A nostalgic parlor-game:  Have you ever left a place?  If so, what foods do you miss most?  From California, I miss high-quality sushi and mexican foods of all kinds. From Boston, it's more ambiance - a good bar meal on a friday night with friends. 

If I ever leave the Cote d'Azur, I know what I will miss most- a summer aperitif with a glass of something cold (Rosé is native, but champagne is delicious too) served with toasts and tapenade as the sun hangs long and low over the sapphire sea. 

Our season is still rainy but it makes us appreciate our good evenings more, and we are ever hopeful, thinking that as the season progresses, we will finally have our summer nights.  We have been having an aperitif, apéro for short, on a regular basis, even during the week.  Our tapenade and toasts have been making a regular appearance on the table, and it made me wonder - where does it come from?

First, in case you don't know, tapenade is a spread of ground olives, capers and sometimes anchovy with seasonings and olive oil to hold it together. It is the south of France in a jar. Tapenade or its cousin, pates d'olive which is simply the pulp of brined black olives, graces many tables during aperitif.  The difference between between the two is both the ingredients and regional variations.  Pates d'olive is preferred in Nice and the surrounding area is only made of the local AOC variety, the small black olive, the cailletiers.  Tapenade is found further to the west, in Provence, particularly between Marseille  and Grasse. It is widely reported that JB Reboul wrote in his cookbook La Cuisiniere Provencal that tapenade was invented in 1880 by a Marseille chef.  I find this a bit hard to believe since the basic ingredients are indigenous to such a wide region but it is true that tapenade is not really seen anywhere else, unless it's imported.

How can we tell?  I found an excellent article (in French) on the etymology of Tapenade, following a lead from food writer Clifford Wright who writes that the name tapenade derives from the provencale word for caper - so without capers, there is no tapenade!  The article on "Etymologie Occitane" explains that the Greek word from capers - Kapperis - is repeated all through the european languages.  However, in the occitaine languages (which were/are spread across the south of France and into Italy) the "c" is replaced by a "t".  The hypothesis is that the word predates roman languages and is seen in the languages where the caper plan is native.

So, how do you make it?  Well, I'll be totally honest - I've never made tapenade from scratch.  We buy it from the local mill where we process our olives into oil.  David Lebovitz came to his own realisation about making it from scratch but he includes a (fancified) recipe if you're motivated to try.  Here's a more classical treatment.  Or rather, come and visit and enjoy tapenade and glass of rosé in situ!

 

 

 

 

Lucky ducks!  That's what I think when I look at this picture.  Their frickin' playground is the French Rivieria - which has all kinds of glamorous connotations (bardot on a yacht in St. Tropez, etc) but just looking at this picture and seeing the amazing not -for-nothing is it called azur sea and the snow-capped mountains in the distance I realize how hard their lives are going to be later, when they will leave such extreme beauty to find their way in the world.  Meanwhile I, no stranger to an impressive landscape (cue Bennet singing "I left my heart in San Francisco"), lap it up.

We were at the Pointe d'Aiguille in Theoule-Sur-Mer, just west of Cannes.  It's one of my favorite beaches and even a windy day with a cold sea did not deter us from having our first beach outing of year. The Pointe d'Aiguille is on the eastern most edge of the Massif Esterel, an impressive sea-front mountain range that is mostly red rock, scrub bush and hiking trails.  Unlike the rest of the coast for 100s kilometers, the Esterel plunges into the Mediterranean (or jumps out, depending on your persepective) creating a unique shoreline - the water gets deep just off shore.  Unlike the rest of the granite/limestone Alpes-Maritimes, the Esterel is the remnant of ancient volcanos which over 100s millions of years have slowly been eroded to what we enjoyed last weekend. 

Part of the fun of the beach is it's relative seclusion.  It's not right on the road, nor are there on-site snack stands selling ice cream and sodas.  It's a pebble beach, rather than sand, a turn off for some.  It's small.  To get there, you must park along the corniche that connect Theoule-Sur-Mer with Saint-Raphael.  Blink and you can miss it - look for other cars parked along the road.  You walk down a path for a couple hundred meters and finally down some slightly treacherous steps (hold hands, kids!) descending the face of the outcrop.  You've made it - you're on the beach!  The water here is so clean because it's immediately deep off shore - hardly any of the summer time scourge of jellyfish or pollution that can ruin a day out on the Riviera.  The swimming is good and teen-agers jump off the Pointe d'Aiguille into the emerald waters.  Our day, as mentioned was chilled with wind so we huddled close to a volcanic shelter, picnicked, read magazines and the kids threw stones in the water.  There were other families hunting for seashells and a couple of snorkelers with wet suits getting ready to enjoy the marine life just below the surface.