L’Art of the American Apèro - Deux
An update to where it all began, with new bites & revamped stories
When I have kids coming to the apèro I make “pizza” flavored palmiers with tomato tapenade from the weekly market and some cheese.
I have come to a deeply satisfying realization in the last year. My love language is food. But not just eating it, which is also heavenly, but more so cooking it. Without consciously realizing it, the way that I express my love, gratitude, connection and caring for someone is easily determined by if I’ve ever cooked for them or, in some way, given them some sort of homemade food item. Whether it’s a birthday party, funeral, pot luck or cookout, I find myself meticulously planning deeply personalized dishes to bring, hoping the time, effort and most importantly, love, will translate to its recipient.
How did I come to this realization? Well, to be completely transparent, it was discovered essentially when I hit rock bottom with Andy’s health issues. We were on year two of the will they find cancer or wouldn’t they train every doctor’s appointment he attended. We had started getting into the grove of our new limitations now that he was on dialysis with no end in sight, but as a couple, and as human beings, we were emotionally hanging on by a thread. My therapist had suggested reading the ever-so-popular love language book as a way to strip things back to square one and figure out what we each truly needed from the other as individuals. Wanting to include Andy in on this couple’s activity, we began listen to the audiobook while driving long distances during our first summer in France after his diagnosis. As long time readers may already know, we had only purchased our home in France 8 months before the floor dropped out on our moving abroad excitement and Andy was diagnosed with stage three cancer. We had bought the home hoping to use it as a home base to travel all of Europe, but with the dialysis added to the mix just four months later due to the chemo sessions killing his transplanted kidney, we found ourselves staying closer to home and taking long day trips all over the Vaucluse. I like to refer to this period as “deeply discovering our own backyard.” At first it was painfully restrictive, but, as we began to discover the real interworkings of the tiny villages surrounding our town, we began to have a deep and incredibly pure appreciation for the Provence many people passing through do not get to witness. It was during these little trips when we’d listen to large sections of the audio book.
“It’s a bit heavy on the religion for this Jew,” he said, wincing as the author dove deeply into what seemed more like a sermon than someone sharing sound, couples advice. While Andy was raised Jewish, the only thing that had seemed to stick with him was his grandmother’s brisket recipe lovingly remade during the holidays, so I couldn’t help but laugh a little at his distain.
“Yeah, she didn’t really mention that aspect of the book,” I said with a little shrug. We only made it about half way through the audiobook when, at that point I couldn’t get a grasp on just which love language I could possibly be (I had it narrowed down to three) and Andy decided he’d rather sit in silence. The silence, though, gave me a lot of time to think about the ways I give and receive love.
It essentially sent me on a deep, personal dive during those long car rides of how exactly I quantify love. With no real solidified answer coming from the audio book, I decided to forge my own ideas and soon came to the conclusion that my love language is food. During one car ride, our silent stretch was broken by Andy asking the very heavy handed question: how do you think you show me you love me? Without even hesitating I answered, by making you dinner, of course.
To some that may seem like a bit of a silly, unthought out answer, but to me it made total sense. On normal days I don’t just unwrap something from the freezer and pop it in the oven. After working all day I usually come home and do light prep for whatever meal we will have later that night, as it is usually a recipe that is time consuming with many steps. In my mind, though, using the freshest ingredients and making most of the components from scratch is a labor of love and something I throughly enjoy. A way of saying, I care about you so much, I only want you to have the best meal possible.
Perhaps my love language of food was there all along and it just never really dawned on me until I had to take a deep dive and discover it. I get such enjoyment out of feeding people and seeing their elated reactions. Feeding people’s stomaches really feeds my soul.
Some may say this fits perfectly in with Acts of Service, in the love language book, but to me, food as my love language encompasses so much more than what that category umbrellas.
Dinner in our home is a very big deal. Andy didn’t grow up with a family who were accustomed to sitting down at the dinner table each night to share a meal together. So, for him, having someone to share such a mundane activity with was important from our third date, the time I made him my famous coq au vin. I, myself, had grown up always sitting down to eat with my family, so I didn’t know any other alternative.
While we had lived a life where food was an integral part of our normal day-to-day, moving to France obviously elevated that lifestyle in ways we never expected.
The weekly markets, giving you access to fresh, seasonal food at reasonable prices. The tradition of long lunches, savored in the shade of a plane tree while sipping a chilled glass of rosé. The look of absolute bliss as someone coming out of the boulangerie steps out into the warm sunshine and twists off the end of a freshly baked baguette, popping the crusty quignon (or croûton depending on your region) into their mouth as they continue on with their errands through town. And of course there is the slice of heaven at the end of the day called l’apèro. That moment after work but before dinner when the sun is just beginning to set, giving you some relief from the scorching heat, where you meet with friends for a moment of good conversation and begin winding down into your evening. L’apèro is perhaps my favorite thing that we’ve adopted culturally while living here. So much so, it was what my first post was about for When in Provence.
So, of course, it is only natural that, anytime I have wanted to show gratitude to neighbors and friends in France who have always felt like our life preservers when we were culturally drowning, food was involved in some way and a lot of times that way was via l’apèro.
What began as inviting one couple at a time for leisurely evenings of food and conversation during our first summer, soon evolved into something more refined and expansive. As we became more woven into the fabric of village life, we found ourselves steadily busy with night markets, wine fêtes, and art festivals. Little by little, our calendar brimmed with the rhythm of Provençal living, leaving fewer and fewer quiet evenings to host our favorite people one by one.
To make the most of our limited time during our second year, we decided to invite two of our favorite couples, who happened to already know each other, over for our very American take on the French apéro.
As we established new connections, our web of relationships expanded and our guest list blossomed into more and more friends with each year that passed. Friends introduced us to their friends, who soon became ours, and just like that, our apéro list evolved into something a bit wonderfully unruly.
With Andy’s and my schedule pared down to fewer and fewer free days each visit, coordinating has become an annual puzzle of not only ours, but others’ overlapping plans and busy summer calendars.
“Can you message César and Steph?” I’ll ask Andy around the same time each summer. “Oh, and Chris while you’re at it.”
“On it. What dates are we aiming for?” he’d call back.
We usually offer two possible dates and see which one harmonizes best with everyone’s bustling summer agendas. Somehow, one always emerges as the favorite and so the apèro is set!
Through the maze of our contact exchanges during different events and meetups, Andy has a set of numbers I don’t, and I have a few he’s missing. Each of us curates our half of the guest list from our own WhatsApp threads, and together we entwine them into one perfectly balanced gathering.
Year three, we had reconnected with Dana, whom we had purchased our home from. All of her friends in Vaison had become our friends through her introduction and so, it was only natural that, when Dana moved back to the region, she was added to our apèro list, giving her an opportunity to catch up with old neighbors and village friends.
She has, in her own way, given us an extraordinary gift, not only by fate, in leading us to buy her home, but by introducing us to a community of people who softened every misstep and faux pas as we adjusted to life abroad. Standing in the kitchen, watching her reconnect while enjoying a few very American snacks, I felt a warm surge of love. THIS is what the apèro was truly all about.
I snapped back to the present. I’ll be the first to admit it: I am not a math teacher. Numbers have never been my strong suit.
“Hey,” I called from the dining room table, where I had been scrolling through Pinterest for recipes to recreate. “How many people did you invite?”
There was a long pause, followed by a tentative, “Seven?”
“Seven,” I repeated, more like a statement. Or maybe a question.
“Seven,” he said, this time definitively.
“And did they all say they’re coming?” I asked, a touch panicked. Normally, the more the merrier, but our home in France is cozy, to say the least.
“Yes, all confirmed,” he replied from the couch.
“Zut,” I said.
“Zut?” he echoed.
“Zut, in the best way possible! We have out-invited our house,” I informed him.
“What does that even mean?” he asked, moving toward the dining room.
“Well, we have twelve people coming, including you and me, and we have chairs and dishes for six. Open the calendar. We have to pick a day to go hunt down supplies for this rager we’re about to throw,” I said, snapping my laptop shut.
We had a week to get everything ready for the apéro, and it was all hands on deck.
Earlier that summer, Dana had introduced us to her friend Gillian, another American from Pennsylvania who happened to live just two towns away. We hit it off right away, bonding over her fiery, progressive spirit, and before long, an apéro invite was on its way to both her and Dana.
A few days later, I mentioned our seating dilemma in our group chat. Just a few hours later, Gillian came to the rescue, a friend of hers who lived nearby offered to lend us two folding chairs.
That same afternoon, a quick stop at Bizarre Land, a kind of everything-under-the-sun discount shop, solved our plate shortage. Then it was off to Le Pontet, a shopping district near Avignon, for the final touches.
“Silverware!” I said, holding up a multipack of utensils. “We don’t even have enough to serve the food,” I laughed, tossing the rectangular box into the bag.
By the end of the day, we were back in our living room, surrounded by shopping bags and unboxing everything from our little adventure. I had even scored a set of tiny mise en bouche dishes — perfect for a small dessert after the meal — and they were 50% off.
Ah, the joy of soldes season in France.
Across from me, Andy was peeling the label off the bottom of a new glass, one of many little treasures from our day of hunting and gathering.
“Why don’t we just put half the food in here and half at the table? That would literally solve the seating problem,” he reasoned.
When we first started hosting apéros, we usually gathered in the living room, with dishes spread across the coffee table and guests lounging on the couch. It was casual and cozy, but not without its challenges. I’d still find crumbs and olive pits hiding deep in the rug days later. And, truth be told, our hastily purchased couch wasn’t made for long, comfortable evenings.
“I just want this apéro to feel communal,” I said, glancing between the living room and the dining room. “I don’t want anyone to feel stuck in one space just because of the seating or excluded.”
For some reason, the two rooms felt worlds apart to me, too disconnected to flow together for the kind of gathering I had conjured in mind.
We went back and forth about it the entire week leading up to the apéro. Andy thought I was putting unnecessary stress on myself by trying to squeeze too many guests into an already tight space, but to me, that made it feel cozier and more connected. In my mind, a table full of friends passing lovingly prepared food and sharing conversation in a mix of languages was what the time together was all about.
The morning of the apéro happened to fall on market day, which I took full advantage of. I set out with a list of whittled down Pinterest finds and bullet points of what ingredients were needed to create each one. After two trips, the kitchen began to resemble a grocery store and I was offically ready to start cooking. With guests arriving at 6:30 p.m., Andy spent the afternoon cleaning while I was in my happy place, the kitchen, surrounded by fresh ingredients and the anticipation of a night with friends.
As Americans, we can’t help but love seeing inside other people’s homes. In Pittsburgh, we’d call ourselves a little “nebby,” which basically means nosey to anyone not familiar with our dialect of Pittsburghese. We’re used to showing guests around or getting a full tour when we visit someone’s home, especially for the first time. In France, though, things are quite different. From our experience, it is not common to be invited into someone’s private spaces, and the idea of a house tour feels much more personal. Since our guest list includes friends from all over the world, not just France, we always make sure the house is spotless in case an impromptu tour begins. The funny thing is, it’s usually our French friends who seem most delighted to be invited upstairs, perhaps because it’s not something they’re used to so early in a friendship.
While Andy focused on cleaning for the expected visits upstairs, I spread out my list and got to work. Each year, I like to try a few new recipes, but I always bring back at least two that were clear favorites from the year before.
Throughout the year, I had saved several recipes on my Pinterest page and finally narrowed them down to ten dishes that were perfect for passing around and sharing.
One of my traditions is to include a fruit, vegetable and cheese skewer with a light, citrusy vinaigrette drizzled on top. This time, I went with blackberry, cucumber, and mozzarella — simple, fresh, and full of color.
I mixed a little bit of lemon juice, olive oil and pepper and drizzled that over the skewers before serving.
They’re easy to grab and make a nice, light option compared to the heavier American-style appetizers. The skewers can also be prepared ahead of time and kept in the fridge, which gave me the freedom to focus on the more demanding, time-consuming dishes, like this twist on pigs in a blanket.
I had found a version of the recipe that used ground sausage cooked with cream cheese and a packet of ranch dressing mix. Where I’m from, nothing says “American” quite like cream cheese and ranch dressing, and with that flavor combination, I knew it would be a hit. It turned out to be so popular that I ended up making it for all three of the apéros we held this summer. Check out the recipe here.
I actually made these two days before and threw them in the freezer and pulled them out right before baking. Because they were wrapped in puff pastry, the colder the pastry was kept, the more the layers would puff up after baking.
There are plenty of times I make dishes for my apéros or dinners that I don’t actually eat myself. As food is my love language, it’s more about the act of sharing than it is eating for me.
One afternoon at school, I noticed a fellow teacher stirring a large crockpot in the break room, and curiosity got the best of me. I walked over to see what was inside.
The pot was filled with mini meatballs, and she was spooning grape jelly over the top.
“What in the absolute world…” I said, staring wide-eyed at the concoction.
“You’ve never had sweet chili meatballs?” she asked, looking up from the pot, genuinely confused.
“Never,” I said, shaking my head for emphasis.
“You come back at the end of the day,” she said. “It’ll be the only dish scraped clean at this potluck.” She closed the lid and turned up the heat.
Sure enough, she was right. They didn’t even last until the end of the day.
I made a quick mental note of the recipe, always keeping an eye out for simple dishes I could recreate abroad. While I appreciated this particular dish’s simplicity, this would definitely be one I would not be trying.
Mine is made of beef meatballs, apricot jam and sweet chili sauce.
By 6:15, everything was finally in its place. During one of our scavenger trips for last-minute items, we had found a patio table on sale and decided to attach it to the end of the dining table to gain more seating, surrounding it with the matching chairs that came with it.
“I’ve been wanting a table for the balcony to sit and have my coffee. This would be perfect,” Andy said, pulling out his measuring tape to check that it would be level with our dining table at home. It was.
Our French friends, and even some of our non-French friends who had lived in France long enough to adopt local habits, would arrive much later than 6:30. The only ones we could count on to show up right on time were our two American guests, Gillian and Dana. That gave me a few minutes to check my phone and polish a few more wine glasses before their arrival.
“Oh my goodness,” I said, holding my phone up for Andy to see.
“What?” he asked, looking past the phone and straight at me.
“Hi Rachel,
I reckon we will get to you for around 7.15 pm. Hope that is ok.
Also, would it be ok to bring our 21 year old son Scott along? He is home alone tonight and would love to join if that is ok….( he is very nice!). A tout a l’heure, Janet,” I read the message out loud.
“We don’t have another chair,” he confirmed, “god, we sound so sad. Having to go buy plates and seats just to have people come over.”
“No, no,” I waved him off, “we’re still buying necessary items as we need them. It’s all part of starting from scratch.”
I pulled the phone back and began to type.
“What are you saying?” He asked.
“Well, as sad as this may sound, we’d love for him to come, but could he bring his own seat?” I laughed as I relayed the message. We did sound a little sad. We were the youngest in our group of friends, and moments like this made me feel unprepared and a bit childish.
“No problem at all,” swiftly came her reply, and we began moving things aside to squeeze in one more seat.
As 7 pm hit, friends became trickling in and filling our living room as Andy traveled around filling everyone’s wine glasses. It was our first summer with Milou, so everyone who entered took a moment to fawn all over him before performing the traditional bise to the other guests.
As timers started going off, indicating my dishes were ready, I instructed Andy to coral everyone into the dining room to find a seat. Scott added his chair to the end and everyone found a comfortable spot, nestling into each other. Some dips were already spread around the table, along with crackers and a few crudité platters. When a dish was ready to be enjoyed, I would stand at the head of the table and announce what it was before passing to the Scott to begin its serving.
While Didier is French, he was raised in the U.S. and spent a lot of his time in New Mexico, finding a taste for Mexican inspired dishes. This Mexicali dip was for him!
As the dishes were passed, some guests had to ask what they had been, having missed the introductions while caught up in conversation. I smiled to myself each time I overheard someone ask about a dish, knowing the warmth and energy of the moment had captured their attention. This was the true meaning of convivialité, or the joy of gathering around a table, sharing a delicious meal, and connecting through conversation and laughter.
A warm breeze drifted through the open balcony doors, adding a cozy feel and backlighting the room with the golden glow only found in Provence. I smiled as dishes began making their way back to the end of the table, empty and ready to make room for the next delicious addition.
After about an hour, the oven was finally off, and the sink was piled high with empty serving dishes. The air still carried the faint scent of roasted vegetables, melted cheese, and warm herbs. I lingered around the table, sampling a few leftovers and asking each guest which dish had been their favorite. Milou made his presents known, weaving between the chairs, sniffing the floor and hoping for a dropped crumb or two. I kept a mental note of the dishes that drew the most praise, adding them to my list of recipes to recreate next year.
Even though guests were still lightly grazing, I knew it was the perfect moment for the one item that never failed to make our apéros feel thoroughly American: the Jell-O shots. We first started packing Jell-O into our luggage for Agnès because her daughter had seen Jell-O shots in American media and wanted to try making them herself. During our first summer I served a few of the tiny soufflé cups, thinking our guests would be as charmed as Agnès’ daughter by the retro creation. As I set the platter of them on the table, the room erupted in laughter and surprise as guests marveled at the bright, wobbly treats. From that day on, Jell-O shots became a tradition of our apèros, a fun twist that guests look forward to.
As I closed the refrigerator door, arms full of neon-colored cups, Scott’s eyes grew wide.
“I had warned him about these!” Janet said with a mischievous smile. Everyone grabbed a cup, passing them along to anyone who didn’t already have one and peeling off their lids. I can’t help but laugh every single time we reach this moment in the apèro. We live amongst some of the most stunning wine villages in all of the world. We consistently fill our glasses with wines from some of the best, prestigious neighboring vineyards. Olivier, Janet’s husband, runs his own wine tour business and always graciously brings the most beautiful bottles for us to share. And yet, amid all this sophistication, the bright, wobbly American Jell-O shots somehow steal the spotlight, eliciting laughter, surprise and absolute playfulness from everyone at the table. The scene is almost too American.
As the excitement from the Jell-O shots began to fade, I headed back into the kitchen to tackle the growing pile of dishes. The sun had finally begun to set and the hum of conversation swirled around the space. Despite not being fully engrained in the conversation, I felt a quiet satisfaction knowing we had hosted some of our favorite people in all of Provence, feeding not just their stomachs, but also their souls with friendship and connection. I turn just in time to see Gillian slip from her seat and step through the balcony doors, and return through the living room doors, which was the only clear path to the other side of the dining table with so many people packed together.
I smiled as she appeared at my side.
“How was everything?” I asked, eager to hear her thoughts. I had been peppering our group chat with hypothetical recipes for almost a week at that point and wanted her take on the final items selected.
“Fantastic! I have never been to an apéro where everyone actually down sat at the table,” she said matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean?” I asked, a flicker of panic rising in me.
“Usually people just walk around with their plate, I really liked that we were all together, passing dishes,” she added.
I paused, running through my memories like a mental rolodex, rethinking all of my apéro experiences. I began to realize in that moment, I didn’t have very many to draw from in the grand scheme of invitations. Most of the ones I attended had everyone sitting at a table. Usually there were a few bowls of olives and nuts for grazing, some crudité to balance the offerings and everyone sat around casually chatting while sipping something cool and refreshing. The French take food very seriously, so it never occurred to me that, by putting people together at a table with actual place settings, perhaps I was making some kind of cultural faux pas. I always try so hard to stay under-the-radar when it comes to my French existence. Perhaps I was starting to become too comfortable, not taking in consideration the culture of l’apèro. I also realized that because there was a full spread of food, not just small nibbles, this gathering would be better described as an apéro dînatoire.
Gillian grabbed my arm, pulling me back into the moment.
“Don’t over think it.”
God, she knew me so well in just a short few weeks.
I smiled. We stood side by side watching from the kitchen as lively conversations were exchanged and glasses were refilled.
“This was perfect and the food was incredible,” she added, pulling me in for a sideways hug.
Maybe that’s the real charm of this yearly gathering. While it takes place in France and draws inspiration from a beloved French tradition, Andy and I have made it our own by providing a little taste of the U.S. and by bringing together friends and acquaintances for one special night of shared space, conversation, and (hopefully) good food.
