bitter or sweet?

there are two kinds of almonds here, sweet and bitter. a common joke that the locals play on newbies to the region is to offer a beautiful looking handful of almonds, and then watch as the unsuspecting and grateful tourist fills his or her mouth full of revoltingly bitter almonds, and tries both to be polite and to spit out their gift at the same time. we have been here just long enough both to have endured this prank as victims, and to enjoy watching it be played on newer arrivals than ourselves.

wild bitter almonds

no, the prickly one

there are lots of chestnuts visible on trees right now. it’s tempting to think of them all as “chestnuts” ready to be roasted by an open fire. but the smoot-husked, easy to pick up, black-walnut looking chestnuts are actually horse chestnuts, and not edible. the chestnut everyone wants to eat here, like so much else that is edible in the south of France, is full of spines and needle-sharp defenses. sort of like the blackberry, the artichoke, the blackthorn, the wild rose, and the gooseberry. yes, of the two chestnuts that grow in the hills behind us, the edible one is not the one that is easier to harvest. no the edible one is the prickly one. the one that pierces your leather gloves, and leaves your fingers stippled with blood.

chestnuts/châtaigniers

eddie izzard

eddie izzard is a hilarious, occasionally cross dressing comedian, who once did a sketch about the differences between british and american word pronunciation. “You say aluminum, we say aluminium. you say BAY-zil, we say BAH-zil.” and then the beautiful conclusion: “you say ‘erbs’ and we say ‘herbs’ . . . because there’s a fucking ‘H” in it.” i laugh every time. thank you eddie for your weird, inimitable, askew perspective on the world.

herbs from my husband’s langedocien herb garden

gumdrops

i looked at these all afternoon long, and all i could think was, “candy.” and eventually i couldn’t help myself, and had to photograph them like a rainbow roll of gumdrops on white paper. one of the great pleasures of being back in the mediterranean is the simple fact that fruit tastes like candy here, and is sold ripe, so that the long, unfolding fruit season is like a garden of delights, from the first strawberries to cherries to apricots to plums to peaches to nectarines to grapes to figs to blackberries to pears to apples to pomegranates to quince to persimmons. it reminds me every time just how sadly rare it is back home that i get to meet a perfect fruit, and how strangely life enhancing good fruit can be.

plums of southern france

autumn in the languedoc

even though i am still wearing sleeveless tops in the daytime, there are signs that fall is here.  the grape vines are still mostly green, but the first of their leaves has just started to be edged with reds and oranges. a storm front moved through tonight, and the air was not quite sizzling hot enough to dry the rain before it fell to earth. the quince is now yellow on the quince tree. and the last of the stone fruits sit next to the first of the pears at the local grocer’s stand. i’m ready. but not ready. but ready.

fall leaves in the languedoc