Tuesday morning at the Vaison-la-Romaine weekly market, our favorite time in the week

We plan our days in Sablet around the Tuesday morning market in Vaison-la-Romaine. Tuesday mornings, rain or shine, always finds us leaving the house early for the trip to Vaison-la-Romaine.

If you don't know, Vaison-la-Romaine is a quick 6 mile trip down a winding road and then left around the round-about across the Ouvèze River. Vaison-la-Romaine is divided by the Ouvèze River into two parts; on the left bank is the old medieval town with the Castle of the Counts of Toulouse at the highest point shown in the photograph below and on the right bank is the ancient Roman colony and modern town.

We try to get to the market shortly after 8:30 in the morning. Yes, I know it is early to be out and about while you are on vacation. But take my advice, it will be much easier to find parking. By 10:00, it will be difficult to find any parking, let alone a convenient spot close to the market area.

Also, by 10:00, the streets will be crowded with people trying to make their way through the market and it's not so much fun in my opinion. So we get through the market and retire to one of the Cafés that line Place Montfort for a petit Café, hopefully with friends.

Vaison-la-Romaine medieval upper town

After we park, usually near Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth Cathedral, we walk along the north side of the Cathedral past a very large field of Roman ruins which border the path to the main market area. I am embarrassed to say we don't give much more thought to these ruins as we walk pass them than we do to walking past houses in our California neighborhood.

Path to market area along La Villasse ruins

What makes these Roman ruins unique in my opinion is that they are ruins of a village with streets and shops and houses, rather than individual ruins like the Arena in Nîmes or at the Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct bridge built in the first century AD, so you get a sense of the overall layout of the town.

La Villasse

The Roman ruins in Vaison-la-Romaine are spread over two sites; Puymin adjacent to the Office of Tourism with its Musée Théo Desplans (museum) and Théâtre Antique (Roman theater) built in the first century AD and La Villasse which we pass on our walk up to the market.

These are ruins of shops along the central street of La Villasse. The Romans were very practical and built one street for chariots and a parallel footpath for pedestrians covered by a portico (many of the columns remain in place) to shelter the stalls and people from the sun and bad weather.

La Villasse

Public bath in La Villasse

One of the best things about owning or renting a house in Provence, in my opinion, is the chance to cook some of the amazing produce, seafood, cheese and meats you find at the various weekly markets as you travel around Provence. And let me tell you, the weekly market in Vaison-la-Romaine is one of the biggest and best.

By contrast when you stay in a hotel or similar accommodation, you will walk through markets, and look, sniff and drool about the possibilities that lie before you on those artfully displayed tables. You will undoubtedly buy a few things for a snack or picnic, but you won't experience the satisfaction that comes from eating a home-cooked meal on your terrace with ingredients bought at that's morning market.

Cours Taulignan in Vaison-la-Romaine

The weekly market is a kaleidoscope of colors and smells of Provence with up to 450 vendors in the summer (pottery, arts and crafts, food stalls of all kinds, local fruits and vegetables, linens, soap, regional specialties, clothing) and spreads out over Place Montfort, the main square in the center of town and nearby streets.

Most of the fish, meat, cheese, fruit and vegetable sellers set up their stands on Cours Taulignan or on one of the cross streets. The market is an ancient tradition dating all the way back to 1483.

The photographs which follow show a few of the offerings on display when we were at the market last fall. To confirm the obvious, the offerings at the market change from season to season, ensuring that you have the freshest and most seasonal ingredients to cook.

Garlic strings from the Tarn

There are several vendors selling olives and tapenades

Even though it was October, we were able to find some nice fresh, tasty tomatoes, that were the base for several salads during our sejour in Sablet.

Last of the season's tomatoes

Olive oils and tapenades

Fresh Cèpes, Porcinis or by whatever name you call them are delicious. Don't touch!

Other varieties of mushrooms

Figs and prunes

Fennel, Eggplants and Peppers

Several cheese vendors set up shop at the market every week. Full disclosure, I don't buy from any of them since I am partial to the cheese that Josiane Deal sells at her wonderful shop called Lou Canesteou just a few steps away on Rue Raspail off Place Montfort, the town's main square.

Freshly-made artisan cheese

Our favorite fishmonger. He also comes to Sablet on Friday mornings

There are a number of butchers you can check out

You have to have spices for cooking. In Provence, spices are not sold in the market in little jars or packages. Buy only what you are going to use for a week or two as there is no reason to use stale spices since you don't have to buy a jar which might last 6 months or more.

Spices are displayed, uncovered, on tables like these and sold in sachets based on how much you want

There are olive groves every where so it is not surprising that there are kitchen utensils and dishes made from olive wood for sale in the market.

Utensils made from olive wood

Hand painted images of the Provence countryside. If you have been to our house, you will probably recognize the artist.

If you want to learn to cook some typical Provençal dishes from seasonal ingredients at the market, I recommend you contact our friend Barbara. Barbara is a contemporary art critic turned chef/cooking instructor at Cuisine de Provence cooking school she runs out of her beautiful home in Vaison-la-Romaine. Quite a few of our guests have taken classes and so have I and she is recommended in Rick Steves' guide to "Provence and the French Riviera".

If you have comments or questions about Vaison-la-Romaine, or elsewhere in Provence, please leave your comments below or send me an email at my address below.

If you are thinking about a trip to the South of France including spending time in Provence, we invite you to visit our website. Our house is available for rent by the week or more. We still have some weeks open in April, June, last part of July and August. You can reach us for further information by sending an email to chcmichel@aol.com.

Learn to Cook at Cuisine de Provence

We have just returned from a wonderful time in Sablet. Windsor neighbors Ed and Gwen and Bob and Darlene traveled with us. We were on the go every day but spent most evenings at home. We took day trips, hiked through villages, visited with French family, shopped the markets, caught up with friends and ate a lot of great food accompanied by excellent wines and of course took lots of pictures.

We were very pleased some years back when a fellow blogger invited us for aperitifs at the beautiful home she shares with her husband Robert in nearby Vaison-la-Romaine. I met Barbara Schurenberg through her wonderful Cuisine de Provence blog where she wrote about food and life in Provence. While she is no longer writing new posts, you can still read all of the posts she wrote over the 5 plus years she maintained the blog.

Barbara is a contemporary art critic turned chef/cooking instructor at the Cuisine de Provence cooking school she runs out of her home. While quite a few of our guests have taken classes and she is recommended in Rick Steves' guide to "Provence and the French Riviera" I had never taken a class myself.

While Barbara doesn't normally offer classes during February and March, I emailed her to see if she would be willing to do a class for my friends and me. She said absolutely yes, but that it would have to be limited to 3 people since it was still cold, we couldn't work outside and her kitchen can only accommodate she and 3 students.

After chatting with our friends during our planning get together for our trip to Sablet, we decided that Ed, Darlene and I, the true foodies of the group, would take the class and Shirley would lead Gwen and Bob on a hike from Gigondas to the top of the Dentelles de Montmirail.

Shirley dropped us off at 9:30 and headed off to Gigondas. The foodies walked up to the house where we were greeted by Barbara and Robert. After chatting a few minutes, Barbara presented each of us with a personalized Cuisine de Provence apron and packet of six recipes we were going to be cooking that day.

Cuisine de Provence's Barbara Schurenberg

We were each assigned various tasks to perform as Barbara guided us through the menu of dishes we were going to prepare that day.

Our instructor Barbara Schuerenberg and students Darlene Brown and Ed Kinney

We started with the tapenade since it was going to be used in a second recipe. Tapenade is a Provençal dish consisting of puréed or finely chopped olives, anchovies, olive oil and other ingredients. It is a popular dish in Provence, where it is generally eaten as an hors d'œuvre spread on bread, but it is also used as a component for other dishes. Barbara's recipe includes black and green olives and sun dried tomatoes.

Tapenade

The next recipe we tackled was Mini Onion Tarte Tatins. Tarte Tatin is an upside-down tart, historically made with butter, sugar, apples and a pastry crust — but it doesn’t have to be. Creative cooks like Barbara have found interesting ways to reinvent the classic French dish with vegetables instead of fruit, making what was once a sweet treat a savory indulgence such as the onion Tarte Tatins we were making that day.

Mini Onion Tarte Tatins

The Tomato Puff recipe consisted of slightly caramelized cherry tomatoes, puff pastry and the tapenade we had made earlier. I was assigned responsibility for assembling the Tomato Puffs. Barbara warned us that you have to really indent the puff pastry or the tapenade will slide off when the puff pastry rises during baking. I didn't indent the puff pastry enough for the tapenade and sure enough some slid off during baking.

Tomato Puffs

A Tian is an earthenware vessel of Provence used both for cooking and serving. It is also the name of the dish prepared in it and baked in an oven. The next dish that we made with Barbara was a Lamb Tian. Her recipe included sliced onions, herbs de Provence, diced zucchini, cubed lamb, and tomato sauce mixed together and topped with slices of fresh tomato in the Tian, which is baked in the oven. It smelled wonderful and tasted even better.

Lamb Tian

For dessert, Barbara taught us how to make a raspberry clafoutis. Clafoutis is a baked dessert of fruit, often cherries, arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. The clafoutis is dusted with powdered sugar and served lukewarm. The clafoutis comes from the Limousin region of France, and while black cherries are traditional, there are numerous variations using other fruits, including raspberries like Barbara's recipe.

Clafoutis aux Framboises

While dishes were finishing in the oven, Barbara invited us to sit in her beautiful parlor and enjoy some wine and the hors d'oeuvres we had made together under her guidance. After nibbling on the Mini Onion Tarte Tatins and Tomato Puffs between sips of white wine, we moved to the dining room.

Students enjoying l'apero in Barbara's beautiful home

There we found a long table set with a bowl of the bright yellow Velouté de Butternut soup we had made at the beginning of our class. The term velouté is from the French adjective form of velour, meaning velvet, which is how the soup felt in the mouth and can also refer to one of the five sauces of French cuisine that were designated the "mother sauces" by Auguste Escoffier in the 19th century. Barbara's recipe included a roasted head of garlic.

Beautifully set table with bowls of Velouté de Butternut

By the time we finished our delicious meal and petit cafes, it was 2:00 and the door bell rang signaling that Shirley and the other hikers were back to pick us up. The class with Barbara was a thoroughly delightful and delicious experience and I understand why our guests give her rave reviews.

The "foodies" are planning to replicate this meal for the Vanessa Court neighbors who were not along with us for our trip to Provence. It won't be the same without our gracious instructor and hostess but I am sure the food will be delicious.

If you like to cook and are interested in learning how to make some traditional Provencal dishes, reserve a cooking date at Cuisine de Provence. I am sure that during the summer when she has access to her kitchen garden and the class can move outdoors, it is even more special.

Thank you Barbara for making time for us to come and cook with you. It was a very special experience. If you want to schedule a class, here is her contact information:

Barbara Schurenberg
www.cuisinedeprovence.com
Tel: 011 33 4 90 35 68 43
cuisinedeprovence@gmail.com