LAS SIMPLES COSAS - LA RETIRADA & L'EXIL

LAS SIMPLES COSAS - LA RETIRADA & L'EXIL - A REVIEW

Cathey and I have been impressed with the quality of musical programming that comes to our region in the south of France. I'm not talking about the cities of Beziers, Narbonne, Carcassonne, and Montpellier, from 15 minutes to an hour away and drawing some of the world's best acts in jazz, blues, ethnic, and world music. I'm talking about our little town of Quarante and the small villages within a radius of a handful of kilometers proximate to our portion of the Canal du Midi that have populations of under 5,000 souls. In some cases, concerts are presented by a cultural consortium sponsored jointly by the villages. One independent presenter is a group called C.A.C 34 (Artists Collective of Capestang). We've been to two of their shows and been blown away. The first featured La Mal Coiffée, a dynamite group of ladies who sang up a storm. For some reason, I missed reviewing that show. Next post.

Last night, we were privileged to witness a special, multimedia performance based on La Retirada & L'Exil, a book written by Francesc Vidal, one of the hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees who came to this part of France fleeing the ravages of the Spanish Civil War in the run up to WW II. Before the performance began, the elderly Vidal took the stage to introduce himself and his story. He talked of the importance of keeping the story alive for the generations that followed. The performance was interspersed with readings from his book by Eric Fraj, who adapted the story for the stage and who added his powerful voice to the early songs. Las Simple Cosas played numbers describing the times as well as tunes that were popular at the time. And behind the musicians as the show progressed, regional artist Bernard Cauhape painted two large panels depicting the story. The concert took place in the Capestang Hall of the People, a simple auditorium with a nice stage and decent sound and lighting that seats about 200 people.

Las Simple Cosas is a trio comprised of Guillaume Lopez (flute and vocals), Morgan Astruc (flamenco guitar), and Pascal Celma (upright bass). They were joined by frequent collaborator Simon Portefaix (percussion). An uncredited - and I believe local - violinist joined the quartet onstage for the final couple of numbers. These young men are accomplished musicians. Their flamenco was spot on. When they moved out of the traditional and into more modern, brief, jazzy riffs, their improvisational skills were impressive. Many in the audience appeared to be of Spanish heritage and they were clearly thrilled and boisterously appreciative.

The evening began, as these evenings often do, with aperos, the local term for aperitifs...appetizers. If you make reservations rather than just showing up for the concert, the folks at C.A.C. 34 prepare a plate of homemade munchies for 4 Euros ($5.00 at current rates) in this case consisting of a wedge of quiche, a chunk of cheese on a thin slice of bread, a smear of tapenade made from local olives on bread, and a bright red shredded beet salad. Cathey had a bowl of butternut squash soup ($2.50) and I had a wedge of a very thick and dark chocolate cake ($1.25). With 4 glasses of local wine at $1.25 apiece, the food - that substituted for our dinner - came to $18.75. The folks at the door seemed quite satisfied with our donation of 10 Euros ($12.50) for the concert, so the total for the night out, dinner and a show for two, came to $31.25. In the States, at our favorite venue for listening to 'serious' music, that would have been the price for one ticket.

I couldn't find a video of the show or the trio in performance. I did find THIS, a video about the basic trio as artists in residence in an institution up towards Toulouse, I think.

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats. So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up? It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look

LE CHAT QUI PECHE (THE CAT THAT FISHES), ARGELIERS: RESTAURANT REVIEW

You would think that after over five years of searching for restaurants serving good food at reasonable prices, I would have made my way to Le Chat Qui Peche before now. After all, it's only about ten minutes from our house, in a beautiful spot along the Canal du Midi. But it took a friend to suggest that we would like the place. So we went. And we did. Port-Argeliers isn't much a port, just a spot along the Canal du Midi that boats use as a stopping place. Like a town that might be described as just a wide spot in the road, there hardly seems to be a reason for it to exist other than the fact that it does. So Le Chat Qui Peche, at the foot of a narrow but driveable bridge over the canal, commands a view of the canal that can't reasonably be described as bustling and scenery that might best be described as bucolic. We were among the first to arrive on a lazy summer day, breezy so we chose an outdoor table with less of a view but sheltered. Our server practiced his

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