by Janine Marsh
We like to go to the bars where the locals go, like Le Victor Hugo where Madame has an automatic snack dispenser, perfect to go with aperitifs. When she first got the dispenser, it caused something of a stir and was talked about in villages for miles around. Another favourite is the skinny Café Vert in rue Pierre Ledent. Its slightly gone-to-seed décor offers a taste of a France that hasn’t changed for years. Rickety old barstools teeter on a beer-stained floor and lean precariously against the tatty wooden bar. A dreadlocked barman and a barmaid who sometimes sports a pirate-like patch serve the locals, who cunningly avoid the barstools and sit on the uncomfortable benches and chairs at small wooden tables when not playing on the old Le Foot table. With hardly any room on the pavement outside, a couple of plastic garden chairs are squeezed up against the wall so that regulars can sit à la terrasse and watch the cars go by, clattering over the cobbles. It’s friendly and authentic, and they make a robust kir.
These bars are not the reason that this place is a gastronomic wonderland. There’s a superb Saturday morning market and the buzzing restaurant scene includes some serious players, with two-Michelin-star chef Alexandre Gauthier leading the way at his restaurant La Grenouillère. Parisians come here for a genteel country break and celebrities such as Hugh Grant are lured by its gourmet reputation. You can get the most delicious flammekueche at Le Caveau, a quintessential brasserie in the town square, and for nights when only a takeaway will do, there’s even a terrific kebab shop, which in these parts is a rarity. Throw in Fromagerie Caseus (the shop that provided the cheese for our New Year’s Eve spread) and Gremont, where they make delectable cakes and a huge loaf of bread named a Valjean (in honour of Monsieur Hugo), which you can buy by the slice, and you’ll completely understand why a town with only around two thousand inhabitants is making gastronomic waves.
Although we were there for the antiques market that day, I couldn’t resist buying a string of the most incredibly pungent smoked garlic. The aroma accompanied me from stall to stall, earning me a smile from sellers and a bit of extra bargaining power. The streets were flooded with happy families strolling and browsing for treasure, though I was under strict instructions from Mark not to buy anything too big as the town was closed to traffic for the antiques market and we had been forced to park outside the centre. We joined a trickle of people trudging up into the upper town, dragging behind them all manner of carts and trolleys to be filled – a veritable pilgrimage.
It’s easy to get carried away here. There’s something to suit all tastes and the prices often seem more reasonable if the goods are spread out over the sun-baked cobbles. Professional dealers and treasure hunters wander the streets, bartering and bargaining. If you’re looking for a vintage top hat, a gorgeous armoire, a cast-iron Godin wood or coal fire, swish and swanky or battered and tatty – whatever type of antique you seek – you’re likely to find it here alongside all manner of things. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a flea market and not found something with which to fall in love, and the Montreuil antiques market is full of temptations.
I spotted an enormous clockface, possibly from a local clocktower, which was taller than Mark. ‘Absolutely not,’ said Mark hastily. ‘I can’t get that in the car or the van.’ Next, a life-sized marble bust of a Marie Antoinette lookalike caught my attention. Mark rolled his eyes. The silver zinc 1930s wood oven got the same reaction. But when we got to a stall selling vintage cutlery, china, chef’s hats, chef jackets, copper pans and tableware glinting in the sun – we were both hooked. It often feels like absolutely everyone we meet in France is either an excellent cook, a great cook or a good cook. Some of the dishes that my neighbours make wouldn’t be out of place on a table in a fine restaurant in London. Even I have improved thanks to help from Constance, who on her visits from Lille will often invite me in to help her knead, bake, steam or mix something delicious.
The stallholder was portly and red-faced, sporting a toque with his chef’s jacket undone (the buttons were never going to rendezvous). He sniffed the air as we looked over his stall. ‘Mm, garlic,’ he exclaimed. ‘I see you have good taste. You are a cook, of course.’
‘Erm no, I’m British and I’m learning to cook but I’m not very good. My friends here call me “flop chef, not top chef ”,’ I said.
‘Oh, là là,’ he replied, pushing his hat back to take a better look at me. ‘Have you tried cooking with the right tools? It really does help,’ he said pointedly as he spread his arms wide over the stall to indicate his wares. Once a Frenchman starts to get carried away about his topic, it’s hard to stop him. With chop-busting gusto, he began to wax lyrical about the great hotels and top restaurants he supplied, how his tableware could help to increase enjoyment because the food could look so good in it, how his copper pans were essential to make good jam and, importantly, that dressing the part made for better performance. A crowd gathered around us, old ladies nodding in agreement, leaning over to lift pans, jugs and chopping boards. At the end of his speech he had a queue of customers; and I had a chef’s jacket, Mark had a hat which made him look about seven-foot tall, and we had a set of measuring jugs ‘which every French woman has and knows it is the secret to good cooking’, along with a miniature silver table sweeper. The wily salesman threw in a wooden butter pat (that’s never going to be used) for good measure, shook our hands, plunged his nose into the bag of garlic, sighed deeply with happiness and turned to serve the rest of his customers.
At the end of the day, we watched the Bastille Day fireworks fly off the ramparts. In the main square, a band played jazz manouche music. In our ringside seats at a café on the square we listened to the classic sound of France in the warm air, guaranteed to make you feel relaxed as you sip a glass of wine.
After the month we’d had, it was good to feel like we were getting back to normal.
AUGUST
Half full, or half empty?
‘I SUPPOSE IT will be raining when we come to yours,’ said my friend Suzanne on the phone. She sounded distinctly underwhelmed. ‘We might have a few showers,’ I concurred.
When people talk of Pas-de-Calais and don’t live here, the first thing they always say is, ‘Doesn’t it rain a lot?’ When I visit the south of France and tell people where I live, I get looks of sympathy, followed by confusion. ‘But why would you live in the north? It pours all the time!’ they protest.
‘Should I bring books and boardgames?’ said Suzanne.
‘Why would you do that?’ I asked, nonplussed.
‘Well, something to do when it rains? Bobby doesn’t like to be bored.’ Bobby is her husband. I knew Suzanne from the days when we had worked in a bank together and I hadn’t seen her for at least five years, during which time she’d met and married Bobby, a senior equity trader. We regularly emailed each other and she’d asked if they could stay for a few days en route to their rented holiday villa near Nice.
‘For one, it doesn’t rain that much,’ I assured her, ‘and even if it does, there’s loads to do. For starters there are more museums in this region than any other, apart from Île de France of course, which has Paris.’ She told me that they would dress appropriately. ‘I’ve read your book,’ she said. ‘We know what to expect.’
We were still reeling from the damage the storm had done to the house. The rain that had flooded in through the roof had dried out, but the ceilings in several rooms needed to be repaired where the wet plaster had cracked and split, and some rooms needed repainting where the water had run down the walls. The broken loft windows, covered in protective plastic, would have to be ripped out and replaced. The woodshed roof was destroyed and, as it wasn’t covered by insurance, would have to be our next job so we could make sure we had dry wood for the winter. The greenhouse was now just a metal frame and a pile of glass but, as it wasn’t a priority, it would have to wait until next year. We knew by this stage that our plans to finish the house by the end of the year were going to fail. Visitor distraction seemed like a good idea.
Suzanne a
nd Bobby arrived in Calais in time for lunch so I’d booked them a table at the fabulous restaurant Le Channel, on Boulevard de la Résistance along the seafront. This part of Calais has a bit of a fishing village vibe with small boats bobbing in the little harbour, but you can still see the huge ferries floating majestically by, shuttling millions of passengers each year between Calais and Dover. The restaurant is run by the family Crespo. Madame is the consummate meeter and greeter, and one of her sons is a chef, while the other is maître d’. It’s been a favourite with locals and savvy Brits for over forty years, and we know regular visitors who time their trips so that they can stop for lunch or dinner there. The oysters and locally caught fresh fish dishes are legendary, while gastronomes swoon over the sweet cart, everything made by the onsite pâtisserie chef. The cheese cloche has been known to make some sigh out loud with happiness.
After shopping at the big wine stores and outlet centre, then taking the scenic route along the Opal Coast as I’d recommended, our friends arrived at our house late in the afternoon. Bobby beeped the hooter on his Porsche convertible (lid up against the rain he was convinced would fall) to let us know they had arrived.
His first words were about the grey sky and the prospect of a wet barbecue, which we’d organized for that night in honour of their arrival, having also invited along some of our neighbours. Mark assured him the weather would be fine – local weather expert Claudette had passed by earlier, telling us that we might expect a smattering of rain but that was it.
‘We would have been here sooner,’ said Suzanne, ‘but we got held up just around the corner by a herd of cows crossing the road!’
‘It’s bloody ridiculous. I got shit all over my tyres,’ said Bobby.
‘Your septic tank’s all right now, isn’t it?’ Suzanne said to me, laughing.
‘What septic tank?’ said Bobby, looking alarmed.
‘You know, babe, I told you Janine’s got a septic tank and it blew up! It’s what all the waste goes into cos they don’t have mains drains here. What was inside spread all over the garden and everyone here calls her Madame Merde!’
‘What? Over this garden, where we’re having the barbecue?’ Bobby looked horrified when he spotted the table and chairs laid out on the terrace.
‘It was years ago,’ I told him. ‘A lot of rain has fallen since then, and what came out of the tank has long gone. And anyway, I think I’m known as the Pig Lady now as some people seem to believe I keep pigs in the house.’
‘You don’t, do you?’ said Bobby, looking nervously over my shoulder at the house.
‘No, of course not!’ I said, laughing. ‘It was all a misunderstanding with the Bread Man when I was telling him I work in the pigsty.’ I hastily explained about the pigsty now being a beautiful and clean office. ‘Mark built me my dream writing room with shelves for my thousands of books, and we have desks where we sit opposite each other and work …’
Bobby rolled his eyes at that. ‘Could you imagine us working opposite each other all day, babe?’ he said to Suzanne, who shook her head as we walked down the long garden path with their luggage. I thought to myself how charmingly uncoiffed the garden looked. Under a cloudy sky, the emerald-coloured lawn was dotted with trees festooned with flowers and vibrant green leaves. Pink and white roses and deep purple clematis clambered over the hawthorn hedges. Pears, apples and quinces were ripening on trees dotted around the garden and the scent of honeysuckle perfumed the air.
The chickens had run to the bottom of the garden and returned to the pens when they heard the car’s hooter. Even Ken, whose behaviour was becoming worse by the day, had retreated. (He had now taken to standing as close as he could to me at every given opportunity and doing a bizarre little jig. Jean-Claude had told me this meant that Ken saw me as his woman.)
Over a glass of wine, Suzanne told us she’d loved Le Channel and the drive to our house along the coastal road, the D940, which wends its wiggly way through tiny fishing villages. We chatted about the old days when we worked together, the long hours and the bitchy bosses, and from what Suzanne said, it didn’t sound as if much had changed. Bobby talked about his work, which he loved, and the smart restaurants he took his clients to and how much money he earned. Everything seemed to be going well until he wandered down to the bird pens in his smart loafers and trod in chicken poo.
‘Darling,’ said Suzanne, ‘I told you we were staying on a farm and to wear your old shoes.’
‘These are my old shoes, babe,’ he said angrily. ‘Shit.’
‘You’ll be fine if you don’t go in the pens and keep to the paths,’ I told him as he pushed his hands impatiently through his immaculately styled hair and stomped into the house to change into another, equally smart pair of shoes.
He returned with his mobile phone, having logged into our wifi, which isn’t good even in the house. The signal barely reaches the garden so he fiddled with his phone constantly, trying to read his emails, which, when they arrived, prompted a loud and irritating bing-bong-bing-bong-pluck notification alert. I’ve never been so pleased to have intermittent internet.
When our French friends arrived for the barbecue, there were kisses and handshakes all round. We’d invited the Wood Club, but half of them were away on holiday, so it was just Petit Frère and Claude Sr, Jean-Claude and Bernadette, plus Constance and Guillaume, and the Parisians, who we now knew as Hubert and Valerie (though she’d told us to call her Vava, as her friends did). We’d been to their house for drinks a couple of nights before as they were spending the whole of August in the village. Vava is a headmistress at a school in Paris and speaks perfect English. They knew of the area through Hubert’s former colleague who they called Le Flic (French slang for police detective). He had retired to Le Touquet, but struggled to get to grips with the strong accent and dialect of the locals. I lent them my Ch’ti dictionary (yes, there really is such a thing). Drinks had become dinner and we’d talked for hours.
The barbecue was the first time Jean-Claude had a chance to talk to the Parisians and I could see he was charmed. They weren’t at all the aloof and snooty city slickers everyone had been expecting, and when Vava whipped the Ch’ti dictionary out of her bag to look something up as she was chatting to him, the rest of the French guests fell about laughing, as Jean-Claude has the strongest accent of them all.
The barbecue smoked pleasantly, the juicy piquant green olives I’d bought in Le Touquet were praised, and Mark’s pasta salad got a round of applause. Vava talked in English to Suzanne about London, which she loves and has frequently visited. The Wood Club members were chatting away in French with Constance and Guillaume. Jean-Claude was busy giving instructions to Mark about how to cook a perfect steak on a barbecue. Bobby was quiet, waving his mobile phone around trying to get a signal before leaping up and dashing into the house. Suzanne apologized and said his job was very important, and even though it was a Saturday night, he never switched off.
When he came back, I topped up his glass. ‘Pour it, don’t just show it the glass,’ he said as he scowled at his phone. While being handed a full glass of wine in the UK is seen as good value for money, in France it’s frowned upon. It is seen as unsophisticated to fill a wineglass to the top: room is always left to allow the wine to breathe and for the connoisseur to swirl and sniff before appreciatively sipping and discussing the region it came from, who made it and, in certain parts of France such as Burgundy, even what field it came from, since that can be marked on the bottle. Thankfully Vava was the only French person who understood what he’d said. I already knew her feelings about mobile phones being used at the table and didn’t dare look at her as Bobby muttered under his breath and continued to glare. In France, mobile devices are banned in schools for kids up to the age of fifteen and, while the French are admittedly as much in love with their mobile phones as the rest of the world, it’s rare to see people using them while they are eating out with friends or family.
Around eleven o’clock, Suzanne said she was ready for bed. They ha
d been on the go since the early hours of the morning and it had been a long and tiring week. We stayed up a while chatting to our French friends – nobody said a word about Bobby – and they left after helping us clear away the dishes. ‘Do you think we’ve become French?’ said Mark, as we lay in bed, talking about the day. I’d been thinking the same thing. Life in London was a world I’d been away from long enough to look back on with fondness, mostly because I was younger then, but I was definitely glad I wasn’t a part of it any longer. I certainly didn’t miss the early starts and late nights with takeaway meals as it was always too late to cook, working weekends in the office and never having enough time to see Mark or my family. But it was about more than that. We’d learned to savour a good glass of wine, to take time over a meal and appreciate the hard work of the person who’d made it, whether that was a humble cook or a great chef. We’d gradually shrugged off the cloak of detachment that all city dwellers develop as a form of protection to preserve some personal space in a crowded environment. We were friendly to our neighbours and courteous to strangers.
When we meet someone new, we instinctively say bonjour instead of trying to edge away and avoid eye contact as we did in London. When I go to London these days, I speak to people in shops. When I take the bus, I say hello to the drivers and the people who work at railway stations. It’s become instinctive and I’ve found it’s contagious. Far more people talk to me than they used to, though obviously there are some that just look at me silently with furrowed brows.
In the morning, we walked the dogs early as usual and sat in the garden with a cup of tea under an umbrella as a light drizzle fell. Suzanne came out without Bobby. He was packing, she said. She was very apologetic, but said that they had decided to leave earlier than planned, after breakfast. With just three weeks off work, they really needed some sunshine and had decided to get going to the south. ‘Totally get that,’ said Mark, a bit too quickly.
