how to blend in like a local

HOW TO BLEND IN LIKE A LOCAL ON THE RIVIERA

Holiday season has started on the Côte d'Azur and I've been thinking about tourists and how so often they would like to blend in but don't. So here are a few tips to get you looking and behaving like a local on the French Riviera

SUNGLASSES
It is mandatory at all times to wear sunglasses - indoors and out; day and night. They must be designer and the bigger the better if you are a woman. We don't take them off as not only do they protect our eyes from the sunshine, but after several hours of wearing them they leave rather unattractive marks on our cheeks. So it's better just to keep them on.

CARRY A BAGUETE
Go to a boulangerie and buy a baguette and carry it around with you. People will think you are a local going home with your bread. It really works.

NICE MATIN THE 'JOURNAL' OF THE LOCALS
Nice Matin, what can we say? The daily newspaper of the Côte that swings between a double-page spread on a boule competition in Grasse to the latest murder in a Nice neighbourhood. It appears  to be written in old French and has footnotes. Yes footnotes in a daily rag! For that alone we love it. Pretend to read it in the café. Perhaps you will not understand a word. But neither do most locals.

LOCALS DO NOT WEAR HATS
I can't stress this one enough. Sunglasses good. Hats bad. It is tempting to go all 50s Audrey Hepburn-Riviera-straw-hat but the local women would not be seen dead in one. As for the Panama hat for men. Please don't go there. The most you will see is an 'ado' (teenager) with a baseball cap trying to look cool and American, and failing. Locals do not wear hats.

THE SHOPPING BASKET ON WHEELS
I promise that this will guarantee you local street (market) creed. I know that your dream is to go to the market with that cute Provençal straw basket. I had that dream, too, once upon a time. Reality is this says 'tourist'. Most of us carry around scrunched-up plastic recyclable supermarket bags (if you want to be trendy, an Italian supermarket bag says something extra). But to go the whole way, then the shopping trolley - the more battered the better - really shouts 'local'. Make sure you bang in to a few people as you march through the market muttering to yourself.

ROSE WINE
Drink only rosé and ask for ice with it to be served in a separate glass with a spoon. It is one of life's mysteries that rosé can range from €2.50 a bottle to €20 and it all tastes exactly the same. So order the cheapest and pile on the ice cubes like the locals do.

GET A DOG
If all else fails, get a dog. The smaller the better is the rule and they must go with you everywhere, especially to restaurants where they can be given a seat at the table. There is nothing like a dog to signal that you have stopped playing at being a local and can now be taken seriously.

Ciao!, as they say here (this will also help if you speak like a local)

This is a link to a blog we like at Côte Abode - All about France http://www.loumessugo.com/en/blog/entry/all-about-france-4

Slow shopping in Nice

Nothing is more tantalizing than a local French market on the Côte d’Azur

One of the first things I do when I visit a new place is to check out the local market. I have to say a recent trip to Barcelona left me disappointed. Rather a lot of salt cod and tired fruit and vegetables. Maybe it was a bad day, but it didn’t bring out the usual cook in me.

By contrast, coming home to Nice on the French Riviera was an inspiration. Sometimes you need to leave home to appreciate home.

Saturday morning I grabbed my shopping bags (I know that I should paint a scene of Provençal wicker baskets here, but as locals we use plastic reusable Carrefour supermarket bags) and headed for our very local, local market.

Every day, except Mondays, stalls set up outside the church square in our neighbourhood, St Roch in Nice. It’s a small city market but it has everything you could want in the way of fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables. It’s a pleasure taking the time to shop like this. The stall owners all want to know what you are cooking, offer their opinion and recipes and always throw in for free fresh bunches of basil, parsley and some lemons.

Glorious food 

There are bigger markets in Nice such as the Cours Saleya in the Old Town (we leave it to the tourists for most of the year, especially the summer) and at Liberation (a fabulous huge Niçoise market). But we are spoilt having this little one our doorstep. This Saturday I headed home with baby aubergines, sweet tomatoes, glorious peppers (perfect for making the traditional Provencal dish of legumes farci), rose-tinged garlic, fresh salad, roquette, melons, nectarines, flat white peaches (to be eaten immediately with great greedy slurping noises), local olive oil … with, of course, armfuls of the ubiquitous heaven scented basil for a pesto feast.

The local butcher is another stopping off point. Seats are placed around the counter as you need to wait and chat, and wait and chat. That’s how it is done here. Slow food at it’s best. The outdoor farm chicken I picked out, although thankfully dead, still needed its head and feet cut off, and insides removed (and given to me separately for pâté or to enrich a sauce). The remnants of feathers were then blow-torched. Seasoned inside and out with Provençal herbs and trussed, I finally had my prize.

Then there is the boulangerie … but you get the picture. By 12ish you are home having spent 2 hours or so doing the food shopping (3 if you stop for an espresso) and are ready to cook lunch.

The phenomenon in the UK, US and other Anglo countries of farmers’ markets doesn’t happen here. Every market in Nice is a farmers’ market of sorts. It is a way of life in the South of France, even in the cities. It’s a manner of shopping that takes time and couldn’t be more enjoyable. If you are visiting the Côte d’Azur, there will be a market near you, so please do get up early, grab your plastic carrier bag and check it out.

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