Off to Cahors for the press reception/launch of the book which took place in the bar of the Grand Hotel Terminus in Cahors, nibbles courtesy of the excellent Balandre restaurant, along with a special aperitif created in our honour by the sommelier. We were supposed to guess what it was but never got the response. It was, however, pink, fizzy and very good, possibly a hint of framboise lurking there somewhere.
My publisher Jan and I both had to speak in French in reply to M Baldy, president of the CDT (Departmental tourism committee - and very nerve-wracking it was to do it in public - I don't much enjoy doing it in English. Once that was over it was easier to get into party mode and answer questions, though the resulting photographs in the press next day left something to be desired! It was a glorious day with the first real sun I had seen all week and after the ordeal was over we sat on the terrace of the hotel, finishing off the canapés, with me wondering, for probably the two millionth time in forty years, why I had so dogmatically dismissed the idea of living permanently in France.
The first thing that slapped me around the face like a wet fish on this visit was the reduction in trains stopping at Gourdon, which has, I know, led to many protests. In an effort to be green (but really because I don't much enjoy flying) I have for many years (unless driving- not so green!) taken the train from London to the Lot and for as long as I can remember it was an easy journey (even in pre-Eurostar days) of effortless connections. Not this time. The choice is to arrive at Gourdon at around 14.30 necessitating being at the London Eurostar terminal at 0500 (ie rising at 0400) in the morning or arriving towards 2300, too late for the delicious dinner that tempts you throughout the journey.
To fall off the train and wander off up to the Bouriane where I sip slowly on a kir royale before dinner is one of life's small pleasures. These days, I am even spared the walk, as Mathias has taken to meeting me off the train. Is this a sign of age I ask myself. If so then it is also one of its advantages too! After dinner it's off to have a digestif with Georges, Mathias's father, in his house next to the hotel and catch up with all the gossip, before, finally tumbling into bed, the floodlit light of the church and the ancient castle playing around the silent streets of the little town and the hotel. The next day is already planned. Georges and I will enjoy a light lunch together - as the former chef/owner of the Bouriane 'light' is a relative term - before setting off on one our promenades, where we wander the causse seeking out the new discoveries Georges has made in the intervening months.
But back to the trains. After much searching of timetables there is one other option of changing at Brive, but long journeys are made tedious by multiple changes and are anxiety inducing if connections are late. Is this, I wonder, the beginning of the Sarko effect? Are we to watch France become like everywhere else - cuts in train and hospital services, short lunches, long weeks - a Thatcher-like revolution?
We Brits love to laud the efficiency of SNCF as against our own third-world system, but while the French have a long way to go to catch up with our own particular degree of transport hell, I have noticed, in recent years, a slipping of standards in France too. TGVs I have taken from, or to, Nice or Angers have often been late and sometimes cancelled altogether; the Corail service from the Lot to Paris is frequently late (though less so the other way round for some reason) and then whilst it used to be the UK that suffered from endless disruption caused by strikes, that particular nuisance is now the prerogative of the French.
Speaking of which, why no TGV service to the Lot? Nor even one in the offing. Almost alone in France, the centre/southwest is a barren desert for fast trains; a strange omission for a rail system that is predominantly north-south, rather than east-west, based.
The gap created by this oversight (presumably the betunnelled stretch through the Vézère gorge is the problem) will no doubt be filled by the new Brive/Cressensac airport, due to open….last year, this year, sometime...Part of me dreads it. Will we have drunken stag parties falling off the plane and roaming around Cressensac, Souillac and Brive baring their bottoms? God forbid.
One of the nice things about publishing a new book is the number of new people you meet, or make contact with, whilst undertaking all the hype and publicity connected to the launch. It was great, for instance, to meet Sophie Bacou, owner of Librairie Chiméra in Montcuq at the launch, after many years of hearing about her. Copies of the book will be on sale there and at Books and Company in Gourdon. The genial M Marvier in the Librairie de la Bouriane, Gourdon, has some on order too.
I have been corresponding for a few weeks now with Amanda Lawrence who has been delighting many of us for several years with her charming newsletter on the French Entrée site.
Amanda is an aficionado of Quercy markets and clearly an accomplished preparer of the produce she buys there. Now she has written her own book, White Stone, Black Wine based around this theme and judging by the extract, you will find its pages easily as evocative as the newsletter. Sadly, as I trek to Cahors to launch my book, Amanda treks in the opposite direction to the London Book Fair to promote hers (due out early June), so our meeting is temporarily postponed.
In similar ways have I corresponded with Michael Sanders who wrote From Here You Can't See Paris, based round La Recréation restaurant in Les Arques, and more recently Families of the Vine about the Cahors wine producers. Michael is moving on to the Pyrenees now but I am sure will still keep his Lot contacts.
Catherine Stock is another contact who is also an artist and author living in the Lot and you will recognise some Lot landscapes in her illustrations.
Some years ago I was invited to speak at a table ronde of British authors writing about SW France, in Duras, Lot et Garonne, where I met the author Douglas Boyd who has just published Voices From the Dark Years: the truth about occupied France, an interesting account of the Occupation with some new and original material.
One of the awful things about publishing a new book is the number of errors that slip through no matter how many times you check the text. As Amanda says, French errors are the worst as they are immediately assumed to be author errors, whilst English slip-ups are presumed to be the printer's responsibility. This is so true, so let me say here and now and before everyone points it out, that it should be “nuits folles” in the introduction and point de vue not pointe de vue! There was a time when errors in books were inconceivable - how did they achieve that. Were there armies of people checking the text?
And things date quickly. Already, since publication, Au Déjeuner de Sousceyrac has regained its Michelin star of the first edition, which I had had to withdraw in the second. Quercy Recherche, that illustrious magazine seems to have found extra funding and is happily publishing new research and Chez Louise in Le Vigan has re-opened its doors again.
Writers seem to flock to the south-west as moths drawn to a candle and few more illustrious than WS Merwin the American Pullitzer winning poet. Anyone who shares my passion for the Gramat causse should read The Lost Upland. I was put on to his Lot connection when Peter Davison, poetry editor of the Atlantic (Monthly) and an accomplished poet himself, mentioned both my book and the Lost Upland in an article in the Atlantic in 2001. Thinking I would send him a copy of the second edition I looked him up only to discover that he has sadly died. There are some people you regret never having met. Peter Davison is one. Louis Malle another. Causse lovers both.
Wandering the causse with Georges after lunching on some melt-in-the-mouth asparagus, we fetched up at the tiny, lost hamlet of Beguès where the farmer invited us in to his magnificent, if slightly dilapidated, house for something I have rarely been offered in the Lot before, a glass (or two) of cider. We sat round the bare wooden table for a couple of hours chatting, surrounded by dusty, browning photographs, until Monsieur T had to go and look after his stock before nightfall - the lambs, adorable little things with black-patched eyes - were bleating audibly, though not for Monsieur T presumably, as their food was on tap so to speak. Madame, Monsieur and Master T accompanied us to the car and waved us off into the twenty-first century amid much hilarity. The sun set in fierce horizontal waves of gold, blinding our eyes as we made our way home across the silent, darkening causse.
A couple of days later it was not cider we were imbibing but a mysterious bottle of red that Mathias had decanted so as not to give away the label. French friends from Angers had joined me and we spent some time trying to guess at its origins. Mathias had earlier told me that he was going to give us a bottle of 1989 Clos de Gamot, which he recently sampled and found boisterous and excellent. However, Georges and I had accidentally found ourselves in Prayssac the previous day and couldn't resist stopping off at nearby Clos de Gamot for a dégustation. Taking Mathias at his word and not actually bothering to taste it - I bought several bottles of the '89 and some 2005 - already tasting pretty good - to lay down - Cahors ages well.
Mathias had therefore changed his mind about what to give us. The wine he offered was definitely quite mature we decided and a Cahors but beyond that we were stymied. In point of fact it was not old at all but a 2003 Lagrézette from Alan-Dominique Perrin's vineyard. ADP has something of a reputation for this kind of thing and it was amazing that something so young tasted and drank so well. The traditional (Clos de Gamot) and the new Cahors - each style has its merits.
Speaking of people flocking to the south-west, one who did so a few years back and who filmed and wrote of it, was accomplished chef John Burton Race. In the programme and the book he waxed lyrical about the produce and the area (Aude, I think). This weekend we discovered the truth. Race was bored to tears by south-west cookery and the eternal “ duck, duck, fucking duck” and decamped to Barcelona every other weekend throughout his stay.
In younger days, when I could polish off foie gras and the "fucking duck" with ease I would have thought this sacrilege, but I have a sneaking sympathy with Race now. Countries like France and Italy, with strong traditions of good regional cuisine, can be incredibly parochial about trying other things. One of the advantages of having lost touch with our own cuisine in the UK is the diversity of good food on offer these days - albeit at a price - and particularly of course in London, but also in some of the provinces. But while one can eat well in pubs and restaurants in many areas it is still incredibly difficult to buy good ingredients in ordinary shops. There are farmers' markets of course, but bog-standard markets simply don't come close to those in most of France. Thanks to the quality of these markets in the Lot one can cook in whatever style one prefers, but I think my every day tastes would run to a more Provencal type of diet than the typical Lot one.
I've never written a blog before. Reading back through this I wonder sometimes if it doesn't read like one of those round robin letters people are apt to send at Christmas, boring on and on about people you have never heard of and care about less. Will Simon Hoggart of the Guardian start to do for blogs what he has already done for the Christmas letters. But then one has to consider the success of la petite anglaise, where people got so involved in the meaningless details of her life she had to finally call a halt to the intrusion occasioned by it. I will endeavour therefore to limit the regular dramatis personae and hope I can find a balance in future entries that falls between both extremes. More in about a month.
