Exploring Nice and the Surrounding Area
Melon, tomato and ham salad
We ate this remarkable dish on the Ile de Ré off the coast of southern Brittany, so it’s not necessarily local. But the orange-fleshed melons grow abundantly around Nice, and the large tomatoes are easy to find on the market. It’s the combination of sweetness, saltiness and garlic that make this salad a winner. Ingredients 1 large orange-fleshed melon, nice… Read on >
Haricots mi-secs à la tomate
“Haricots mi-secs” are those scruffy red-marbled borlotti beans you see on the market. Not much to look at, they taste like heaven when done the right way. These beans are fully grown and only part-dried so they con’t need to be soaked before use. Delicious accompaniment to meat, fish or shellfish. Ingredients 1kg unshelled weight1 large tomato, cut in quarters2… Read on >
Orange, fennel and broad bean salad
On a visit in early May, we wondered what we could do with the abundance of broad beans, fennel bulb and oranges on our favourite market at Libération. The answer was this wonderfully fresh salad that feeds 4-5 people. We served it with “bonite” (a type of small tuna) accompanied by “panisses”, the saucer-shaped Niçois delicacy made from chickpea flour…. Read on >
Tourte: vegetable pie with olive oil pastry
The local name “tourte” translates in English as “pie”, meaning a dish with pastry both above and below. A tourte is made flat and wide rather than deep. I chose a metal quiche dish measuring 30cm in diameter. The recipe comes from the mountainous countryside that surrounds Nice where it is popular in towns like Breil-sur-Roya and La Brigue. I… Read on >
A stay at La Brigue, with sheep
Nice is situated at the foot of a stunning mountain range, part of the Alps, which is very good for hiking at the right times of year. Getting to the know the mountains around Nice is certainly as rewarding as finding secluded coves to swim in or new restaurants to try. If this sounds daunting to those who don’t bring… Read on >
Public transport in Nice
In a previous blog I kept during my long association with Nice, just about everything I wrote about public transport is now wrong. So much investment has gone into green transport in the past twenty years that this aspect of the town is has changed beyond all recognition. Trams prioritised over cars When we made our very first visit to… Read on >