Return to Mormoiron and Lunch at Le Four À Chaux Restaurant

About six months after opening Bistro Des Copains, we took a winter break and traveled to Paris and the South of France. With us were our friends and partners in the Bistro, Tricia and Cluney, chef Melissa and server Julia and assorted friends. The purpose for our visit was to experience the foods, wine, and culture of the South of France.

After spending a few days in Paris getting over jet lag, we rode the TGV to Avignon. As we were scheduled for wine tastings in the Côtes du Rhône region including Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas, we chose as our first home base, a large house in the Vaucluse village of Mormoiron near Mont Ventoux.

Mormoiron is a rural Provencal village situated near the base of Mont Ventoux, a few miles east of Carpentras. It turns out that Mormoiron is only 20 miles from our now home in Sablet. Who knew? The principle economic activity of the village is agriculture with focus on wine, cherries and olives, although everything was dormant being it was late January when we arrived.

I did a lot of research before our trip and gave everyone a schedule showing our daily tastings, sight seeing visits and restaurant reservations. I didn't leave a lot of room for chance. I will admit that by the end of the trip, we had made a few adjustments due to the bitter cold weather we encountered and people wanted more time to just relax.

We got to Mormoiron late Sunday afternoon shortly before our reservations for dinner at Le Four À Chaux in nearby Caromb. There were not a lot of good options as I recall since it was Sunday evening in late January. Shirley and I remembered our meal as being good, so a few weeks ago one Friday, we went back to see where we stayed that January and eat lunch at Le Four À Chaux.

Mormoiron

As we got close to Mormoiron, I was surprised to see that the village was on a hill and more charming than I recalled about our visit that cold week in January. Granted, we spent very little time in Mormoiron except at night as we were constantly on the go as I told you above. We found the house easily and it didn't look like it had been changed at all.

Our Rental House in Mormoiron

Mormoiron Street

The area around Mormoiron is planted in vineyards, cherry orchards and olive groves. The wines produced from the grapes grown in the commune are classified Côtes du Ventoux AOC.

View toward Mormoiron

As I said, I had reserved for our group at Le Four À Chaux Restaurant in Caromb, about 10 km away from Mormoiron. I selected it not because it was on a list or in some guidebook but because it was open on Sunday night and not too far from Mormoiron.

On our recent visit, we arrived and were seated by a young lady on the covered terrace along with several other couples who were already there. I found out later, the young lady has owned the restaurant along with her husband the chef since March 2014.

Le Four À Chaux Restaurant

I did not have high expectations for our meal since I didn't recall the food being all that great when we dined there in January 2007. This time our meal started with a tasty amuse bouche of pumpkin soup served in a glass tumbler. The soup was delicious which I thought bode well for the remainder of our lunch.

Amuse Bouche of Pumpkin Soup

For entrée, a small course typically served before main course, we had a first of the season creamy chestnut soup with small pieces of chestnut and spice bread croutons which provided a nice crunchy contrast to the creamy soup.

Chestnut Soup with Spice Bread Croutons

For my main course, I had chosen what the menu referred to as Rabbit Crépinette, which was actually a type of rabbit sausage served with Wild Mushroom Risotto. The dish looked and tasted very good.

Rabbit Crépinette (sausage) with Wild Mushroom Risotto

For her main course, Shirley chose pan-roasted Maigre, a white fish, served over olive-oil crushed potatoes with tomatoes, green onions and black olives. The dish had lots of nice flavors and was an excellent dish.

Pan Roasted Maigre over Olive-oil Crushed Potatoes with Tomatoes, Green Onions and Black Olives

I am a chocoholic and of course I chose the mi-cuit (half baked) chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and raspberries.

Mi-cuit (half baked) Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream and Raspberries

Shirley chose an excellent warm apple crumble with spice bread ice cream, perfect for the season and tasty. Shirley was very happy with her selection.

Warm Apple Crumble with Spice Bread Ice Cream

Our meal was excellent and we will be adding it to the list of restaurants we recommend to our guests who visit our home in Sablet. It is only 20 miles from Sablet and it is perfectly located if you are in the area before or after a trip up Mont Ventoux or visit to Le Barroux which we could see in the distance as we drove away from the restaurant.

My friend Cluney sent me over some pictures from our meal back in January 2007, and it is clear the food and plating is more refined than on our first visit.

View toward Le Barroux Castle

Le Four À Chaux Restaurant
2253 Avenue Charles de Gaulle
84330 Caromb
Tel: 04 90 62 40 10
Website: www.lefourachaux.com

A very pleasant trip down memory lane. We will be back again before so many years. Have a great week.

Ménerbes, Peter Mayle's First Village in Provence

I fell in love with France, or at least a tiny part of it, during childhood trips to the Metairie Neuve, the family farm located near Viane Pierre-Segade, a small hamlet about 15 km from Lacaune in the southeast department of Tarn in the Midi-Pyrenees region of France.

It wasn't until quite a few years later that I discovered and began a love affair with Provence and began to dream about owning a home there through the pages of Peter Mayle's charming book, "A Year In Provence" and his other books that followed.

If you don't know, "A Year in Provence," describes Provence, its culture and the people Mayle, a retired advertising executive, meets after he and his wife leave London, buy a stone farmhouse in a Luberon village, fix it up, and adopt the region as their new home.

The village where Mayle and his wife settled was Ménerbes, a small walled village perched on the top of a long ridge of the north face of the Luberon. Ménerbes is classified as one of the Plus Beaux Villages of France.

One day last spring, wife Shirley and friend Kari and I drove from Sablet to Ménerbes to visit Peter Mayle's village (I should mention that the Mayle's don't live there anymore). Here are a few pictures from our visit to Ménerbes that day.

Ménerbes

The city of Ménerbes and its citadel were the site of a major battle between Huguenots and Catholics, called the Siege de Ménerbes, which lasted from 1573 to 1578 during the French Wars of Religion. The Protestants finally agreed to negotiations, apparently because of a lack of drinking water, surrendering on December 9, 1578 to a "glorious capitulation."

Ménerbes

Narrow streets wind up and down between lovely old buildings.

Ménerbes Street

Pretty Ménerbes House

Ménerbes House

Saint-Blaise Chapel was built in 1734 by the Brotherhood of Pénitents Blanc. During the Revolution, it served as a gathering place for the Republicans and its façade was very damaged. Today, it serves as a place of worship during the winter.

Saint-Blaise Chapel

Ménerbes village street, looking southeast

Ménerbes Iron Cross and Fountain

At Place de l'Horloge at the top of Ménerbes is the Maison de la Truffe et du Vin (House of Truffles and Wine) in a beautifully restored, grand village house. There you can find out all about the truffles and wines of the region, as well as take wine appreciation courses in the summer.

Maison de la Truffe et du Vin (House of truffles and wine)

Monument honoring the bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1789

Ménerbes Town Hall

The clock tower and wrought-iron campanile at Place de l'Horloge were built in the 15th century. Through the arch, there is a magnificent view out across the plains with several villages visible.

Ménerbes town hall with its wrought-iron "campanile"

Ménerbes Town Hall

Saint-Luc Church was built in the 16th century on the foundation of Saint-Sauveur Church. It is currently undergoing renovation.

Saint-Luc Church

Iron Cross

Gated Entrance to Ménerbes Home

Looking back towards Clock Tower at Place de l'Horloge in Ménerbes

Ménerbes' ancient fortified wall and round tower

If you go to Ménerbes, you might want to stop by the Musée du Tire-Bouchon (Cork Screw Museum) at La Citadelle winery about 1 km outside Ménerbes on the road to Cavaillon. The museum displays 1000 cork screws from the 17th century to today.

I think the Mayles were attracted to Ménerbes more for the house and the surrounding area rather than the village itself. While Ménerbes and the surrounding area are very pretty, there is not much life in the village as far as we could see.

Have a great week. Chat soon.

A Wonderful Visit to Marseille and Lunch at La Boîte à Sardine

We have flown in and out of the Marseille Provence Airport and shopped at the nearby IKEA quite a few times. However, we have only visited Marseille twice despite its proximity to Sablet and I have two cousins that live there and as I told you here, my father lived there when he was young.

I have felt we were missing out by not going to Marseille so I had been looking at articles about Marseille, especially those that talked about the best places to eat there. Last spring, there was an article in Saveur Magazine entitled "City by the Sea" by Alexander Lobrano that got my taste buds going for a visit to Marseille.

So when we got to Sablet last spring, one of the first things I did was call cousin Ginette who lives in Marseille and cousin Annick who lives near Aix-en-Provence but knows and loves Marseille to set up a date to visit Marseille.

Marseille was founded by the Phoceans (from the Greek city of Phocaea, now Foça, in modern Turkey) in 600BC and is one of the oldest cities in Europe. The town is a far cry from the Cézanne paintings and Provençal clichés of sleepy villages, "pétanque" players and Marcel Pagnol novels.

With around one million inhabitants, Marseille is the second largest city in France in terms of population and the largest in terms of area. The people of Marseille have varying ethnic backgrounds, with a lot of Italians and Spanish having immigrated to the area after the second world war. Currently, over one third of the population of Marseille can trace their roots back to Italy.

We decided to visit sites that we had not visited on our previous visit when we toured the Le Panier District of Marseille and climbed up to Notre Dame de la Garde Cathedral. L’Opéra de Marseille, known today as the Opéra Municipal, is the opera company located in Marseille. In 1685, the city was the second in France after Bordeaux to have an opera house which was erected on a tennis court.

The present day opera house, the Opéra Municipal de Marseille, dates from its opening on December 4, 1924. It seats 1,800. It features a classic urn-shaped auditorium, three rings of boxes, two balconies and a gallery.

Municipal Opera House

Toussaint Blaize founded this Herboristerie (translates "herbalism") for the practice of herbal medicine in 1815. This boutique has been run by six generations of the Blaize family at this location since then. It is one of the oldest shops in Marseille.

Blaize Herboristerie

This marvelous statue of a giraffe and its baby is right on La Canebière, the main street of Marseille. It commemorates the arrival in the city in 1826 of a giraffe given as a gift to King Charles X by Egypt's Mohammed Ali.

Statue of a giraffe and its baby on La Canebière

Saint Vincent de Paul Church in Marseille is also called the L'Église des Réformés. It is located at the north end of la Canebière, Marseille's most famous street.

Saint Vincent de Paul Church

The monument aux Mobilisés was built on La Canébière in 1894 in memory of the Marseille soldiers who died during the 1870 war.

Monument des Mobiles (1894) War Memorial on La Canébière

I always try to choose an excellent place to eat when we go visit a new town or village. About the same time his article about Marseille appeared in Saveur Magazine, Alexander Lobrano wrote a piece for his blog where he said about La Boîte à Sardine that "There’s simply no better place in this port town to get a really good reasonably priced feed of just-out-of-the-water seafood." That was high praise for me, so we reserved there for lunch.

La Boîte à Sardine Restaurant

Sardine cans from around the world

A menu board at La Boîte à Sardine Restaurant

Another menu board at La Boîte à Sardine

A starter of deep fried artichokes

Since this day was about being with family and eating fresh seafood, I didn't take a lot of pictures or write too many notes. Please forgive me.

Shirley and I with the cousins at La Boîte à Sardine

Our friend Kari was with us for the visit to Marseille and she ordered fish and chips. We were all quite shocked to see the "fish" was whole deep fried fish, not pieces like we get in the USA. It reminded me of the scene in the movie "A Good Year" where Max who is played by Russell Crowe tells some rude American diners "MacDonalds is in Avignon, fish and chips in Marseille. Allez."

Fish and Chips

Shirley and I shared a whole roasted fish. It was fresh out of the water and perfectly cooked and served with fried polenta and ratatouille.

Whole fish with fried polenta and ratatouille

We are trying to set a date for a return during this visit to Sablet. Stay tuned, I will let you know in a future post if we were able to make it happen or not.

Shirley and I with cousin Annick

A café in Marseille

The Savonnerie Marseillaise de la Licorne has been making soap for more than 100 years in this location. The soap is made from a combination of oil and soda and then boiled before honey, lemon, lavender and other ingredients are added which give the soap great aroma. We bought several and they smell great.

Savonnerie Marseillaise de la Licorne

Apartments and shops near a Marseille water park

Bright colored café

Marseille street

Marseille street

Lots of colorful graffiti in Marseille

A square in Marseille

Fort Saint-Jean is a fortification in Marseille, built in 1660 by Louis XIV at the entrance to the Old Port. Since 2013 it is linked by two bridges to the Le Panier district and to the first French national museum to be located outside Paris; called Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée.

Fort Saint-Jean overlooks the Old Port

The Four des Navettes is the oldest bakery in Marseilles, located on the Voie Sacrée (sacred way) leading to the Saint Victor Abbey. It belongs to Master Baker Jean-Claude Imbert and his son Nicolas.

The secret of the Four des Navette recipe has been jealously guarded for more than 200 years. Three different families have owned it since it first opened in 1781 and have kept the know-how to themselves, handing it down from one generation to the next.

The vaulted oven, built at the end of the 18th century is still in use today and helps to provide the quality of the navettes - which is all it’s used for.

Four des Navettes

The octave of Candlemas begins on February 2, at 5am, with the procession of the Black Virgin. The procession starts on the Quai des Belges and proceeds to Saint Victor's Abbey. In front of the Abbey, the Archbishop, in the presence of the Mayor, gives the blessing of the city, the sea, the Abbey's green candles, and the Candlemas' Solemn Mass is celebrated.

At 8am, the Archbishop comes to the Four des Navettes to bless the oven and the navettes! Tradition says that you keep a navette which has been blessed by the Archbishop along with a green candle until the next Candlemas to bring happiness to your family. A year later, you burn the candle and eat the navette, because they keep for a whole year!

In case you don't know, navettes are a cylindrical sweet-pastry from Marseilles with a "fleur d'oranger" flavor. It's baked without yeast in the shape of a boat (navette), an oval 7-8 cm long with the ends tapered in sharply,

Inside Four des Navettes

Saint Victor Abbey was built in the 5th century on the burial place of Saint Victor, a Roman martyr who had died two centuries previously. The abbey was destroyed several times over the years, until being fortified by Pope Urban V in the 14th century.

Abbaye de Saint Victor (Saint Victor Abbey)

The Monument aux morts de l'Armée d'Orient by Antoine Sartorio stands on a rocky promontory on Marseille's seafront and remembers all those Frenchmen who gave their lives during the 1914-1918 war fighting overseas particularly in the Far East.

The center of the arch has a carving of a crescent and a star. Sculptures of air force personnel and soldiers stand on one side of the arch together with a winged angel whilst on the other side is another winged angel and on a pedestal in the center of the arch is a bronze "angel of victory" her arms lifted to the skies. A stairway leading down to the sea completes the memorial.

As I told you here, this monument is near the Vallon des Auffes and a very good restaurant for bouillabaisse called Fonfon.

Monument aux Morts de l'Armée d'Orient et des Terres Lointaines

If you go to Marseille and love fresh, perfectly cooked seafood, don't hesitate to go to La Boîte à Sardine. Don't take my word for it, listen to Alexander Lobrano.

La Boîte à Sardine Restaurant
2 Boulevard de la Libération
13001 Marseille
Website: www.laboiteasardine.com
Tel: 04 91 50 95 95