Another Dreamy Day - 12 April 2011

12th April, 2011 

Today we visited St. Remy, yet another graceful old town with yet more, delicious food. I'm beginning to worry I’m writing a food blog! We arrive in town just before the shops shut for lunch and just in time to visit Florame, a relatively young company, established 20 years ago, which uses ancient methods to extract essential oils from the many plants and flowers native to Provence. 

This copper set of distillers sits in the lobby of the factory in St. Remy 

I first discovered Florame in their tiny boutique in Paris, some 6 years ago and fell in love with their face oil and a bath oil for muscles and joints. For a while they had a U.S. distributor, but no more, so I am happy to come here to the source and stock up on supplies. I’m trying to come to love my aging skin the way I would an old leather bag (I’ve been called worse). So, while I do not believe there is an oil or cream in existence capable of turning back time, I do feel that if certain oils can keep leather supple it’s worth a try on my skin and I load up with enough to last me until we return in September.

Then we begin what is now our customary “nose-meander” in search of lunch and are well rewarded by baked salmon and salad in a sun-drenched garden, before continuing a sleepy amble through the rest of the town. But it was dessert that spoke to Joel!

I always am amazed by the variety of blues the French call "French Blue." Here are two classics.

Salmon and salad are all too familiar no matter how good they are, but dessert, made in house, well.... 

Back in Arles we freshen up before walking to La Gueule du Loup, a tiny restaurant that had caught our attention earlier in the day. This is truly one of those restaurants you heard travelers talk about discovering back in the 60”s. Run by the Allard family it has four tables downstairs bang up against the open kitchen. There are also a handful of tables upstairs, but downstairs is where you want to be in order to watch Jean Jacques Allard work his magic. In the two and half hours we were there we never heard him speak. Wife and daughter would take the orders, pin them up in the kitchen and he would fulfill them in Zen silence, his movements spare and concentrated, every dish a thing of beauty.  Here are ours.

Appetisers

Fois gras on gingerbread with a cognac foam.

Sweetbreads wrapped in eggplant.

Entrees

Rack of lamb cooked to medium-rare perfection, olive

Tapinade, fig reduction, side of ratatouille, smashed potatoes.

Camargue Boulliabase

Like no other I have ever tasted. It had tiny, diced poached carrots
 and celery laid over 3 small potatoes, then 4 fillets 
of Rouget, pan sauted in butter and mounted on top of the vegetables, 
then a cup of intense broth over all.

Jean Jacques making our main courses

Dessert

Reversed Ile Flotant with layers of

Vanilla ice cream

Caramel, Creme Anglaise 

and

Meringue

Vervene Infusion

Followed by a good night’s sleep!