Leaving Bayonne, we drove down the Atlantic coast to see Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. We stayed in this fair beach city for the night and had a really nice dinner at a modern-Basque restaurant called Olatua — an excellent cod with txorizo and a mighty fine gâteau basque.

In the morning we left and crossed the Spanish border to visit San Sebastián, in the Spanish Basque country. The road to get there was magnificent, offering heart-stopping vistas at every turn of the road — which means it took us an inordinate amount of time to cross the Pyrenees, as we were constantly stopping the car to take pictures, enjoy the fresh mountain air, and say hi to horses and cattle who were grazing idly in the sun and forceful wind. San Sebastián itself was great and we really enjoyed our walk around the narrow streets of the historical center, but the highlight was definitely food-related, as we sat down for a late lunch at a tapas bar called Aralar. We adored the concept of freshly-made pinchos laid out on the bar for us to take our pick: we more or less sampled and shared one of each delicious bite, and particularly enjoyed the tortilla and the octopus — tender, juicy and full of flavor.

The next day took us where I had been dying to go ever since I’d spotted the tiny speck on the map (stamping my feet in the car and having red, cute and spicy visions): Espelette, home of the über-pepper, le Piment d’Espelette (AOC). A lovely village in and of itself — all white houses and red shutters — it was further prettified by the very thing that makes it so famous, strings of Espelette peppers hung up to dry on facades and balconies, inside restaurants and homes.

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It is a little-known fact that Bayonne was the first chocolate-making city in France. In the 17th century, a wave of Jewish immigrants settled there, fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese inquisition and bringing the savoir-faire as a prized possession in their luggage. Local artisans quickly learned how to make the magic happen with those mysterious beans from the New World, and developped the production themselves. One century later, they created a Chocolate Maker’s Guild, and swiftly excluded Jews from it (how nice). These businesses were often family-owned, and transmitted from father to son. In the middle of the 20th century, the growing industrialisation of chocolate production made it difficult for them to survive, and many of these families had to close shop. Seven of them still exist to this day and I was very eager to visit the longest established, Cazenave, which was created in 1854.

Bayonne is renowned for its hot chocolate (originally flavored with cinnamon) and its dark and bitter chocolate — a very good thing since this happens to be my personal preference. In their very pretty boutique on rue du Port-Neuf, Cazenave offers a variety of chocolate bites and confections as well as caramels and turons, but to really taste the chocolate itself I simply bought a 100g-bar of chocolat à l’ancienne (lehen bezala in Basque), their 70% blend. You may find this hard to believe, but it travelled with us, untouched, all the way back to Paris.

Verdict? This is a very elegant chocolate: it has a powerful nose, and an excellent balance between subtly sweet and subtly bitter. Deeply flavored, with woody/mushroomy and spicy/peppery hints, it is slightly acidulated and nicely long on the palate. It also offers just the right textural resistance — your tooth needs a slight effort to break in, and after that the square just melts on your tongue with abandon.

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If there’s one thing that should be said about the South-West of France, it’s that you shouldn’t go if you’re on a diet. Wonderful specialties and artisanal products abound, begging you to take a bite — or two or three just to make sure. As we drove and walked around, taking in the spectacular landscapes, enjoying the sunshine and the quiet, the lack of crowds and the friendly service (the reward for travelling off-season), I kept my eyes peeled (an expression that always makes me shudder but I use it anyway) for interesting food vendors and promising restaurants.

Both are aplenty, and when it comes to restaurants, we mostly went for the unpretentious, family-owned ones, those that serve local fare to local guests. One thing that really struck us was how generous — not to say gargantuan — the portions were. A regular menu would often include three or four courses in addition to the obligatory cheese and dessert. And we’re not talking about dainty little tasting-menu courses either. But however tempting this display of food was, appetite is the food traveller’s most precious resource, and after the first few meals we soon learned to treat it with the respect it deserves.

Our trip started by a train ride from Paris to Brive-la-Gaillarde in the Périgord, where we rented a car. We find this much more comfortable than driving all the way down — well, unless you are sharing your train car with an entire colonie de vacances (kids going to a holiday camp), shrieking with joy at the thought of the upcoming fun and arguing at the top of their voices over who gets the last piece of candy that their parents packed in their lunch boxes. Thank god for iPods. Anyway.

Our first destination was the village of Gourdon, where Maxence’s grandparents live. We stayed there for two days, enjoying their company, driving leisurely around the lushly green surrounding roads (happening upon the delightful medieval village of Martel in particular, more pictures on the moblog) and being treated to two excellent lunches, mostly featuring local duck and goose specialties — foie gras, confits, gésiers, magrets (Bird flu? What bird flu?). One was at the Hostellerie de la Paix in Payrac, and the other at our very favorite restaurant in the area, the Musée Henri Giron, where the owners are kindness incarnate and serve a delicious (though truly marathonian) daily menu. Their restaurant, which they only operate during the week-end, also acts as a museum for Henri Giron’s work, a painter and friend of theirs.

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[Traditional French Cooking Class]

Show-and-tell: this is the gear I bought for the cooking class I am taking this year! It’s part of the Cours Municipaux pour Adultes, a learning program sponsored by the Mairie de Paris (the mayor’s office), and mine is a weekly three-hour class to learn about traditional French cuisine. All classes offered in this program (although the quality of teaching no doubt varies) are a real bargain, since they are financed in great part by local taxes — for once I am more than happy to pay them — but they are reserved exclusively to Parisians (who have paid the aforementioned taxes, it’s only fair) and the odds of getting in are akin to winning the lottery. Word has gotten around, they get a lot of applications, but naturally there is a limited number of seats for each class, so it’s first come first serve.

I first learned about this cooking class sometime over the summer, and in the morning of September 1, the day the enrollment began, I walked over to the Mairie, picked up an application (plus a few for my neighbors) and within the hour had sent it off, with a good luck kiss. The kiss thing seems to have worked, because I soon received a notice to come to the school at a certain date and time, and after a somewhat nerve-wracking test (multiple-choice questions? for a cooking class? what has the world come to?) only 18 or the 42 candidates (out of some 500 applications) were enrolled. Including — big sigh of relief — yours truly.

The classes started two weeks ago, and so far so good! What will we be learning? The basics of traditional French cuisine — Potage Conti, Pintade Grand-Mère, Steak au poivre, Carottes Vichy, Tarte aux Poires Bourdaloue, Paris-Brest (yay!) — you will no doubt hear about some of these as the class progresses. This is in perfect complementarity with my recent acquisition of L’Art Culinaire Moderne and I am delighted for the chance to learn more about this side of French cuisine I don’t know so much about. Looking at the scheduled weekly menus, I got irrationally excited by the thought of making Oeufs Pochés Toupinelle — don’t ask.

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