There’s a romance surrounding the French lifestyle. An inherent enjoyment of lovely issues, scrumptious experiences, and the current second that permeates day by day rituals and routines. There’s little question that French Lady clichés abound, however nonetheless: there’s an plain je ne sais quoi possessed by each French lady I’ve met that goes past what she appears to be like like or what she’s sporting. It’s her presence—her attraction, wit, and class—that makes her completely magnetic.
A central a part of all of that is meals tradition—the French love meals to a level that borders on obsession, and the power to understand it’s a nonnegotiable. Which is why my good friend, celebrated meals author and stylist Rebekah Peppler, has spent the previous a number of years of her profession residing in Paris and touring all through France, telling tales and sharing secrets and techniques behind French meals. Her latest ebook, Le Sud, shares the meals, drink, and way of life of the South of France—a spot that’s lengthy captured my creativeness (and that I’m lastly visiting with our household this summer time!)
“The factor is, all of the clichés you’ve heard in regards to the south of France are true,” says Peppler. “The sunshine takes on new kinds by the hour, casting magnificence on the best pleasures.
There are open-air markets bursting with sun-ripened produce; the surprisingly loud, surprisingly comforting encompass sound of cicadas in late summer time; acres of olive timber, lavender, and sunflowers; cliffs that drop into salt-heavy turquoise coves. And the meals? It’s not overrated. The figs, the ratatouille, the aïoli, the crispy panisse, pissaladière, braids of garlic, Provençal melons, an awesome number of native cheeses, really good tapenades, and all the remaining.
Peppler notes that that is the a part of France the place the French themselves vacation. “It’s the place throngs of Europeans descend for summer time vacances—doing their finest French cosplay whereas lounging, flirting, apéro-ing within the solar. American in Paris, sure sure certain, however the south isn’t any stranger to American expats, of which I’m only one in a gentle line.”
Cheers to French Lady Summer season
In the event you consider French meals as fancy or fussy, these recipes usually are not that. As an alternative, these are easy meals cooked from the freshest components at residence in Provence or on a picnic blanket on the Côte d’Azur. The locations the place the French themselves vacation, “lounging, flirting, apéro-ing within the solar.” So, what higher method to welcome summer time than by cooking like a French woman on trip? No matter your journey plans are for the months forward, cooking a meal from Le Sud is the right method to escape to a golden-lit actuality. And also you may as properly invite a couple of associates to affix.
Learn on in your South of France feast menu from the pages of Le Sud—and remember to seize your copy and romanticize your cooking all summer time lengthy.
![wine bottle on picnic blanket by ocean](https://camillestyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/wine-bottle-by-ocean-le-SUD-865x1081.jpg)
![](https://camillestyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/la-grande-plage-lillet-spritz-1.jpg)
That is the spritz to make while you’re by the ocean (or need to be) and need one thing frivolously bitter and bubbly and giving sundown in a cup.
![whole roasted fish](https://camillestyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/whole-roasted-fish-le-sud-e1715199500233.jpg)
“For probably the most ease, ask your fishmonger to scrub and scale no matter is freshest and make this model, prettily filled with lemon slices and a easy pistou,” says Peppler.
![](https://camillestyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/melons-on-rocks-by-water-le-sud-1.jpg)
Bendita Entre los Melones
Actually “blessed between the melons,” this recipe title is impressed by a Spanish saying, “bendito entre las mujeres” or “blessed among the many girls.”
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