The other night we decided to get a roasted chicken from our local butcher for dinner since we had had lunch with Cindy’s tutor and wanted to eat in. (Lunch was wonderful but I was exhausted trying to speak and understand French for ninety minutes.) We stopped by the butcher and placed our order and said we would be back in an hour and proceeded to take our late afternoon walk on the Promenade, which was bathed in pink light from the setting sun. As we approached our local bar for an aperitif, Sylvie, the owner, was outside cleaning tables so we told her we would be right back but first needed to get some cheese from our cheese lady. Somehow she thought we had never been there before and took Cindy by the hand and walked into the cheese shop, which was filled with customers, and announced to Valerie the cheese lady that we were her friends from Washington and that Valerie needed to take good care of us. Valerie and her husband George just laughed since we had been going to them for more than four years and knew them two years before Sylvie and her husband Fabrice had even purchased the bar! Everyone in the cheese shop clapped after the introduction and the whole situation was rather hysterical. Later during aperitifs, we told Sylvie the story and she just laughed and laughed, but oh how loved we felt.
When we left Sylvie’s we went to the butcher - all of these shops are right next to one another - and picked up the chicken. These are fermier Label Rouge, which means they are farm raised and of the highest quality. They cost more but they are bigger and juicier and the taste is divine. I got a celery root salad with mustard sauce and a shredded carrot salad with lemon, as well as a small piece of paté (which they make daily, bien sûr). We had already picked up a hot baguette and two small tarts - one lemon and the other raspberry - and happily headed home for our feast. See why we love this place?!
Buns and burgers, an observation by Cindy
The French, for all their gastronomic expertise, really have no idea what is meant by burgers and buns. The other day I ordered a “veggie burger” with burrata and arugula, and even though I was dying to ask the server what the burger consisted of I decided to just wait and see. Good thing I didn’t ask, because there WAS no burger and I’m sure I would have gone in circles with the waiter for about a week, neither of us understanding the other in either English or French. As it happened we were eating with a French friend who does not speak much English and who has barely been to the U.S., and it took me a very long time to explain to her that a burger had to consist of SOMETHING - beef or chicken or soybeans or whatever - formed into a disk. It then occurred to me that in France they use the term “burger” the way Americans use the term “martini” - anything in a martini glass can be called a martini. Oh dear, don’t get me started, I detest that practice because the only modifier (in terms of ingredients) that can possibly be applied to a martini is vodka. You order a martini and that means gin with dry vermouth, period, but I’ll make an exception for a vodka martini! Back to the burgers - in France apparently it’s a burger if it has a bun. Good to know!
Back to Wm: I went to two - count them two - museums in two days; I’m reeling! They were in fact really cool and it was my idea to go to the first one since I had seen lots of posters for it on the Promenade. It was at the Museé Massena, an old mansion built by the Viceroy of Savona that is very stately, somewhat like Bruce Manor. The exhibit was about Jean Gilletta, who from 1870 until 1930 photographed almost all of the Côte d’Azur. It was really a wonderful display coupled with lots of history and explanation in both French and English. It truly added to our understanding of Nice and answered one of my constant questions: Why isn’t the Nice Carnival connected to Lent? Turns out, Nice has always been a rather free thinking place and tolerated all religions and beliefs, which is why there are Russian Orthodox churches, Jewish Synagogues, Muslim Mosques and all manner of Christian Churches here. In 1873 the equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce decided that in order to draw more tourists to Nice they needed to schedule events at the same time year after year so that visitors could plan in advance. Since Lent varies every year, they decided to have Carnival start on the second Saturday of February regardless of when Lent falls. It has worked wonderfully for them!
Our ticket for this museum entitled us to visit ten other museums within 24 hours, so the next morning we walked to the Old Town and visited the Palais Lascaris, which as the name implies was the palace of the Lascaris family and is a real beauty, tucked way in the warren of old buildings - you can walk by it without ever knowing what it really is. It is four stories of marvelous rooms, whose ceilings are jaw-droppingly beautiful frescos depicting all kinds of religious and mythological events. It also houses France’s second largest collection of antique instruments. Really a lot of fun to just wander around and look and listen ... yes they pipe in music from the period instruments in each room.
It is now one week and counting before we fly to Paris for the night and then head home on the 19th. We have a list of restaurants we must go to before departing and we are up to the challenge. Toute à l’heure. Cindy and Wm
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