Post Pic

We got unerringly out of Valence, where it was rather a grey and dreary day, and on to the autoroute to Bollene, with Guy in the front passenger seat reading aloud (as one tends to do on a road trip) all the road signs advertising the interesting sites en route. From Bollene we were headed to Vaison and had just got past Suze-la-Rousse, when I noticed a sign for Uchaux and the Chateau d'Hugues which makes some fine cote de rhone. As Guy noted, we had to buy wine for dinner somewhere, so we headed off in that direction, arriving at about 1:20 pm, to discover that the caveau opens at 2:00pm. We wandered about the fields and roads (a little activity to aid in the digestion of the croissants) for a while and then sat in the shade and waited, where we happily discovered that the folks at Chateau d'Hugues are very prompt. Five minutes later another group of four people arrived so it was quite crowded and convivial in the little tasting room. After tasting maybe 6 wines or so, we came away with 6 bottles of three different varieties and Guy was impressed that he was gently discouraged from unnecessarily selecting more expensive wines.

From Uchaux we went to Orange (only about 5km away) to fuel up. That was quite a production and none of it very amusing. We had to sort of circumnavigate the centre of Orange to get out in a useful way, so Kate and Guy got to at least see the large Roman arch, which is rather surprisingly in the middle of a traffic circle, and appears to be swathed with something for restoration. We also got quite close to the amphitheatre, but I was keeping my eyes straight ahead and anyway I have seen it before. It is a very right-wing town and we were not inclined to spend any more money there than was absolutely necessary.

There were no more detours on the road to Vaison. There were, quite incredibly however, some mutterings from the passengers about feeling "peckish". In Vaison we did a little shopping for dinner, and went to the fishmonger (twice -- as they open at 4:30pm and we initially arrived there at 4:25pm and were sent away despite the fact that the door was open). Finally we got two Bar (some form of small sea bass) that Kate had decided to bake in salt. We also went to the cheese monger, who recommended a local sheep cheese and a cow cheese from Dauphinee (because "we do not have cows here"), and we also got another Banon. At the fruit and vegetable store, the elegantly dressed ladies filled bags with cepes, baby arugula, cocos blancs, tomatoes, and plums.

Quite a bit of rose fueled the dinner preparations, among them the bean shelling and cepe cleaning. It continued to fuel some of the dinner execution too, which was a contributing factor in Guy's "remember, you are alone in the kitchen" moment (see above) in which a pan of cepes he was sauteing tumbled to the floor when he abandoned it for a moment to take a photo of Kate's fish prep. Two things were fortunate. One, I jumped back out of the way saving my flip-flop clad feet from injury. Two, Kate had just washed the floor moments before we took off for Valence and we had not really trod on the area of the spill so we had no compunction about retrieving the cepes and continuing to saute them, adding a bit more red wine to the mix for sanitization purposes.

Ultimately, we were quite pleased with our menu, which consisted of the following courses: a pre-dinner snack of olives and small slices of quiche; a spelt and cepe "risotto" with thyme; fresh white beans tossed with olive oil and lemon; deliciously moist Bar, with a drizzle of olive oil and slices of lemon; arugula salad; cheese and bread with olive jam and fresh figs (I climbed the ladder and Guy held the bowl and I am not sure now if this seemed the wise choice even before the cepes incident) roasted with lavender and honey; and a blackcurrant jam and fresh peach tart with vanilla yoghurt (really just yoghurt this time). Originally, we had planned to have a tomato salad, but Kate, quite uncharacteristically decided we already had more than enough food, although we ate all but a little bit of the risotto and some of the cheese.

Up until this point, I had found that it was not necessary for me to take lactaid and I could still enjoy cheese and other dairy products without incident. The combination of the 20 hours of eating at Maison Pic and our dinner, however, just about did me in, and I have now dusted off the bottle.