Fete Votive

Saturday was the day of the Beaumont du Ventoux Fete Votive. I rode to town right after breakfast to get some bread and salad greens for lunch before that long lunchtime closing prevented that. Almost immediately after I left itbecame apparent that our planned lunchtime main (frittata) would not be possible because everyone thought someone else had put the eggs in the cart at the supermarket. I returned loaded with breadstuffs only to find that we were now having pasta. It was tossed with lemon zest and juice and parmigiano reggiano and olive oil and was delicious, as was the salad made with beautiful red oak leaf lettuce I got at the vegetable monger for 80 centimes a head.

Glenn and Rosanna napped after lunch. I finished the Chez Panisse book and Peter had his nose in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, until I dragged him out of the house and down the hill to the middle of Beaumont du Ventoux to see how the dinner preparations were coming along. There were a lot of rough looking characters in the middle of the petanque tournament, and attending periodically at the bar, where Peter and I sat ourselves down with a couple of glasses of beer.

We didn’t go to the official petanque ground, but contented ourselves instead with watching the warm up tosses in a shady little alley between the pottery shop and the stage. They toss the metal balls in an underhanded and backhanded fashion, and the trajectory is that they describe quite an upward arc before landing, quite often with a loud noise of metal striking metal which makes me thing the objective must be to knock the opponent’s ball out of the area, but I am going to have to look up the rules on the internet later. In addition to that, we also saw the butcher building a wood fire and trussing hams (actually uncured pork haunches) onto a rack, balancing them, and then building anotherfire on the other side. A lot of basting and turning (hot heavy work) then ensued. We saw the ratatouille pot, but the preparation of that dish had not yet started when we headed for home, managing to pick more than a quartof blackberries on the way – Peter’s long limbs are a real advantage in straddling the ditch and reaching into the bush with actually having to embrace it (my problem). We suffered many fewer scratches from the thorns than I sustained last year.

Once home I had a brief lie down and then we all headed off on foot to the dinner. We showed Rosannathe blackberry crop that was out of reach of me and Peter andrequired a scramble over a ditch up a steep little hillside (we were in shorts and flip flops and not prepared to attempt that),and she is quite certain she can make it up there and harvest them. I am going to attend with a camera for that one! We had a bottle of local bubbly (from Die) before dinner, and then they served an apero of a glass of Beaumes de Venise, and then red wine and rose a volonte(bottomless) with the dinner, which was: melon with prosciutto; roast pork and ratatouille; baguette; a wedge of soft cheese and a slice of apple tarte (Glenn had two servings); a beautiful white nectarine; coffee. Welistened to the first five or six songs the band played and watched the little kids bouncing around in the blow-up castle. Once the Beatles covers started, Rosanna herded us all up and headed us for home, which involved a walk back through the dining tables. This provided an opportunity (which certain members of our party availed themselves of) to seize untouched bottles of wine and carry them home.