
Gasp! We are past our halfway point for our stay in Provence - less than 3 months before we return to Melbourne. The run home is looking good though, we have sorted the good local restaurants, the good local wine shop and the weather is on the consistent improve (dining outside in the evening now - sorry Melbourne but we have come through our late winter / spring transition, so need to make some mileage).
So, this week's observation - comprising an interesting fact and a corollary..
Bread
There's lots of bread

That quintessential French image of a baguette sitting in a basket on a bike - and bread accompanying every meal - it is almost as if bread was a law itself - almost......
Access to bread seems to have been scorched into the psyche and culture of France, from the time when Marie Antoinette was suggesting cake as an option. Today, highly processed white bread was the gourmet luxury and wholemeal or sourdough was the poor person's version (that's not the corollary)
Up until 1979 the price of bread was government regulated - truly - making sure all had access to this staple at a low price. Since then, the law restrictions have been lifted but a combination of competition and super vigilant and active consumer groups have kept the price down
(That's the interesting fact)
(with the exceptions of times like 2021 when a poor wheat harvest prompted price increases and very poor puns in media headlines:
"French pain (see what they did there?) ahead. Bakers could knead (oh...) to raise their bread prices" (BBC); and
"Why France's daily baguette is costing so much dough (oh, really...) (thelocal.fr)
So, the standard French baguette, fresh daily, costs about 50 euro cents to 80 euro cents
And there is plenty of fancy and more expensive variations from all the artisan boulangeries and patisseries.
But there's the thing (& the corollary - and referencing last week's observations of inner northern Melbourne life, this time with happy access to wonderful bakeries), the cheap and ubiquitous simple baguette is really rather marvelous - fresh, soft dough, nice firm crust - and quite special, whereas the range of "artisan" variations are all rather underwhelming nor worth the extra cost.
We think the definition of "artisan" ( (of food or drink) made in a traditional or non-mechanized way using high-quality ingredients) has been lost in translation a bit.
Okay, this last week or so has included Jacquie heading into the coast (about 40 km from here) to Antibes to catch up with a friend visiting from Melbourne, bringing Di back to Fayence - so...


It was tough...
And local art and culture..



Our big ride this week was up into the ski fields to La Mouliere



Saying Hi to some locals on the way

You can see the ride here
https://www.relive.cc/view/vevY3gpkpJ6
The tail end of the week has involved walks or rides to the (good) local cafes and restaurants to partake in the very French tradition of a big lunch (maybe more on that another time), such as:



