Fall Dinner Menus Inspired by Provencal Flavours

As summer segues into fall, I cannot help but hope summer will linger on just a bit longer. It’s not the Pacific Northwest’s impending rainy season or even the imminent cold weather that I fear, it’s just that no other season expresses Provence more succinctly.

Fall in Provence

Summer is when both my weekly consumption of olive oil and rosé spikes. Provence completely takes over my dinner table, covering it in colourful bowls of purple tapenade, chilled ratatouille and vibrant yellow zucchini blossom beignets dipped in rouille. The food becomes far simpler, relying more on an ingredient’s provenance than on complex recipes.

Fall’s arrival signals the shortening of days. The bright lingering summer light becomes more radiant, casting an ethereal golden hue across our table. It reminds me of standing near the Grimaldi castle in Cagnes Sur Mer, pastis firmly in hand as I embarrassed myself in a spirited game of pétanque with my seven-year-old as we waited for our dinner of wood-fired rouget and pizza to arrive. As the sun set, people in the café stopped eating to watch the sun dip below the horizon in an explosion of nature’s fireworks.

Fall Dinner Menus

The palate of colours changes at my nearby farmers’ market, bringing out old favourites and a host of new dishes to explore; for this reason, I offer two variations on a fall menu. One celebrates Indian summer with grilled calamari, radicchio salad, and lavender honey-brushed lamb chops served with Moroccan couscous and chickpea salad. While the other, a soupe au pistou and daube of pork cheek, gently remind us of the heartier fare that will soon provide comfort and solace during the darker nights.

Indian Summer Menu:

Starter Course: Grilled Calamari and Radicchio Salad

Main Course: Lavender Honey brushed Lamb Chops with Moroccan Chickpea and Couscous Salad

Cooler Fall Menu:

Starter Course: Soupe au Pistou

Main Course: Daube of Pork Cheek served with Pasta

Dessert:
Apple Beignet with Caramel Ice Cream

Fall Dinner Menu à la Provencal for Pinterest:

Join a Provencal Culinary Adventure

Chef Francois and his lovely wife Lisa have put together a 5-day tour along the Mediterranean coastline from Marseille to Nice. The tour begins in Marseille at the Vieux Port, where you begin to understand why this is the birthplace of bouillabaisse. This culinary adventure includes cooking classes, a chance to meet local food producers, and some Provencal wine tasting (bien sûr).

Full-Day Wine Adventure from Marseille: Exploring the Côtes de Provence Appellation

Join us for a captivating day tour as we explore the Côtes de Provence wine appellation! Your adventure begins by unveiling the beauty of Montagne Sainte Victoire, an iconic symbol of the area.

Book this Experience

Chef François de Mélogue

François de Mélogue grew up in a very French household in Chicago. His earliest attempts at cookery began with the filleting of his sister’s goldfish at age two and a braised rabbit dish made with his pet rabbits by age seven. He eventually stopped cooking his pets and went to the highly esteemed New England Culinary Institute, where he graduated top of his class in 1985. Over the next three decades he cooked in a number of highly acclaimed kitchens across the country, including Chef Louis Szathmáry’s The Bakery in Chicago, Old Drovers Inn, a Relais & Châteaux property in New York, and Joël Robuchon’s restaurant Gastronomie in Paris, before opening Pili Pili, his wood-fired Mediterranean restaurant in Chicago. In 2003, Food & Wine named Pili Pili one of the ten best new restaurants in the world.

Today, François lives in St Albans, Vermont, with his wife Lisa and their son Beau, the self-proclaimed family saucier. At heart, he is a storyteller who works in two mediums, food and light. In the kitchen, his stories unfold in slowly simmered daubes and simple, thoughtfully crafted dishes that express their seasonality in every bite. With a camera, they become quiet images of food, honest products, and the rural landscapes of Vermont and Provence. He is the author of French Cooking for Beginners: 75+ Classic Recipes to Cook Like a Parisian, a book that wanders well beyond Paris into the markets and kitchens of France. You can explore his photographic work at https://www.francoisdemelogue.com/ and follow his Provençal-flavored writings on Medium in his column Pistou and Pastis.