Carry on in Carcassonne!

Last week, I went to a local supermarket for some tomatoes, you know the kind that look so perfect but aren’t much softer than a golf ball.

I came out with a bottle of red wine called Carcassonne. A place I fell in love with the first time I visited back in 2002. Karen and I were sat dining at a lovely restaurant in the old city when out of the window, I caught sight of Xavier, a waiter who had worked for Didier in Church Street in the late 90s. What are the odds?

I chased after him, hoping that the restaurant staff wouldn’t think that I was doing a runner. He was as surprised to see me as I had been. We met up later for a drink at his parents’ restaurant and, at the end of the evening, it was kind of him to give us a lift back to our hotel on the outskirts of town. What a small world!

Mind you, I’m sure that we’ve all sometimes met someone somewhere from back home. Just like the time, I was strolling around old Seville, when someone shouted my name. I turned around to find a Hartlepool couple sat at a restaurant terrace, enjoying some tapas. The young man said: “Your tapas at Casa del Mar are way better than these, by the way!” Both the encounter and the compliment were a pleasant surprise.

Speaking of Carcassonne, (which gets affectionately called Carca), back in 2006, Didier who hails from that town and who was still cheffing in Church Square at the time, Madjid (friend and head-chef at Krimo’s) and I spent three lovely days there. Shortly after our arrival in France, we enjoyed an exquisite lunch expertly cooked by Didier’s mother. “I learnt everyssing from my Maman, you know,” was Didier’s answer to anyone who asked him where he’d learnt to cook. For starter, she served us a typical Provençal “Soupe de Poisson” with rouille, croûtons and Emmental cheese. Although I had tasted the soup on many previous occasions, mainly in restaurants, this one ranked top of the list. The freshness of the ingredients shone through.

For main-course, she produced a delicious Algerian version of the local “spécialité”, the famous Cassoulet which, it is said, was invented during the siege of Castelnaudary by the English during the Hundred Years’ War. She had used Merguez sausages and duck confit. A delightful combination!

She then brought out a gargantuan cheeseboard, the kind that would make a Michelin-starred green with jealousy. Didier had often fondly talked about his mother’s love of cheese. She was an expert when it came to choosing cheeses that were perfectly ripe for the eating, going from one stall to the next at the local market. The board comprised a collection of a dozen local cheeses which she had simply served with slices of rustic baguette as French tradition demands. Being a lover of cheese, I was like a kid in a sweet shop. For sweets, we enjoyed a bowl of deliciously sweet local strawberries marinated in orange blossom water, a North African tradition.

Throughout the meal, Didier’s father served various local wines from his well-stocked up cellar.

During our stay, we visited a few of Didier’s old haunts and an impressive wine cooperative along the Canal du MIdi where local wine growers showcased their produce.

That was a memorable trip that we repeated the year after. Nowadays, Didier is back in his hometown, still enjoying his mother’s care and attention, in that beautiful corner of France that will always be a part of me.