Life in the Vaucluse

Christmas

Another Christmas in Roussillon and it was fantastic.

Le Broulliard

A foggy trip to Roussillon last week meant that we took some atmospheric pictures...

 

Flying around the Luberon

Flying around the village last week was a great way of seeing the colour of the ocre soil for which Roussillon is famed. This was part of a half hour flight on a small Cessna from Avignon-Caumont. The route, across the Luberon villages, was one of four routes to choose from. A great idea if visiting the area!

A review of Domaine des Andeoles - 10 minutes from Roussillon

Alain Ducasse's tart advice in Provence

Peter Hughes visits a new B & B in Provence run by celebrated chef, Alain Ducasse.

Alain Ducasse is a celebrity chef in France. And in Monaco, London, Beirut, Gstaad, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Carthage, Tokyo, New York and Las Vegas. He has scattered Michelin stars across the world like croutons. Global warming for Monsieur Ducasse means gas mark 6 in four continents.

"...a good cook as cooks go," as Saki said, "and as good cooks go (s)he went." Not into television or Tourette's - as have some - but into hotel keeping.  several small country retreats in France and Italy.

When I saw that the latest, the Domaine des Andéols in Provence, was offering b & b with a cooking lesson thrown in, it seemed too good to be true. After all, M. Ducasse is also known for his cookery school.

The Domaine is a clutch of old houses budding from a low hilltop in the Lubéron. They have crinkly tiles and wooden shutters and were once a hamlet. The showpiece village of Gordes occupies another hilltop less than 10 miles away. This is a rumpled, drowsy landscape of vineyards and cherry orchards. The fields feel as if they are stirring themselves before rising into the more energetic hills of the Vaucluse.

Guests stay in nine houses arranged around a swimming pool and sloping garden of old olive trees and new sandstone walls the colour of shortbread. Each house is different - eccentrically so. They seem to career between the über-chic and a friend's pad. My house, Maison des Lointains, was one of the more minimalist - except for the huge views of sprawling farmland, which were decidedly maximalist.

The house was on two floors. Dominating the downstairs room were a black marble dining table and a clothes cupboard, faced in vaguely Mondrianesque rectangles coloured silver and gold: a clothes cupboard, note, not hanging space. That was up the stairs, in the bedroom.

The bath was also in the bedroom, or was the bed in the bathroom? The space was almost equally divided. And in a nation of so many fragrances, many of them originating in Provence, it was surprising to find American (Kiehl's) bath potions.

Downstairs there was a chandelier made of barbed wire; upstairs pictures of female nudes. Everywhere art books lay casually on white-painted shelves - well, not that casually, because their outlines remained, even whiter, when they were moved.

The oddest bit about the Domaine was that amid all the designer spoor the finish was frequently crude. Some of the materials in my house verged on the agricultural.

And while the irritation of having to get out of bed to turn out the lights might be characterful in a friend's second home, in a "boutique" hotel charging up to €520 (£353) a night for Maison des Lointains - €670 if a second bedroom is taken - it is disappointing. But I was here for the food.

The restaurant is half indoors, half out, with a conservatory in between. Breakfast al fresco was to be immersed in several fathoms of Provençal countryside and that sensual freshness that preludes hot summer days. To the left a coarse hillside was splashed with brilliant patches of yellow broom; on the horizon, a scatter of beige villages rode a swell of small fields. There were the sounds of birdsong, tractors and distant dogs.

Julien Dumas is the chef. A boyish 27-year-old with a froth of curly hair, he has worked in some of the most illustrious kitchens in Europe, including the Waterside Inn at Bray and the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris. Although he has spent the past seven years with M. Ducasse, he had been at the Domaine only for a week and had not yet introduced his own menus.

Recipes and photographs of each dish would first have to be submitted to M. Ducasse for approval. When, later, we made pastry together, Julien abandoned his normal, instinctive method. "We have to make it a special way," he said, as he leafed through one of the many Ducasse cookery books.

I was surprised at how small the kitchen was. There was hardly room to swing a temperament. Saucepans were everywhere. One, the size of a silo, was simmering on a hotplate, bubbling to the brim with veal stock.

"L'école de cuisine est ici?" I ventured. "Non, Grenoble," Julien replied. My confidence slumped like a failed soufflé. I had come to Provence on the pretext of a cookery school and now it turned out to be in the Alps. "Not here?" I defaulted into English.

Julien, who knows when a sauce is about to separate, recognised my alarm. "Here we show guests some techniques they can take home." Language was a challenge. As Julien had forgotten most of the English he knew and I had never known enough French to forget, we semaphored our way through the preparation of two starters, a bisque and a cherry tart.

By the end of my stay I had learnt how to dry tomatoes: you leave them overnight in an oven, turned off but still hot from cooking. Skinned, sliced and sprinkled with sugar, chopped garlic, thyme and olive oil, they will be succulent little chips by morning. I saw how plunging cooked asparagus into iced water retains its colour. I know not to flambé the Cognac added to a prawn bisque because it singes the tentacles.

I was shown how to shave a fresh morille, though I never quite understood why. Julien inspected my somewhat mutilated mushrooms: "For a first time that's OK. After 10 years it would be a bad job." He salted them to draw out the moisture, then sautéed them in butter, simultaneously telling a scurrilous story of how one of the most famous restaurants in Paris made its customers ill by cooking morilles incorrectly. As far as I could make out, the secret seemed to be to bang a lid on the pan while they are sautéeing.

"I will introduce you to a tarte aux tomates," he announced and presented me with a tomato to chop. Nonchalantly, I sliced across the scarlet flesh and instantly felt the blade snag my thumb. Humiliating visions welled in my imagination of a blood-spattered chopping board - hard to disguise in a salad preparation area. Thank heaven for thumbnails.

The next day Julien invited me back. The towering stockpot was still on the stove; there was the same clutter of utensils - knives, spoons, whisks, pans that had all magically disappeared to be washed up without anyone apparently collecting them.

One of the other chefs set me to work dicing carrots. He gave me a quick demonstration of how not to cut my thumb. "Tuck it away, comme ça." He couldn't have known, but he might have guessed.

They were enjoyable days. You can't really call it a cookery school; it's not as formal as that even if my cooking has probably improved. I am certainly safer with a knife. I have a heightened appreciation of flavours and a restimulated enthusiasm for food, though the Domaine restaurant and its lovely views over the Luberon could have something to do with that. And while I might not have a diploma, I do now possess an Alain Ducasse apron

Lavender Days

A trip to the Luberon in July meant we were there at the best time for the lavender. It was spectacular especially north of Roussillon heading towards Sault. Taking the road towards Mont Ventoux offers the best views.

Rome-ing in Cavaillon

We finally found the Roman Arch in Cavaillon this weekend, right in the middle of the Monday market (well the Arch is there every day of course).

Sadly, there is not that much of it there, however some of the details are still visible.

Winter in Roussillon

The last weekend of January was also one of the quietest. Few tourists visiting and few of the bars open.

However the weather was fab and the skies just stunning.

We almost had lunch outside but there were murmers of whimpering so we didn't - lightweights!

Off back down later in February so more then...

   

Doing the Marseillaise

Finally we visited Marseille Vieux Port and had good look around. The fish market isn't a market so much as a few tables with fish still flapping. However interesting to see and then we just had to go and have some Bouillabaise..

The only way to travel?

Is this the way to see Roussillon? Must be amazing from up there but perhaps not for me with my non-existent head for heights.. good view of Mont Ventoux in the background..

Abbaye Road

  The drive to Abbaye de  Senanque is spectacular. From Roussillon the route to Senanque is via Gordes on its incredible perch.

Dropping down over the hills one can then glimpe the monastery and its land. Huge lavendar fields and blue skies make a great combination.

The Abbey itself is fascinating and the guided tour very good (though in French). A worthwhile diversion.