from Pierrerue: the games men play

I had heard that two villages down from Pierrerue, they were having a Petanque concurs today.





Independently, I had heard that Pierrerue men and men from villages further down regarded themselves as Petanque champs. Put a Pierrerue guy next to one from, say Capestang (south of here) or Roquebrun (a bit more north) and my villager will beat the pants off of either one.

Speaking of pants, in a comment to a post below, Ann had wondered if men around here wore short pants. I had an answer for her, just from looking around markets and café bars, but what better place to test this than in a gathering of men.

For Petanque is a game for men. And boys. (It’s not a rule, it’s just the way it is. I was asked several times if I would like to try, but I know not to place my skirt where it does not belong.) They start young. Here’s someone who knew how to handle the balls:




Back to pants. I have yet to see a single woman, young or old, in short pants of any sort. It’s all about skirts for the madame and the teeny set does the American jeans thing. So that the local girls who came out on their motorbikes to root for their boys, looked like this:





Men, on the other hand, young and old (by old, I mean older than me, of course) are heavily into cropped pants.




So this is the scene: they show up, they greet: salut! -- for the casual acquaintance, a handshake for the better pal and always kisses (yes, between men as well) on both cheeks for the "known you all my life" sort. And these are not air kisses, these are loud smackers to be heard a block away.

They stand around and talk (this takes a while), holding their boules behind their back. [There is a stance that is adopted – it is the man with boules stance and it looks like this:]





And then they play. They form teams. Here are the scorekeepers:




And then, in every corner, in the courtyard, in the gravel parking lot, in front of the Mairie, they start their games. Young and old, in mixed teams. Such grace there is in tossing that ball, to get it closer to the little tiny speck of a ball up ahead!





I had to smile thinking back to my loft in Madison. In front of it, they built a Petanque court. I do not know what they were thinking. No one I know in Madison knows how to play Petanque. My landlord bragged how it’s regulation size. It is finely graded and graveled.

Here, in the small village of Prades in Southern France, no one cares about finely graded and graveled. The gravel is uneven, they mark the starting line with their foot and they manifest such skill in tossing that thing about that you cannot tear yourself away from watching.

But I did eventually turn away. The games went on for a long time, aided by a makeshift stand where soft drinks, wine and beer were sold by the glass (wine was cheapest, beer was the priciest).

Hiking back up the hill to Pierrerue, I passed the usual assortment of grape vines and stunning terrain, but what stood out and deserved a photo was the sight of a man working the fields on this brilliant day. Salut to you, too. Sorry you could not join the rest.





In Pierrerue, I found that at least a handful of men from my village had scorned the games of the neighbors. They were in front of the Mairie, engaged in their own Saturday routine. I watched and took a photo or two. They liked the attention. They bantered and egged each other on about messing up for the madame with the camera.



the men of Pierrerue


In the early evening I took the car down to St. Chinian. I needed a baguette for my dinner of a calamari salad back home. I passed the village square and remembered that I had arrived at this time exactly a week ago. I had noticed the older men and the boules then and here they were again. I stopped and watched. Is it Petanque as well? No, explained one. This is Boules Lyonaise. Played not on gravel but on packed dirt. It’s all about precision here. A guy marks spots carefully and measures distances with a marker.

I am told they have been playing for years. Petanque -- that’s just for fun. This is serious stuff. It used to be that every village had a Lyonaise team and there would be real competitions. Now, its’ mostly just in the towns, like St Chinian.

They don’t play boules in America? He asked, surprised.

from Pierrerue: no choice but to go

And what can’t you resist? People talk about chocolate, wine, an adoring lover, volumes have been written about giving in to temptations of all sorts.

I can turn my back on it all. I have will power. I can not enter French shoe stores if I must, I can skip the aperitif, the cappuccino. It would be hard, but I can do it.

But bring out the sun, point to an empty road leading through vineyards to the sea and I am on it.

At least I stopped work closer to three, a little better than noon the previous day. But I did not admit to myself what I was doing. It was a windy day and I cannot emphasize this enough – when the winds blow through here, they really blow. So I thought I’d just head out for a little drive. Maybe to a town a little south of here, maybe for a simple pleasure of a café, somewhere in a pretty setting. (St. Chinian’s cafes are not remarkable in this respect; they spill out onto the street alright, exactly at the intersection of the busiest road so that you can basically watch the trucks and tractors race by.)

Oh, indeed, it was a beautiful ride! Let me show you:



road beckons



one of many



rows and rows


I noticed myself passing the town I was supposed to visit. In fact, deliberately, I took a road that headed around it. I am just not ready to get out, I told myself, even though it was nearing five.

But what’s this that I see, there behind the vineyard? Water?



vines, olives, sea


Oh that damn Mediterranean! How dare you throw yourself in my path! Out I go, feeling the indescribably wonderful sensation of gusts of warm wind on the water’s edge.



sandcastles




she reminded me of certain little ones I know




sandcastles, against the wind


Someone (you know who you are) asked for an Ocean author photo update. Sure, I look different these days. The hair is streaked by the sun, it’s longer, in a bun to keep it from going crazy in the winds, the skin is darker of course, the denim skirt is faded from overuse. And there’s this look of satisfaction that I have. Here, forget the lovely backdrop of the parked cars. You told me to ask a waiter to take a photo, so I did. This is what he chose to frame:





It was late when I left this beachfront (it was alongside a tiny and colorful seaside community). I couldn’t get myself up and going. Though the idea of a road in the early evening, passing past vineyards, and inevitably, the Canal du Midi (the Canal separates me from the southern most coast) finally revved me up.






Dinner? Time to make a return to my local La Caleche. Let me just post the appetizer and dessert. Though I ate everything in between as well. You know, it’s the sea – it works up the appetite.



first course



last course

from Pierrerue: touching stories

There’s no question. When you are an outsider, you must be careful in the messages you send and receive.

Only, how do you figure out what it all means?

Through making mistakes, of course.

I go outside at 9:30 to wait for the bread lady. My next door neighbor, the adorable, wonderful Madame Marie-Rose (not her real name, but it is of the genre) comes out as well. She is friendly, inquisitive. She likes that I speak some version of French. She groups visitors around here into those who do and those who don’t.

I ask about the village notice announcing a forthcoming Fete, a celebration. I tell her I would like to go and she is delighted. She invites me to her house. I glance around, quickly, trying not to take in too much detail. It is very traditional, with dark wood commodes and tables. I tell her it’s lovely.
It is modest, nothing fancy, she says, searching for a piece of paper to write down the Fete information.

On June 10th we will go down together. It is by the Mairie (every village and town in France has a mairie, where records are kept and bureaucratic nightmares are resolved).
It is for young people, but we all come.
With each point, she touches my arm, my hand – it is the way of people here. Everyone touches.

You know about our boucherie-charcouterie?
No...
He comes in a truck, Thursday, today, at 2. He has everything! Meats, sausages – such sausages! Everything.

I really did not imagine myself to be cooking up a meat storm, here in my tiny kitchen of my tiny castle corner, but I want to project gratitude and friendliness and so I express great joy in this.

I will come get you when he is here. He comes right outside my door.

At once my afternoon plans are changing. No longer am I going to be down in St Chinian eating a hearty lunch at Mme Suzanne’s, I will be here, with Mme Marie-Rose buying meat. The price of friendship.

I pause in my work to amble down to the Thursday market. I need cherries, strawberries, tomatoes, one of those sweet tiny French melons, I check off mentally items to look out for, pick up my basket, park the car outside the city center and walk over.

The market is smaller on Thursdays and far less crowded. The British are visibly absent. Maybe they eat pasties and mashers other days.

By noon, the farmers are anxious to unload and get going.



my veggies man



my cherries and tomatoes duo


I wait in line for my turn at the weigh-in and a friendly guy with a fantastic moustache and a gold chain around his dark neck turns to me and shows me the enormous head of garlic he is purchasing.
It’s healthy! You should buy one. You mash it up, mix it with oil, cook up fish, potatoes, fantastic!

I smile, mumble something and turn to the vendor.

But it strikes me that he is right. These garlic heads here are huge and most likely extremely flavorful. And so I purchase one.

I walk away from the stand and think – what the hell am I going to do with a garlic head this size? I’m not going to chomp on raw garlic cloves. I need stuff with them.

And so I add eggplant, zucchini, onion, tomatoes, and then of course olive oil. And I pass this stand:



my fish guy


… and so I purchase some of those as well.
One head of garlic later, my basket is full.

As I leave the market, I encounter my garlic pusher.
I wave and dangle the garlic, indicating that I listened.
He scoots right over and talks about the virtues of garlic. He is a furniture maker and, along with his son, he is selling chairs.





I admire them. I do find them pretty. Had I a house that needed chairs and I lived here, I would consider buying one. But I don’t and I tell him that transporting said chair to America would be a project.

America? You are from America? Are you with a group?
Imagine the improbable: a tour bus full of Americans in little St. Chinian. Imagine, me on that bus. Horrified at the idea, I tell him:
No, I am not! I’m alone! (mistake no.1)

He whips out his card and shows me where his furniture workshop is located. His accent is so thick that I can barely understand him. He appears to be saying that I should visit his workshop. He underlines the name of the village it is in. Not too far, he assures me.

I smile politely and explain that I do not know where it is and besides I do not really live here, I am in Pierrerue.

He looks puzzled. Pierre-what? Write it down.
Pierrerue is a mouthful. Locals must say it differently. I write it down. (mistake no.2)
He goes on about his furniture, explains that the card is his son’s and his name is really Felix. He crosses out his son’s name and writes in Felix. And then says:
Your name?
I am sure that we are politely exchanging names after a protracted conversation about garlic and furniture and so I write down my name (mistake no. 3; indeed, I have singularly violated my motto of the other day).

I will come visit you!
A look of horror crosses my face. I am in possession of my wits. He asks for my phone number, I tell him I do not have a phone. Nor a street number.

But really, everyone in Pierrerue knows of me. To find the American staying there, alone? Tres simple!
I retreat, believing that Felix is not actually going to drive his truck over to Pierrerue and inquire about the sole American living there, but I have to wonder how our casual conversation turned into this.

I walk hunched over, feeling like I did on the day I lost my passport. I goofed. The oomph is out of me.

I pass a mail carrier. In her twenties, she is spry and lively, bouncing from door to door with her deliveries. As I pass her she says the obligatory “bonjour madame!”
She looks at me and asks: do you have far to walk? Can I help you carry those?

My God! The mail carrier has just offered to take my bundles for me! I best put zip back into my step.

But I know it’s not that – it’s the hierarchy of village life. A woman my age is treated with respect, with deference. Her impulse was exactly right. She would, without hesitation, interrupt her work to assist someone older than her.

In the afternoon, Madame Marie-Rose is climbing over the fence at the back of my stone hut, trying to find me, to let me know the meat truck is here. I am glad I decided to stay for it.

She buys meat for the week. It is clearly a staple of her diet. She buys more meat than I eat in a month.



Madame studies the meats


The seller could not be a sweeter man. He sings loudly about love and a broken heart as he chops steaks and sausages. Marie-Rose says he is Dominique and has been driving his truck for decades.

I admire photos plastered to the back of his truck. Dominique is dressed as a cow and he has toddlers in his arms.

Grandchildren. Marie-Rose explains. Dominique is a very young grandfather.

Dominique winks and laughs and when I take a photo, he puckers his lips and throws kisses my way. Innocent to the core. I buy calamari and local dried sausage (I know, I know, what are you gonna do), I leave.



my sausage guy


In the evening I stop work. Before I hit the tiny stove I take a walk to the village further down from Pierrerue. The sun is warm, the air is fragrant, the wind has settled to a mild puff here and there. I have my camera, nothing else.




a few steps away from Pierrerue




looking at Pierrerue (halfway up the hill), from across the valley


I pass a house where a man, considerably younger than me, is working with cement. He is fixing his steps and cracks on the house wall. The house is simple but nice. There are roses everywhere.

I have never seen a guy wear such short cut-offs in my entire life.

He shuts off his cement machine and smiles.
Out for a walk?
Yes…
He continues speaking: I see you take photos. So it is a photo walk? His grin is a foot wide.
Yes… I hesitate, wanting to say more, but change my mind and walk on.

And so I have to sort this out: the vendors, the customers, the men, women, neighbors, postal carriers – they all have a code. Most every exchange is a sign of friendliness and respect. Except when it’s not. Me, I am only learning it. Sort of.

Back at home I cook up my cloves of garlic, with trimmings.

from Pierrerue: gift of gab, genius and goats

It is noon, I am restless. I quit work for the day. How easy it is to adapt the ways of those around you!

I want to go back to the Canal du Midi. I haven’t got a feel for its run yet. I haven’t walked along it, haven’t turned corners by its side, gone over bridges, watched boats pass through.

It should be an easy half hour drive from here, but there is no such thing as a straight road to it. Solo driving means pulling over, taking out reading glasses, studying the map, pulling back onto the road, coming to the intersection, being puzzled, pulling over, studying the map, understanding that I have gone too far, reexamining the map, turning back, forgetting the number of the road, pulling over, taking out reading glasses, studying the map – and this happens for the entire route.

I am still some kilometers away from the village where I am to pick up the trail of the Canal when I see a tiny sign saying “Auberge du Chat qui Peche, this way.” Cute little knife and fork below and a picture of a blue cat, fishing. It is 1:30 and I am hungry. If I do not stop for a salad soon, I will start encountering the closed sign and in desperation I will pound on a boulanger’s shop to reopen already and get myself arrested.

I follow the arrows. A country restaurant, in France. Mmmmm.

Around three more twisty turns I see it. An Impressionistic lullaby: a yellow building, by a stone bridge crossing over the Canal du Midi. At the edge of the canal, a wooden boat with a tall mast.





Inside, a few tables are occupied. I hear French, I hear “British.” The menu – ohhh, so tempting: foods that are simple et vraie, it says. De la campagne. You got me where you want me -- salvating. Salade, Chicken Catalane with potatoes dauphinois, cake of the house. That does it. The transformation is complete. From now on, I eat my big meal in the afternoon, like the French.



la salade is now just the beginning of le dejeuner


Lunch is, in fact delicious. And protracted. No one is in a hurry. The one hour lunch becomes a two hour lunch, becomes a… Okay, let me ask for a coffee and the check. Wait, I hear the waiter in the next room, talking about me, about the other clients. Oh, how audacious! Surely he knows some of us can hear him. Oh, he is telling about the French table where they changed their mind, passed on the coffee and ordered lots of cake instead. I can hear it all!

It suddenly strikes me. He is not speaking French, he is speaking Polish. [Take note: do not assume, even on the banks of the Canal du Midi, in a small village in the south of France that you can speak Polish and no one will understand.] And so I hail him over, of course, in Polish.

He is Camile, he is half Polish half French.
I live here in the summer, then, when the Canal closes, so does the restaurant and I move for six months to Poland.
A winter in Poland, so cold!
The winters in Poland, they are not so pretty anymore. Less snow, more dampness, pollution. But still, I am also cold here in the winter! When the wind blows through, you run for cover!
Is it your restaurant?
It belongs to all of us in my family. I have been here for eight years.
So do you ever see Poles here?
No, never. Maybe once every three years someone will stop by. But we never see Americans any more either. Before 9/11, almost every week we would have some. Now, almost never. Once every few months. They stick to Paris if they come to France at all.

A man who is half French half Polish. An impossible combination! No one will ever get a word in edgewise. The quintessential storytellers, the Poles, the French. And indeed, I get my share.

The Americans, they are so uncomfortable here. Especially in the South, where not many of us speak English. Last summer, three Americans came in and they looked lost, confused and one asked for a coffee and another for a beer and the third turned to his friends and said “how do you say Coca Cola in French?”

It’s a story he laughs at, but there is also puzzlement there. As if there is something about the Americans that he doesn’t quite get. I see that often here. When I say I am an American there is, automatically, a reaction. Surprise, deference, caution. And usually, I am told of some trip over there that was nice, interesting, so different over there, so different.

How do we appear to the French back in our own settings, where we do not stand out, as we must here?

I leave, promising that I would try to find them again. God knows how I ever found this place on this day, though if I follow along by the Canal du Midid, there it will be, no?





I leave the Canal eventually and head back north, back into the hills and the vineyards of the Minervois. Within a brief drive, there is yet a completely different wine terroir than that of St. Chinian. The soil is different, the slope, the climate, all call for a different wine label. The town that gave the wine region its name is Minerve. And it is stunning.





At this time of the year it is empty. Now, on this last day of May, I am almost alone. A few store owners are working to put things in order, waiting, I am sure, for the tourist season to begin.

I climb down into the river bed and look around. There is no river any more. It’s like the Internet that has command of our need for information, usurping other tools, so too you see these wondrous inventions and the demise in their usefulness because time has abruptly messed things around. The river has gone underground. The need for the magnificent bridge is gone. The development of efficient ground transport has made the Canal du Midi nearly obsolete. The inventors create and then time wipes out the need for their particular genius. Had they known that the bulk of “users” would someday be tourists and only tourists, would they close shop and do something else, like carve sticks, or blog maybe?



underneath, staked tomatoes



...and peaches


Driving back, I stop at a random roadside wine producer. There are dozens and dozens of them. The entire south of France is one huge field of grapes, interspersed with mountains, pastures and a few towns and villages.

This Domaine looks pretty. Their wines must be a success – the house is lovely, kept up well.



Domaine de Peyremale


I drive up, madame opens the door.
You are open, right? (Walk-ins are the norm here.) Her daughter, maybe 9 or 10 hovers, bouncing a ball around the little cave where the vats are.
Oh, stop bouncing that! The noise! The mother tells her.
She stops, grins, comes over and watches. The mother insists that I sample the three types they have. The wines are light but so very lovely, smooth, delicious.
Alright, a white and a rose. I look at the prices: 1.70 Euro for the Rose, 2.5 Euro for the Chardonnay. I can’t have bothered her for two bottles only! And so I buy four.

Visitors, I need visitors here in Pierrerue!

Ten kilometers to St Chinian still. I see a sign to a goat cheese maker. I follow. Four bottles of wine, one goat cheese. Perfect supper, no?

The path curves up the hillside. Signs warn me to drive slowly, there are goats and little children.

Madame is young. Her toddlers are running between the fromagerie and the barn. I hear goats. It is their post pasture time where they chomp down stuff in the barn, get milked, and basically settle in for the night.

Madame gives me five cheeses to sample. How do you decide?
This one is very fresh, unsalted. You can put sugar on it for dessert. This one is very strong.
But I like all of them!

I visit the goats.
Would you like to see the babies? Yes, except that it will make me miss my babies. Baby goats, babies, not so babies anymore back home.



La Chevrerie de Combebelle



the babies


I turn into St Chinian. The grocer is open. Pick up some tomatoes, endive, enough to tide me over until the Thursday market.

from Pierrerue: local time

It cooled off considerably overnight, but the sun remains brighter than bright. No matter, I spent most of the day in Pierrerue. For me, there is no greater motivation to get stuff done than to have the reward of places to go, foods to eat there, waiting. And so I settled in to work.

Not that Tuesday was a total throw away in terms of indulging the senses.There is something to be said for keeping your nose to the local ground. For example: in the morning, I went out in front of my stone hut to search out the legendary bread woman who careens around the villages with the daily supply of breads and baguettes. She came. I purchased.





And so my breakfast is on the front step of my hut.



could not resist a bite


From the step, I watch people in my village move into the fields and I visit with my neighbor. I swear she has the tail of another breed of animal. She sits between the two flower pots for most of the sunny hours of the day and comes over if I so much as look her way.





At noon, I take a short walk around the village, stopping by the notice board at our one intersection. Announcements included a fete coming up on June 10, the "bar" will open in the village center at 19:00 (is there a center? Is it where the number of houses is equal to that going the other way?), dinner at 20:00, make your reservations, here’s the menu. Other announcements: watch out for these caterpillars in your garden. Children, there is a nature walk scheduled for you at this time. All: visit the exhibit of 1936 photographs from the region, at St. Chinian, until May 31st.

I hear it takes twenty years to live in a French village before you are accepted as authentically one of them. And yet, the sense of good will, at the superficial level of greeting, of explaining, of helping, of inviting is there from day one.





Back to work. By 6, I am ready to quit. I have already worked probably three hours longer than the average French person. I take a walk along the country road. No great sight in the world could inspire a sense of tranquility in the same way that a country walk can, especially amidst blooming golden brush and rocky hills, with freshly green vines filling every spare crevice.

The soil is so poor here, but so pretty to look at. Red soil, gray rock, green vine, golden brush. A palate for an painter. The sun now feels warm, but the winds are there, famously strong. They account for the cloudless skies here. And for the huts built in fields, so that the farmers can find shelter when they gust through unexpectedly and dump stuff on a winter soil.









In the evening I am with car, but I stay local. One more attempt at finding a good eating place at St. Chinian. Yes! It’s there! I am your devoted client, your fan, your admirer for life, well no, for three weeks. Madame Suzanne, you are a genius. Or, your husband (M. Regis) is, or both of you are. We shake hands at the end. She knows she’s got me in the palm of hers.

It’s called La Caleche and it is right on the village square. As in every French restaurant, there is a set menu and I leap to try it: menu du terroir – of the region, combining the flavors of St. Chinian.

I wont fill you with details. A quick photo run should do it – from the melted chevre with pine nuts, in puff pastry, to the duck breast with fig sauce and a cheese ravioli, selections from the cheese board and a warm local chestnut flan.



with melted chevre and pine nuts



with fig sauce and a cheese ravioli



regional



from local chestnuts


I am so glad to have the car to drive back up the hill to Pierrerue at night. If I use it for nothing more than that, it will have been worth it. (Ridiculous statement. Of course I use it for more. The very next day.)