The three work at Poterie Not Frères, which is a pottery just outside the hamlet of Mas Saintes Puelles, by the side of the Canal du Midi, about 5 kilometres west of Castelnaudary. A pottery has been on the site since 1830, passing through various owners but in 1947 was taken over by Emile Not, the grandfather of the Not family. It now has 2 claims to fame: it is the oldest pottery in the South of France and is the one place in France where the cassole is still made by hand. This is the vessel from which cassoulet takes its name, and according to locals, is the only vessel in which cassoulet should be cooked.

Poterie Not Freres

But the Not family don’t only make cassoles. They create all types of pots, bowls, plates, vases, jugs and decorative pieces and will also take orders for specific items. The pottery is a big place and there are pottery items, large and small, for sale everywhere, all made from clay extracted nearby, modelled by hand on a wheel and once made and dry, fired in a wood oven. There is even a section where items that didn’t quite work out are sold at a discount, although I couldn’t see much wrong with them.

On my visit I didn’t buy a cassole, although I intend to one day when I feel brave enough to cook a cassoulet. Instead I bought 2 little 3 legged pots, which I was very pleased to find and have put to perhaps quite an unusual use. My father spent the last 15 years of his life in Laurabuc, a nearby village, happily enjoying the local wine and the view of the foothills of the Pyrenees from his garden. He is buried in the local cemetery and as all the other graves there are well decorated I thought his needed something as well. The pots planted with lavender are perfect.

When I bought my two pots one of the brothers left his wheel to take my payment. The change was given to me from a tin cash box, which added even more to the traditional feel of the place. However the Not family have used modern technology to put up details of their pottery on the Artisan Aude website , together with some lovely photos.

The day I do buy a cassole from Poterie Not Freres I know it will be unique, made by a potter following traditional methods and who maybe even cracked a joke while making it.

If you’d like to visit here is the information – in French but it’s easy French:

Infos Pratiques :
POTERIE NOT FRERE
ROBERT, JEAN PIERRE et PHILIPPE NOT
La Poterie – Lieu-dit Le Médecin
11400 MAS-SAINTES-PUELLES
Le long du canal.
Tél. : 04 68 23 17 01 Fax : 04 68 23 17 01
Mail :philippe.not@neuf.fr
Visite de l’atelier du lundi au vendredi de 8h à 12h et de 14h à 18h
Portes ouvertes avril, mai et juin du lundi au samedi de 8h à 12h et de 14h30 à 18h.
Le dimanche de 14h30 à 18h.
Congés annuel en août. Pour venir à la poterie, depuis Toulouse;sortie Villefranche de Lauragais,direction Carcassonne,traverse de Labastide d’Anjou a l’Hostelerie Etienne, prendre a droite, faire 2 KM.
De Carcassonne; sortie Castelnaudary direction Mas Stes Puelles.

Rue Georges Clemenceau

Say the name Carcassonne and most people will think of the Cité, that walled and turreted fortification that looks as if it has wandered out of a fairy tale. This thinking isn’t surprising as the Cité is a tourist hot spot attracting over 3 million visitors a year. It is a must-see place because of its amazing history and architecture (and for anyone with a small boy, the numerous shops selling plastic swords). But if you’ve made it to the Cité, it’s also worth crossing the River Aude to visit the other part of the old Carcassonne, the Bastide Saint-Louis (“the Bastide”). Although the Bastide doesn’t have the high profile of the Cité, it does have its own charm as a small, pretty, workaday town dating back to the 13th century.

The thing I love about the Bastide is that it has plenty to offer but is a manageable size. You are not daunted at the thought of exploring it, because it is so compact and relaxed. For high culture there are two places in particular to visit, the Musée des Beaux Arts and the Maison des Mémoires. The Musée des Beaux Arts is situated in a lovely but slightly dilapidated building in the Rue de Verdun. It doesn’t get too crowded and there’s plenty of room to wander around. Don’t miss the paintings by Jacques Gamelin, an 18th century Carcassonne artist.

The Maison des Mémoires, also in the Rue de Verdun, has a permanent exhibition about Joë Bosquet, a Carcassonne born writer, who lived in the house. After being wounded in the First World War he returned home and put himself to bed for the next 30 years. From his bed he wrote poetry and a huge number of letters, while also entertaining various literary figures. The bedroom is set up as it would have been when Joë Bosquet was working in it.

If after these cultural efforts you need some refreshment, the Bastide has plenty of independent restaurants and cafés. The Hotel Terminus opened in 1909, has an enormous and beautiful Belle Époque restaurant. It does good value set menus as well as dishes such as large seafood platters and the very French one of pigs’ trotters. During the 2nd World War the restaurant was used as officers’ quarters by the occupying German army and a portrait of Hitler hung over the fireplace.

Or there is Chez Fred in the Boulevard Omer-Sarrault, a small restaurant whose eponymous owner is clearly a man in love with cooking. Fred is to quote his website “un cuisinier passionné, fier de son terroire”. Chez Fred provides a range of set menus from the Menu Bistrot Express at 14 euros to the Menu Plaisir Carcassonnais at 32 euros.

Place Carnot

It’s easy to wander around the Bastide, because like most fortified towns it is set out in a grid pattern. The main shopping street, Rue Georges Clemenceau has been pedestrianized, making strolling along looking at the shops even easier. Markets are held in Place Carnot, off Rue Georges Clemenceau, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings.

And the locals are a friendly lot. When I was last there taking some photographs a man walked past and laughingly told me that I wasn’t getting his best side. Maybe not, but the Bastide is a pretty good side of Carcassonne.

Carcassonne

It was not worth driving to our house in Castelnaudary for lunch and then back again. We would have to find somewhere nearby to wait for 2 whole hours until the store reopened. Then we hit another problem. A small wooden cabinet we had said we would take with us was waiting beside the car. When we tried to put it in the boot it was too big. Could we risk driving off and leaving it in the car park of the furniture store, now empty except for our car?
The restaurant opposite was filling up with local workers so we decided to have lunch there and chose a table from where we could see the car and cabinet. John, my husband, being a man who enjoys a good meal, was happier than I was. I felt as if I had been robbed of 2 hours and was cross that my plans for the afternoon would have to change. We ordered the set lunch menu, which included a glass of wine. The wine and the bread basket came first. It only took a couple of sips of wine and a piece of bread for the inevitable to happen. Relaxation and a sense of perspective set in. What could be so important about my afternoon that it couldn’t wait while we enjoyed a pleasant, good value meal with time to talk? We even found it funny that we were sitting looking at the cabinet. There was no danger of it being stolen because everyone was at lunch.
Apparently, not so long ago the whole of France closed between 12 and 2, the time allowed for the midday meal. Friends of ours who work in Paris say that tradition is dying out, giving way to the corporate model of lunch being a quick sandwich at your desk. In the towns and villages of the Aude that is not the case. At midday shops and offices close while the cafes and restaurants fill up or workers head home. But even if a restaurant or home is not on the agenda, lunchtime still matters.
Last summer as we were sitting by the Canal du Midi in Castelnaudary enjoying the sunshine, a camper van pulled up nearby. It was just after midday. A family of four climbed down from the camper van bringing with them a tablecloth, glasses, plates and cutlery and set these out on a public picnic table. The food followed and they sat and enjoyed a leisurely lunch on the bank of the Canal. It made a charming picture, created with a style that seems to come so naturally to the French.
As for the furniture store, we returned at 2pm where the helpful assistant was waiting for us. Final arrangements were made and payment taken. We drove out of the car park at ten past two, refreshed and much calmer than we had been at ten past twelve, and with the afternoon still ahead.

Parking:

It was early evening when we arrived for our very first holiday at our house in Castelnaudary, having driven all the way from London. We had unloaded the luggage and my husband was just trying to park the car in the street, when a man from a neighbouring house ran out. Coming from a part of the world where people put bollards and chairs outside houses to protect “their” parking spaces, I immediately assumed we were about to take his. My heart sank at the thought that we had just broken the record for upsetting the locals in the shortest time possible.

Our neighbour had come out to say that he was about to leave for work in his car so, if we waited a few minutes, a  bigger space would be free.

Restaurants:

That same holiday we were having lunch in a local restaurant for the first time. It is only a small restaurant but very popular because of its reasonable prices. We ordered cassoulet and as John, my husband, wasn’t bothered about the wine, I asked for a bottle of white. The waiter said simply “You can’t possibly drink white with cassoulet, I’ll bring you a bottle of red”. He came back with a bottle of Corbières.

Cassoulet and red wine

At a later date we treated ourselves to the menu gourmand at a more expensive restaurant. This menu involves the chef selecting the dishes you are to eat.  he waitress asked how we liked our steaks and I said well done for me, please. She shook her head and told me that was impossible, the most the chef would do was medium rare.

But hello? I’m the customer paying for these meals. If I want to drink pink gin with cassoulet and eat steak that resembles charcoal, isn’t that my choice?  Obviously not in the Aude, where it is more important to treat food and wine properly than to try and keep some misguided Englishwoman happy just because she is paying.

Corbières is now one of my favourite wines and the medium rare steak was beautifully cooked and very tasty.

When we opened an account at the local branch of a major French bank, we were seen by a very charming bank officer. On finishing the formalities she told me that I would receive a debit card but my husband would not get one until his French had improved.

I couldn’t stop laughing as I wondered what policy in the staff handbook covered her decision. It must be something like: “Foreign customers of the bank will not be allowed to access their own money using a debit card until they can demonstrate the required level of proficiency in French”.

John’s French is coming along nicely.

The inhabitants of the Languedoc have a reputation for being robust and determined individuals.   The people we have met in the Aude have been welcoming, generous and helpful and they definitely know their own minds when it comes to those little things in daily life.

Cafe le Francais in Castelnaudary

I am happy to report that as far as the Aude is concerned, café culture is alive and well. If you stop for coffee in an Audois café, there may well be a group of  budding philosophers/painters/writers/film directors  already ensconsed at a table engaged in brilliant conversation, but even if there is not,  you will find the following:

1. The likelihood is that the café will be individually owned and operated rather than one of a chain of cafés. It will therefore have its own distinct character.

2. When entering the café you will not be expected to queue at the counter to order your coffee, wait for it to be made and then carry your cup to wherever there is a free place. Instead you will sit at a table (or stand at the bar if you prefer) and the waiter will come to you and ask you what you would like.

Cafe de l’Industrie

3. When ordering coffee, you will not have to work your way through a long list of choices (e.g tall americano with vanilla syrup, decaff skinny latte, single shot cappuccino) before deciding what you want. If you ask for “un café” you will be given a small strong black coffee. “Une noisette” is “un café” with a shot of hot milk. “Un café creme” (also known as “un café au lait”) is coffee with lots of hot milk and is usually drunk at breakfast time. And that is it.

4. You will not be asked if your coffee is to drink in or takeaway. A café is of course a place to drink in. The inhabitants of the Aude are not given to rushing along the street clutching a disposable cup in such a hurry to be somewhere else that they have to drink their coffee en route. There will be a blissful absence of cardboard cups with plastic lids containing spouts through which to suck, which seem to be everywhere now in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Grand Bar, cours de la Republique in Castelnaudary

5. The waiter will bring you your coffee in a white china cup. You will drink it in your own time, while talking to your companion, reading the paper or simply in your own reverie. When you have finished and you are ready you will pay the waiter and leave, all the better for the time you have just spent.

All of the three cafés are located in a row along the cours de la Republique in Castelnaudary.  It is not possible to tell whether or not the next Jean Cocteau or Simone de Beauvoir is sitting in one of them. But each of them makes a good spot for those of us who like to linger over excellent coffee.

Castelnaudary market

Our house in Castelnaudary faces on to the Place de Verdun, the main square where most of the food stalls of the market are sited. My favourite task, when vertical on a Monday  morning, is to open the shutters of our first floor sitting room and watch the scene below. The Castelnaudary market is not an arty-farty, self-conscious, look-at-us-we-are-shopping-in-a-market type market. It is a proper, thriving market where people come to do their shopping for real. Despite the presence of 3 large supermarkets close by in the area, those shoppers still come. They line up at the fruit and veg stalls checking the produce, squeezing the melons, bantering with the stallholders; queue patiently at the excellent butcher’s van; buy their fresh bread from any number of stalls ; inspect what else is on offer  and then possibly have a quick coffee at the coffee van.

Maybe the coffee van is my favourite because in the summer if I open the sitting-room windows, the smell of roasting coffee beans drifts up and I cannot wait to get down there to buy my coffee for the week. The lady who runs the coffee van makes me up a mixture of coffee beans and grinds it, all the while asking me about our house in the square, how long  are we here for this time and don’t we find it noisy on Monday mornings ? No, we love being part of all this.

Monday morning in Castelnaudary

There are all the other stalls you would expect to see in a large market : cake and pastry stalls; stalls selling cheeses of every variety; a stall selling only plaits of garlic; others selling only honey or figs or olives and of course a stall selling incredibly reasonably priced wine. Another stall I love is the yoghurt stall where the stall holder sells glass pots of her home-made yoghurt of various flavours. Every empty pot returned gives a 30 cent discount on the next pot purchased.

The market stretches away down the cours de la Republique where the non-food items are for sale. Here straw baskets, jewellery, clothes, shoes, kitchen items, bed linen, CDs and second hand books are all available.

Among all these items are the reminders that this is La France Profonde. The van with  ’La Chevaline Boucherie’ painted on the side sells horse meat. It probably is irrational to eat some animals and not others but I would have to be very, very hungry to eat horse meat.  My husband, a horse-lover, swears that he would starve first (hopefully we will never have to put that one to the test).

The stall selling old-fashioned ladies underwear is a puzzle. It is there every week with the underwear displayed on hangers, mostly girdles with suspenders attached.  Presumably someone is still buying them.

By about 1 pm the food shoppers have gone, at home having lunch with the fresh produce they have just bought and the stall holders in the Place de Verdun are packing up. Those in the cours de la Republique linger for a couple more hours and it is good to browse among their stalls and enjoy the market for a bit longer.  This really is the best way to spend a Monday.

In France you make a verbal offer to the owner through your estate agent who negotiates on your behalf. Once an offer is accepted you and the vendor then sign the Compromis de Vente (the formal offer) and pay the deposit, normally 10%. The deposit is paid into the Notaire’s account and held until the sale completes.  Before the day of completion the balance of the price – including fees – is transferred to the Notaire.  The buyer and seller sign the Acte de Vente and the buyer owns the house.

Expertises

There are various inspections – expertises – that have to be completed before the offer can be signed.

Cooling-off period

The purchaser has a 7-day cooling off period after the compromis is signed. In that time they can withdraw from the purchase for any reason with no penalty. From signing the compromis to signing the Acte de Vente, the official purchase document that transfers ownership, is usually 2 -3 months. Once the 7-day period is over the notaire starts doing the things that are necessary.

This includes things like verifying title and checking to see if there are outstanding loans registered against the property. He also checks that there are no plans in place to build a road or anything on the property.

Many villages in France have the right to decide to buy the property at the price that has been offered to the vendor. If the village has the right then the Notaire has to offer them the property and they have two months in which to make a decision. That’s the main reason that it takes two months. If the village doesn’t have the right to buy the property then it takes about three weeks to complete the sale. As an aside – villages almost never exercise their right to buy a property. I’ve never heard of it happening.

Notaire Fees

Notaire fees are about 7% of the purchase price – sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more. The Notaire’s actual fee is set by the state and is about 10% of the total. The notaire pays land transfer and registry fees and any other fees and charges required by the government on behalf of the buyer.

Clauses suspensives

The compromis can include clauses suspensives inserted by the purchaser or the vendor. These are clauses than, if not met, can cancel the sale with no penalty. The most common is a clause relating to a mortgage application. A vendor is given x amount of time, usually about three weeks to apply and get approval for a mortgage. If they can’t get approval they notify the notaire and the sale is off. They do have to prove that they diligently tried to get a mortgage otherwise they are liable to forfeit the deposit.

Estate Agency Fees

Normally estate agency fess or commission is included in the selling price. There are rare exceptions so it is a good idea to clarify.

Procuration

You don’t have to be in France for any of this. The Notaire can send you the Compromis by registered post, you sign it and send it back by registered post. You can also use a procuration to sign the Compromis or Acte de Vente. This is basically a one-time power of attorney that gives someone in the Notaire’s office the authority to sign on your behalf.

Lagrasse

As I worked out the last few days in the office, I would come home each evening and continue my search for a place to live.  I joined a great  ex-pat network, Survive France Network (SFN)  and had put up a post saying I was looking for a 3 month rental somewhere near Carcassonne.  A member replied to say she knew of a house in a village about 45 minutes from there.  A couple of weeks and many emails later, my sister and I flew into Carcassonne, picked up a rental car.  Armed with sat-nav and a list of the possible houses to view, we set off from our hotel.  We bowled into Lagrasse, and there was our new-found SFN friend, waiting for us, as arranged.  If first impressions count, we didn’t do too well – as Joanne approached the car, Helen and I were engaged in a typical sibling squabble about whether or not I had parked between the lines!  I ended it by stepping out of the car and saying “ah bo**ocks!” .  Thankfully, this seemed to amuse Joanne no end, and herself and husband Peter showed us the house, and walked around the village with us, pointing out the mediaeval market place, the river and the beautiful Abbey that sits on the opposite bank of the river.  That was it!  Decision made.  I cancelled all the other appointments and flew back to Dublin the next day.  Time to pack – we are going to France!

I finished work on 28^th February, and started making plans.  I am a list-maker.  At one point I had so many lists, I needed a Master List, containing all my lists.  I was driving myself nuts!  I spent a feverish couple of hours scanning stuff – passports, driving licences, marriage certs, birth certs,  and on and on.  Just to completely drive myself over the edge, I then decided to email them to myself, as a back up.  No sooner had I uttered the words “back-up”, then I was out of the chair, scrabbling around, looking for the cable for the external hard drive.

I had made so many lists of what paperwork to bring, what to pack, etc., that two days before we were due to leave, I hadn’t actually packed anything.  I packed and weighed, unpacked, packed again.  In between packing and re-packing, I copied loads of films from DVDs onto hard drive, thinking that we would be looking for something to do in the evenings.  As prepared as we possibly could be, we left Dublin at the end of March 2011 with four suitcases, and embarked on our new life.

Part I – Why move to France? can be read here

 I am often asked that question.  Henry and I have spent countless holidays in France over the last 20 years.  Like many, we loved the lifestyle, the culture, learning the language, and of course the wine!  At some point, there was a subtle shift in thinking, and we began to talk about “living the dream”.  It was a topic that often came up, usually after a few glasses of wine.  Peter Mayle has a lot to answer for, and I think it was watching the TV version of “A year in Provence” one evening that tipped me over the edge.  Henry sort of got swept along in my headlong rush to get to Provence.  Some weeks later, we left Dublin for a week’s French language tuition in Aix-en-Provence, a holiday we repeated twice more.  That last trip, we stayed for a month in a little apartment and at that point, both of us were agreed – we want to live in France – and left for Dublin on a high, determined to be back.  My balloon was burst when I realised the cost of renting/buying property in Provence.

Our next trip was not to Provence, but to the Languedoc in October 2010, where we spent a magical week on a narrow-boat on the Canal due Midi.  Slowly but surely, the Languedoc weaved its charm on us, and Provence and the “search for the Holy Mayle” began to fade.   We wandered up and down the Canal between Ventenac and the edge of Beziers.  Not very adventurous of us, but the public sector strikes all around France at that time meant that some of the locks might not be open.  We bumped off the banks a few times, and rear-ended a bridge (don’t ask!), tasted wine in the chateau at Ventenac, walked through Argeliers, and sat up on deck most evenings for aperos, enjoying the peace and the stunning views.

Back in Dublin in November, and back to work.  I was now on a short week, due to the economic crisis in Ireland.  Four days a week turned into two days, and in January, full redundancy.  After many years working as a Legal Executive for a law firm, I was going to join the ranks of the unemployed.  Well, that did it!  I was not ready to sit around and do nothing.  I started researching, looking for somewhere in or near beautiful Carcassonne.

Cassoulet of Castelnaudary

If you visit the Aude you will soon enough come across the dish for which the region is famous, cassoulet. Sometimes I think cassoulet is sausage and beans with attitude, but there is of course far more to it than that. Cassoulet is one of those iconic French regional dishes that acquire a history and status of their own. And cassoulet certainly has an impressive history. The story is that during the 100 Years War in the 14th century, Edward the Black Prince besieged the town of Castelnaudary. When the inhabitants were down to their last supplies they pooled what was left – beans and bits of meat – and ate the mixture. Strengthened by it they soon saw off the English, who apparently ran all the way back to the Channel, and cassoulet was born.

The essential ingredients of cassoulet are haricot beans, duck fat and pork. After that opinion divides over whether or not breadcrumbs and Toulouse sausage should be added. Fortunately the Grande Confrerie du Cassoulet (Grand Brotherhood of Cassoulet) exists today to ensure that in and around Castlenaudary, the traditional qualities of cassoulet are upheld. Members of the Confrerie wear flowing brown and yellow robes with those who are also ‘chevaliers’  entitled to wear a hat that looks like an upside down bowl. Well, this is France and they do take food seriously.

But that is not all. Every year in the last week of August Castelnaudary hold its “Fete du Cassoulet”. Basically for 6 days and 5 nights the whole town parties in honour of cassoulet. The centre of town is closed to traffic and the local restaurants put up huge tents in the main square where endless portions of cassoulet are served. Seriously good singers and musicians come from all over France to give free open-air concerts that go on into the small hours. During the day there are parades, sporting events, boat races on the Canal du Midi, local bands wandering the streets playing and a fantastic market of local produce and wine on the last morning. It is all good fun.