Lulu is Lulu Peyraud of Domaine Tempier. Aioli is the garlicky mayonnaise of Provence. An aioli means aioli and the assorted goodies onto which you heap it: sweet potato, carrots, artichokes, hard-boiled egg, sea snails, salt cod, octopus stew, garden tomatoes, beets and so on. For grand occasions when guests are numerous (the end-of-harvest celebration, for example), Lulu always serves bouillabaisse or an aioli.
     For some reason bouillabaise and aioli have taken on some sort of spiritual significance to me. When I eat them, I satisfy more than one kind of hunger.
     Why then did the aioli gods turn on me? For years my aiolis fell apart. No matter how careful I was! Drop by excruciating drop I would add the olive oil, turning all the while until my arm wanted to fall off, fifteen, twenty minutes, and then in a matter of seconds my precious aioli would separate into an unappetizing glop of olive oil and raw egg. In frustration I finally tried to make it in a blender. Even that fell apart!
    Zoot.
    So I sat down with Lulu, mortar and pestle, garlic, egg yolk and olive oil, and asked her to show me.
     “You add a little salt first to help grind the garlic to a paste, then the egg yolk, then you stir in the olive oil. It’s easy.” she said.
    Folks, that is exactly how I always did it, so I insisted she demonstrate.
    Well, first, there was no drip-drip-drip. Lulu splashed in a healthy glug of oil and turned it with the pestle until it firmed up, then glug-glug, another pour. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Surely it was bound to unbind.
    But, to hurry along... Lulu did have a step she hadn’t mentioned. When her aioli began to thicken too much, she added a spoonful of tepid water. Since learning the tepid water trick I haven’t lost a single aioli and my life is more meaningful. But why had no one ever explained that you don’t want your aioli to get too thick? I always thought that was the goal.
    Surprisingly, Lulu serves not rosé, but red wine with aioli. Soul food, soul wine. A young, new, cool red. The 1986 works.

A platter of summer vegetables—ripe tomatoes, green beans of all kinds, little thin-skinned potatoes, small cauliflowers, skinny carrots, quartered roasted beets, artichokes, if you can—along with a few halved hard-boiled eggs, a mortar of aioli redolent of young garlic, and, typically, chunks of warm salt cod, is one the most splendid dishes of French cooking. Instead of the cod, or maybe in addition to it, I like the elegant surprise of stewed octopus. If you can’t find good octopus, substitute squid or cuttlefish, though they’re just not the same. A Provençal rosé is made for this dish. Start in the morning.

You will need a slew of vegetables: green beans topped and blanched until soft; small potatoes such as Yellow Finns or German Butterballs, cooked until soft, then peeled and halved, or not; cauliflower broken into florets and blanched, keeping them crunchy; carrots peeled, 1/2 inch of stem left on, blanched but crunchy; artichokes cleaned and cooked until soft, then halved; small red beets roasted with a little water and salt, peeled and halved; nice, ripe tomatoes, quartered; sliced fresh fennel into pieces length-wise, keep raw.

OCTOPUS: Poach small octopus in salted water for 1 hour with a bay leaf and fennel tops. Cool in the poaching liquid, then cut octopus into 1-inch pieces. Sauté finely chopped onion in olive oil over low heat until golden but not browned. Turn up heat; add octopus pieces; sliced garlic; and a sprinkle of salt. Cook until liquid has evaporated. Add a splash of brandy and white wine and cook for a few minutes, until reduced to thick syrup. Add peeled, seeded, coarsely chopped ripe tomato and simmer slowly for about one hour, until octopus is tender. Adjust salt. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

AÏOLI: In a mortar, pound 5 or 6 garlic cloves and a big pinch of sea salt to a smooth paste. Briskly stir in three egg yolks and a teaspoon of water. Add olive oil, first a few drops at a time dribbled down the side of the mortar bowl, so oil flows slowly and with control into egg yolks. Continue until emulsion begins to hold, then gradually increase speed of oil addition, stirring constantly, until you have added about 2 cups, and mayonnaise is thick and glossy.

Arrange vegetables, halved hard-boiled eggs, and octopus on platters. If you wish, serve chunks of poached salt cod. Serve aïoli in bowls with big spoons on the side. And don’t forget the rosé.