France. 

You may have heard of it. 

That cheese, that wine, that Gallic shrug. 

Little known France fact, the country is also the land of my mother’s mother’s family, stretching back to the 1600s (according to my cousin Laurent who made a redwood of a family tree). Since I lived in Belgium when I was small, I have spotty memories of France, mostly my grandparents trying to get me to speak in English which they found charming and me saying “carrot” (which is the same in English and French) because apparently it was important to obstreperous young me that I correct the record on that whole “charming” thing. 

As a young adult, I kicked off my backpacking-through-Europe-tour with two weeks in Paris, visiting family with my mother. By this time, all my French had been forgotten and the only language at my disposal were ludicrous phrases I picked up from Rick Steve’s essential phrasebooks (which are amazing by the way, I brought my 30-year-old-copy of the French/German/Italian phrasebook, worn from the confines of my backpack, to Italy this year just in case and wow was it helpful in Switzerland). 

While bunking with my mother in our attic room of my grandparents country house in Maintenon, I’d widen my eyes, the very soul of innocence, and lift my arms in supplication while asking “Est-ce que quelqu'un a péter?” Did somebody fart? This never failed to make my otherwise composed mother dissolve into peals of helpless laughter. At least my mother finds me charming. 

During those two weeks with my mom in Paris, we walked all over the city. I confess I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I should have. History sort of bored me back then (the horror) and I wasn’t super into food (the HORROR). It felt more of a reconnecting with family thing, which was good enough for me. I remember falling asleep to a murmur of voices in the kitchen, and hearing a phrase repeated, over and over, le petite fille. And realizing with a start that the words must translate to “the little girl” and that that little girl was me. The one about to set out on a solo transcontinental journey, a pack slung across my shoulders and nothing but a phrasebook with expression like “What’s cheap and filling?” to serve as armor and connection to the world at large. 

But no… I got it. It fit. 

Le petite fille. 

I kind of liked it, I realized as I drowsed into a jet-lag induced slumber.

I also remember mealtimes at my grandparents table. I might not have been into food, but still, I couldn’t help but notice that my grandmother, or step-kinda-half-grandmother (that’s a story for another day), made a tastebud-defying rhubarb jam. Even her salad dressing made me sit back and stare in wonderment. I asked her what was in it and she shrugged, just oil and vinegar and mustard. And something else clearly, its satisfying creaminess hugged each piece of lettuce, making salad suddenly worthy of being a meal if anyone would let me. 

Not that they would. Everyone studied my plate with astonishing concentration, my grandfather whipping the baguette out of my hand in frustration at my shoddy butter application. He scooped up three times the amount of butter I’d already spread on my bread, lovingly stretching it to blanket the surface. Hunched away from me before I could grab my bread back he spooned on what seemed a ladleful of the rhubarb jam he’d realized was my favorite, turning my bread and jam into a decadent pastry. 

Perhaps in the absence of a common language, food became our way to communicate. On the first day I expressed delight at the Mobier cheese with its redolent, fruity, funkiness and whimsical layer of ash to divide the morning milk and evening milk. Yes, my mother is French, but back in the States in the 1980’s our access to French cheese was limited. She picked up brie when she found one at the grocery store, but it wasn’t all that often, much to my dismay. When she did locate a wedge, I became quite the popular kid in the movie theaters with my chunk of San Francisco sourdough slathered with a generous portion of soft and stinky cheese. Who needs popcorn?

In any case, after my reaching for seconds of the Mobier on day one, it showed up on our cheeseboard every day following. Without fail. Apparently the petite fille requires Mobier. I can’t eat it now without smiling at the remembrance.

Dinners with the grandparents meant the four of us huddled over a tiny table in their tiny apartment in the 14th (aside from that long weekend in the country), my attention span drifting here and there, catching on a word when I could make one out but more often just catching frissons of emotion when they entered the conversation. I particularly liked the few nights when the TV was on. How entertaining to watch my grandfather watch a horse race while tucking into a plate of horse meat tartare, a raw egg quivering on the red (and to my at-the-time vegetarian sensibilities, disgusting) pile. Or watching his eyes follow the soccer ball as he shouted “allez allez allez!” Or turning from the news to ask us about the Clinton’s cat. I didn’t know the Clintons had a cat. 

I guess this all sums up my feelings about France—a sense of being snug and cared for as gentle waves of melodious French words flow around me and tasty things appear out of nowhere.

Later in my backpacking sojourn, my train stopped in Marseilles. My mother, who had given me few edicts as I took off on my own, nonetheless declared that I was not, under any circumstances, to go to Marseilles—I believe she had a bad experience there as a young woman. So I sat ramrod straight on the train during the stop and waited, holding my breath, until the train rumbled on once again. An elderly gentleman made his way down the aisle, clutching the seat backs for balance until he dropped beside me. 

He lowered his tray and proceeded to take out his meal, chatting with me in confidential asides as he arranged his bread, his cheese, his slices of ham. He didn’t seem bothered that I understood not a word and we passed a few hours in genial chat where neither of us understood anything the other said, but I knew enough not to pass up the cheese when offered. 

Now that I remember, I closed out those months of backpacking back in Paris. A fabulous city to be sure, and certainly worth repeating, but not the greatest when you’re out of money. I wound up my last night at the airport, seeking out a makeshift bed. That’s when I met a Scottish backpacker and we played cards all night, while he ribbed me good-naturedly about how Americans pronounced words like schedule. In the morning, I arrived at the gate hours before my flight because, why not? It’s not like I had anywhere to be and I found myself practically salivating at the promise of airplane peanuts. A white haired gentleman next to me noticed my heavy backpack and struck up a conversation. When he realized I had no money he dashed away, returning with a cup of juice and a croissant. 

France seemed a nation of grandfathers. Grandfathers intent on feeding me.

Thinking back, it’s funny I suppose, that we wound up living in Italy rather than France. All I can say by way of explanation is that when our kids were 2, 6, and 10 we took a scouting trip to France and Italy and we all just felt more ourselves in Italy. Maybe it was because in Italy I didn’t feel like my lack of language was letting anyone down. Or maybe it was the joy of vegetables after a week in Burgundy with none. Or maybe it was because we finally shed our layers of sweaters and scarves, allowing our travel weary skin to soak up the mellow Italian sun. 

Whatever it was, sometimes I wonder how my life would be different now if we’d settled in a French village, where my writing would be peppered with rhapsodic odes to bread and cheese rather than pork and oil. Not better or worse, just, you know…different. Cheesier. Maybe with more jam. With all that, would i, or at least my writing, be more charming? Possibly. A lack of cheese does sometimes make me cranky.

A final note before this obnoxiously long backstory comes to its long awaited close—it occurs to me that on this Italian sojourn, I’ve had occasion to visit all these landmarks from my backpacking trip; all destinations that we had not planned on in our around-the-world grand tour that was thwarted by a certain pandemic we all know and hate. 

Lauterbrunnen, Cinque Terre, and now France. Gabe, after now hearing story after story about my time wandering Europe on my own suggests that I turn the experience into a book. Keith reminds me that I kept scrupulous notes, complete with ticket stubs, pressed flowers, and candy wrappers. it’s the only journal I ever filled. I’m thinking about it, though as you know I have many, many projects in the works (are you signed up for the Grapevine so you can keep up with my travels and books-in-progress?)

Those French memories, my return with my family, the end of our year in Italy, the beginning of a new phase of our lives, it all spun through my mind as we touched down at Bordeaux airport, which bears the distinction of the only airport I’ve visited with grapevines lining the walkways between terminals.

We had plenty of time to admire the grapevines because as soon as we stepped outside we had to dig through our luggage for the sweaters we’d shoved in almost as an afterthought. It’s funny that when it’s 100 degrees with a humidity that frizzes the hair on the nape of your neck within seconds of stepping outside, you almost forget that cool climes exist. 

You particularly don’t dream, even when your compulsive check of the weather app shows temps in the low seventies, that such disparity in weather can exist a mere two-hour flight from Rome.

A two-hour drive and we arrived at Natalye and John’s home in Saint-Sauvant, a hamlet nestled between the grapevines of Saintes and Cognac. it’s a bit hard to explain the utter joy that comes from going from difficult goodbyes made more difficult by not knowing the protocol for pandemic farewells to being pulled into the vaccinated, welcoming arms of friends. The relief at physical contact, of easily passing cheese while leaning over drinks to speak earnestly of small jests and big moments. Of learning that our beloved tradition of aperitivi happens in France under a similar name, apero. 

This visit marked my first to the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Previous visits have included Paris (of course, but also the countryside outside of Paris where we stayed in my grandparents house for a few days of our two week visit), Burgundy as I mentioned, but also Normandy when we lived in Spello 9 years ago, Paris again with my family, the outskirts of Paris, and Provence which Keith and I visited on our own in one of our very few trips alone since having children.

I knew very little about the region, and I quickly realized that it is far more satisfying to visit friends who introduce you to their beloved second home than it is to read a guidebook and make plans based on whatever is in bold type. With friends, you can just sit back and ride the waves of fun and gratitude. It reminded me of all those years ago, staying with my family in France, when I didn’t have to wonder what to make for dinner or where to stop for lunch. Traveling to people is heaps better than traveling to no one.

That first day, the afternoon consisted of a walk through the grapevines to Saint-Sauvant, an utterly charming village, complete with a canal, stone houses flanked by blue shutters and pink roses, and an impressive church vaulted into the sky. Good acoustics in that church, as I happen to know because a couple out walking their dog stopped so the man could sing from the doorway into the church and the notes reverberated through the walls, sending the music out to the village, where we all stopped, stunned at the sudden gift. “Bravo,” I told the man as they passed, hoping that worked in translation.

That night we dined at Les Francs Garçons, owned by friends of our friends. We began with Cognac and Schweppes, which seems to be the local version of the Aperol Spritz. Easy to make, easy to drink, delightful with salty crackers. We sipped and sat back, watching the sky change from periwinkle to violet to indigo behind the deep arch of the church, towering into the night. 

I’ve always loved French dining, with it’s limited number of options per course and, like Italy, the assumption that you’ll be enjoying appetizer, main, and dessert for a culinary parade. Honestly, I might have been satisfied with the bread alone. Yes, we’ve grown quite fond of our humble Umbrian bread, especially as a vehicle for not-so humble Umbrian olive oil, but there is something innately satisfying, almost primal, about a crusty baguette with a thick spread of butter.

Turns out I am my grandfather’s granddaughter.

As we relaxed on the terrace, inhaling the scents wafting from the kitchen (lamb, I was told) and gazed up at the changing sky, I listened as John caught up with his friends, the cadence of French lulling me into a state of contentment. The kind of contentment one has when one feels quite sure that one’s favorite cheese will always be on the table and that their bread will always boast a thick quilt of good butter. Even if one has to do the buttering oneself. I often think that when loved ones pass on, it’s our job to keep them with us by taking care of ourselves the way they would. We nurture ourselves the way we were taught to nurture. I hope somebody nurtured you by buttering your bread, or whatever your regional equivalent is. I know when I reach to tuck into the creamy block of sunshine, I feel my grandfather just here, next to my heart.

The whole meal was exceptional: the steak tartare, the remarkable salad with shaggy pieces of cheese and blistered cantaloupe (a regional wonder). the lamb we’d been smelling, the cheese plate, and oh so many flavors—old wound together with modern twists— that tickled my tastebuds before flitting away in laughter.

Is it any wonder that we giggled and sang and leaned together as we walked through the darkened streets of Saint-Sauvant, full and complete and far more happy than we would have expected having just said goodbye to Italy? The sky did its part, a veritable canopy of stars that after quite a bit of lusciously beautiful Bordeaux seemed to whirl like a Van Gogh painting, brought to life.

Day two found us heading north to Île de Ré, an island just off the coast, which John says is gaining in popularity until it’s now akin to the Cote de Azur, probably due to its easy distance from Paris. Natalye described the island as “biking, seafood, rosé, espadrilles, stripes, and ponies in pajamas”, and well I should hang up my descriptive writing hat and turn the mic to her because she summed it up with just a handful of words. We missed, unfortunately, the native ponies with their unruly hair that must be kept in pants to avoid tangling, but our escapade lilted with the kind of joy that comes from sharing an island with ponies thus attired. It is, you see, the possibility of ponies in pants. 

Any lingering pony regret vanished as we biked past vineyards and sunlit stone walls and salt flats on the left with the tumbling sea on our right. Really, regret seemed a distant, impossible thing. All that’s possible is a kind of giddy wonder and adventure. We parked our bikes outside a restaurant that serves only simple seafood—cracked oysters, steamed crabs sliced neatly in half and arranged on a bed of seaweed, and langoustines (kind of like a shrimp, but with lobster-like claws, akin to our southern crawfish).

We downed platter after platter with the requisite rosé, lifting our chins to catch the sun-warmed sea breezes and enjoying the sight of the pools in arms reach, where oysters were kept until ready to shimmy open. 

After lunch, we biked across the island to a charming village with excellent ice cream (my standards are high, but this was first rate) and then biked back to the rental shop where we dismounted and as a special treat, found more ice cream. Lime and vanilla, salted caramel, red currant, Thai spice…wow….all of it astonishing.

From here we drove to La Rochelle, where Natalye and John strolled to find a promising place for dinner (aren’t they wonderful?), while the rest of us took in La Rochelle’s impressive aquarium. What a satisfying feeling to be admiring the jellyfish and just when your tummies began rumbling to get a text with the address and time of our dinner reservations. Even more satisfying when our walk through La Rochelle introduced us to this bustling, beautiful port town, one that feels lived in and real, not gussied up for guests. 

Dinner offered up not only excellent food (steak frites… what could be better?) but also live music and a vibrant bustle within the gracious walls. The square more than filled the bill of requisite French joie de vivre. Besotted with the La Rochelle, we ambled about for an hour or so after our meal, oblivious to our tired bodies and weary eyes, widened now by the architecture and life all around us.

The next morning we drove to Saintes for their weekly market, nestled sweetly alongside a cathedral. I love Italy, you know I do, but nothing comes close to French markets with their artichokes as big as basketballs (alongside ones as small as goose eggs), intriguing cheese after intriguing cheese, honeycomb dripping with golden syrup, radishes shining like beacons under canopies, tomatoes heavy with sunshine, and loaves of bread as big as my arm but as light as a balloon with a crackling crust that practically spoke to me from my market bag. Plus, fishmongers calling out to announce end-of-the day deals on oysters.

The market terrace sits above the river, and here one can dine on market fresh seafood with a view across the water to Roman ruins. Oysters and salmon rillettes—a spread of flaked salmon mixed with butter and perhaps creme fraiche or sour cream—and shrimp for lunch, graced with a bright rosé, as our purchases leaned against our stools, whispering promises of meals to come… As you’ll quickly realize, particularly if you, like me, are a bivalve fan and so drool a little when oysters are mentioned, oysters became quite the theme on this vacation. 

And it’s funny, I know all about the rule about only eating oysters in months with an “r” (to avoid summer months, when warm water raises the specter of bacteria that require cooking to kill), but turns out that only applies in locations where the oysters home waters grow warm. These oysters, from the Atlantic coast of France were uniformly fabulous, but the ones from this simple market stall left the others far behind. Particularly in concert with the perky salmon rillettes spread on any bread we didn’t eat slathered with butter (raise your hand if you think my grandfather would be proud) and the hot, steamed shrimp dunked in cooling mayonnaise. I feel like I could eat this way forever and never grow bored. 

A stop off at the house to store our market purchases and then we were off to Cognac for a distillery tour. Cognac is, not surprisingly, chockablock with distilleries… so many it can be dizzying to choose. Luckily Natalye and John made the choice easy by offering the information that a tour of Otard included not only information about the castle and about the making of Cognac (with the requisite tasting), but also included historical notes about the city and the region, and their interplay with the making of Cognac. 

It’s a gorgeous castle, complete with a dungeon full of barrels of Cognac. Okay it’s not really a dungeon but with the blackened walls, you’d be forgiven for assuming it to be a place where torture and despair were de rigueur. Until you find out that the dark walls are caused by what’s known as “the angel’s portion”…the Cognac that evaporates from the barrels and flirts with the naturally occurring bacteria on the river side of the castle, creating characteristic black streaks.

So no dungeon, but we did see where prisoners were held on the upper floors…though these prisoners were saved from a worse fate back in the Americas. I suppose lolling about an airy room, carving images of boats and marking the days with hatch marks would be preferable to burning at the stake, wouldn’t you agree?

Our tour ended with a trip to the bar (my kind of tour!). Here, the bartender described the usefulness of Cognac in cocktails. As I’d always thought of it as an after-dinner beverage, my ears perked. With practiced motions, the bartender combined Cognac, French lemonade, and Creme de Peche (a peach liquor), for a summery cocktail (make it at home! Just pour 1.5 parts Cognac, 1 part Creme de Peche or Peach Schnapps, and 4 parts lemonade, shake and pour!). We were invited to come and dip a straw into the cocktail to suck up a sip. Fresh, bright, deep, and earthy,  like the cocktail version of silk on velvet. Yum. This will no doubt be my go-to summer porch drink.

Then to the main barrel room where we learned more about the territory of Cognac and how the spirit is made and stored. We also learned that a not-insignificant portion of their annual production has been purchased by Jay-Z, who, the tour guide offered in an aside, is the husband of Beyonce. 

Oh, that Jay-Z. 

From there, a tasting of three Cognacs of various ages. The cost of the tour varies by the quality of the three Cognacs you choose to taste. When possible, I suggest you indulge here. If you’re like me, you’ll never splurge for a ridiculously expensive bottle of Cognac, so why not have a little taste of it here, where it’s made?

Afterwards we strolled through Cognac, stopping for… you guessed it, more Cognac. Mine this time with Schweppes’s. As our trip coincided with the Cognac Blues festival, we enjoyed live music here and there—a trio sauntering down the road playing, a band set up outside a bar. What a treat!

It was hard to tear ourselves away, but dinner called. In this part of France, tooling around the countryside is akin to weaving a magic spell. Especially at sunset. And especially when the destination is glorious, worn-around-the-edges, lit from within town like Pons. 

Dinner began with apero, as they seem to often do in France (I’m far more used to the Italian custom of going somewhere for a drink in the late afternoon, and the meal comes later… have you ever seen anyone order an Aperol spritz when they sit down to dinner? No, because remember in Italy, cocktails come with snacks, which is the last thing you want when sitting down to a parade of Italian dishes). 

The most memorable part of that dinner (besides the cheese plate which I got everywhere in France and never stopped being akin to wish fulfillment) was Keith’s appetizer of oysters. Yes, that would be his second round that day, but they are all different and all worth sampling and these were served in the local fashion, with a sausage called crepinette. Often referred to as a sausage “parcel”, a crepinette is sausage meat wrapped in caul fat (don’t worry, that melts away in the cooking, leaving a crackling exterior). It seemed strange to find a sausage alongside the oysters but the salinity of the oysters and the fat of the sausage just worked (not to mention the spring of the sausage with the slipperiness of the oysters). This reminded me that I often like my mussels made with chorizo, it’s not that different.

The next day we decided to take it a bit easy. In the morning after breakfast, we hiked alongside a burbling creek to our friends’ favorite potter. Only the knowledge of our heaving suitcases with nary an inch of leftover space kept us from buying out the shop.

My love of pottery began in Deruta and peaked in Cinque Terre and now I’m just smitten with everyday art pieces you can bring to the table, filled with good food, and remember the shop, the ice cream next door, the lovely conversation with a man who turns clay for a living. Impulsively, I decided that my sneakers were too far gone after those five weeks of Swiss hiking and I could easily fit in an extra bowl if I offed footwear in Paris, before the final press of cramming our suitcases.

As amazing as croissants are for breakfast (and even in a tiny French village they are definitely amazing) they don’t fill a belly for long, so after we returned from the potter’s we gathered our picnic supplies and headed for the river. 

We parked alongside the chattering water and carried our supplies through the old milll, now a restaurant that spans from bank to bank. Then we crossed a lively spit of land where people gathered under umbrellas or on squares of sand set aside for sports, finally arriving at our destination, the locks. There we spread out our picnic and tucked in with a right good will.

After lifting our glasses of Champagne blushed with a generous pour of Creme de Peche, we lavishly complimented the goose rillettes (like a pate, but made with meat rather than liver; the woman at the market cautioned us that this one was made with goose, and we cheered in assent, much enamored with goose from our time in Umbria), the unctuous cheeses, the leaves of rosemary-kissed ham, the crisp radishes, and of course the bread.

We lounged and watched boats enter the lock, wait for the river height to equalize, and then depart again. Gabe swam until his little lips turned blue, we soaked up the sun, and the kids meandered to the party spit of land to play badminton.

Really, I could have hung out along the river all day, cooling down with an ice cream or beer from the stand, or maybe sitting back with an apero at the mill restaurant, but we had tickets to the blues festival in Cognac, so we freshened up at the house and then returned to the seat of our Cognac discoveries the day before. 

I’m not actually a blues fan, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it sure wasn’t “Colours in the Street”. The music swept me up immediately and Natalye and I stared agog at each other as the last notes of the first song faded away. She commented that they sounded like Coldplay, an assessment borne out a little while later when Alexandre Poussard said how influenced he was by Chris Martin and sang a Coldplay cover.

Of course, I didn’t understand the French banter (the group sang almost exclusively in English, until the last song, sung in French, greeted by the wild applause), but later John filled me in, also telling me that Poussard began his set by saying that this was his first performance since the pandemic and he confessed to being nervous. And after that first song he grinned at us all and sighed that he’d forgotten the feeling that comes from singing to an audience. 

After the concert, we drove back to the house in the waning light. In preparation for Italy’s Eurocup final, Natalye fixed us Negronis while John prepared mussels with a side of sausage (natch). Our friends aren’t soccer fiends like we are, but they very generously set the table so we could all watch the game as we ate (and shouted, and paced, and shouted some more). 

As you no doubt know, Italy won that game, and while I loved the videos my friends sent me and posted of the celebrations up and down the peninsula that I called home for another year of my life, I wouldn’t have traded this time in France for anything. 

Not only did it provide a much needed buffer between our Italian and US life, but the days of playing in the sunshine, tipping back oysters chased with rosé, and sharing days with people we care about so much, well, those four days are fixed in my heart as a highlight of our year abroad. The moral of the story: Wow, there are so many fabulous corners of this world of ours. Some are filled with soccer and grappa and grilled lamb and some are filled with oysters and croissants and people who fill your wine glass before you know it’s empty. 

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