1. Perfect lighting. As Bourdain explains, Provence is “where great painters painted." The lighting in Provence is one of the many reasons so many famous artists portrayed this gorgeous region of France in countless priceless paintings. And Tony's film crew manages to capture that famous lighting on film. The effect is breathtaking.
2. Making aioli the old fashioned way. This comes into play a couple of ways. First of all, Tony has to make a meal for some super picky French diners. They want it the old-fashioned way or not at all. And what we discover is that many provincial traditional dishes are somewhat difficult to make the old-fashioned way. Case in point: aioli is made in a mortar and pestle from garlic and olive oil only. In other words, adding an egg is for little girls who cry for mommy. And we quickly see that even old ladies in Provence can grind out the aioli without the egg. Tony better be prepared to do it the right way or not at all. Tony stresses the entire episode over his traditional meal, which provides for some good comedy. In the end, his meal is appreciated by the locals, but they also let him know his food is most definitely not a la provencale, thank you very much.
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| Aioli |
3. No ladies allowed. Our favorite Tony scene in this episode includes him hanging out with some local men to eat fromages, drink vin, sing and talk some merde about their wives and girlfriends. Seems it's a local tradition for the guys to vent about how hard it is to be a man and there's a strict no girls allowed policy for this tradition. Misogynistic? Mais no. Seems more like the equivalent of a girl's night out. Charming and harmless.
Practically every moment of this episode made Mr. Fashionista and I want to move to Aix-en-Provence. It was hard to choose even three highlights, because there were so many. Needless to say, we've been checking out airfare prices to Nice ever since. Au revoir.
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