Here and Now · 2 September 2001
Ever since that loathsome adman ruined travel writing (and possibly travel) forever with an endless stream of precious wank about nobly amusing Provençals and orgies of yuppie-sanitized gastronomy (“It was like tasting sunshine”), the South of France has been lousy with loathsome admen and their tense, reedy wives on ever more expansive quests for the adorably rustic.
Happily, it seems this part of the Languedoc-Rousillon has been spared the onslaught of rented beemers and J. Crew ballcaps, likely because everything here is quite marvellously unfabulous. Pompignan is small and plain: one boulangerie, one bar-tabac, lots and lots of vineyards; its only landmark is a pretty church with a steeple that, from our bedroom window, seems to shoot a dagger of black light into the night sky.
I grilled steaks over wood fire in the garden last night – Woody Herman blasting through open windows – while she snipped herbs and opened wine, and we ate on the terrace as the sun went down. Surely similar scenes played out in Des Moines and Etobicoke, but who cares.
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