Autumn in Provence
Fall is a beautiful season in the South of France, but regardless of where you live, the season’s arrival signals shorter days. The lingering summer light becomes more radiant, casting an ethereal golden hue across our dinner table. You can enjoy the residual effects of Provencale summer without the oppressive heat of summer. My days are spent basking in the golden sunshine, hoping winter will forget where I live. But the coolness returning to the evening air crushes that dream. And for this reason, I find comfort in a bowl of Fourmade, a Provencale chickpea soup that I often cook as a starter.
Fourmade, Provençale Chickpea Soup
‘Gigotine’ of Chicken
Blueberry Galette
Fall Dinner Party Menu
The palate of colors changes at my nearby farmers market, bringing out old favorites and a host of new dishes to explore; for this very reason, a fall dinner party menu. The menu includes a soup, stuffed chicken, a zucchini side dish, and a hard-to-resist blueberry galette. The recipes follow below, enjoy the results with your favorite Provencale wine.
Get the Recipes at Perfectly Provence, the best online magazine featuring Provence food, lifestyle, and Mediterranean living.
For my menu, I choose to start with Provencale Chickpea Soup (Soupo de Cece). My version is based on J.B. Reboul’s classic on Provencal cuisine ‘La Cuisinière Provençale’ and found his recipe for chickpea soup entitled Soupo de Cece. The recipe is easy to master and is surprisingly rich and luxurious tasting, that even my 9-year-old son is convinced it has cream in it. The main course was a gigotine of chicken and zucchini gratin that I have made 3 times this week alone. It captures all the remembered flavors of growing up with a Provencal maman. For dessert, I went rustic with a blueberry galette.
I was honored to be asked by Perfectly Provence, the online Provence food, lifestyle, and Mediterranean magazine, to write their Fall Dinner Party Menu. It gave me time to reflect on the dishes that instantly leap into my mind when I think of Provence in the Fall. Be sure to visit their site for the full article and ALL the recipes.