Food Flirt
Jacqueline Harmon Butler

Rendezvous in France with the Wild Writing Women...

Our rendezvous spot in Paris was the Café Buci, right in the middle of the Saint Germain des Prés area and near our hotels. At 7 p.m. each evening, we would meet there for a glass of wine or a Kir Royal, before venturing out into the night to find dinner. Six of Les Femmes Ecrivains Sauvages (Wild Writing Women)—Carla, Lisa, Alison, Cathy, Pam and I, were in Paris for a few days before heading south to the Côte d’Azur. We stuffed as much as possible into every moment, racing around the city having fun.

We had been invited to do a Wild Writing Women Literary Salon at Shakespeare and Company. For those of you who have been there, I don’t have to remind you how dusty and funky the place is. We stopped by on the morning of our event and met the old coot, 93-year-old George Whitman, who owns the store. He was a riot. He said our Stories of World Travel book cover was ugly and it would never sell. When we told him of our anthology’s success and the award we had won, he just sniffed and held up one of his books, saying, “Now, that’s a beautiful cover.” We all agreed privately that it was a really hideous cover with a jumble of images, but didn’t dare say that to him. He allowed us to put up a hastily made sign announcing our event and shooed us from the store. As it was late morning and our event wasn’t until evening, Pam, Lisa, Carla and I spent the afternoon drifting around the city.

That evening we all met at the Buci before walking over to Shakespeare and Company. Our salon was fun and several friends from San Francisco were there, along with an interesting American woman who lives in Bangladesh. We were in high gear and had a great time laughing and talking with our guests. The room where our salon was held is up a dusty, creaky, and frankly dangerous staircase, then down a tiny hallway crowded with stacks of books that aren’t for sale. The space was in the front of the building with a huge window looking out over the Seine and Notre Dame. It was one of those warm, sultry Paris nights and we couldn’t stop smiling as we read from our stories.

From there we went to dinner at one of my favorite places, Au Pied du Cochon. I showed the maître d' my story mentioning the restaurant in our book. He was impressed and took us upstairs into a beautifully decorated room festooned in the Belle Époque style. The walls were covered in mirrors, fat cupids and cornucopias filled overflowing withplump, ripe fruits. Even the light fixtures were all swirls and dripping in frosted glass. We all crowded around a big table as several waiters appeared with icy glasses of Kir Royale compliments of our maître d'.

We ordered dozens of chilled oysters, succulent garlic butter infused escargot, followed by giant bowls of crusty cheese-covered onion soup gratinée. We drank copious amounts of delicious Provençal rosé wines, toasting each other, the missing Wild Writing Women, life, love and of course, Paris. Oh my! Everything was fabulous.

Parisian culinary distractions were not limited to one evening. The next night, I dined with some dear old friends at Le Train Bleu inside the Gare de Lyon. The restaurant originally opened in 1901 also decorated in the Belle Époque style. It has always been a wonderful place for the elite society to have a meal before boarding a train bound for Italy, Germany or other distant places. I dined on goose liver paté and duck breast with an orange sauce. But my favorite was the cheese cart, which offered an unbelievable assortment of fromage from all parts of France. Naturally I wanted a small taste of every one of them, but was persuaded to limit myself to tiny bits of seven or eight of the selections. Since there are over 500 cheeses in France, it's no wonder the 18th-century French writer Brillart-Savarin, declared that "a meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye." Yes, I was in gastronomic heaven as I sampled my way through the assortment. My new favorite was Epoisses, made from cow’s milk and washed in Marc as it matures. The cheese has a robust, woody aroma and a strong tangy, flavor with a smooth soft texture that literally melted in my mouth.

As Pam and Cathy were driving to the south of France, they left early Friday; the rest of us crowded what we could into our last day in Paris. That evening some of us met at the Buci. From there we went to another favorite restaurant of mine, the 158-year-old Polidor. We dined on duck liver terrine, then fresh spinach salad dressed with fragrant walnut oil, followed by succulent chicken and steak dishes.

Our time in Paris wasn’t nearly long enough, but then it is never long enough to suit me.

The flight down to Marseille was short; at the airport we picked up the rental cars—Renault diesel station wagons, air-conditioned and fun to drive. We had made arrangements to meet our friend Maureen Wheeler’s flight a little while later. We were all going to stay for a week at a seaside villa Marueen had rented. But we learned she had had quite an adventure before even meeting us at the airport. When she got off her plane she was informed that her bag was still in England but would be sent over in a few hours and delivered to the villa in Gaou Benat where we were staying (it took almost two full days to arrive). From there she went into the waiting area and saw a handsome young man with a sign saying “Mrs. Wheeler.” Thinking that we had changed plans and sent someone to collect her, she followed him out to a fancy Mercedes Benz. It wasn’t until the guy was out of the parking lot and almost onto the highway that Maureen realized she wasn’t the Mrs. Wheeler he was waiting for. They hurried back to the airport where the other Mrs. Wheeler, a small Texan woman, was waiting, along with Alison and me. It was just one of those quirky things that happen sometimes, but we were all glad to finally have the right Mrs. Wheeler with us.

Our villa was in a private gated community on a hill overlooking the sea near the beach town of Le Lavandou, between Toulon and St. Tropez. There were actually two houses on the property and Maureen had rented both of them so we would have enough beds for everyone to have their own. All the rooms in both houses had beautiful views. The houses wrapped around a big stone-paved terrace with a huge blue swimming pool at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. The entire development was new and the houses had fully equipped kitchens with up-to-the-minute appliances, with all the instructions written in French. It was quite a challenge to figure some of them out. We never did use the houses except for cooking and sleeping. We spent most of our time and ate every meal outside on the big terrace. We cooked dinners at home several evenings and sat long into the night drinking wine, talking, and listening to the new Julien Clerc CD, “Studio.” The air was warm and the stars bright with the lights of the neighboring small towns reflected on the sea.

On Sunday we visited Bormes les Mimosas for a town celebration and lunch with friends of Alison's. The village was charming, filled with sunshine and flowers. We liked it so much we returned during the week for their street market and later for dinner at a beautiful old restaurant, Lou Portaou.

Le Lavendou was a delightful little beach town, small, quaint, with cute shops, sidewalk cafés and a big sandy beach. We ate dinner in town a couple of nights and decided we would like to return sometime.

There wasn't enough time to see and do everything in only one week, so we surrendered and spent most of our time swimming in the sea or the pool and just relaxing. I felt all my tension and stress melting away as I lay in the sun, toes digging into the warm sand. Swimming in the sea was magical—the water warm, clear and blue, blue, blue. It was paradise for me, for all of us, really.

We went up to Marseille for the last three days of our trip. I was excited to see my dear old friends, the Enyier family, and the other WWW’s (down to Carla, Lisa, Alison and Maureen—Pam and Cathy left the villa and headed for Italy) were happy to get a look at the old city. It was incredibly hot and humid and we were grateful that our hotel rooms, with views of the Vieux Port, were air-conditioned.

My friends, Michele and Elisabeth, took us to a restaurant just outside the Vieux Port at Valon, an almost hidden tiny port. It was like a small village within the bigger town. We ate delicious fresh seafood, including violets, which are a sort of sea urchin that comes in a spiny deep violet-colored shell. You scoop out the butter yellow flesh with your thumb and pop it into your mouth. They tasted sweet and of the sea.

On my actual birthday, the Enyier's took me to the tiny village of Le Rove, just west of Marseille for lunch. It was a perfect setting overlooking the little bay of Calanque de Niolen. Then, we met the other WWW's (down to Carla, Lisa and Alison - Maureen left that morning) and headed out on Michel's sailboat, sailing beside the islands just outside the Vieux Port of Marseille. The sun was bright and the sea was a deep azure blue. We dropped anchor in a small bay by Ile de Planier, just beyond the Chateau d'If, and lazed away the afternoon. Elisabeth had prepared a delicious tabouli salad and an eggplant tart that everyone wanted the recipe for. We drank wine and talked and drank more wine and talked some more. The sun set in a golden glow and the sky turned to rich cobalt then to indigo. The stars seemed so close you could touch them. Reluctantly we weighed anchor and headed back to port.

I had never been at the helm of a sailboat before and asked if I could. Of course Michel said yes and I took the tiller in hand. Wht an incredible thrill that was for me. I felt like Jacqueline, Quen of the Sea--strong, powerful, and incredibly beautiful withthe wind in my hair and the scent of the sea in my nose. Oh yes, it was one of "those" moments. It was the perfect birthday present.

Monday was spent wandering around the town, each of us in a different direction. I went up to the highest part of Le Panier, in the oldest section of Marseille. I was sweating and panting but determined to get up there. I wanted to see the recently restored Place des Moulins. In earlier times there were several windmills crowning this hill. Today, the windmills are gone and the square is surrounded by new housing mixed with old, and lined with lovely old plane trees.

I rewarded myself with a very tasty chèvre chaude salad in a tiny restaurant along the way. It was a simple salad really, sliced tomatoes topped with greens then four croutons with the melted goat cheese on top. But somehow, that salad was just about the most wonderful one I've ever eaten. Can’t tell you just why... maybe it was the cheese... four big hunks of melty, warm cheese—reaffirming my opinion that France has the best cheeses! I enjoyed a glass of Provençal rosé and ended my lunch with a scoop of citron sorbet.

Our last night, Carla, Lisa, Alison and I went out for bouillabaisse. I have been searching for the perfect bouillabaisse for years without success. There is no real recipe for this dish. It’s a verbal tradition passed down from generations of Marseille fishermen. Not merely a soup, it is a dinner for a ceremonial occasion, a ritual feast. The basic idea is that you first make a broth by boiling whatever fish carcasses you can obtain, in water, with a few seasonings. Then you prepare the main soup with tomatoes, onions, garlic, potatoes and various local fish, then add the broth to it. The soup is served with rouille, a garlic mayonnaise, which is spread on little toasts of French bread, shredded Gruyere cheese is sprinkled on top and then the toasts placed in the soup bowls, and the soup is ladled over it.

We chose our restaurant with great care, checking the menus for the types of fish available and talking with different waiters lurking outside the restaurants along the Rue Neuve Saint Catherine. But alas, the bouillabaisse wasn't as spectacular as we had anticipated. The fish used to make it were full of bones and the soup itself almost tasteless. Even the rouille was flat. So, my search for the perfect bouillabaisse continues.

As we wandered along the Vieux Port quay on our way back to the hotel, the full moon was hanging over the hill crowned by the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde. The sight was incredibly beautiful and everything seemed to be bathed in a magical glow. We all agreed that Marseille was quite a town and that we would be back to explore more of her enchantments another day.

See our photo gallery of Paris, Le Lavandou, Bormes les Mimosas, and Marseille.