Fall 2023 Part 3

Too much wine?

There is a saying about “everything in moderation, including moderation”. That is open to a class debate, so choose your side and weigh in. It is easy to find box wine at the supermarket, which is fine to quaff if you don’t feel like opening something special, or distinctive.

Last Sunday, Thanksgiving Eve (Canada) Serge and Patrizia came up for apéro. Serge brought a champagne which went well with our curated selection of treats. In addition to small dried sausages, there was foie gras de canard – duck liver pâté. Sounds better in French. Onion confit, duck terrine, and tapenade (black olive spread) to go with the local baguette. There were also smoked salmon wafers and mini wraps. Nobody went hungry.

The champs disappeared fast and Judy lobbied for red wine. Serge suggested that we have something good! Very subtle.

Gosh, it just happened that we had some Pierre Usseglio resting in the safe.

https://www.domaine-usseglio-pierre.com/en/

It was so good that Serge had to walk us through the whole ritual of wine evaluation. The robe, the bouquet, the taste (does it linger?): the finish, etc. It was a winner, so we had a second bottle. Oh my…

Sad to say, it isn’t carried by the Ontario wine censors, and it is hard to find online for shipping to Canada. Guess we will have to replenish at the domaine.

But there is more to evenings in Tresques than just enjoying the company of neighbours. There is….

What’s My Line?

If you are of a certain vintage, you may recall this program from the fifties and sixties. Four celebrity panelists try to guess what a contestant does. There were some pretty crazy callings. Counting worms, getting blown up, making eye glasses for chickens, producing cow back scratchers…and those were just some of the normal ones.

A celebrity guest normally closed out the program, and the panel was blindfolded. These were big names from show business, sports, and business.

The panel regulars were Dorothy Kilgallen (syndicated columnist and journalist), Arlene Francis (actress and TV hostess), and Bennet Cerf (author and founder of Random House publishing). Rounding out the roster would be a celebrity like Steve Allen, Joey Bishop, Otto Preminger, or Arlene’s husband, Martin Gabel.

More about Bennet Cerf in the next edition.

The moderator was John Charles Daly, who could stretch a sentence into a L O N G paragraph.

There were over 700 episodes, and the program has its own channel on YouTube. For anyone with IQ over ?, it it much more entertaining than most of the loud dreck available for streaming or network programming. Even if this sounds pretty strange, it’s worth a peek. And it’s free!

Réal Life What’s My Line

Last Sunday we had lunch at Grain de Soleil in Goudargues. We had been a few days earlier and really enjoyed it. So I made a reservation Saturday.

When we arrived, there was no record of our call, but they found us a nice table on the terrace. The guy who seemed to be in charge didn’t really appear to know what he was doing, and fumbled around with some other tables. A couple of guests were getting ticked off, but everything worked out fine.

Judy had a duck burger; it was the closest we could find to Thanksgiving fowl. The taureau tataki was my choice. It is like carpaccio but marinated, very challenging to cut yet delicious.

The host came to chat and apologize for the slow service. When he found we were Canadian, he wanted to know more. Turns out he used to live in Toronto, and confessed it was in Forest Hill.

What’s his line? In addition to waiting on tables now, his CV includes a stint as the president of Ford Canada. He also opened Ford plants in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia. His son bought the restaurant a year ago, and Alain Batty (great name!) « helps out » by waiting on tables and babysitting grandkids. He said that there was a lot more customer service in the restaurant business than being a business executive.

He is also on several boards, and teaches at the Schulich Business School in Toronto. Would never have guessed!

That was Sunday. In a couple of days, we would be off for a vacation-in-vacation at Le-Grau-du-Roi, on the sunny Mediterranean coast. Report will follow!

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