These Are a Few of My Favorite Things in Sablet

We are counting down the days till we board our plane for France. It seems like it has been forever since we were in Sablet and we can't wait to get back. When we finally exit the A-7 autoroute at Orange, we will head to Sablet through the town of Camaret-sur-Aigues, then down a narrow two-lane road through the Plan-de-Dieu vineyards. Then voila, we will see Sablet off in the distance.

Sablet

This post includes photographs of some of my favorite places and people to hang out with in Sablet. These pictures were taken last spring when Kari visited during her travels through Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, England and wait for it ... Thailand where she went after 3 months in the European Union zone.

Café des Sports

One of my favorite places to hang out in Sablet is at a sunny table in front of Café des Sports.

Sylvie Bordeaux with brother and sister-in-law

Two of my favorite people in Sablet, or really anywhere for that matter are Alain Fabre who owns Vival Grocery Store with wife Mimi and Sylvie Bordeaux who owns Café des Sports with husband Bruno.

Alain Fabre and Sylvie Bordeaux

We like this little orange truck, so much so that we have a framed picture of the truck in our California home along with pictures of unusual Deux Chevaux we have come across. It seems appropriate that this unusual truck is generally parked in front of Insolite, which translates to "unusual."

Kari admires the miniature truck

If you have been a reader of Our House in Provence blog for a while, you have already figured out that one of my favorite places in Sablet for taking pictures of people, is around the pretty fountain at Place Yvan Audouard, just a few steps from our house.

Fountain at Place Yvan Audouard

No doubt about it, my favorite place in Sablet is our house. Looking at this picture, reminds me I should probably paint the garage door while we are there.

Home Sweet Home

In this picture, Shirley stands in "Grande" (big or wide) Rue and stretches her arms between our house and the house across the street.

Shirley stands in Grand Rue and stretches her arms between our house and neighbors

In the picture which follows, Kari is reading in the bedroom window where she has a bird's eye view of the village.

Kari reads her book on the window ledge

Kari gives me a smile from her perch on the window ledge high above the street.

Kari gives me a smile from the window ledge

One of our favorite pastimes in Sablet is to watch drivers, usually tourists struggle to make a left turn from Grande Rue onto Rue d'Eglise to go up to the Romanesque Church of Saint Nazaire at the top of the village. Only the locals can make the turn with just one move. We also hang out the window to chat with passerbys, especially if we hear US English being spoken.

Shirley hangs out the window to greet passerbys

Most mornings and evenings you will find us on the kitchen terrace. This is where in good weather, we always have our petit dejeuner including a café, and croissants and palmiers from Festival Boulangerie. In the late afternoon, you will find us enjoying a glass of chilled local rosé wine if we are not down at Café des Sports.

Yours truly and Shirley relax on kitchen terrace

We generally eat out at lunch in whatever village we happen to find ourselves. But in the evening, we generally cook whatever we found that day in the market. This day being Thursday, I bought Dover Sole this morning from Monsieur Lafont of Marée du Comtat Venaison when he brought his mobile fish stand to Sablet like I told you here.

Favorite room in the house

I dust the cleaned fillets in flour and then sauté the fish in a combination of butter and olive oil in a non-stick pan.

Cleaned Dover sole ready for cooking

I keep the fish warm in a very low oven while I finish the other dishes.

Cooked Dover Sole

Most people are frightened away from cooking whole fish because of their fear of having to debone the fish. I am not perfect, but I am getting better. I think the old adage, "Practice makes Perfect" holds true when it comes to deboning fish.

Yours Truly debones the Dover Sole

Cooking whole fish is worth the effort to get over your fear and learn to debone whole fish.

Dover Sole with lemon caper butter sauce

I also made this Eggplant Custard from a recipe I found in a cookbook by Richard Olney entitled "Simple French Food."

Eggplant Custard

We finished our dinner with a Pear Cake that had a deliciously moist interior and slightly crunchy exterior. I will have to tell you how to make this cake for yourselves in a future post. I made it here a few weeks ago. It is really simple and delicious.

Pear Cake

I have been fortunate to meet some people in person and others by way of email because of this blog. I hope to meet many more of you in the future. I get a huge kick when people tell me they planned their trips to Provence based on my blog or went to a village or tried a restaurant because of it.

I have showed you a few of my favorite things about Sablet. It goes without saying that we love Sablet and that we have a whole different life in this village. Someone I met today by email summed up what we love about Sablet.

Jeri, I hope you don't mind me sharing what you said. "We're actually in Sablet now, finishing up a two-week stay. We were here for three weeks in 2012 and really loved the village--friendly people, fabulous location, and a real, functioning town, not a museum like Seguret. So we came back this year and find that our first impressions have been confirmed."

Have a great week. Chat soon.