Lunch on Bastille Day 2010

I have somehow started a new yearly tradition for myself. On July 14th – Bastille Day – I head down to Nashville’s quaint & slightly funky little area of Hillsboro Village to have lunch at Provence Bread & Café. Hillsboro Village is a closely positioned collection of some tasty restaurants, cafés, specialty shops, a good coffee dive, one proud & crumbling theatre and one of my favorite used book stores. It’s the kind of area that has managed to update buildings to house thriving little businesses but everything still has a rough, painted-up charm with little nooks and crannies still to be found in stores and even a crafty incorporation of old building fixtures into the new design - like the Fido’s coffee shop that still has the Jones Pet Shop sign attached. I can remember liking that pet store because I could plunge big metal scoops into several kinds of birdseed and make a special mix with my cockatiel’s preferences in mind. Toby was partial to sunflower seeds.

There are several shops that draw me to Hillsboro Village now along with the old Theatre into which I often wander alone to see French films that I somehow can’t wheedle anyone into attending with me. I love the 1000 Faces store where Uncle R finds special jewelry to surprise me with at Christmas and birthdays. It’s also been a great place to find things that we have given Mommy M and SanFran S for special birthdays. And I always unearth unusual and creative presents and treasures at the Pangaea shop among the fans, handkerchiefs, unique jewelry, stationery, pungent foreign soaps and odd little novelty gifts. The used bookstore is a veritable Aladdin’s cave of double-stacked books that bulge from shelves, are piled in windows and peek winsomely from freshly unloaded boxes from estate sales. Uncle R’s eyes slightly glaze over as he watches me disappear into the front door of Bookman and underneath their tinkling bell because he knows that he will have a bit of a wait before he can pry me back out into the bustling sidewalks along the traffic-heavy 21st Avenue South that slices through the middle of the Village.

Dangerously close to Bookman is Provence Breads and Café which is just about the closest thing that Nashville has to a place that produces “almost French” food. Since I am sadly not a big bread eater these days and limit what I let myself have of sweets, I don’t permit myself to venture into Provence very often, but it’s a nice place to grab a bite before a movie, sit with a cup of coffee and a newly purchased – or traded for – book from Bookman or join in the Bastille Day celebrations each year on July 14th.

Bastille Day is the French national holiday, which is celebrated on 14 July each year. In France, it is formally called La Fête Nationale (The National Celebration) or more commonly Le Quatorze Juillet (the fourteenth of July). On 14 July, France celebrates this national holiday in commemoration of the storming of the Bastille prison, which took place in 1789 and marked the beginning of the French Revolution.

Provence Breads and Café really gets into the celebration, which I love. Last year I ate a salad and an Eiffel Tower cookie while sipping Orangina. This year I had a “French country” plate with little cornichon pickles, a couple of modest slices of pork pate, leafy green salad & two little rounds of baguette with some creamy brie cheese. I shouldn’t have, but I polished it off with a yummy freshly baked lemon cookie.

Sometimes there is a French flag waving saucily out front but today it held pride of place in their front window. As I sat beneath it reading Jane Eyre, nibbling the tasty food and smelling freshly-baked bread I found that I could almost hum the Marseillaise without anyone noticing.

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet to the Pamela’s Girls!

Auntie J.