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Le Grain de Sel, Cogolin

June 13, 2010 1 Comment Filed Under: Uncategorized

 
Grain de Sel, one of the best restaurants in the area, the Ottolenghi guys rate it.
 
Chef Philippe Audibert at work at this chic mom and pop operation.
 
Courgette flower fritters
 
 
Tuna? Lost notes.
 
 Meat coiled around in medaillons, can’t remember name of dish, on spag.
 
Brouillarde d’oeufs fermiers à la poutargue. 
  
Creamy soft polenta with shavings of truffle and golden chanterelles
  
Caramelised fruit and liquorice icecream
  
 

“There’s more to life than Cogolin you know” opined Cheryl, a controversial theory from the  Liverpudlian owner of Le Snack bar on neighbouring Les Prairies de la Mer campsite.

Or Prairies de la Merde as some call it. I lived there in a mobile home for four months, yes, for a while I was trailer trash. I enjoyed every minute. No housework, five minutes from the beach, ‘La Boheme’ or ‘the Bo’ and the other English pub ‘Monroes’ (I’m sure the eponymous Marilyn herself would have loved this joint) a quick cycle ride away… what’s not to like? In the summer, there was nightly entertainment, karaoke cabaret singers in the open air stage, rumbling through the site. Never a dull moment, living in a holiday camp. I, of course, was treated like the local witch, what with being a single mum, a suspiciously light drinker, and known to ‘read books like’. 

“You should go out with Rupert!” said Cheryl’s live in partner, an enormous Scouser who had a formidable appetite for coke (powdered) and beer. 

“He’s got like, um, how big is it?”he hesitated, a builder’s imagination in his mind’s eye at work “ooh a shelf, about 2 foot long, with…books. You’d like him. You’d get on”. 

I met the unlikely named Rupert, the local taxi driver, who knew all the back roads to Saint Tropez, a useful bit of knowledge when the main linking road (N98) from Cannes to Toulon is one long engine-busting traffic jam from June to September. He had all the security codes for the private roads see. Rupert, a pudgy guy from Portsmouth, his brain a little fried from a decade on E at South Coast raves, didn’t believe in fiction. 

“I only allow reference books to be on that shelf”. 

We weren’t destined for each other. He was also extremely narrow minded at Scrabble, refusing the Scottish ‘Aye’.

Cheryl, even in her 40s, with the thickened middle of a woman who spent every summer churning out tourist snacks, gargling her constant companion, a pint glass of Malibu and pineapple that staff kept topped up, was a pretty woman. She drank like a professional. She worried about her two feral daughters growing up in the campsite. Cogolin is the local town, the nearest to a real place down there for it’s open all year (rather than just being a picturesque backdrop for tourist season like St. Trop). I knew every bar, every shop, every restaurant, every stall on market day (Wednesdays) in brain dulling detail. There was one health food shop, one boutique where you could buy cheap bags and heels, one friendly bar run by Arabs next to the cinema, one other bar next to the hardware shop which sold frying pans with holes in the bottom, soon to be revealed as chestnut roasting pans. A thrill would be a stroll around Leclerc, fingering French stationery, gazing at espadrilles and a rosé in the bar opposite. 

Janey, Cheryl and I would meet there on school days, during the long unemployed winter of 2005. Janey had a mysterious boyfriend who we never saw. We heard stories, he was building villas in Cheshire, he was busy, he was travelling, but he adored Janey. I saw a photo: he looked unfeasibly young and good looking for Janey, a raddled blonde who talked of her son, the “golf professional” and her ex-husband, the millionaire dentist. The son crashed her cars and the ex fucked off with a trophy dental assistant. Janey lived on the RMI due to a bad back and could never stand her round.

One day Janey showed me a handwritten letter from this guy, full of sweet nothings “See how he loves me!” she cooed.

After a few months of this, I finally broached the subject with Cheryl: “Erm this guy, is he in prison?”.

 Cheryl was shocked “How do you know?”. 

“Well who else writes letters? I mean, when we have email?”I shrugged.  

“Don’t tell her!” hissed Cheryl.

Anyway they were all criminals in the South of France, Graham Greene had it about right. 

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  1. Anonymous

    December 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    Incredibly well written piece…

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Supper club dishes from Saturday: pickled beetroot Supper club dishes from Saturday: pickled beetroot eggs, cheeseboard, stracciatella & cucumber, tomato/strawberry/peashoot salad with real balsamic & spruce oil, home cured dill gravlax, smoked salmon, homemade sourdough crisp bread, potato salad with wild fennel & lots more! #supperclub #midsummer #eattherainbow (miss you @linnsoederstroem)
Last nights supper club. My first supper club in 2 Last nights supper club. My first supper club in 2 years was great fun. I’m pleased with my food, the guests were lovely, it looked magical in the garden. But the weather! I even had to bring my duvets from the bedroom out. They looked like refugees. But this brought even more laughter! Next event September
My first supperclub in two years will take place t My first supperclub in two years will take place this Saturday 18th June starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £50 byo you can book here: https://msmarmitelover.com/product/midsommar-supper-club there are still a few places left. Pescetarian menu. Scandi and botanical influences. #gettingbackonmyfeet #postpandemic #smallbusinesses #supperclub #london
I recently completed the 3 day @heathostile train I recently completed the 3 day  @heathostile training course. On the last day I was kidnapped by ex-special forces for a few hours & learnt how to deal with compliance training & a hostile environment. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. 3 intense days of combat first aid, navigation & how to survive in a war zone. I handled short, long guns, mortars, grenades, bullets, and tourniquet & bandaged an amputee. I learnt where to sit in a car, where to hide from a bullet, where to protect myself if in a car. It was brilliant. Highly recommended for any journalists, photographers, cameramen, charity workers, paramedics going into any difficult environment say a disaster or war. The stories from the tutors & the other participants were so interesting. My piece on it out soon. Book a course: https://hostile-environment.co.uk/  They also do jungle & desert training. I’d love to join the Antarctic expedition. Anyway that’s me hooded in the front. #adventures #het #hostileenvironmenttraining #experiences #travel
Bundoran beach, Donegal. I spent a week knocking o Bundoran beach, Donegal. I spent a week knocking on doors, going to libraries, searching through graveyards for my Irish forebears. It’s really hard to find information prior to 1850. I found this in last years trip to Arbroath in Scotland. Headstones wear out, records are lost or burnt in a fire, everybody has the same name and are known by nicknames, successive children have the same first name, that usually means they died and the next one is called by the same thing. Women did have children out of wedlock, and people remarried more often than you’d think, plus families fall out & never see each other again. I learnt that my Irish great grandfather michael went to Glasgow & met a woman who came from a similar place: somewhere wild & beautiful by the sea. Then they and their children came to london. Chasing the work & the money always. Politics and economics matter for they push people around from rural to city. And now we rodgers are Londoners. #ireland #scotland #family #travel #roots
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Tullaghan, county Leitrim, Donegal, where my grea Tullaghan, county Leitrim, Donegal,  where my great great grandfather john Rodgers was a postman, then a tailor, then a pawnbroker. #irishheritage #donegal #myancestry #irish #rodgers #travel
I’ve taken down the previous post as it’s poor I’ve taken down the previous post as it’s poor timing considering what’s happened over the last 24 hours. Being British I’ve not grown up around guns. It’s interesting to be on this course and find out more about the reality of them, although my focus is learning the ‘golden triangle’ of first aid, communications and navigation. But at the same time It’s depressing how in America nothing will ever change regarding gun law. RIP.
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