A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle Read Free Book Online Page B

he’s young, where he was trained; if he’s established, whether he’s resting on his past success or still trying hard. It will tell you about the chef’s wife, whether she is welcoming or
glaciale.
It will give you some indication of the style of the restaurant, and if there’s a view or a pretty terrace. It will comment on the service and the clientele, on the prices and the atmosphere. And, often in great detail, on the food and the wine list. It is not infallible, and it is certainly not entirely free from prejudice, but it is amusing and always interesting and, because it is written in colloquial French, good homework for novices in the language like us.
    The 1987 guide lists 5,500 restaurants and hotels in a suitably orotund and well-stuffed volume, and picking through it we came across a local entry that sounded irresistible. It was a restaurant at Lambesc, about half an hour’s drive away. The chef was a woman, described as
“l’une des plus fameuses cuisinières de Provence,”
her dining room was a converted mill, and her cooking was
“pleine de force et de soleil.”
That would have been enough of a recommendation in itself, but what intrigued us most was the age of the chef. She was eighty.
    It was gray and windy when we arrived in Lambesc. We still suffered twinges of guilt if we stayed indoors on a beautiful day, but this Sunday was bleak and miserable, the streets smeared with old snow, the inhabitants hurrying home from the bakery with bread clutched to the chest and shoulders hunched against the cold. It was perfect lunch weather.
    We were early, and the huge vaulted dining room was empty. It was furnished with handsome Provençal antiques, heavy and dark and highly polished. The tables were large and so well-spaced that they were almost remote from one another, a luxury usually reserved for grand and formal restaurants. The sound of voices and the clatter of saucepans came from the kitchen, and something smelled delicious, but we had obviously anticipatedopening time by a few minutes. We started to tiptoe out to find a drink in a café.
    “Who are you?” a voice said.
    An old man had emerged from the kitchen and was peering at us, screwing up his eyes against the light coming through the door. We told him we’d made a reservation for lunch.
    “Sit down, then. You can’t eat standing up.” He waved airily at the empty tables. We sat down obediently, and waited while he came slowly over with two menus. He sat down with us.
    “American? German?”
    English.
    “Good,” he said, “I was with the English in the war.”
    We felt that we had passed the first test. One more correct answer and we might be allowed to see the menus which the old man was keeping to himself. I asked him what he would recommend.
    “Everything,” he said. “My wife cooks everything well.”
    He dealt the menus out and left us to greet another couple, and we dithered enjoyably between lamb stuffed with herbs,
daube
, veal with truffles, and an unexplained dish called the
fantaisie du chef.
The old man came back and sat down, listened to the order, and nodded.
    “It’s always the same,” he said. “It’s the men who like the
fantaisie.
”
    I asked for a half bottle of white wine to go with the first course, and some red to follow.
    “No,” he said, “you’re wrong.” He told us what to drink, and it was a red Côtes du Rhône from Visan. Good wine and good women came from Visan, he said. He got up and fetched a bottle from a vast dark cupboard.
    “There. You’ll like that.” (Later, we noticed that everybody had the same wine on their table.)
    He went off to the kitchen, the oldest head waiter in the world, to pass our order to perhaps the oldest practicing chef in France. We thought we heard a third voice from the kitchen,but there were no other waiters, and we wondered how two people with a combined age of over 160 managed to cope with the long hours and hard work. And yet, as the restaurant became