Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Sunny Cote d'Azur

 I know I mentioned we were headed to the hill towns of the cote but the weather has been so nice that we decided to stay in the beach towns instead.  The sky is blue and the sun is still warm.  September and October is a beautiful time to be here.
We have moved on to a beautiful little villa in Mougins just 5 minutes north of Cannes.  Our hosts,  Daniel and Paulette, are a very charming French couple who Michael speaks very animated with and I do alot of smiling and nodding.  Paulette is giving me her secrets on marinating fresh olives and Daniel is passing on a family recipe on fleurs de courgettes en beingets, from his garden, to Michael.  They both were delicious!
On Tuesday evening, Michael picked up fresh caullibaut (swordfish) from the poissonnerie and local chantrelles at the market and prepared a nice dinner. He chopped, diced and seared all while sipping a nice provencal rose'.  I sipped and planned our next day in Cannes.
If you have ever wandered if Cannes is "really" all that glamorous, well it is.  We had a great day strolling around it all.  The beaches are nice and sandy, people are beautiful and the shopping is grand.
We also took a ferry across the way to the small island of Margarite.  Quaint little island which happened to house the prison that once held "the man in the iron mask".  Cool.
Yesterday, we drove down to St. Tropez for lunch and to watch the regatta which they have hosted for the past 26 years.   Another pretty glamorous seaside town but with a bit of charm.  I liked it very much. 

                                                                     Villa in Mougins

                                                                 Paulette and Daniel

                                                                       Chef's prep

                                                    sauteed chantrells with buerre noisette

                                                              caullibaut a la nicoise

      

                                                                 beach chairs Cannes style

                                                           Johnny Depp in Cannes! :)

                                                               red carpet at the palais

                                                       pain bagnat for picnic lunch

                                                                       ferry boat

                                                              Cannes view from water

                                                                         St. Tropez

                                                                    Regatta in St. Tropez
 

                                        

2 comments:

  1. You sure know how to make this office gal jealous, who is presently writing about sanitation policy!

    Lovely, absolutely charming. Nice digs too and oh, Michael makes a great pirate.

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  2. Nice pictures for a future cook book ????? :)

    ReplyDelete