(re-posted from October 5)
Taking solace in churning out home made ice cream isn’t a bad way to cope. In fact, the results can be positively inspirational. Especially if you’re vacationing in rural Provence with middle aged eccentrics some of whom you didn’t really know beforehand.
It was destined to be a weird week with my hosts. Not that it didn’t have it’s highlights.
The beautiful vacation home was as lush and beautiful as you could hope for, with comfortable bedrooms, a large in-ground pool, carefully chosen decor (bullfighting was the artistic theme…that and several bad reproductions of impressionist masters), stunning landscaping (olive trees, rosemary, and lavender, lavender, lavender…), an indoor kitchen, and an outdoor kitchen beside the pool connected to a separate pool house, decked out in a master bedroom and open plan bathroom.
The village of Tavel, home to some of France’s best Rose wine and a mere 15 minutes from Avignon, was quiet, charming, and full of vineyards as far as the eye can see.
My hosts and I would get into a rental car or cars after a breakfast-nosh of leftover cheese rinds, salami, crusty bread, and way too much coffee, and we’d head for — where else — Chateauneuf du Pape, center of some of the very best wines in France — or Avignon for some casual sightseeing and an artful eyeful of gourmet lunch — or Arles, the famed adopted home of Van Gogh, for some ancient Roman ruins and a quick 7-course bite at a Michelin-starred eatery.
The vacation kind of kept happening like that. It was oddly like being stuck in the back seat with some overgrown brothers and sisters on a long road trip to Disneyland, except the theme park was everywhere, and all you had to do was throw money on it to make it jump up and do miraculous things for you. A lot of wine. A lot of decadent food. Marijuana smoke billowing in our wake. Literally.
Yet, I often felt stuck. Here I was, a guest. Kind of. On someone else’s family vacation. I should have felt grateful. Just to be there. Most of the time was pretty good. Of course, in retrospect, I probably subconsciously feel I have to tell myself this. The food was amazing — we, my hosts and I, are great cooks, and every night was a feast. A real feast.
But it went from awkwardly great, to awkwardly good, to awkwardly emotional, to just plain awkward, and by then of course, my neurotic paranoia was well on its way to getting the best of me.
Little things — from thinking everyone could hear everything I was doing in the bathroom (which kept me from relieving myself until I was convinced nobody was around), to slightly bigger things — thinking that nobody really wanted me there and that I was at best an annoyance and at worst ruining everyone else’s vacation — made it difficult for me to have fun. I kept accidentally cutting myself, too, with the ridiculously-sharp Japanese Damascus steel kitchen knives they brought (6 times in total, some of them deep gashes), and it became an inside joke during the trip. Finally, when I woke up gasping for breath, filled with worry and on the edge of a major panic attack, I realized something larger was going on. PMS. Since I quit my meds, life has been pretty OK. Until 3-6 days before my period. When moderate to major depression kicks in. Here I was in France, in Provence, with good friends, people who cared about me, and I was rocking in bed at 3 am, absolutely convinced that I had nothing to look forward to in life, and that it was next to impossible that I would ever find a partner.
It was the cooking that saved me. Or rather, the ice cream. Early on we hit a huge grocery-superstore, a kind of Wal-Mart meets Whole Foods, and seeing who I was with, it was like one of those supermarket sweepstakes TV shows — everything went into the shopping cart. Including an ice cream machine.
Every day I made at least one, but sometimes up to three new flavors. I ended up contributing less and less to the actual cooking of the meals, and just came up with a frozen dessert every night. Which suited me fine. I got to have my little island of solitude. On a trip where I had little choice and next to no freedom of movement, making silly savory locally flavored confections was my pride, my joy, and really, my vacation.
So, I’ll leave you with the list, the lovely little list of the treasures I created, the products of my vacation:
1) Goat cheese and roasted pine nuts, the first, and the week’s ultimate winner
2) Real rose and rosewater, this was delicate and the favorite of some
3) Pear cardamom – subtle and comforting, like apple pie but with a Mediterranean twist
4) Chocolate chili chunk – darkest chocolate you can imagine and exceptionally spicy
5) Lavender honey meringue – an experiment with mixed results
6) Verbena and ginger sorbet – another experiment inspired by Mr Avignon Michelin
7) Basil Lemon – the only one made from a recipe, and it was exquisite
8) Goat cheese, creme fraiche, honey, and roasted cashew – a twist on day one with excellent results
I went through something like 3 dozen eggs in making all of these custards. A real feat. Oh, the vanilla, the spices, the herbs. It was fun. On my last night, everyone talked about how I should start a twitter-based traveling ice cream business. Because it was just that good.
I feel very lucky to have been raised by Francophiles, my Israeli mother having been raised in France for a good half of her childhood, and my father having pressed to be transferred to France in the early 90s resulted in giving us the experience of living in Paris. I find it quite funny that Americans have this open dislike of all things French. That the Anglo world in general turns their noses at the French. There may be this perception that the French do likewise, and that they’re all big snobs. Not so. But they would have good reason to be. The best food in the world, very cultured, educated people, and one of the prettiest languages you’d ever have the pleasure of hearing.
