19 km, and a few moustique - Arles to St. Gilles
19 km, a Few Moustique - Arles to St. Gilles - and Oh Yes, One Stone Wall
by Dorette Snover
Years ago, I woke up anxious to feed the levain before setting out for Savannah to visit our youngest son who was in school at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
But journeys of any kind, childhood & snowy paths through the woods (wait, isn't that the same thing?) or drives to Savannah call to mind so many other walks, trundles, scurrying, meandering, and dartings -if dartings can be a noun for a few minutes - along the edge of any and all forests.
This lovely crew of ladies, below, includes Madeline Vedel when she and her husband then, Erick Vedel, owned Association Cuisine et Tradition in Arles, France. We brought so many students, teens and adults, that it became our sister cooking school, if you will). In the photo, Madeleine is smack in the center, grey sweater, black strap slung across her shoulder. We were setting out to walk 19 kilometers to St. Gilles one September morning back in 2005. Was it THAT long ago? Madeleine led the foray. Merci, Madeleine!
The day looks like it might have been chilly, but i remember as we set out that it was nothing but muggsy bugsy.
Channeling the cup/goblet scene in indiana jones, i had NOT chosen well. I wore a funky get-up. Black leotard and light flowing black shirt, forgetting completely (or not knowing as i was too excited to BE WALKING THE PATH TO ST. GILLES) that moustique are attracted to black. a moustique is not a mustache, it is a mosquito.
And the moustique we encountered were likely not that large, but if you put a gazillion of them together, into swarms and swaths of buzzing clouds, the attacking vermin can be quite beastly.
We began.
Does 19 km seem a long way to walk?
It doesn't when you say it.
It doesn't when you ride over it in a car; taking in all the black bulls. who, incidentally, I have a new sympathy for since I knew their plight, stuck wearing black 100% of their lives.
19 km doesn’t even seem far when you reflect back on it.
But when your feet are not used to it, it does.
Or when your knees sway under you. it does.
And when your walking partner mentions she shouldn't be there, what was she thinking doing this unheard of, unspeakable dalliance as she was sure she was going to tumble and break something. again. as she had in Istanbul. It does then.
But somewhere into the 8th or 9th kilometer, the path opens up and thoughts careen around (not completely unlike those buzzing flying gnawing jaws delivering pinpricks) and settle on the rhythm of walking.
The stones disappear, grasses flourish.
Dare i say, everything physical retreats even in this most physical of all undertakings?
Immense gardens appear.
Don't they?
And then you hear the shriek of others who are ahead of you, yes there are others ahead of you, but anyway this shriek, what does it mean? Surely it means something ill is ahead. Again it reaches your ears. How far ahead are they? You can't see them anymore. can you?
That's right, you don't know and so you walk some more.
Then across the distance you see civilization.
And though you've been longing to know - how far is 19 km - when you start out you don't really even know if you can do it, or what will happen to you if you cannot - somehow it is desperately dismal when you see the signs that it will soon be over.
This is when you realize the journey is passing and in some way, has passed while you were on it.
What strangeness is this?
is it a concern over not being present?
Or is it being so in the moment that you forget everything else?
And now, when the journey is almost complete you long for the new path, new stones underfoot, and fields awash in sunlight that you have never seen before.
And even this; the thrill of not knowing what lies ahead - or how far?
Or what glorious experience - you will at some point, hunt down. long to capture.
Remember.
Revisit.
Relent.
Refute.
And then release.
In a way, the journey began when you saw the tiny crevice - and dared look through the hole in the stone in the wall, past the spiders webs and overgrowth on the other side.
And you knew, hoped, a part of you knew what you would find. and you went anyway.
Here is a wonderful recipe from Arles and from my time in Madeleine and Erick Vedel’s kitchen.
Riste d-Aubergine/Abergine en Estrasses – Fried Eggplant in Tomato Sauce
a dish so simple and yet very rich in flavor and pleasure. its second name “en estrasses” makes reference to the appearance of the wilted and fried eggplant (esstrasse means an old dish cloth)
preparation time: 1 hour to sweat the eggplant; plus 45 minutes – though if you’ve a bit more time for the sauce, it can only get better.
for the eggplant:
one kg eggplant (2.2 lbs)
salt for sweating the eggplant
1/2 – 1 cup olive oil for frying
for the sauce:
3 tablespoons olive oil
one onion sliced
on kg tomatoes (2.2 lbs) peeled and chopped coarsely
3 garlic cloves crushed and chopped
3 bay leaves
one tiny dried hot red pepper (cayenne, bird’s tongue)
fresh water as needed
method
slice the eggplant in 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) thick lengths, leaving on the skins. layer in a rectangular casserole dish, sprinkling liberally with salt to sweat. after an hour or so, rinse well under fresh running water, and tap dry.
while the eggplant is sweating, start the tomato sauce. in a large saucepan pour in the 3 tablespoons of olive oil and add the onions. simmer till translucent (sweated), approximately 2-5 minutes. add the tomatoes and cook till they release their juice (5 minutes or so). add the garlic, the bay leaves, and the pepper and let simmer. – a note here, I prefer to use a tiny hot pepper in my tomato sauces rather then black pepper. I find that black pepper becomes bitter when simmered over a long time (like black tea) and in the end, adds only a bit of “hotness”. whereas, the tiny red pepper raises all the flavors in the sauce, never too hot, but just more lively. as needed, add fresh water (especially if you’re working with a saucepan without a lid). this has the added benefit of allowing you to cook the tomatoes longer and therefore have a sweeter richer sauce flavor when you serve it. do not let the liquid reduce to a thickness that would encourage the bottom to burn. you want a relatively liquid sauce. cooking time can be an hour or more. the general rule with tomatoes is the more they simmer, the less acidic they’ll be. towards the end of the cooking time, take a potato masher and crush the chunks of tomato in the sauce, this will thicken your sauce and smooth it out.
your sauce underway, check your eggplant. if it’s well wilted, rinsed and tapped dry, pour the olive oil into a deep frying pan (you want at least a 1/3 inch or 1/2 centimeter of oil in your pan). let it heat up (a minute) and then start frying the eggplant slices, as many as fit in the pan easily, turning when lightly browned, and then remove them to a platter with a paper towel on it to absorb extra oil. continue till all the slices are done. set aside till you are ready to serve. to serve the dish, ladle the hot sauce on the eggplant in a deep serving dish, each person receives 3 or more slices with accompanying sauce. enjoy!
