I HAVE OFTEN EXPRESSED THE VIEW that one could be excused for assuming that the pizza is the French National Dish.
It is ubiquitous. Readily available. Everywhere. Often when there is nothing much else on offer. À Emporter or Eat In. So it is a blessing that both Mrs Melling and self quite like them. In Sablet we do both (eat in and eat out).
On the 'ill advised' visit to the S of F this summer (ill advised because the weather forecast was Scorchio-Forte but we persisted) we partook of our first pizza at the restaurant next door to our Première Classe in La Rochelle (a hotel which we patronised on our spring return [and like] and that Mrs M contacted, after our spring return, to cancel another booking she had previously secured, and paid for up front, which we couldn't use due to our early return to Britain for family reasons. The manager responded and offered a transfer of our booking to a future date up to the end of June – so here we were availing ourselves of this facility).
Sorry about that convoluted explanation but it reveals why we're back in La Rochelle a second time this year (and plan to be a third time, in fact, on the autumn trip down). The hotel is well placed in La Rochelle, comfortable, good air con, but better still, it has this dashed good restaurant next door and they do do a mean pizza! And I had one, day one, summer transfer to Sablet.
Do you know, when we poll up to the PC in La R in September, with the senior bro as baggage, we'll be in there again and I will have yet another pizza to assuage the hunger that will by then be gnawing at my guts after the drive from Roscoff, (notwithstanding sandwiches we expect to take on board for consumption en route)? Yes I will. (Mrs Melling might have pasta) We've eaten pizzas there -- lots!
Don't worry, I am not now going to start waxing lyrical about every pizza we had on this summer trip. There isn't enough space here and anyway my vocabulary could not do justice to the variety of toppings…Neither did I take notes on the pizzas we consumed, although I can remember a number of them quite well, particularly the Sablet ones; they are impressed upon my mind. Hussein makes them and makes them fast.
I refer you to the terrace thermometer at 1Rue FB on 28 June as proof. Bear in mind the device is in the coolest and shadiest corner and you will realise that the 39.5°C represents a considerably higher heat on the terrace proper. Down the A9 a few miles (sorry, kilometres) a village weather station was registering France's all time record at 46°C. It was really jolly warm. I realise that fans of Fahrenheit will prefer the conversion I have included in the snap, lower left, our thermometer can do either. And fans are all we had to try to parry the heat, whilst our friends here all seem to be minded to install air con, not realising, of course, that such devices simply add to global warming (and therefore the need for air con). Far better not to be where the heat is, if one can so organise one's life.
I held on to the conviction that such heat must ultimately lead to commensurate thunderstorms, and the title picture shows the apparent approach of such an episode. But it just never happened, at least, not while we were in residence. We had one wet day only and a couple of sharp showers. My fondness for rain was up to maximum revs!
We struggled to the bar on at least three occasions where the mist sprayers were working non-stop to cool the customers and stayed to have Hussein's pizzas, and very good they are too. We took pizzas home aussi (we struggled to the bar on several occasions and did not have pizzas; and we did not have pizzas on any visits to L'as de Coeur where the menu du jour or a la carte prevailed, despite their reputation for top flight pizzas). We also ate a fine pizza at the usual place in Buis Les Baronnies, on one of our brave trips out after visiting the blooming lavender to the north of Sainte Jalle. One of best days out actually. Fragrant. See below.
Heat, light, fragrance and pizzas and a close encounter with the Tour de France (and as ever some good conversations into the sweltering nights); that was Summer 2019. Another post anon!
It seemed to be crêpes on the way back……
