The First Things to Buy in Aix-en-Provence

 1.  Two cloth napkins. Yes I could just buy paper napkins but what’s the fun in that?  These I can take home as souvenirs.  Notice that the napkins to the left have cicadas (cigales) in them.  The blue one is for me and the red one for Fernando.

2.  A Bottle of Pastis.  I should buy this at the very start of our 6 weeks because it will undoubtedly take us that long to drink it.  But I can use it in cooking too.

3.  Orgeat Syrup.  This is so we can make a Mauresque with the Pastis instead of drinking it straight with water.  Orgeat typically includes almonds, sugar, water, orange flower water and a brandy or rum.  The Mauresque is 2 ounces of Pastis, 1 ounce of Orgeat Syrup and sparkling water.  It should help the medicine go down.

4.  Espelette Pepper.  This is from the French Basque country but I haven’t been able to find it in stores here.  I could order it from Walmart, Target or Amazon but I’d rather wait until I’m in France.  Plus I can use it there since I won’t have my Chipotle or Gochujang.

5.  Salt from the Camargue.  I should be able to buy this in the grocery store.  I’m going to need salt so I might as well make it local.  There’s even a Sel de Camargue with Espelette Pepper!  I could bring one home for Willy!

6.  Olive Oil.  Let’s make sure we pick up a local bottle from Provence, not Spain or Morocco.

7.  Mayonnaise and Aioli.  I know I should make my own mayonnaise like any decent French cook, but the last time I routinely made it was in Colombia more than 50 years ago and that was with a blender.  The apartment might not even have a whisk.  There are several brands we could try out.  

As for Aioli, don’t look now but Hellman’s sells a Garlic Mayonnaise/Aioli.  I’ll wait for a French version or maybe just grate a little garlic into my mayonnaise.

What is this blog for??

I was reviewing previous posts, discovering that I had the most posts for Paris in 2006 when I went with Fernando and Penny for my first time.  Apparently that is because it WAS my first time and I was learning about the city.  Over the years that’s really what the blog has been about:  trip preparation.  I did post what happened each day on the first Camino de Santiago trip in 2007 but I believe I did that retroactively, using my paper journal and photos.  We didn’t really have an internet connection that time.  I remember getting a SIM card in an extra phone we had and adding time to it, and that phone coverage then was very iffy except in the cities.  Things have surely changed with connectivity although I’m not sure what we are going to do this time around:  pay Verizon for a monthly international connection or get an e-sim card.  I better figure that out.

These days I’ve given up on keeping a paper journal but perhaps that’s a mistake.  Lord knows I’m not going to retroactively post our 43 days in Aix-en-Provence.  Will I be too tired in the evening to recap the day’s events?  Or will each day be pretty much the same: the town isn’t that big.  Will I be busy doing French homework in the evenings?  I hope not:  3 hours of class a day is enough.

But if we eat out at a restaurant every day, won’t I have food photos to post??  Although I’ve found that I usually forget to photograph the food until I’ve already finished eating.  Empty plates can only tell you so much.  But I could photograph the menu…. Wait!  That comes even before the food!  All right:  each day I’ll photograph a different food, be it the croissant in the morning, the meal at lunch, or the dinner prep in the aparthotel.  And I’ll try to photograph the 11 other Road Scholar participants. (Correcton: there are 21 participants in our group.  I didn’t see the faint arrow that takes you to a second page.). I hesitate to photograph other people because I feel I’m invading their privacy.  That’s why all my travel photos are of things, especially of food, in its various stages.  Here’s our OAT group in Colombia!  We just finished a graffiti session on some warehouses in Bogotá.  No, I didn’t take the photo, our ringleader Diego did.

Equipping the French Kitchen

I don’t really plan on buying anything for our own kitchen but it’s always nice to see how other countries equip theirs.  And who knows?  Maybe there is some little item, like a salt cellar or dish towel (un torchon), that I could tuck in my luggage and bring back as a souvenir.  

Perusing Google Maps, I ran across a commercial Ecotel kitchen store near the Carrefour in Aix-en-Provence which offers a Boutique Morcrette for home cooks.  Before we go shopping at Carrefour we can drool over the LaCanche stoves and the Mauvie pots and maybe pick up some ideas.  

There is something we might need:  a shopping cart to take to the markets!  But I don’t have to go all the way to Carrefour for that.  Not far from the Aparthotel Adagio, on the way to the markets, there is a very crowded kitchenware store called, appropriately, Culinarion.  

Frankly, it has everything you could possibly need:  wooden spoons, 3 minute old-fashioned egg-timers, frying pans, Staub and Le Creuset enameled cast iron casseroles, knives, whisks, scissors, poubelles, aprons, zesters of all kinds, etc., etc.  And little old lady shopping carts.  I might get lost in there the first weekend.  

If you look at the photos of Culinarion on Google Maps, there are some from the Société VM3D that allow you to look around 360 degrees and check to see if they have what you are looking for.

Oh my!  Aren’t Camila and I going to have fun in Aix-en-Provence!

Les Boulangeries

 Oh my Lord!  My last posting was July 15th!  Have I exhausted everything there is to know about Aix-en-Provence?  Quite possibly…but then I reviewed the photos of the Aparthotel Adagio and was appalled to see sandwich bread in their breakfast buffet!!

I’ve seen lots of patisseries around the marché but not as many boulangeries as I would like.  In Paris in the 17th arroundissement there were plenty.  I’m not going to be eating sandwich bread in France!  Not even for sandwiches!  So I am on a Quest!

Observing Leslie says that the best boulangerie in Aix is Farinoman Fou, 1.1 kilometers from our aparthotel, so it’s not one to go to every morning to get our morning pain.  Leslie says they enjoyed “the D’Isère et d’Ardèche (a magnificent fruit, nut, and grain combination) and Le Batard du Cousin (crunchy seeds over a delicious whole-grain interior).” Sounds like my kind of bread.  

Leslie also said that the best baguette was from a chain: Hat’s. They also have artisan bread which is even more expensive than Farinoman. But the location on Rue Espariat is a close 8-minute walk from the British American Institute where we have language classes. They seem to specialize in lunches so that is an option. I wonder if they take the tickets resto.

But, is there a boulangerie just down the street from our aparthotel? Fortunately there is one a 3 minute walk away on Rue de la République: La Fournaise. Their artisan bread looks very good to me and they even have a fougasse with olives! They’re open everyday from 7am to 8pm except for Sunday when it is 7am to 2 pm.

And there is another boulangerie south of that on Ave. Giuseppe Verdi, a 5 minute walk from the aparthotel.  It is part of a chain: Land & Monkeys.  

Fortunately, we won’t have to settle for sandwich bread while we are in Aix.