Sadly, last year around this time, Michael and I were eating our way through the Provence. No such luck this year and I'm feeling pretty nostalgic. Didn't help to open up my iphoto on a picture of the market in Aix-en-Provence. A sad reminder of what lunch could taste like. I do my best with homegrown tomatoes and trying to find the best goat cheese, sausages and olives around here, but it's never going to be the same. The amount of delicacies and the quality and freshness just can't be recreated here. Where do I find a Banon?A goat cheese painstakingly wrapped in marinated chestnut leaves. A stall with at least 50 kinds of sausages? Heaps upon heaps of wild mushrooms. Mountains of porcini?
OK, enough already. I did have to try something for lunch to bring me closer to Provence. At least we have Port Madison Goat Cheese here on Bainbridge Island. And I do have the freshest of tomatoes, a little jar of Herbes de Provence, some Fleur de Sel from the Camargue and a drizzle of good olive oil. Not perfect - for one the sound of the market is missing and - even worse - I'm out of rosé!
