Mushroom season has just begun, there's work to be done. Ottolenghi will supporting it with this recipe, which is killer. 

Sadly, plum season has come to an end. Never a plum fan before, I will miss them dreadfully.

With a framework of saying yes to as much as humanly possible until I know better to say no, this pensioner in Provence has been kept rather busy for the last month, none of it a complaint. Added to that is the knowledge that it's getting to the end of harvest time, so I've been grabbing kilos of tomatoes and aubergine, then figuring out what to do with them before they go bad.  But I just returned from a favorite hike that, while a mix of urban, suburban and paths through hills and nature, never fails to bring me back to what I love about here. Part of it might be seeing people in their down jackets, hats and scarves when the temperature is 58 degrees, and part might be solitude with no one knowing where I am. But most is being able to walk for not that many minutes to be surrounded by fields and beautiful old gates that frame long, limestone pebble driveways with grass going down the middle, Italian Cypress or olive trees lining the way, hearing not much more than the flapping of wings as my approach interrupts their peace. 

My favorite travel buddy and me, laying low

While Nat and I have had many adventures together, the one I keep thinking about took place at least fifteen years ago when I booked a hotel at LAX for, as it turns out, the wrong night. That it was the first day of Chinese New Year apparently meant there were no rooms available anywhere. So, following our 1 am arrival from Boston, we instead got the rental car early and headed to Palm Springs, just us and the trucks. Philip, annoyed at yet another one of my time mismanagements, fell asleep immediately, but Nat, my trusty accomplice, was excited by the newness, and stayed up, keeping me laughing until we arrived and both fell asleep in a parking lot. Despite the chaos and her young age, absolutely no fuss, only delight.

So it's a little sad and highly unusual that her most recent visit produced not one story. Concussed for a third time, we didn't venture, instead lots of sleeping, low key hanging out, cooking and eating way too many results of said cooking. The good news is she's getting better and beginning to get back to life. If you're that sort of person, would be grateful if you sent a wish for her out there into the world. 

The artichokes here are very small but somehow have as much "meat" on them. And the stems aren't stringy at all.

No cake pans, so we made an orange, chocolate chip and early grey cake in a ceramic dish. Perhaps thanks to the French butter, it was delicious and gone within a day.

Farm flowers

You've been reading about it and seen the clips, and actually, yesterday in Marseille things did get pretty grizzly with looting, but for the most part, the school protests have been calm in Aix. There have been many gatherings, occasionally I'll hear firecrackers but the only indication of anything less than peaceful is a couple of bus stops with broken glass. French kids get two weeks off school in October, starting two days ago, which has meant they're outsourcing their protests, to others who have different gripes, so yesterday, which was fine here but bad in other cities, was also about the cost of living and lack of jobs. 

I read that there are 7500 students in Aix in many many schools, both public and private. My limited understanding is that each lycée (15-18 year olds) has a specialty. There are two near me; Arts et Metier (arts and crafts) and Vauvenargues (trades). Prior to the upsets, I had noticed what bad shape the Vauvenargues building was in, unfortunately abutting the new and obscenely extravagant Palais de Justice, the disparity of which I can imagine might lead to resentment. Of all the schools in Aix, Vauvenargues is the one with water dripping into buckets and inadequate chairs for each class, so perhaps not surprising that it is there that two bus stops were smashed. One morning shortly after I'd heard chanting, I saw groups of kids excitedly checking their social media feeds to see how their performance had gone down. In general, pretty much everyone supports all of the students' requests, it's the violence that's hard to get behind, as well as the challenge of balancing a budget that's already, well, not balanced. May reason and respect prevail.

Quiet protest at the Rotonde, business as usual

I took a bus a few weeks ago to pick lavender under the shadow of Mt. Ste. Victoire. This past week, a different one took me to pick olives. Only a few kilometers outside of town, a 12 seater traveled down a country lane with high banks reminiscent of England, dotted with stone houses, plowed fields and swallows swooping. From the bus stop, I walked less than three minutes to a private house with a vineyard and olive orchard, where I'd been invited to pick as many as I pleased, the deal being that I give half to the owners and walk away with the rest, or in my case, hand them over for pressing.  I received a crate and a panier, which I hung around my neck to make things quicker, then was instructed in how to pull a handful off at a time, with no concern for stems, or the state of the branch from which they were being torn. It took about two hours on a beautiful afternoon to pick the bottom third of two trees heavy with mostly fat, green olives, yielding 13 kilos, which makes about a liter and a half of olive oil, half of which I hand back. I loved it so much I went back with my friend Marguerite, and eventually, Alisa. We talked about what kind of farmers we'd be. Olive seemed good for me, Marguerite thought mushroom. Certainly not grapes, too much stress about the climate. 

While it's certainly about getting local olive oil, which is healthier, I would have paid to pick, it was so enjoyable to be out there in the middle of an orchard, listening to all the animal and bird sounds. It was another moment when I thought "Wait, how did I get here? What am I even doing in France? And picking olives???" We even had a picnic in the orchard, inspired by two kids in their mid-twenties who were working there, living in a tent with their cat, under the trees. At mid-day, they sat at a fold out table, having a formal lunch that lasted a good hour and a half. Later, they dragged two big nets under a tree, picked up the tree shaking machine, which we weren't allowed to use, and got down to business shaking the olives off the top part of the trees that we couldn't reach. I was invited to prune in March, which I'll certainly do.

Bus stop

Workers lunch table

Day 1 haul and panier

Action shot

There were a variety of trees, some with olives almost yellow, small and naturally loose from the pit. Then there were nicoise; small, bright green and tight and then some very large green ones. Only a few had ripened enough to turn  black. Apparently despite the heat and lack of rain, it was a good year for olives, no one understands why. So on the second trip, rather than giving them all up for the oil press, I kept a bag and as soon as I arrived home, got the same feeling I used to get after buying a huge bag of bulbs that I somehow hadn't thought I'd also need to plant. Dreary logistics negating my blind enthusiasm, there are many steps to producing an edible olive as off the tree, they're more bitter than a raw artichoke. The first is to penetrate the skin. We talked about laying them out in a single layer and putting something over and then stepping on them, but I didn't have the right equipment. A mortar and pestle asked if they could help, but too many olives jumped out if I slightly mis-hit. So, in the end, the thing to do was take a sharp knife and then roll the olive around the knife rather than vice versa, which took about an hour. They're then submerged in water, in which they soak for about a week to 10 days,  until the bitterness has dissipated. Only then does the brining begin, which takes anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months. Hope I'm still alive when they're ready to eat. 

Work in progress, Day 3

Last Tuesday was hiking day, organized and implemented by Alisa who never ceases to be patient and generous, providing rides and pickups to those of us who don't have cars. This time she, her dog Rosa, Marguerite and her dog Japan and I disgorged at a parking spot in the woods of La Ciotat, meeting up with others. Over the next 4 hours, we walked through fields of heather, ate arbousiers, admired a rock bridge and caves, were blinded by the blue of the Mediterranean, and chatted over "lunch" which for me was two crackers as I'd overslept that morning. Martine, who is French and lives in Cassis and used to be a teacher, taught us about the limestone quarry in the first calanque abutting Cassis (which we were overlooking on our hike), which was where all the stone for Aix came from, as well as the lighthouse in Alexandria and interestingly, the base of the Statue of Liberty.

It was my first hike of the season and I fear it will be a hard one to beat. 

Astonished over the way pine trees grow out of rock

The cat's tooth, looking east

It really is heather

Looking down the cliff at the Mediterranean 

One of the Marseille islands and a tree

Alisa, her dog Rosa and me, having "lunch"  with our backs to the bay of Cassis

Speaking of Cassis, Martine had us back there on Friday for some learning about the history of the town, which is surrounded by hills. Apparently when it rains, there are "raging torrents" of water that come through, in the past going as high as almost the second (American) floor of the town hall. It was such a problem, they had to move the church. We also learned that the phallus was a symbol of good luck for the fisherman, bringing on underwater fecundity.

Every day fecundity

We hiked up the hill to the Clos to Ste. Madeleine, to learn about how the vineyard's proximity on Cape Canaille, to the sea, affects the gout of the wine. OK, some people learned, I dozed with my eyes open. Despite no longer being able to be a wine drinker, there was one I really enjoyed, so bought a bottle which some lucky visitor will be able to enjoy. It was a beautiful place to sit and look out, once again, over the Mediterranean. We finished the day with a very long lunch at the Cassis Yacht Club, where Martine is a member, which is hard because there's more than a ten year wait for a slip in the harbor. 

All the ladies who lunch at Clos de Ste. Madeleine