Spring vegetables = risotto primavera

You've already seen the peas and the favas, but one other spring vegetable that has been unfairly neglected on this blog is asparagus. Not because we don't like it and not because we can't get it. It's just been ignored.

Sorry asparagus.

Asparagus is big around here. And, actually, I mean that in two ways. First, there's tons of it and it is widely available in different colors: white, green, and purple. Second, it's also really fat. It's so fat that you'd expect it to be really tough, but it's actually been just as tender as any skinny asparagus you've ever eaten and it's really sweet.


Starting in the foreground, purple, green and finally white asparagus. ("Gard" in "asperges du Gard" on the sign is a region, administrative and otherwise, just west of Provence.) All of them fat. Well, except some of the greens you can see at the front of the table. (And that's the horse butcher you see in the background.)

I recently bought some white asparagus to put in a spring risotto with (again) peas and favas. White asparagus was perhaps not the wisest choice color-wise, but on this day they were the skinniest. It turned out that they had surprisingly tough skin so in the spirit of being in France, where asparagus is peeled, I peeled them.


This was served, the first time, with roasted chicken. The second, time with left-over roasted chicken. The third time -- did I mention that I made a whole bunch of risotto? -- with pork chops. So when you still have risotto after that, it's best to make arancini for apéro.


Mmmm ... fried rice balls with a melty grana padano center.



Recipes*

Risotto Primavera
1 lb unshelled favas
1.5 lb unshelled peas
10-15 asparagus spears
1 sm. onion, minced
1 lg. shallot, minced
350 g. arborio or carnaroli (about 2 c.)
0.5 c. white wine
about 5 c. of chicken broth, hot
3 oz. grated grana padano or parmesan

Shell the favas and peas, (peel and) cut the asparagus into bite-size pieces. Boil the favas to remove their outer shell (as in gnocchi post), set aside. Cook asparagus and peas in boiling (salted) water for 5-8 mn depending where on the crisp - tender scale you like them. Drain, rinse and set aside with favas.

Melt about 2 Tbs. butter in a large pot. Add onion and shallot and sauté until they're getting tender, but not turning brown. Add rice and turn to coat in the butter until the grains are a little translucent. Add wine and cook until it evaporates. Then add the chicken broth in one fell swoop (I saw this recently on a French cooking show and was skeptical, but it worked just as well as adding liquid little by little), give it a stir, lower the heat so that it simmers, cover and cook for 15 to 20 mn.

At the end, stir in the cheese an extra Tbs. of butter (if you like), salt and pepper to taste. Then fold in the vegetables.



Arancini
Left over risotto
Grana padano or parmesan cut into little cubes (3/8-in dice?)
Flour
Egg
Breadcrumbs

Form leftover risotto into balls (about the size of a clementine) around a cube of cheese. Chill for an hour (if you can wait that long).

Heat oil to 350 - 375F. If you don't have a fryer (ours is in Columbus) or a thermometer (we don't), never fear! Put about an inch and a half of oil in a 2-liter pot with, following a tip from Cook's Illustrated, a little cube of fresh bread. Set the pot to heat over a medium-high flame. According to Cook's, when the bread cube is deep golden brown the oil is at 375F, so when it's about that color, your oil is ready.

While the oil is heating, roll the chilled rice balls in flour, dip in egg and then roll in breadcrumbs. When the oil is ready, gently put the rice balls in and fry until they're golden brown on the submerged half, then flip and fry again. I repeated this process to make sure the cheese in the middle had melted. (It had, and the arancini were not burned.) Alternatively, use little cubes of melty cheese and probably one round of frying will do it.


*Note about the recipes -- I had been putting amounts in grams because that's what I've bought them in, but the amounts are mostly approximate (as you know, 500 g = about 1 lb, 750 g = about 1.5 lb), so this time I put them in pounds.

Les Rush aux Pays d'Aix

April = spring break = visitors = "Bienvenue en Aix", or so the sign here says. (I'm still trying to figure out why it's "en" and not "à" since you go "à" cities and you go "en" countries but that's my non-native speaker intuition talking.)

Our first visitors of the season were my relatives from California who came for their Easter vacation.

I realize now that we took far too few pictures while they were here.

Here they are in the gardens of the Pavillon Vendôme. Note that there are no leaves on the trees -- there were a few, but mostly just buds. About a week later, it was all leafy around here.


Don't they look happy? That was before we made them walk all over the place ...

Like the Cours Mirabeau.

Sam and Jack (and the Diabline -- the funny little electric "bus" on the left that you can flag down if you want a ride) ...



and Suzi, Ben and me (James took the pictures) ...



In Cassis, where we followed the Sentier du Petit Prince on Port Miou ...


Note Sam's smile. She still had energy to run part way back at the end of the walk.

The rest of the day in Cassis doesn't have pictures, which is really too bad because it was sort of an adventure. Actually, it was more the leaving of Cassis that was the adventure, but more about that later.

First there was the wine-tasting at the Clos de la Magdeleine, which had nice wine, but a really unfriendly, glazed-eyed proprietor ... at least the one we met. The man who is smiling in the picture on this website looks way too happy to have anything to do with the woman who did our tasting. She was all doom and gloom with crazy black hair that looked like it might be hiding several pencils, a broom, and maybe even a cat. She didn't like us from the get-go because Sam and Ben, who weren't tasting the wine, didn't come down into the dark cellar -- go figure. We were reprimanded. We only got to taste their white, even though they also make a rosé. And despite what our wine book said about the Clos de la Magdeleine having beautiful grounds, we really have no idea because we weren't allowed to walk around and were ushered back out the gate as quickly as we had come in. Hrumph!

Things got better after a stop in a cafe by the harbor, and a delicious dinner of Breton style crêpes at Le Bonheur Est Dans Le Blé. Mmmmm ... buckwheat galettes!

And then starting with the credit card machine that didn't want to read an American credit card, things went a little south. Like when we pulled into the closed-for-the-night train station just as the 21h10 train was pulling out. We weren't too worried because there was a ticket machine and a 22h20 train so we said goodbye to Les Rush, who headed back toward Grasse in their car, and we waited for the next train.

Here's a frog we saw on the train platform. He reminded us of Aleppo.


Two other people came to wait, and the station agent and some other employee were there if anything went really wrong, until it did and then they were unable or unwilling to help out.

Our train arrived right on time, but didn't pull all the way into the station. The station agent's helper came out of the office and James and I and the other two people waiting, who turned out to be a mother and her 20-something son, went up to the train and tried to get in. I say "tried" because the door wouldn't open. We tried the next door. Still nothing. We tried a door on the next car. Nothing. And then the train started to move. We all thought that it was just pulling into the station from the end of the platform where it had stopped. But no, it just pulled on out of the station. The last train of the night.

We all went into the station agent's office and told him what happened. He didn't believe us but his helper, who had seen the whole thing, backed us up. Eventually he reluctantly called the next stop and they said there was nothing wrong with the train, so too bad for us. No, the SNCF wasn't going to send a bus or shuttle, there were no more trains, there would be no refunded tickets or putting us up overnight because the train malfunctioned -- because it hadn't at the next stop. We were out of luck. So over the course of the next 20 minutes while the agent begrudgingly looked up some things on his computer, the mother got livid and started doing all the yelling we wanted to do but couldn't in French, the son foresaw his firing for not being at work in Toulouse the next day and we contemplated almost certain death on our walk back into town along a dark road where people drive way too fast, where we'd have to find a hotel that we hadn't budgeted for, missed work the next day, and we wished we'd taken Jack and Suzi's offer to drive us back to Aix (even though it was out of their way).

Finally, the station agent shrugged and said there was nothing he could do to which the mother responded with an angry snort and a "Bravo SNCF! Bravo!" And then she turned to her son and said, "well, I guess I'll have to drive you to Marseille" and very politely offered to take us too.

And so began the frenzied car ride, complete with a call from les Rush who had taken a wrong turn and somehow ended up in the dodgy part of Toulon and who, now that they knew we were in a car with a frantically speeding stranger, were worried for our safety too. It's a good thing they called before we got on the motor way because that was when the mother started going almost 140 kph (85 - 90 mph, but it felt a whole lot faster in that car), which was in fact not that far over the speed limit of 130 kph (part of the time -- the rest of the time it was almost 30 kph over the speed limit, but who's counting?).

Then things got really scary when we got to Marseille and they asked us for directions. It turned out they'd never been there before. They were from Toulouse and on holiday in Cassis. I had assumed that since the mom had a car, she lived in Cassis and was likely to know Marseille. In fact, she laughed that she'd have to get out when she dropped us off so she could say she'd been there. Ha!

So let's see ... How do get to the Gare Saint Charles? Well, I can figure it out if we follow the signs to the Centre Ville.

Lucky for all of us, our two weeks in the hotel in Marseille and all the walking around I did came in handy and I knew a way to get to the train station. Not the best way that would get us there with a little extra time before the train left. More like the way that gets you to the train station and forces you to block traffic and get out of the car at a place where you shouldn't have stopped and then run to your train. But we never had to turn around and we didn't get lost. It just wasn't the most efficient way. But we made it home. And the son's train to Toulouse was delayed, so he made it too. At least we assume he did. We know that he hadn't missed his train.

And as it turned out, despite our adventure, we made it back to Aix before Suzi, Jack, Ben and Sam made it back to their B&B in Grasse. The little detour to the wrong side of the tracks in Toulon added over 2.5 extra hours to their trip and they didn't get home until after 1:30. But they say they'd still like to come back to France!

Springtime gnocchi

Every Saturday at the market, there's an unassuming little trailer that pulls up with Pâtes Fraîches et Farcies, or "fresh and filled pasta" on the side in some pretty plain lettering. As you can see, the trailer is not much to look at, especially compared to the fancy (but corporate-looking) pasta tent a couple aisles over with ten kinds of ravioli and a silvery-tongued hawker, but its fabrication artisanal, or "hand made" pasta, and especially its gnocchi will delight.


Seeing the trailer on Saturday mornings makes my mouth water a little because the gnocchi is just that good. Actually, I should say the gnocchi are just that good because the cart's owner (inside the trailer in the picture) makes both potato and semolina.

So, I know that gnocchi aren't hard to make. I've made them quite a few times, and with the exception of one disasterous batch of potato gnocchi that pretty much dissolved when they hit the water, they've been quite good if I do say so myself. But the gnocchi lady's gnocchi are special, especially the potato ones. They are always little pillows of tender goodness. They taste great with every kind of sauce we've ever put on them, but they're so good right out of the bag -- yes, before you've cooked them, but not that you'd want to eat more than one or two! -- that we had the idea of frying them. Mmmm...

Looking around online, I found this recipe. Our version:

Fried gnocchi with lardons and spring vegetables



Recipe
750 g. unshelled favas
cherry tomatoes, halved (about 2 pints?)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
150 g. smoked lardons (or bacon)
2 large shallots (in France they look like smallish, oblong onions), chopped
500 g. potato gnocchi
mint
salt + pepper

In case you didn't read the link to the recipe above (and you don't already know -- I didn't until I read it), after you shuck the favas you need to remove their pale green inner shell. Boil the shucked beans for a couple of minutes, drain and rinse in cold water. The beautiful bright green favas can easily be popped out of the inner shell. Put the favas in a large bowl and set aside.

Sauté the cherry tomatoes with a little olive oil and garlic for a few minutes, remove from pan and put in the bowl with the favas. Wipe out the pan and heat some olive oil until it's good an hot. Add the lardons and cook until they're nicely browned on their edges. Remove the lardons to a paper towel, but leave any remaining oil/fat in the pan. Once they've drained a bit, throw them in with the favas and tomatoes. Sauté the shallots until a few are just starting to brown on the edges. Remove shallots to fava-tomato-lardon bowl and give it a quick stir to mix things.

Wipe out the pan and heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Fry the gnocchi until golden brown on one side, then flip and fry until golden on other side. Depending on the shape of your gnocchi, you may just be able to cook two sides, if they're less flattened, maybe you can brown them all over.

When gnocchi are ready, add the "sauce", toss and serve with chopped mint sprinkled on top.

Peas, please!

"Petits pois s'il vous plaît" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but it's something I find myself saying, often with some certain number of grams before it. You'd be saying the same thing if you could find peas like this every day of the week ... which would be weird unless you were in France. But you get the idea. They're great!


I wish I could say that my conversion to lover of peas happened yesterday, because I was *really* excited about these peas, but it's been almost a month now.

I am sure I must have had fresh peas before in my life, but so long ago I have no memory of them. And the canned and frozen varieties have got nothing on fresh peas from the market that you've shucked yourself.

I have to admit that a lot of them didn't make it into the ravioli "sauce" but I had a nice pre-lunch snack.

Cheese ravioli
3 Tbs. butter
3 shallots, sliced or diced
300 g. unshelled peas --> about 1.5 c. fresh peas?
100 g. cooked ham cut into thin strips
1/2 c. cream
Zest of half a lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh mint or chives to sprinkle on top (we used mint because it was so lovely)

Where has the time gone?

We've been so busy with guests and conferences and stuff this month that I haven't had time to post!

The blog is still alive and kicking and I've got photos to post to prove it.

They'll be up soon!

Wildflowers

Ever since that first crocus of the season, the flowers on our hikes have only gotten more beautiful.

In late February in the Calanques the bees were crazy for these globulaire (note the bee in the photo!) as well as all the wild rosemary. This plant grows throughout the Mediterranean region and is one of the flowers that grows in la garrigue, or scrubland. (Actually, you may recall from an earlier post that maquis is another word for scrubland, in particular that found in Corsica. As it turns out, garrigue is used for scrubland that grows on limestone and that maquis grows on siliceous earth.)


This one is a kind of euphorbe:


That last photo was also taken in February. Here's what euphorbe looks like as of mid-April:


In mid-March, (wild) iris nain, or "dwarf iris", started popping up all over the place. As you can see, they're really low to the ground (almost like a crocus). Around here, the "yellow" ones seem to vary from white to pale yellow and the purple ones tend to be paler than garden irises. These photos were taken on a hike between Lac Bimont and Victoire:




On that same hike between Bimont and Victoire, we also saw this flower that our friends said is a romantic wild orchid. No, "romantic" isn't really part of its name, but the photo sure looks romantic (or cheesy) doesn't it? I did that gauzy soft focus so you could better see the flower against the "noisy" background.


The first weekend of April near Saint Cannat, we saw budding oak trees. Who knew their leaves started off pink and fuzzy? Actually, James did, but I had never seen such a thing.


This flower is called ciste. The petals look really dry and papery; however, they feel soft like normal flower petals.


Ciste is all over the place in this region. We'd seen its furry sage colored leaves on every hike but this was the first ciste flower we had seen this season. It was only hours after we saw this flower that we read in our hiking book that it's legerement parfumée, or "delicately scented". Lucky for us, it's now high season in the Calanques for ciste and they do smell really good. They smell "green" like the way a green banana smells green but sweet and light like a flower (and not at all like bananas).


These are called dame d'onze-heures, or "the lady of 11 o'clock". They're in the hyacinth family, and toxic!


We also saw this one, which is a wild pea called gessette:


There are lots of wild daffodils up on Victoire now. These are narcisse d'asso. They're really tiny (not more than 6in high and maybe half a centimeter across the diameter of the trumpet). This picture isn't great because it was windy.


And there were these too:


Any guesses about what those might be?

Last weekend on our hike from Marseille to Cassis we saw more of the pink ciste, and these, another type of ciste, "sage-leafed ciste":


Wild honeysuckle in close-up:


And not so close-up:


This one, the urosperme de daléchamps, is named after the French doctor and naturalist Jacques Daléchamps, who lived in the 16th century.


Right next to the urosperme was this fuzzy, spiky little thing that I have not been able to identify:


And, finally, coronille, of which there are many varieties:

La randonnée -- Lac Bimont, Hameau les Bonfillons, St. Marc-Jaumegarde

Our first hike on Victoire was so much fun that we were really gung-ho to get out and go hiking the next weekend. We had bought a book in a series of hiking books recommended to us by Geneviève and our plan was to go to Marseille and go hiking in the Calanques. We'd looked up departure times for all the relevant bus connections, we had our picnic lunch ready to go, our clothes laid out, but then a final check of Météo before bed predicted very questionable weather for Marseille. And a check of the weather the next morning at 6:30am said the same thing.

These days, the sun comes up a bit before 7am and sets around 8:30pm. But back in January, it didn't get light until around 8am, when we would have needed to be on the bus to Marseille to make all of those connections. So at 6:30am, we made the decision to sleep in and to pass on hiking.

And then the sun came up and it was a beautiful Saturday so we decided to try walking out of Aix to where we thought there might be a trail leading to Lac Bimont and Victoire. It sure looked like there was on that map we'd found online.


It turns out, we were right about the trail leading out of Aix (not on the map) and connecting to ones that are on the map. It's one of those things where you just kind of keep walking and eventually you leave Aix proper and enter into the netherworld that isn't Aix (but bears no signage for the settlement you're in) and you keep walking some more and eventually you come to a road that is closed to motor traffic except residents, which leads to the path that leads to the real trail. Technically, you're on a trail the whole time (little yellow balisages appear every so often on electric poles and fences), but for the first 40mn of walking it feels like you're in town.

Anyway, the first site the trail leads to is a tower that might or might not be named la tour du César, or "the tower of Caesar". Apparently there's some disagreement over its name. It's also called la tour de Keyrié (the plateau it sits atop), and la tour du Prévôt, or "marshal" for the marshal who may have built it back in the late 1300s. In any case it's a watchtower that's about 15m high. And much to my dismay, you can't go inside it.


After the tour du César/Keyrié/Prévôt, you end up on the G.R. 98, a major hiking trail around here that goes to Victoire and beyond -- at least as far as Cassis. This part of the trail is a government forest road, so it's wide open and very clear. It's really pretty up there, though, and you get lots of views of Victoire.

After our pique-nique, we thought it might be fun to hike down the hill into Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde and get a coffee and then take the bus back into Aix. So we hiked down to the main road and went the wrong way and ended up in the Hameau les Bonfifllons, a really cute little village (but without a café). So we hiked back to where we went the wrong way and decided to walk to Lac Bimont. Maybe they'd have a sandwich/drink cart or café.

No dice, but it was beautiful!

Panorama from the dam looking south-east (Victoire is the peak on the right):


Us on the dam -- happy, but feeling like we really want a coffee and a bus back to Aix:


Here's the view from the dam to the west:



Here's the dam we were standing on to take those pictures:

The dam was built after WWII, funded by the Marshall Plan. It is 285 feet high. It catches the watershed from Victoire, but the lake is primarily supplied by the man-made Canal de Provence that brings water in from the Verdon river. The reservoir in turn and supplies many towns in the area around Aix and even Marseille, although this isn't Marseille's primary water source.

We never did get that coffee. After our time on the dam, we walked into Saint-Marc-Jaumegard, which turned out not to have a cute little cafe, or any cafe, or an ATM where we'd be able to get money to buy that coffee or money for those bus tickets back to Aix. Instead, we ate the last of our shortbread cookies and chocolate and then walked home.

There are many more hiking trails around Lac Bimont. In fact, if you tune in later, there will be another couple of posts about it.

That sausage tastes like ... a word used for donkeys

Ok, so again, in the spirit of not offending the sensibilities of some people who might read this blog (although, at the same time probably deeply offending any sailors who read it ... are there any?) I have not used that other word for donkey in the title of the post. I do use it later, though. I couldn't resist.

Beyond salami, saucissons secs, or "dry sausages", aren't so widespread in the States. But I love them. So even as someone who can easily live without meat, when market stands have piles of (unrefrigerated) meat in the form of saucisson sec, I think about buying one, or two ... or as I did recently, three (three for the price of two -- what non-vegetarian can pass that up?).


So what makes saucisson sec so great? Well, it's all about the process.

Some friends of ours here have (twice now) bought a pig with some other friends, had it slaughtered, and then used all the meat for various things from pâté to pork chops to saucisson sec. They told us that part of what differentiates saucisson sec from saucisse, or "sausage", which is destined to be eaten cooked, is the cut of meat you use. Saucisse can apparently be anything (hot dogs anyone?) but saucisson sec can only be made with choicer parts of the animal because there has to be the right amount of meat and fat so that it's flavorful and not too dry after the fermentation and curing process.

Yeah, I did say "fermentation". So if you didn't know that salami was fermented, you do now. And you should be glad it was.

Saucisson sec is made by chopping up the meat, adding flavorings of various kinds (e.g., garlic, spices, cheese, fruit), sugar, salt and optional bacterial cultures, and then putting it in its casing. The casing gets tied off and then the fermentation and drying begin. Over the next week or weeks (depending on size), the smell, color, texture and flavor of the saucisson develop thanks to the natural metabolic processes of the bacteria. The bacteria also provide a service: the good stuff proliferates and its lactic acid waste coagulates the meat and makes the saucisson an undesirable environment for bad bacteria. And that's why fermented meat is sometimes better. Also during this time, a coating of natural mold may develop on the outside of the saucisson. Again, this is a good thing because it contributes to the flavor and protects the meat and keeps the fat from turning rancid, as it would if exposed to light. Sometimes the mold gets washed off and the saucisson sec is rolled in flour to the same end.

And here's the final product up close:


From left to right, saucisson sec à la fenouil (fennel), à l'âne (donkey) and aux herbes de provence. The fennel and herbes de provence are made from pork but that one in the middle is made from donkey.

So when I saw all those saucissons secs at the market calling my name, I hadn't intended to buy the donkey. In fact, as I approached the stand, I was trying to decide which kinds I would ask to taste (because I didn't think I should ask to try all 12 or 15 flavors they had) and when I saw the label for the donkey sausages I thought, "well that's one I won't have to be curious about". However, when I asked to taste the blueberry, the sausage lady began cutting little samples of other ones for me to try -- like donkey.

And in this case, tasting like ass is a good thing. It has a really nice flavor, but not one that makes it stands out as a particular kind of meat -- at least not in saucisson sec. Maybe filet de l'âne would be different. It's also really lean. Here's a picture of the saucissons cut open (same order left to right) ...


Note the higher ratio of red (meat) to white (fat) in the donkey sausage as compared to the other two.

So why the photo of saucisson sec on a rock? Well, they're a great food item to take hiking. Because of their curing and drying process, you can keep them for months at room temperature and they hold up really well on a hike -- no getting mashed up or melty like some kinds of cheese. I wouldn't actually recommend keeping them in the sun, but wrapped in butcher paper on the counter works great. And then they can come out for a little while to get their picture taken before you eat them.

Gariguettes

'Tis the season for strawberries!

You can't walk through the markets without smelling strawberries. Really. Saturday morning was a perfect example of the red, fragrant fields of strawberries that are displayed at the market...but I was in a hurry and didn't have my camera so no pictures.

There are basically two kinds: regular and gariguette. Actually, that's a huge lie. It turns out that there are over 600 strawberry cultivars grown around the world. (You can get a look at some of the names of them here.) The "regular" strawberries, so-called because they look pretty much like all the strawberries I've seen before (large, dark-red when ripe, but with way more variation in shape here than at home), stand in stark contrast to these gariguettes.


Gariguettes are early strawberries and have been in the markets since the very end of March. They are somewhat smaller, flatter and paler than the "regular" strawberries. The skin is also a lot thinner and they're softer and juicier. These would never survive shipping from California to Chicago (but then, neither would the "regular" strawberries, which are also noticeably softer than what we are used to), although they're a common varietal here in southern France and represent 20% of France's strawberry production.

They are a bit pricey though. And now that it's late April, they don't look quite as good as they did a month ago. So, we've been eating a lot of those "regular" strawberries that smell as sweet as candy (if only strawberry-flavored candy actually tasted like strawberries).

And since we don't have an oven to make shortcakes, crêpes are a great substitute.



Crêpes (compiled from a million different recipes on-line)
2 c. flour
pinch of salt
0 - 3 Tbs. sugar (sweet or savory?)
3 eggs
1 c. milk
1 c. water
2 Tbs. oil

Whisk the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl and make a well. Crack the eggs into the well and start whisking them into the dry ingredients so the eggs start to get incorporated into the flour (but not fully -- apparently this would result in grainy crêpes and make incorporating the liquid really difficult). Then, whisking constantly, slowly pour in the liquid and whisk until flour is fully incorporated. Mix in the oil. Let sit in the fridge for at least an hour or even overnight.

When it's time to make the crêpes, whisk the batter again. Get the pan good and hot. Grease it with a little oil (or clarified butter if you prefer). Then pour some of the batter into the pan and tilt the pan around to spread the batter evenly. Cook about a minute then flip and cook for another 30 sec. or so.

Top with strawberries or fill with nutella, or both!

You should stand around the kitchen and eat (or fill, or top and then eat) the crêpes immediately when they're still warm, but you can also stack them and cover them with a towel or foil to keep them warm while you make a bunch.

Both the batter and the cooked crêpes will keep a couple of days in the fridge. The crêpes themselves are best when fresh so I usually put the batter in a big jar after making it and then I can just shake it up and make them fresh.

Carnaval d'Aix

Every April, Le Carnaval d'Aix signals the arrival of spring. For anyone who has lived in Chicago, it has seemed somewhat spring-like since mid-February, but if the Carnaval is any indication, spring actually started April 5th.

And what better way to celebrate than with a parade?

Every year the parade has a different theme. Last year it was animals, the year before that it was insects. This year, though, the 50th anniversary of Picasso's move to the Pays d'Aix (he lived just down the road in Vauvenarges), Carnaval was a tribute to Picasso and something of a pre-inauguration of the Picasso - Cezanne exhibition that starts at the end of May.

A Picasso-inspired float by the Rotonde:


Another:


Personally, these remind me a lot more of Nikki de Saint Phalle, but what do I know?

In any case, the parade's final act (a float/dance-troupe hybrid) was more obviously Picassoesque than the other floats I managed to get a picture of.


Periodically, as it made its way down the Cours Mirabeau toward the Rotonde, this float shot confetti into the air.


It was followed by a dance troupe of hundreds ranging in age from about 6 to 46, but mostly older teenagers.


At the Rotonde, most of the dancers dispersed, but the best ones got on stage and did a few special numbers that had been choreographed by an artiste (that's him on the left):


Here is a link to some pictures of the day taken by a regional newspaper.