Apologies for the delay in posting. France is not strong on wifi (which they call whiffy). I have been unable to get enough signal to post for over a week now. Hope this one goes through.
Thursday 21 April
Angus Longstaff, picks the four of us up in Toulouse for our food and wine odyssey. Gus and I worked together in the ‘80s on a variety of shows and events in and around Sydney and he was always great fun to work with. He relocated to France 21 years ago in pursuit of a French girl he had met on a Sydney Festival show and persuaded her to marry him. He has lived in France ever since and he and Helene have two children and live in the Languedoc region of south west France. Always a dab hand in the kitchen, when Gus worked first arrived in Paris in 1995 he worked with chef Jean-Paul Bruneteau in the first ever restaurant in Paris to serve Australian food, Woolloomooloo. He then moved on to cooking for the elite on private boats and canal barges, and 10 years ago started his own tour company Fine Wine Tours South France. He really looks like a Frenchman now…neck scarf, waistcoat over check shirt, braces on his large cream trousers, a well-considered look which suits him well but seriously one in need of a hairdresser! 
As well as his own company, Gus is a partner in a new venture in the town of Chalabre, south east of Toulouse, managing Chateau Terre Blanche. So we four are joining him in the Chateau for three nights and he will take us out on a tour each day and cook for us each night.
We drive for an hour and a half from Toulouse, through beautiful green countryside, to the city of Castelnaudary, the home of the cassoulet. Predictably, Gus takes us to a restaurant for lunch and we all have the home dish, washed down with a delicious local red wine. Mission accomplished, and authentic cassoulet ticked off the bucket list.
As we drive for another hour or so we note that the windscreen is cracked on the passenger side and the crack is travelling toward the driver slowly but surely.
We arrive at our final destination for the day. Chalabre is yet another deserted French village, although this one with lots of through traffic. The Chateau is a three story affair right in town, and we are the first paying customers. We are happy to be the guinea pigs.
Joining us in the Chateau for our stay is Gus’ delightful almost 13 year old son Nelson,
Annie, his 24 year old god-daughter from Australia
Their lovely dog Paprika
and his Australian business partners in this Chateau venture, Stephen and Gabrielle.
It’s school holidays and Helene is away doing an upholstery course, and daughter Lily is in Paris with her uncle. Currently there are four guest rooms in the Chateau, all spacious, beautifully furnished in appropriate period style and each with en-suites. We take two of them and are not sure where the rest of the party are staying. Perhaps there are stables out the back.
Having failed to find someone to replace the windscreen, Gus cooks us dinner while we all sit in the kitchen loudly talking over each other. Never short of a word or anecdote, Gus holds court while cooking. The Chateau has timber floors with not a single carpet or rug anywhere so the acoustics are not kind to the deaf amongst us. The meal around a makeshift dining table in the high ceilinged, tile walled, tiled floor, uncurtained dining room is a challenge to all and so the voices just get louder rather than clearer. However we are treated to a delicious menu comprising asparagus risotto, duck breast with a fabulous sauce and crispy potatoes, finishing off with cheese. I now know how to cook duck and will attempt to do so shortly after returning home. I did it a couple of years ago for a friends 60th birthday and it was like eating a slow cooked Michelin tyre, albeit with a rather nice orange sauce which took the bottom out of my favourite Creuset saucepan. Looking forward to a more successful duck meal, Vix and Gilly, in June at Quamby!
Friday 22 April
We leave the house at 9.30am, accompanied by Nelson and Annie, and drive for another 1 ½ hours to Narbonne, a gorgeous city 5km from the Mediterranean and from where you can see the Spanish alps. Narbonne was once a prosperous port and a major city in Roman times. This is one bustling city, and it is a relief to find that there really are people in rural France. Although it does seem that every town has a market, and Narbonne is no exception. Their market is a big one and we had fun perusing the fresh products.
Angus buys the supplies for tonight’s dinner and by 12.10pm is getting tetchy….it’s ten past lunchtime so we walk next door to the restaurant. We have local oysters, very nice but the four of us discretely agree that they are not as good as Shoalhaven oysters, followed by a delicious dish of cuttlefish with chorizo. Post lunch we walk off one oyster by strolling around this ancient town, which dates back to 118BC, when France was Gaul.
We drive down to the sea and walk across the dirt coloured sand to the Mediterranean but we don’t dip our toes in. Not inviting enough today. Gus takes us to a vineyard/winery to buy wine for dinner. We do a bit of a tasting and it will come as no shock to you to learn that I am the only impolite one who actually professes not to like any of the whites or rosés we taste. The others unobtrusively slip away, to look at the offending vines. I insist we try the reds, in the hope that we can buy something to thank the vigneron for the tasting, and halleluiah I like the shiraz/mourvedre blend. I buy two bottles and exit with my head held high.
The cracked windscreen is holding its own and seems to have slowed its progress, although not stopped altogether.
We return to the Chateau. We really don’t need dinner tonight, after our large lunch, but Gus is not to be dissuaded. Stephen and Gabrielle make brief appearances, on their way out to dinner. It seems there is a restaurant in town, which I guess confirms that it is not deserted after all. And to dispel another furphy, apparently our fellow inhabitants are not in stables. Indeed Stephen and Gabrielle are in one of the bedrooms upstairs with us, whilst Gus, Nelson and Annie are in the unrenovated part of the Chateau. It does on for days past the renovated façade, resembling Hogwarts back there.
An entrée of razor clams, which Cherrie and I have not seen before but of course tour gourmet travelling companions are familiar with, prove delicious. It’s a long, thin crustacean like a cigarette in a shell. Only healthier and tastier.
Followed by swordfish with peas and a tomato sauce. All washed down with good wine, it was a lovely dinner which we all managed to finish despite its lack of necessity!
Saturday 23 April
Breakfast gets a little lighter each day, as our waists expand at an alarming rate. Today it’s a tub of yoghurt each and a slice of bread. Until Gus appears with the maple syrup infused croissant type pastry. We four waddle out the door at 9am and pile back into Gus’ car, all 7 of us (Nelson and Annie are joining us again today) and head off to the town of Revel, another 90 minute drive, to visit the markets which are held in a majestic timbered medieval market hall.
As we have done over the past week, we drive through beautiful French countryside and marvel at the ancient villages.
After the markets we plan to visit the famous fortified medieval town of Carcassonne.
An hour or so into the trip we are overtaken by a perfectly preserved old, white sports car which attracts our attention because it is so beautiful. What attracts the attention of our driver though is the sound of a small stone hitting the windscreen, albeit it without apparent damage. In a moment of sheer inspiration, or at least from his point of view, Gus pursues the small car. It becomes apparent to us that Gus considers that here is the perfect excuse for the cracked windscreen. Like a scene from a movie, in which we are reluctant extras, the circa 2015 Renault van pursues the James Bond lookalike car, sounding the horn and flashing the lights. Finally the smaller car pulls over, Gus pulls up behind and the two drivers exit their vehicles and embark on a verbal stoush. One accuses the other of his car throwing up a stone and cracking the windscreen, the other appears to be quite bemused, then angered by the accusation, voices rise, arms gesticulate, whilst we muse on the beauty of the white car, what it is and where the other driver got his beautiful pullover. Finally Gus gets back into his driver’s seat and he and sports car proceed in convoy to the nearest Gendarmerie. Whilst Gus and the man in the nice sweater disappear inside, Garry and I climb out to identify the make of the beautiful car. It’s a Renault and tonight’s internet search identifies it as a circa 1960 Renault Caravelle. After 10 minutes or so the two men reappear from the nick, Gus reaches into the glove box and withdraws not a handgun but the vehicle papers and the two of them proceed to complete the forms. Obviously some sort of settlement has occurred indoors. Then we see James Bond rip the forms up and storm back to his car. The Caravelle speeds off with the appropriate sound effects and Gus returns, grinning. The Gendarmes had confirmed that if both parties sign a paper identifying themselves and confirming that the incident had occurred then the insurance company will pay. The process of completing the forms revealed that Gus was already insured for a broken windscreen and so the original pulling over and accusation, the diversion to the Gendarmerie and the subsequent paperwork had all been a waste of time, time which James clearly didn’t have. We four breathe a sigh of relief, and are grateful that we were not required for an interview with relation to the incident. Had that been the case we would have declared our lack of French and indicated that we only speak Wattamolla. Tara Brown features prominently in our fears, but Gus has well and truly lost some brownie points with us. Not a fine example from our guide, especially with his son in the car.
At last we arrive at the Ravel markets, an hour or so behind schedule, and we buy up supplies to take on board our boat tomorrow, which we will steer down the Canal du Midi for the next week. The markets are wonderful, as are all the fresh food markets we have visited, and we marvel at the cheeses, the pork products, the range of beautiful fresh vegetables and fruit and the enormous paella pans offering a range of dishes as well as the standard paella.
Gus feels we have not eaten enough yet and so buys us a pastry each, which we consume with a cup of coffee at an outdoor table. James Bond walks by but fortunately does not see us.
Gus drives us up to the top of the Black Mountain where we see the source of the Canal du Midi and the beautiful spring water. Such pretty views all around. The drive continues down the other side of the mountain until we reach the restaurant Gus has chosen for lunch at nearly 1.30pm. It is owned by a Michelin starred chef and the food is absolutely wonderful. Bread with truffle butter, foie gras to die for (sorry ducks, poor choice of word), pork with Paris mash and a broad bean and capsicum ratatouille, finished off with fresh strawberries with a pineapple sorbet. Fabulous stuff.
It is after 3pm when we leave the restaurant and Gus wants to take us for some wine tastings. The first winery is closed, as is the second but that does not deter Gus. He walks around until he finds his friend Graham on the ride on mower and persuades him to open up for his guests who want to buy wine. Graham is a charming Englishman who might otherwise be known as Haveachat, and who is keen that we try all 6 of his wines. We oblige, or at least I do. I am a polite type. I quite like his rosé and one of his reds and obligingly purchase four bottles. To take on the boat.
By 5pm it is evident that we are not going to see Carcassonne. At this hour the best Gus can do is drive us past the intriguing walled town, which of course he does. A quick stop at the supermarket on the way home to stock up on staples for the boat has us arriving back at the Chateau at 7pm and we are all exhausted. We four sit in the library, a curious name for a room with no books, whilst Gus exercises his dinner plans. We don’t talk, we are too busy concentrating on staying awake. We drink only water. Garry is apoplectic with exhaustion. These two, after all, hit the ground running on Wednesday in Toulouse and haven’t stopped since. Nelson is watching TV, Annie is sleeping, Gabrielle and Stephen have changed for dinner and are talking to Gus in the kitchen and we four continue to sit on the sofas. At 9.15pm Stephen announces that dinner is served so we move to the heavily tiled dining room, which we have learned will become the gym once renovations are complete, and sit ourselves around the ‘table’ which is a timber top sitting on the four biggest trestles you will ever see, ensuring that no human leg has the opportunity to slip under the top. After another five minutes of no food action, with just the four us at the ‘table’, Cherrie ponders if we might emulate Gus’ business and set up Wattamolla Food and Wine Tours on our return. We have some fun with this, pondering the various long routes we could drive our guests each day, with lunch at one of the local restaurants and a wine tasting which results in no sales. Mollymook one day, Canberra the next, Bowral via Wollongong etc etc. Our mirth revives us somewhat, as entrée is served.
Gus’ food is wonderful again. Quail on a bed of lentils, pork fillet mignon with mustard sauce and potato roti and, just to ensure our waistlines stay inflated, more fine cheeses.
And so to bed, after 11pm, with instructions to Gus that we intend to sleep in and consume no breakfast. Gus will drive us to the boat tomorrow, which we board at 3pm.
2CsBlog 