Postcard from Lacanau

Take me to a modest French supermarché – and not just for food.

Greetings from France!

When I tell people I’m coming here, they instinctively assume that means a glamorous sojourn in Paris. Boutique hotel in the Marais, lining up for glace on the Île Saint Louis, dining on tweezer food in Michelin-starred restaurants, that sort of thing.

Oh, not heading to Paris? Then I must be going to Provence!

Nope, not that either.

My little corner of southwest France, an hour from Bordeaux in a town called Lacanau Océan, where my husband’s family has a beach house, is decidedly different.

The beach here is magnificent: miles and miles of fine white sand and glorious surf, separated from an endless pine forest by imposing dunes.

The three beaches in and close to town are where people convene, lots of them during the season, and also over long weekends of the shoulder-season, when they famously make a “pont” (bridge) between a holiday and Sunday. Last Thursday, which was Ascension (the holiday 40 days after Easter, when Christ was said to have ascended to heaven) was an insane four-day fiesta. Fortunately, getting away from the crowds requires only a long walk or short bike-ride, and during the week, the place is blissfully quiet.

That’s when Thierry and I dust off rusty old bikes, pump up the tires and ride them south through the pine forest, down the path that runs parallel to the beach — the mythic dunes between us and the ocean. If it were late August or early September, we’d walk instead, picking a gazillion wild blackberries along the way. A couple miles down, and we make our way, slowly, up the path over the dune, and we feel like ancient explorers as an expansive beach reveals itself, with not a soul in site — oh, except a lone nudist fading into the distance.

As for the town, it’s neither glamorous (that would be Biarritz, a couple hours drive south), nor picturesque (like St. Jean de Luz, just north of Biarritz). But it is popular: the kind of beach town that attracts people from all over France who are not rich. Though it has been thoughtlessly developed (a lack of municipal concern over historic preservation is likely to blame), a few of the traditional houses remain — adorably named cream-colored cottages with pointed gables, red-tile roofs and shutters and millwork painted in shades of cornflower blue, jade or pistachio. There’s a paucity of interesting restaurants.

OK by me: Even without the wonderful small food shops that used to line the main drag, it’s a blast to eat at home, thanks to all the cool things you can find in the supermarket and the traiteur-boucher (butcher and prepared foods shop). First day here, we picked up céleri rémoulade, a quiche-like torte de courgettes (zucchini), and thin slices of a charcuterie called museau de porc, which came covered with thin-sliced raw shallots and vinaigrette. That made a delightful dinner al fresco.

The mini-supermarché we can walk to holds treasures, as well. For example, little yogurt-like containers of caillé — a silky, lightly tangy, gently sweet dessert made from sheep’s milk (“100% brebis”!) — are a specialty of the region, fantastic. I just bought a six-pack. Pruneaux d’Agen, the A.O.C. prunes that are the most amazing in the universe. Cello-packs of lusciously damp grey sea salt.

At the regular supermarché in the center of town you can snag jars of tarbais beans, cans of duck rillettes, pastis that’s a big step up from Ricard, magret (duck breast) and white asparagus I’ll make for dinner tonight. And it’s not only food: At that modest little U Express I found the best espadrilles I’ve ever seen in a supermarket (I nabbed ‘em!).

As for the asparagus, it was grown in the sandy soil of Les Landes, a piney, largely undeveloped region immediately south of here, where my mother-in-law’s family is from.

Twenty minutes inland from us, the even bigger supermarket is out of the world: astonishing arrays of cheeses; silvery dorade fish that look just plucked from the sea; rosy crevettes; dramatic giant crabs. But I’m being hurried out — I’ll have to come back! Honestly, I enjoy prowling these aisles nearly as much as the beach.

❦

The other day, walking along the shoreline of that marvelous beach, I happened upon a razor-clam shell, and suddenly wished there were a place to eat razor clams for dinner. A pipe dream, to be sure, as the restaurant choices are, as I said, pretty thin, and I’ve never seen razor clams on a menu here in all these decades.

Later, Thierry and I walked around town checking the menu boards of the usual restaurant suspects, seeking something passable as we’d be popping over to London for a quick visit with friends the next morning and therefore didn’t want to buy groceries. (We got back last night.) Suddenly, voilà — there it was on the fixed-price menu board of a place with tables facing the sea: Couteaux. “Isn’t that razor clams”? I asked Thierry. Yes, it absolutely was. A small, delicious, post-Ascension miracle in Lacanau, six lightly steamed and dressed in a lovely persillade, served as a first course.

Oh, lucky, lucky me. A light breeze, a view of the water, a glass of the Domaine Tariquet white wine that’s been turning up partout — who needs tweezer food? I was happy as, oh, you know.

Tomorrow we’re headed to Dordogne for the weekend, to the town of Périgeux. Immediate destination: an apparently amazing Saturday marché, where an old friend of ours sells his artisan breads. I’ll keep you posted — I’m imagining something delicious.

Lots of love,

Leslie

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT — “Ravishing ravigote: At least as old as Escoffier, the herbal sauce is suddenly new again”