June 2023 Newsletter
The truth about living abroad, restaurants for rainy days, and lemons filled with silky lemon posset
To watch:
Les Papillons Noirs
It cannot be understated that the French are the opposite of coy. They will never be the nation to shy away from controversial topics - in fact, the more on mainstream TV the better. Enter Les Papillons Noirs on Netflix, a miniseries about an old man who hires a ghostwriter to write his memoir, its central focus being the love of his life, Solange. Soon enough, the ghostwriter discovers this love story is a dark, twisted account of two serial killers, terrorising the country in the 1970s. Believe me, that is not a spoiler - there is so much more suspense to come. As well as plenty of nudity. It’s French after all.
To read:
If you like food memoir, you probably already subscribe to Colu Cooks. Every newsletter is refreshingly honest, fresh-faced as though been scrubbed clean of make-up, and her tone brings to mind that cheery neighbour with whom you can’t resist sharing tidbits of gossip. I always hunt down her recommendations. The lists of her weekly meals are ridiculously inspiring - it puts my bowl of whatever-vegetables-I-have-in-the-fridge salad to shame.
What can I say about this newsletter other than wow? First of all, it’s beautiful. Marina Amaral is a digital colourist and takes historic photos in their recognised black-and-white states and then intricately fills in the colour. Suddenly, the people are fuller and somehow more real. Second, these people are introduced and we are taken on breath-taking stories of events in their lives. Read the account of two Titanic survivors. It’s honestly haunting.
To check out:
You may have noticed by now that I love food art, and what could be more fitting for this little newsletter than French food art by a French artist? This month, I am delighted to share with you the work of Marie-Eva Peltier who is based near Bordeaux and sells her beautiful spritz and pain au chocolat chocolatine illustrations on Etsy.
Living in the south where I have to remind myself every time I go to a boulangerie to ask for a chocolatine not a pain au chocolat for the fear of the baker’s wrath, I am in love with this illustration! For those of you with less of a personal attachment to chocolatines, her stunning range of illustrations also include viennoiserie (ungraffitied this time) and sophisticated (yet highly alcoholic) spritzes and gins.
Check out Marie-Eva’s collection here and her Instagram here!
Here’s to June, to glowing sunsets and pounding thunderstorms, fresh cherries and apricots and peaches, and the dark tomb of my apartment.
I’ve recently stumbled across the artist and photographer Jamie Beck who moved from the US to Provence. Her photography is other-worldly, like the textured image of a Renaissance painting, the pictures shimmering behind what seems like a sheer, hazy curtain. I want to dive headlong into her portraits and sit with her by the open window or to admire those tufty sun-drenched lavender fields.
Instead, I am sitting in my apartment in the dark.
France has often been fodder for escapism, and rightly so, it is the country of lavender and sunflower fields, rolling hills, provincial markets and, what else, the Eiffel Tower. But, since moving here, I’ve become increasing aware, and with it, uncomfortable, with the marketing of said escapism. It completely ignores the rough edges, the disappointments, tears and, oftentimes, isolation that comes with moving to another country.
Not only that, but when we fantasise about packing up and moving abroad, we forget that these countries are exactly the same as the ones we’ve left behind. There are political struggles that you don’t agree with in your new home too, although here you can’t funnel those opinions into a vote. You have to adjust to a new country’s beaucracy, and the French may appreciate joie de vivre, but that means many tax office workers take a two-hour lunch break instead of answering your phone call. And while the sun does shine in the south of France, there can be weeks without it!
This has been my June. Toulouse has been sitting here stewing. It’s glum and gloomy, hot and haggard, the sky swollen with pregnant clouds. Not exactly Instagram worthy.
But why exactly have I been sitting in the dark?
Ah. As I’ve already written, the apartment building is having a makeover. Its exterior is being painted. What we thought would last two days has turned into two weeks - naturally. For some reason, the chosen colour is a bright ice-white, one that Gaylord seems truly offended by (‘this is la ville rose, not la ville blanche!’) and it now gleams and glares at me as I approach from down the street. Meanwhile, the building opposite us is the colour of sun-warmed terracotta. It faces our bathroom, and when the bathroom is steamy, condensation hanging in the air, and the sun shines outside the tiny box-sized window, the room positively glows in its warm reflection.
Unfortunately, the favour cannot be exchanged and our neighbours are just going to be blinded by us.
We feel somewhat blindsided by the work as it not only meant our garden hedge was cut down, but our garden has been used to house the scaffolding climbing the side of the building, stacked like Jenga blocks. We can’t sit on our terrace to eat lunch and the window shutters are required to remain shut throughout the day. As I work from home, that now happens in the dark. Darkness is one thing, but those closed shutters bring to mind a bunker, closing down for potential eternity or maybe a submarine with no windows. And as if that isn’t enough, the painters like to have rowdy, boisterous conversations about who bought the pain au chocolat outside our bedroom window at 7:30 in the morning.
It’s these little sides to life abroad that I believe need to be hung out like laundry, otherwise, what image of reality am I sharing?
To return to Jamie Beck, her book An American in Provence released last year, does exactly that too. Behind la vie bohème and blossom-strewn orchards, Beck gets candid about her reality. Maybe in that way, moving abroad is about growth? About taking the rough with the smooth, and appreciating those moments of escapism when they come.
One of which was last week, when my lovely friend Suzie came to visit. And of course the windows had to remain closed the whole time. The reasonable answer to that was to go out and enjoy the city. Unfortunately, the weather was behaving like a two-year-old having a tantrum. It scowled and grumbled, and we sagged with the humidity.
So, Suzie and I had to think outside the box.
Toulouse’s rainy-day restaurants, bars and cafes
We mooched from cafe to bar, to convent to church, finding cool indoor activities whenever we could, and beautiful cafes and restaurants with light meals and good wine to help fuel us. A list of rainy-day activities that ideally don’t include mini golf or laser tag are always useful, especially for summer destinations when the city in question isn’t playing ball. But most importantly, we always need a good selection of rainy-day restaurants, places to frequent and linger should the heavens open. So, here it is - my favourite rainy-day restaurants and bars should you be visiting Toulouse during one of its famous thunderstorms.