beaulieu sur mer

Beaulieu sur Mer is just along the coast from Nice, on the way to Monaco. I'm getting to know this area a bit, as we've been coming here quite frequently over the last couple of months. The beach here is small and quite cosy and the water is shockingly warm. I'm used to the more bracing Pacific Ocean water temperatures.
I'm planning to take the train to Menton (close to the Italian border) on Monday.

la tropézienne

Last Sunday was Mother's Day in France and we went to a big family lunch in Aix-en-Provence. We contributed to lunch by bringing a pudding - a gateau to be exact.
A very flash cake called une tropézienne from St Tropez - a very impressive brioche sandwiched with whipped cream and in this instance, raspberries & strawberries.
Apparently it was named by Brigitte Bardot when she was in St Tropez filming 'And God Created Woman' in 1955. Authentic tropéziennes are filled with custard but I've seen more of the cream sort.

We ordered it from a superb patisserie, Gérard on the Cours Mirabeau. It's an old fashioned place where you choose your fancy, get a ticket and then pay at the counter manned by the owner, an elegant older lady. Rather naively I said it was for a lunch with 12 guests and so when we came to collect it, I was faced with 2 enormous boxes ie. 2 enormous gateaux! I was quite overwhelmed and didn't think to ask if we could take only one of them. So I paid the not unsubstantial amount and tottered out of the shop much to the amusement of the other customers.
We've been heroically eating one (possibly two pieces) each day. It's day 4 and the cream is still fresh but the brioch is slightly soggy, so I think we'll call it a day.

The first photo has been taken from Autour de Comptoir
(a blog devoted to photographing Comptoir des Cotonniers shops all over the world) as I forgot, in all the excitement, to take a shot of the shop facade.