Dodgy weather in Provence

No rain came during the night, but the weather this morning was still dodgy.  Dodgy is my new favorite adjective.  We've run into so many Brits on this trip, and within minutes of conversing with them, they all have something they describe as "dodgy": the weather, a B&B they've stayed in, their knee or ankle, their daughter's former boyfriend's profession.   Anyway, I'll be interjecting my new favorite word as often as I can, while hopefully still maintaining the integrity of the blog.

So it wasn't looking too promising outside, and we were wondering if we should venture out.  I suggested we go out for lunch, to a place written up by our host Michel.  He did a nice blog post on the restaurant and it sounded like a great place for us to try.  Our little village doesn't have much to offer in the way of restaurants, and this place was nearby.

Les Genêts is a restaurant and wine tasting shop.  It's known for creative local cuisine, and they were serving a nice 3-course menu for lunch, which we all tried.

First course was a paté de campagne

Second course was a beef brochette with veggies and couscous

A caramel éclair for dessert

 

We had wine and bread with lunch, and the bill came to 64 euros.  That's about $80 for the 4 of us.  The food was great, and there was nothing dodgy about it!

On the way back to the house we saw grape-harvesting machinery going through some of the vineyards.  We saw tractors pulling wagons heaped with grapes headed to the wineries.

It's hard to see in this picture, but the tractor is shaped kind of like a catamaran. 

It drives over the plants and harvests mechanically from each side of the vines.

A wagon full of grapes headed to the winery

We got back to the house before the rain started, and once again it was quite a storm.  We monitored the places that had sprung leaks the last time, but didn't have problems this time.  A few drips maybe, but nothing like before.  I'd been in contact with Michel, and he wasn't too happy about the flooding with the first storm.  They'd already had some extensive repairs done to the house to fix some of those problems.  I let him know all was well this time. 

Thank goodness we had a good selection of movies at the house.  We were stuck inside for the rest of the day.  We watched Kevin Cline and Meg Ryan in "French Kiss", and some of "A Year In Provence". 

Dinner was a pork roast marinated in olive oil, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper.  One of the great cookbooks at the house provided a recipe for tomato gratin, using bread, tomatoes, eggs and cheese.  It turned out well, and we wish we could remember where we got the recipe!

Tomato gratin was a hit!

Having nothing to do with dinner, or our day, here's a photo of Rick with his dream car - a Twizzy.  I don't think there's room for me!

Rick in one of his signature Hawaiian shirts, next to his dream car.