A soirée in the vines with André, friends and woodfired pizzas
André…
On my morning walks through the Provençal countryside with my neighbours, Hélène and Jill, I have met many new friends. One in particular, André, is a real character. Every morning , he arrives at his cabanon ( a small stone building in the vines that used to provide lunch time respite to grape pickers from the sun), in his old French car with his dog Pablo. He is married and lives in our lovely village of Lorgues with his wife, but his cabanon is the equivalent of that long held British masculine sanctuary, the garden shed! A place where he whiles most of his days away…when he’s not playing boules!
The awkward request…
I love taking photographs, mainly landscapes and nature. André has such an interesting face, that just exudes character and personality that I needed a way to try and capture it with my lens. So I mentioned it to Hélène, who, before I could explain that I didn’t want to offend him by asking, asked him outright with me by her side, mumbling in my best French ‘how I enjoy taking photographs of interesting people’ as a sort of excuse!
Two days later André wandered down from his cabanon, through the vines to meet us on our walk . ‘Mesdames’ he announced in his gravelly, 40 gitanes a day voice, ‘my wife, Danielle and I have decided that in honour of you taking my photograph we would like to invite you and your husbands to come and enjoy one of my woodfired pizzas at the cabanon’. It turns out that André is of Italian decent! And so the date was set.
The big day…
The day arrived and neither Héléne, Jill or I really knew what to expect. I had offered to bring a Raspberry Pavolova for dessert, I started to wonder whether I needed to take dishes, cutlery and napkins, would there be electricity, would we even be sitting down to eat?
We needn’t have worried. As we made our way through the vines, along a freshly mown path, laden with wine and the pavlova , André, his lovely wife Daniel and Pablo his faithful dog, came to greet us.
As we turned the corner to face the cabanon, we were astounded, I can only describe the scene as bucolically romantic.
The setting…
In front of the old stone cabanon, under the shade of a vine covered wrought iron pergola, was a long tressle table that had been laid with a pure white cloth, silver cutlery. All along the centre of the table was a beautiful trail of wild flowers that Danielle had carefully collected earlier from amongst the vines.
We were made to feel so welcome, introductions were made and we were served aperitifs in the most dainty antique glassware.
The photo shoot
Then the pressure was on… André suddenly asked ‘ where would you like me to pose?’ As an amateur I know that getting the best shot is when the subject is not aware of you taking their photograph…but I didn’t want to disappoint him as he seemed so proud to have been asked.
I managed to take some of him posing, his dog and his old French car but I just knew that I had to capture him off guard for the best shot!
Whilst snapping away, I realised that in preparation for our arrival, André had spent the last few days tidying up. I spotted an assortment of paraphernalia that had been carefully arranged to one side…. with the beautiful Provençal light, I can honestly say, that a magazine/ photo shoot stylist could not have staged such a lovely collection of random objects.
The pizza oven…
André was also very excited to show us his pizza oven and took us to the back of the cabanon, where he explained that it had taken 7 men to get the full size oven in place. Despite the exceptionally high temperatures that we had been experiencing (up to 40 degrees), he told us that he had lit the oven the day before to ensure that the oven would be at the correct temperature, for perfect pizzas.
The pizzas…
We were not just offered one type of pizza, Daniel took orders for whatever we wanted, she had a whole production line of goodies set up to top the pizzas…lardons, ham, mushrooms, olives, anchovies, onions, salami, we were even asked if we wanted ‘blanc’ (crème fraiche) base or tomato. She announced that her favourite was a white base with fried onions, lardons and black olives… so of course it would have been rude not to try that, along with several other favourites including ham and mushroom (La Reine)…my favourite.
The company…
Nine of us sat around the beautifully dressed table, Hélène, Jacky, Olivier, Danielle, André, Jill, Peter, Jez and I, drinking shell pink, ice cold rosé wine and sharing the delights of André and Danielle’s most delicious pizzas. It may have been the setting, the company, the love and effort with which the pizzas were made or a combination of all three, but we had the most magical evening and the most delicious pizza we have ever eaten!
The ‘money shots’….
As I said, I am very much an amateur photographer but the next day when going through the photos I had taken, I was exceptionally pleased with one of André, that I think captures the essence of him and one surprise one of my neighbour’s son, Olivier, which in my mind is reminiscent of a 60’s French movies star shot….what do you think?
