 The closest I got to L’Oustau de Baumanière was peering through the dining room windows when it was closed for the season. The French elegance was seductive. If I had a time machine I’d go back and dine. I was visiting the medieval Provençal town of Les Baux. There was a scattering of tourists. It was winter in Canada and locally it was Mistral season. In March, and under the winds surreal influence, the Luberon was dark, wild, and moody. Research has helped me replace old ideas with new opinions about some of history’s great French chefs. It’s a good feeling to look out over four decades and see it as a mature woman. I’m grateful that one of the lessons from a traditional French apprenticeship was to play the long game. The subject is alive again for me. I have fallen for some of those figures but it’s early days and there’s more to learn. Idealizing humans comes with problems. I read about Raymond Thuilier in chef school in 1990. He was an understated and elegant chef. I didn’t think much more of him. But I’ve discovered a staunch individual, whose life was culture manifest. He had a fierce Provençal backbone and was from a time before attention-seeking. Someone please get me a t-shirt with that image of him in his bachelor-button blue manteau de peintre. *** Part of the pleasure of walking is noticing the buckwheat honey-coloured ribbon of fall debris between the grass and asphalt or the disco-silver paint peeling on a garage door in an east end alley. Kate McKinnon on Hot Ones. *** His vocals are distinct and playful. Incroyable. 2025Comments are closed.
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