Ile d’Oléron 12 June 2016

A rainy coastal day. Looking for the market (every day, we are told, but Monday) we walk to the harbor where we see the tide is in and the boats are afloat. In the far distance, the bridge from the mainland. Not much happening, but the church bells summon us south.

As we approach the center of town we see people carrying packages, a sure sign we're nearing the market, a covered one as befits the weather here on the shore of the famously inclement Bay of Biscay. Yes, there it is, modest to be sure, in scale with the town, but richly endowed with ...well, what do you expect?

To thrive in France, what else do you need? A bakery! Right next door, an Artisan Boulanger, and just down the street a shop specializing in rotisserie meats. Of course there are oyster tastings galore, since this is oyster heaven. We have reservations for lunch at what our hostess Agathe considers the freshest and most authentic restaurant. A report on the seafood on offer there will follow soon enough.

The rain seems to be in temporary abeyance, and so we wander through the town, past the Crêche and Maternelle, and down a promising looking path into the forest just behind the town.

A forest on ancient dunes, thick, low, dripping and wet. I'm sure I have seen another path into the forest closer to our house, and so we wander deeper. Then, in the distance, we hear the sound of rain approaching ...at first, just pattering that doesn't make it through the canopy, but then in earnest, not a downpour, but enough to turn us back to a surer path home.

Saint-Trojan is tiny, and we're home in a jiffy, take off wet shoes, raincoats, and eat the perfect, enormous raspberries we found at the market. "Fragile," said the solicitous vendor, carefully putting them on top of our purchases.

The sun continues to play hide-and-seek behind a stubborn blanket of wet looking clouds. Our little apartment is dry, warm, and roomy. Just another day like so many in Caspar, playing computer, looking out at the weather.

We had a reservation (made via Skype) for lunch, the big deal meal on Sunday, and joined the festive crowd of eaters. Dining a deux is clearly not the pattern; most of tables were pairs of couples, with the occasional larger group. On the wall, a very cool painting of the place ...but it looks to me like the diners in the painting are not happy.

Once the food started arriving, we were very happy.

Rochelle started with an asparagus dish (top left) "with unctious sauce," and it was amazing: light yet potent. My starter (bottom left) was the chef's du jour, "barely marinated filets of mackerel on their bed of refreshed quinoa." 

Rochelle's main (top right): shrimp tart (note the aioli snake), and mine (top center) is "locally caught fat wild maigre Basque style" -- I don't know what that is either, but it was the chef's choice, and we trust the chef, right? It was amazing.

Dessert du jour, home-made baba in fruit compote with lemoncello and chantilly.

Besides tasting amazing, the triumph here was in the painterly presentation. The group of four at the table beside Oohed and Aahed (in French) as our food came out ... and of course we did the same. My starter was particularly striking, in that it took ingredients we often work with, and through careful preparation and artful presentation raised the experience of the dish to whole new level. Except for the quinoa, everything in the dish was raw; the little radish slices were half a millimeter thick, and the slices of chioggia beet were crisp as an apple. All this is something we can do ...if we care to. And now, I do.

Oléron Island was, within recent memory, a peninsula jutting out from the coast ...although the neck of the peninsula was always swampy and treacherous to cross. A series of storms opened up the passage, and leaves the southern end of the island a broad, golden sandy expanse of gorgeous beach.

At one time, there were salt pans on the Atlantic side, but the storms took them away, leaving the people of Saint-Trojan with a little train that didn't have salt to fetch anymore. So why not fetch tourists? 

The idea seems to be working. The 15:30 Sunday train was nearly full, and a good number of hardy young French persons shed their shoes and socks, rolled up their pants, and went after the angry Atlantic. Everyone seemed to be having a great time, making instant family by the train-car full as we rattled noisily along through the dune-forest, along another broad beach where folks were digging clams, and finally to the end of the line where we had a half hour before the train returned.

Either you take the train or you walk 3+ kilometers to this beach. Can you imagine what it must be like on a sunny, unwindy day?

A wheeled beach racer, like an iceboat, came zipping by, winding through the folks on the beach, turned, and zoomed back past us. That's mainland France in the background, across the pertuis (passage).

(My poor old camera is developing spots on its sensor, probably dust because it spends most of its life in my pocket. Under certain light conditions, they're very evident, as here ...and sometimes they're scarecely noticeable.)

We rode back through the pine forest and the hardwood jungle to the edge of town, and walked home.

Rochelle's making a salad while I write, adorned with cooked crab claw meat we got at market this morning.