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The Independent’s Simon Calder narrates an interesting and informative Podcast which you can download and take with you to the cosmopolitan city of Nice, an easy option with many budget airlines flying in from numerous UK airports - or take the TGV from London!
Beginning in the Promenade des Anglais, Simon Calder explores the Matisse Museum and admires the beautiful views of the hills of Provence. He also samples the region’s cuisine, trying traditional corn pancakes and dining at the luxurious Aphrodite restaurant, before tasting some locally produced wine.
The local wine is called Bellet AOC.The vineyards lie within the city limits in the hills above the town. Seldom seen in the UK, the whites are made from Rolle and some Chardonnay with Folle Noir for the reds with some Grenache and Cinsault. Rosé comes from Braquet and Cinsault. Yapp Brothers stock the Bellet AC wines of Domaine de la Source - the rosé 2007 being “a dry and fruity rosé with aromas of wild roses. On the palate, red berry flavours precede a clean, dry finish.”, whilst the 2007 Blanc is described as “An esoteric dry white wine with subtle hints of Provençal pine. The wine displays aromas of pear and wild flowers when young and quince and toasted almonds when it reaches maturity. The dry but fruity palate has balanced acidity and good fruit characteristics, preceding an alluring dry finish.”
Some Links:
Hi Hotel
Musée Matisse in Nice
Aphrodite Restaurant
Nice Official Tourist Office
The Independent (5 April 08) has another article based on research (this time from the French National Statistics Institute) which shows that your chances of getting to a healthy old age are better in France than in the UK, and that this is probably due to both diet and red wine!
Despite the French passion for cream, eggs and foie gras, le digestif after a meal, and an addiction to Gitanes cigarettes, they have half our obesity levels, less than half our death rate from heart disease and lower rates of cancer in women (but not men). They play boules and cycle, even in their dotage, which keeps them active enough to enjoy lunch. And lunch they take very seriously – a proper, sit-down, three- or four-course meal from an early age…. there are regional differences. Expectation of life is higher in the south of France than in the north, and especially high in the south-west. If you truly wish to live to be 100, you could try the red wine, olive oil, poultry, fish and haricots of the typical French south-western diet.. Then there is the wine. There have been rapid increases in wine sales in the UK in the past decade, yet British consumption at 27 litres a head per year still has a long way to go to match the French at 64 litres. Despite drinking in greater quantities, the French drink more moderately, with meals, as opposed to binge drinking in Britain.
This tends to reinforce the value of tannic red wines such as Madiran with its high levels of procyanadin which is thought to have beneficial effects on the heart.
I suspect that is also has something to do with the pace of life, as outside of Paris things do appear less frenetic than in the UK - people do stop for lunch and generally seem less hassled - athough not necessarily better humoured! The availability of fresh, locally sourced seasonal food is also clearly better in the many small local markets - and shopping at the market itself can be less stressful than going to the supermarket.
The Red Wine Diet
Another of those books that leaves you yearning for the gentle pleasures of southern France, this one combines the story of setting up a classy B&B in the Tarn département and 100 recipes based on the food of the area. This is the land of Gaillac wines, Albi and the Tarn Valley on the border between the Languedoc and the SouthWest.
While walking in South-west France, cook and journalist Orlando Murrin dreamed up the adventure of a lifetime: why not wave goodbye to the rat race and come to live in this rural paradise, where the only traffic is the boulangerie van delivering baguettes? His book tells the story of how he set up a boutique b&b and includes 100 amazing recipes. …. they set about transforming the dignified old manor house into a phenomenally successful boutique b&b with its own magnificent kitchen garden. A Table in the Tarn charts the discovery, acquisition and renovation of the property. Along the way, we learn about the local food scene, with its astonishingly rich heritage of ingredients and dishes, about working in France and coping with the famous French bureaucracy, and about the unforeseen delight of working with the locals.Four years on, with countless plaudits and a coveted entry in the classy Mr and Mrs Smith directory, the business attracts visitors from around the world and continues to be a gastronomic destination for anyone seeking peace, tranquillity and above all fantastic food.
As former editor of the BBC Good Food Magazine and Olive Magazine, the owners know something about food and the recipes sound very enticing - Roast Pigeon breasts in Armagnac!
So now you can read the book, try the recipes and stay in the Manoir! The Manoir des Raynaudes is near Carmaux (81 Tarn, Midi-Pyrenees) - see our map of the Tarn and its attractions
A Table in the Tarn: Living, Eating and Cooking in South-west France
Le Manoir de Raynaudes, 81640 Monestiès T: 0033 563 36 91 90 F:0033 563 36 92 09
www.raynaudes.com
In the vicinity you’ll find the delights of the cathedral city of Albi (home of the Albigensian crusades against the Cathar “heretics”, a Toulouse-Lautrec museum - and you could pop in and taste the wines of one of the best Gaillac AC wine producers (red, white, sparkling and rosé) at Domaine de Labarthe at Castanet.
One of France’s best multimedia stores is reportedly coming to London, reports the Independent (8 Mar 08). Personally I love bookshops and gadgetry - and if I get time I try to pop in to fnac in Paris and many cities in France, because it tends to have most things under one roof- books, music, maps, DVDs, telephones, computers, cameras etc. On a wet and windy day it’s a pleasant way to pass an hour - and no-one hassles you to move on or buy!
Imagine you are in HMV and fancy a flat-screen television to watch the Coen Brothers movie you have just bought. Or in Currys wishing you could slip the latest Jack Johnson CD into the box containing your sleek new hi-fi system.
Soon you may be able to do both at a new chain of “culture superstores” with a laidback, Gallic approach. The French books-to-DVDs, video games-to-computers retailer Fnac is looking to tighten its grip on audio-visual and literary retailing in Britain. A team from the company (originally called Fédération Nationale d’Achats pour Cadres, or the National Purchasing Federation for Managers) has been scouting London for a site……….
BBC2’s final of MasterChef 2008 (Thursday 28 Feb 2008) takes the finalists to work in some of France’s best restaurants.
The other challenges for the 3 finalists have included cooking at the London Hilton for a group of Professional Chefs with 17 Michelin stars between them, and cooking for the Army in the heat and humidity of Belize with very basic army equipment. Working in a French Michelin-starred restaurant will be the final challenge!
The restaurants and chefs chosen are recognised as amongst the best in the world, with exacting standards and extraordinary quality food:-
Interesting that 2 of these top restaurants are not in Paris but deep in the French countryside - very provincial and some distance from major centres of population - the French will travel long distances for a good meal!
If you are interested in French cuisine, have a read of Michael Booth’s entertaining book Sacre Cordon Bleu
Booth shares with us the secrets of his training at Le Cordon Bleu and of French cooking itself, explaining how to make the perfect sauce; the secret of great stocks; how to win a fight with a lobster; and how to avoid maiming yourself while cleaning your knives. He explores how France rose to culinary pre-eminence and asks if Paris still deserves its reputation as the culinary capital of the world. Following both traumas and unexpected triumphs at school, Booth embarks on the ultimate chef’s challenge, he goes to work at the Michelin-starred Paris restaurant of the most famous chef in France, Joel Robuchon.
You’ll learn a lot about the French and their approach to food.
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