pen for you to sign with.

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