Sublime

I had stopped at a fork in the road. Chance made me turn right instead of left, and two minutes later I arrived in the miniature village of Saint Martin de la Brasque. It was a sight to restore one’s faith in shortcuts. There was a tiny square; the houses on it had their windows shuttered against the heat. Tables and chairs were set out in the

The schnitzels were a success. When they left the restaurant, her hair was dry and enveloped her in a manner that was disorganized, but cheerful. He had already gathered that it was a kind of barometer, like seaweed.

L’Auberge de La Môle, we agreed, was the kind of restaurant the French do better than anyone else: highly professional, and yet it felt like the extension of a friend’s kitchen, casual, easy, and comfortable. The restaurants with a row of stars, as good as they are, tend to have a similar veneer, polished, perfect, and international. The Auberge

This might sound grandiose, but pour a cupful of dried Puy lentils through your fingers and tell me you don’t feel at least a faint twinge of earthy delight.

They parked their butts on the Adirondack chairs on my grandparents’ deck with copies of the New Yorker and plates of cheese and crackers and enjoyed their time together. By three p.m., they were having gin and tonics or glasses of wine, and we were hiking back up the trail from the water, sunburned, thirsty, and bubbling with the adrenaline of the

She felt pleasure in orderly things—a perfectly efficient section of code,

rhapsodizing

He sees Mark’s bag of fried flowers on the tip-pocked table. Funny thing about those flowers. Who’d voluntarily cook and eat a rose? It’s like planting and watering a breadstick. It’s perverse, and even sort of obscene, eating what’s clearly put on earth to be extra-gastric. Didn’t taste all that hot, either. And there’s still a piece stuck with

One can say the same about more modest restaurants with lesser-known chefs. Some of them can be found in the back streets of provincial towns, like l’Isle Sonnante in Avignon: small, charming, and delicious.