#17 Finding lunch and falling stupid in love (twice)

Oh god, am I a francophile??

A weekend in Marseille visiting L. It’s Saturday. We’ve spent the morning and most of the afternoon. I am lightheaded, tourist-delirious, giggling for une pression ASAP please, when La Cesta de Lucia appears down a side street. And they have beer on tap. 4 pressions et un chocolat chaud s’il vous plait. It’s 5.30. Our drinks come with some slightly stale cheese puffs. We get out a pack of cards and start to play kabo, hoping to reboot. We’ve found the right spot - calm and warm and domestic. The table by the door is gnarled by candle wax. The walls are spotted with close-up photographs of vegetables. In the corner, a cabinet shows necklaces made of teeth, a fleshy Rubik’s cube, and a revolver. 

This is in Le Panier, which L tells us is the oldest district in Marseille. There are residents who have been here “forever”. Later, we get an anecdote from a woman who runs a shop nearby. Agnes Varda came in once, she says, but I had no clue who she was (until her friend nudged her). She turned to Agnes- I hear you are famous? Well, I am famous in Le Panier. 

Behind us, the Monsieur and Madame who run the place have sat for their evening meal. So French. It reminds me of the oyster farm on Ile D’Oleron in September. The family running it had taken a liking to us: once lunch service was over, they’d let us stay in the back while the rain passed. We’d played cards under cover, staring out at the oyster pools, finishing our carafe of local wine, hyper aware of what a deliriously nice time we were having. When we’d upped, we’d found our hosts on the other side of the barn door, looking out towards the road. Maman standing up and getting on with things, father and son finishing off meat, potatoes, red wine. Now they too were buoyant with food and drink. So we au revoir-ed and merci-d each other profusely. I waved again from the front seat of the car- wine-smiley, giddy, lovesick…

In Marseille, it was time to pay for our drinks. At the bar, I asked Monsieur if he was the chef (I’d noticed his modest set-up - an electric griddle, a toastie machine, a mixer, and there must have been an oven). I think what he told me was that each morning he goes down to the market to pick up ingredients and work out a menu for the day based on what’s good; that good food is all about ingredients - what’s the point in a boeuf bourguignon if you don’t have good beef? I want to be this man. I want to have his grey hair and his glasses strapped to my head with elastic and a navy blue sweater and I want to live here and run this bar and cook food like this. I want to be his apprentice, his shadow, following him as he teaches me to shop and cook and eat. I also want to elope with the oyster farmer’s son and live on Ile D’Oleron and never get bored or mind smelling of oysters or long for London, even in off-season when you can hear a pin drop from the mainland.

–

Thanks to C losing her phone, I wasn’t lovesick for long this time. We returned to La Cesta for coffee on Sunday morning as soon as it opened, crossing fingers that we’d find the phone in the bathroom. When we didn’t, we stayed anyway to drink espressi and sketch each other outside whilst C cancelled her bank cards. Monsieur put his chalkboard out. Next thing you know, we’re melting into lunch. A familiar feeling. A perfect lunch starts happening before you’ve even asked for it. We’d only stopped at Etablissement Ostreicole Joyeau Michel back in September because we’d had time to kill. But suddenly, you’re in exactly the right place. Pleased with yourself and in love with the world: trust your hosts completely and surrender. They know best and we are just here for the ride. We love them and they might just love us too.

Poking our heads inside at La Cesta and telling Madame that we’d like to stay for lunch, she checked that we weren’t expecting our food to come quickly - vous n’etes pas pressé? We assured her we weren’t. She laid out a crochet tablecloth and some delicate, old fashioned glassware on the table in the corner. Swoon. It is 2pm. C is particularly in love with her at this point - her brown dress, her short haircut, her winking warmth. We plan to spend the next few years returning to Marseille regularly to nurse our relationship with the pair so that we become natural candidates to assume their roles when they retire. We try to play kabo less competitively than usual to protect the glassware. I have half an eye on my man behind the bar preparing our food. White wine comes in a small jug with a green handle. More ancient cheese puffs. We talk about cutting our hair short or whether we should keep it long whilst we’re young. There’s another table inside by now - a mother and daughter - and a few outside. A man has come in and Monsieur makes him a jambon beurre, which he eats leaning on the bar.

Our food arrives - two rare steaks for I and me (I’d be lying if I didn’t demand it bleu in part to impress my new mentor), one medium for P, each with expertly smooth mash and chewy charred onions from the pan. Two vegetable lasagnas for L and C. Emphasis on the vegetable, not the lasagna - it’s a vehicle for its ingredients, as promised. I am so happy. Once we’ve salt and pepper-ed our food, Madame takes the grinders to the next table. The steak is well-seasoned and bloody. I am nostalgic for a life of steak lunches that I never lived.

Monsieur has made a pear tart. We see him cutting a slice on the metal bar top, next to the crowd of liquor. We wonder if he will have just made one tart that day. There’s also almond soup on the menu. Of course, we get both. Lesson learnt from our oyster farm lunch, where we were hubristic enough to turn down a menu item. Non, we won’t get the moule. Ten minutes later they’d arrived on the table next to us, straight from the fire pit - smoked, totally blackened and laid out concentrically on a thick black slab of wood. Sheepishly: Monsieur, on voudrait le moule aussi, s’il vous plait. He smiles. Of course we do. 

This time we made the right decision first time round. I loudly voice how much I love the soup (subtext: adopt me). Monsieur tells me that it is a Spanish peasant soup, that families who had no money at Christmas time would blend almonds, milk, old bread, orange zest and cinnamon for pudding. The result is this maternal dish - warming, delicate and cunningly-spiced. With the pear tart, it is a pure smile.

Leaving at 4pm is heartbreak. Mercis and au revoirs and asking L to feed us more sophisticated phrases to express what we couldn’t. Giddy on the joy of our holiday fling. Too giddy to notice if Madame and Monsieur aren’t as giddy as us. I wonder how many girls like me they’ve seduced.