This double dish is best simplified by using chicken stock made from a cube. However, for those of us who like to use a whole chicken by having a large one halved by the butcher and using half for roasting and the other half for curries, stews and stock, the stew part of this recipe would have had chicken meat added and the dish made with real chicken stock. I would not be without a pressure cooker for such preliminaries, although it is not necessary, but economical and less strain on your economy and the country’s resources. But forget all that. Let’s make it simple.
BEEF - CHICK PEA AND MEAT BALL STEW (plus a prawn dish)
You will need:
Dried chick peas (canned will do)
Meatballs (see below)
Carrots
Onions
Stock
Pepper and salt
Prawns and garlic for the following dish
Soak dried chick peas overnight, or overnight and much of the day.
Make meatballs by mixing together minced beef, flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt and the seasoning of one dried herb, then forming this into balls and frying them for a while until brown all over. Keep handy. (You might make more than wanted for this dish, freezing some for spaghetti and meatballs at a later date.)
Cook the soaked chickpeas in chicken stock (to just cover) in the pressure cooker for 35 minutes, or for much longer in the ordinary way. Keep some of the cooked chickpeas aside for a dish on the following day, extracting them from the liquid and coating them in olive oil to prevent them from drying out. (Treat the canned chickpeas for the extra dish with oil in the same way.)
To the cooked chick peas add chopped onion (best fried first), chopped carrot and the meat balls. Add stock to form a thicker or thinner stew as desired. Cook this slowly for about half an hour.
Test for seasoning and serve, possibly garnishing it with chopped coriander or parsley.
For the following dish put the oil-coated chick peas in a frying pan with more olive oil, pressed garlic, pepper, salt, and prawns. If these prawns have been frozen, first allow them to thaw out and discard the liquid that they will have given off.
Fry the contents of the pan until the prawns have been well heated through.
Test again for seasoning, possibly garnish with chopped coriander or parsley, and serve.
Note: The advantage of using dried chick peas is that they are so cheap to buy and easy to store (buy from an Indian shop). But they must be soaked overnight or more. The longer that they have been stored in their dry state (like all dried bens), the longer they will need to be soaked.
*****
Note: I have found that some frozen peas added shortly before the completion of my delicious and simple CHICKEN AND LEMON RICE recipe improves the look and probably taste.
*****
Friday, July 20, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Rock Music
My youngest son, Peter Page-Roberts, is a musician. He is a guitarist and composer. His oeuvre consists of beautiful instrumental music and cutting-edge songs that comment on life and society. But for a while now his musical interests have been directed to Rock music.
Being a musician with free-ranging musical interests does not go far to help him pay the rent. So his day job starts very early in the morning, and ends in time for him to devote the remaining hours of the day and evening to playing his several stringed instruments and composing. This, with modern technology, means that he can play everything that a band plays, sing, and put it all together as if many musicians (with his own mind) were involved. Thus, he chooses to be a postman/musician.
In bands, Pete is the bass player.
The latest group that he is part of is called NEON DIAMOND, and they play mainly in the peripheral districts of London. So, although we would like to see them perform, Margreet and I find ourselves unable to cope with the late nights and difficult travel arrangements, especially to and from the often rougher parts of the capital.
But an 8.30 pm, one evening in July 2007, a Neon Diamond gig came up at the PURPLE TURTLE on a direct bus route from where we live. So off we went (with me making fatuous remarks about needing ear plugs) to the venue at Mornington Crescent, near Camden in north/north east London.
We had arrived early on purpose to be able to eat in that part of town – choosing a very busy pub with food on offer.
The beer was good, the red wine indifferent, and the food, after a ¾ of an hour wait, so bad that it bordered on disgusting. It was the kind of English grub that I was under the impression had disappeared from the scene some 20 to 30 years ago.
Outside the venue we could just hear that the first of three bands were in action.
Once through the first of two glass doors I paid the very modest entry fee, with a pound knocked off because of our presenting a promotion flyer. But already, because of the noise, I was unable to hear all of the entry transaction. So that most of it was conducted in sign language.
Inside the second door we were hit by the full blast from drummer, guitarists and singer at full belt and maximum volume. It was deafening, but exciting.
The stage, floor, bar, sound and light control cabin, and anti-chamber with pin ball machine, was a dark and cosy delight, lit by coloured spotlights, and conducive to music, drink and friendship.
We were already enjoying ourselves as we ordered drinks with shouting and sign language, and by offering a handful of money from which the barmaid extracted the correct amount.
The band concluded their performance to applause that sounded as nothing in comparison with the noise that they had just been producing.
The musicians disconnected their instruments from the electronics, packed away their kit slowly, and were either on their way or staying to become audience.
Rock is clearly sideline music. These were top groups. But their audience was made up mainly of their devoted followers and other Rock musicians. Most of the coming and going audience seemed to either know each other or were aware of each other’s musical reputation. Relationships were friendly ones. There was considerable camaraderie evident.
The audience and players were made up of real characters – each worth more than a glance.
The older, middle-aged ones were men with portly bellies, wearing short trousers, and with long hair, beards and pale faces – old rockers. They looked a bit as though they had just dismounted from their Harley-Davidsons before coming in to lap up the music.
Girls tended to be striking, slim and dressed as Goths, clad in black, and sometimes with the adornment of jangly, flashing and studded bits.
Two of the girls were notable. One, a tiny waif of stick-thin femininity with red top and torn jeans, stood throughout on the centre of the floor, motionless, with a pint of beer in her hands, transfixed by the bands and their music.
The other, with long blonde hair, and dressed in what remained of a pair of jeans, and wearing a jacket with copious additions that caught and reflected the coloured lights, which flashed as she moved, seemed to act quite normally between the spates of music. But as the bands blared forth, she was overtaken by some internal dervish, throwing herself into convulsions, twisting and tossing her head and hair in abandonment, and prancing about the floor (later in a diaphanous pink top), high kicking like some Austrian performing horse.
There was a gap in time before the Neon Diamond group was to perform. So the members of the band went about their pre-music chores, plugging in and tuning up – all to the loud, recorded music, controlled by the man in the black control booth.
The players positioned a supply of liquid refreshment where it could be reached easily between “songs”. Then they formed up and were off.
Mark Thorn, the lead vocalist and front man, with or without guitar in hand, belted out voice and music, accompanied by much jumping and stamping. He was impressive.
The lead guitarist, Lenny Stella, from Italy, played in his own self-contained, enveloping cocoon at the side of the stage, sometimes shirted and sometimes shirtless, and occasionally playing the guitar with his teeth. He was an act in itself, and always worth watching – and probably listened to as well, if I could only have separated the sounds one from the other.
The drummer, another Mark, wore a hat throughout (real hair underneath) as he crashed away enough to wake the dead.
And bass guitarist, Big Pete, tall, willowy, elegant and much tattooed (the only member with shortish hair) stood almost still in comparison with the others as he played his guitar, legs akimbo - the cool one.
So they performed their numbers at maximum volume and velocity, to the highest number of spectators, until the conclusion, with clapping, cheers and whistles (Margreet having the loudest one). (She was later to be dubbed “The Rock and Roll Mum.)
Then the band disconnected their instruments to make way for the next group. Margreet and I were then able to meet with the Neon Diamond crew for a drink – though I only wish I could have heard what they had to say above the general din. What was uncanny was that they seemed to all be able to understand what each was saying, when, to me, the voices were completely lost.
We left, partly deafened, to say goodbye to those inside, and others, dragging on their cigarettes, outside on the pavement.
Except for hearing my voice bouncing around inside my eardrums throughout the following day, I could easily become hooked on Rock music – a sort of musical violence in a friendly atmosphere.
Perhaps I should grow my hair long, study with a dervish, wear a pink diaphanous blouse, and take dancing lessons from a prancing horse in Austria.
Being a musician with free-ranging musical interests does not go far to help him pay the rent. So his day job starts very early in the morning, and ends in time for him to devote the remaining hours of the day and evening to playing his several stringed instruments and composing. This, with modern technology, means that he can play everything that a band plays, sing, and put it all together as if many musicians (with his own mind) were involved. Thus, he chooses to be a postman/musician.
In bands, Pete is the bass player.
The latest group that he is part of is called NEON DIAMOND, and they play mainly in the peripheral districts of London. So, although we would like to see them perform, Margreet and I find ourselves unable to cope with the late nights and difficult travel arrangements, especially to and from the often rougher parts of the capital.
But an 8.30 pm, one evening in July 2007, a Neon Diamond gig came up at the PURPLE TURTLE on a direct bus route from where we live. So off we went (with me making fatuous remarks about needing ear plugs) to the venue at Mornington Crescent, near Camden in north/north east London.
We had arrived early on purpose to be able to eat in that part of town – choosing a very busy pub with food on offer.
The beer was good, the red wine indifferent, and the food, after a ¾ of an hour wait, so bad that it bordered on disgusting. It was the kind of English grub that I was under the impression had disappeared from the scene some 20 to 30 years ago.
Outside the venue we could just hear that the first of three bands were in action.
Once through the first of two glass doors I paid the very modest entry fee, with a pound knocked off because of our presenting a promotion flyer. But already, because of the noise, I was unable to hear all of the entry transaction. So that most of it was conducted in sign language.
Inside the second door we were hit by the full blast from drummer, guitarists and singer at full belt and maximum volume. It was deafening, but exciting.
The stage, floor, bar, sound and light control cabin, and anti-chamber with pin ball machine, was a dark and cosy delight, lit by coloured spotlights, and conducive to music, drink and friendship.
We were already enjoying ourselves as we ordered drinks with shouting and sign language, and by offering a handful of money from which the barmaid extracted the correct amount.
The band concluded their performance to applause that sounded as nothing in comparison with the noise that they had just been producing.
The musicians disconnected their instruments from the electronics, packed away their kit slowly, and were either on their way or staying to become audience.
Rock is clearly sideline music. These were top groups. But their audience was made up mainly of their devoted followers and other Rock musicians. Most of the coming and going audience seemed to either know each other or were aware of each other’s musical reputation. Relationships were friendly ones. There was considerable camaraderie evident.
The audience and players were made up of real characters – each worth more than a glance.
The older, middle-aged ones were men with portly bellies, wearing short trousers, and with long hair, beards and pale faces – old rockers. They looked a bit as though they had just dismounted from their Harley-Davidsons before coming in to lap up the music.
Girls tended to be striking, slim and dressed as Goths, clad in black, and sometimes with the adornment of jangly, flashing and studded bits.
Two of the girls were notable. One, a tiny waif of stick-thin femininity with red top and torn jeans, stood throughout on the centre of the floor, motionless, with a pint of beer in her hands, transfixed by the bands and their music.
The other, with long blonde hair, and dressed in what remained of a pair of jeans, and wearing a jacket with copious additions that caught and reflected the coloured lights, which flashed as she moved, seemed to act quite normally between the spates of music. But as the bands blared forth, she was overtaken by some internal dervish, throwing herself into convulsions, twisting and tossing her head and hair in abandonment, and prancing about the floor (later in a diaphanous pink top), high kicking like some Austrian performing horse.
There was a gap in time before the Neon Diamond group was to perform. So the members of the band went about their pre-music chores, plugging in and tuning up – all to the loud, recorded music, controlled by the man in the black control booth.
The players positioned a supply of liquid refreshment where it could be reached easily between “songs”. Then they formed up and were off.
Mark Thorn, the lead vocalist and front man, with or without guitar in hand, belted out voice and music, accompanied by much jumping and stamping. He was impressive.
The lead guitarist, Lenny Stella, from Italy, played in his own self-contained, enveloping cocoon at the side of the stage, sometimes shirted and sometimes shirtless, and occasionally playing the guitar with his teeth. He was an act in itself, and always worth watching – and probably listened to as well, if I could only have separated the sounds one from the other.
The drummer, another Mark, wore a hat throughout (real hair underneath) as he crashed away enough to wake the dead.
And bass guitarist, Big Pete, tall, willowy, elegant and much tattooed (the only member with shortish hair) stood almost still in comparison with the others as he played his guitar, legs akimbo - the cool one.
So they performed their numbers at maximum volume and velocity, to the highest number of spectators, until the conclusion, with clapping, cheers and whistles (Margreet having the loudest one). (She was later to be dubbed “The Rock and Roll Mum.)
Then the band disconnected their instruments to make way for the next group. Margreet and I were then able to meet with the Neon Diamond crew for a drink – though I only wish I could have heard what they had to say above the general din. What was uncanny was that they seemed to all be able to understand what each was saying, when, to me, the voices were completely lost.
We left, partly deafened, to say goodbye to those inside, and others, dragging on their cigarettes, outside on the pavement.
Except for hearing my voice bouncing around inside my eardrums throughout the following day, I could easily become hooked on Rock music – a sort of musical violence in a friendly atmosphere.
Perhaps I should grow my hair long, study with a dervish, wear a pink diaphanous blouse, and take dancing lessons from a prancing horse in Austria.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Sweet Tooth
This recipe is an alternative to the usual choice for those with a sweet tooth
TO FILL A SWEET TOOTH
You will need certain items from the following:
Whole rolled oats, porridge will just do (raw and uncooked)
Sultanas
Malted milk powder, like Horlicks
Cocoa powder
Honey
Marmalade or jam
Liquid in the form of milk, cream, yoghurt or fruit juice
Chocolate shot or chocolate chips
Some of us like to finish a meal with some sweet food. And sugary sweetness means fattening. And fattening is meant to be a bad thing.
So perhaps end a meal with fruit (sugar) or cheese (fat). All right, fruit is good for you, as is cheese.
Chocolate, or chocolates, fit the bill for that sweet tooth. Chocolate is meant to be good for you, but it is usually combined with sugar, milk, and that sweet gooey stuff in the middle of Belgian chocolates. So chocolates, although just a possibility, are fattening and expensive. Chocolate shot or chips are just passable.
But there is a real alternative – one that I enjoy if something sweet is not readily available. And it is relatively healthy.
The basis of this concoction is rolled oats – whole rolled oats. These, we are often told, are wonderful for your health and wellbeing. Good.
Put some in a bowl.
Now add sultanas. These will provide sweetness and fruit. They are, after all, just dried seedless grapes. And they are convenient to handle, and terrific value.
The next step is to add some Horlicks, or other malted milk powder. One has the feeling that this is a wholesome product, as it is meant to nourish the body and aid sleep. It will help the final mixture to coalesce. If adding cocoa powder, use only a very little. It will dry up the mixture.
You could now add some crushed nuts if you feel like it and if they do not prevent your body from functioning properly. I tend to skip them. Peanut butter is very fattening.
You might like to add another texture to the mix – like crumbled digestive biscuits or Scottish oatcakes. I don’t.
Stir the mix together.
Whatever you have chosen to add – and up to now it has been pretty healthy stuff – the mixture will need moisture.
A little runny honey won’t supply much liquid but will add health and sweetness. Don’t over do it. Much the same can be said for marmalade, which adds sugar and orange. Jam will also add sugar and fruit.
Yoghurt is an ideal semi-liquid, offsetting the sweetness of the sultanas. Stir it in to form a sort of paste.
Fruit juices, concentrated or otherwise, are other liquid possibilities. Milk is another.
Cream may well be the tastiest addition – though only for those unconcerned with their weight.
The result of all this will be a bowl of sweetish goodness, preferably in a sticky form that lends itself to consumption by spoon.
Now your sweet tooth will have been satisfied, leaving your health-consciousness happy or, at least, reasonably at ease.
There is scope here for your imagination. But start with just raw oats, Horlicks, sultanas, and yoghurt or cream.
TO FILL A SWEET TOOTH
You will need certain items from the following:
Whole rolled oats, porridge will just do (raw and uncooked)
Sultanas
Malted milk powder, like Horlicks
Cocoa powder
Honey
Marmalade or jam
Liquid in the form of milk, cream, yoghurt or fruit juice
Chocolate shot or chocolate chips
Some of us like to finish a meal with some sweet food. And sugary sweetness means fattening. And fattening is meant to be a bad thing.
So perhaps end a meal with fruit (sugar) or cheese (fat). All right, fruit is good for you, as is cheese.
Chocolate, or chocolates, fit the bill for that sweet tooth. Chocolate is meant to be good for you, but it is usually combined with sugar, milk, and that sweet gooey stuff in the middle of Belgian chocolates. So chocolates, although just a possibility, are fattening and expensive. Chocolate shot or chips are just passable.
But there is a real alternative – one that I enjoy if something sweet is not readily available. And it is relatively healthy.
The basis of this concoction is rolled oats – whole rolled oats. These, we are often told, are wonderful for your health and wellbeing. Good.
Put some in a bowl.
Now add sultanas. These will provide sweetness and fruit. They are, after all, just dried seedless grapes. And they are convenient to handle, and terrific value.
The next step is to add some Horlicks, or other malted milk powder. One has the feeling that this is a wholesome product, as it is meant to nourish the body and aid sleep. It will help the final mixture to coalesce. If adding cocoa powder, use only a very little. It will dry up the mixture.
You could now add some crushed nuts if you feel like it and if they do not prevent your body from functioning properly. I tend to skip them. Peanut butter is very fattening.
You might like to add another texture to the mix – like crumbled digestive biscuits or Scottish oatcakes. I don’t.
Stir the mix together.
Whatever you have chosen to add – and up to now it has been pretty healthy stuff – the mixture will need moisture.
A little runny honey won’t supply much liquid but will add health and sweetness. Don’t over do it. Much the same can be said for marmalade, which adds sugar and orange. Jam will also add sugar and fruit.
Yoghurt is an ideal semi-liquid, offsetting the sweetness of the sultanas. Stir it in to form a sort of paste.
Fruit juices, concentrated or otherwise, are other liquid possibilities. Milk is another.
Cream may well be the tastiest addition – though only for those unconcerned with their weight.
The result of all this will be a bowl of sweetish goodness, preferably in a sticky form that lends itself to consumption by spoon.
Now your sweet tooth will have been satisfied, leaving your health-consciousness happy or, at least, reasonably at ease.
There is scope here for your imagination. But start with just raw oats, Horlicks, sultanas, and yoghurt or cream.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Robins and Bumblebees
It took quite a bit of time to train our lady robin to come into our garden shed to eat morsels of Cheddar cheese from my knee. It became her habit to do so – so much so that when we put cheese on Margreet’s knee she declined it. But she did sometimes just sit on Margreet’s knee for a few minutes, so that they could look at each other in friendship.
When her mate re-appeared at the breeding season, having spent the latter part of the summer and the whole of the winter away, they built a nest in the camouflaged robin box that is screwed to the back of our house in London.
When the young had hatched out and were hungry, he would join her in taking cheese from my knee and crumbled oatcake from the floor beneath. With a bit of gout or something in one leg she would sometimes need a rest, and perch somewhere in the shed next to us, on some books or the back of a chair.
We never, ever, get tired of seeing or feeling these charming little creatures taking our presence for granted.
Two days ago we either saw a new robin appear or one of our old friends acting very strangely. It was the former.
This new robin looked and acted quite differently from the others, He was leaner, faster, stood more upright, stretched and moved his head around quicker.
He had clearly watched the resident pair of birds come into the shed for food. So why not him? Why be slowly trained like the others? Grab the opportunity. Grab the food.
He flew to the doorway and hovered there, like a hummingbird. Then he retreated, and came again to hover. After several attempts he dashed in from his hovering approach and grabbed cheese. This he took away, presumably to feed young. We rather took to him.
Unlike our regulars, who had learned to eat from my knee, the new one would take cheese from Margreet’s knee just as readily – after the hovering and deciding.
Today our Mr. Robin re-appeared, and the newcomer was chased away in no uncertain terms, though they never came to blows.
But even having been chased away, the interloper is back – dashing in after his hovering trick to smash and grab.
What will happen next?
What did happen next took us quite by surprise. And it took us a little time to realise what was happening. Hoverbird, though still chased off on occasion, started to take cheese bits from us in the shed to feed them to the second brood of robin chicks in our nest box. So our new young were being fed by both parents - and hoverbird.
I was writing in the garden shed when a very big bumblebee flew in, making that lovely loud noise that large bumblebees do in flight.
I wondered if I shouldn’t chase him out, so that he could find real bumblebee food outside among nectar-producing flowers. But I didn’t.
This fellow (or plump lady) stayed for a few minutes, buzzing around beneath the two chairs and around a trug of garden twine and labels, etc. Eventually he left. And all was silent once more.
Then he came back again. What could he possibly find to eat in a dry old garden shed?
So I moved, and bent down to watch. And he was running around – running, and quickly.
Who ever heard of a running bumblebee? Usually we see them gathering nectar from flowers, such as the trumpets of foxgloves (where they fall out backwards like drunken sailors). What he was after was anyone’s guess – but running?
Whatever next? Running bumblebee races?
When her mate re-appeared at the breeding season, having spent the latter part of the summer and the whole of the winter away, they built a nest in the camouflaged robin box that is screwed to the back of our house in London.
When the young had hatched out and were hungry, he would join her in taking cheese from my knee and crumbled oatcake from the floor beneath. With a bit of gout or something in one leg she would sometimes need a rest, and perch somewhere in the shed next to us, on some books or the back of a chair.
We never, ever, get tired of seeing or feeling these charming little creatures taking our presence for granted.
Two days ago we either saw a new robin appear or one of our old friends acting very strangely. It was the former.
This new robin looked and acted quite differently from the others, He was leaner, faster, stood more upright, stretched and moved his head around quicker.
He had clearly watched the resident pair of birds come into the shed for food. So why not him? Why be slowly trained like the others? Grab the opportunity. Grab the food.
He flew to the doorway and hovered there, like a hummingbird. Then he retreated, and came again to hover. After several attempts he dashed in from his hovering approach and grabbed cheese. This he took away, presumably to feed young. We rather took to him.
Unlike our regulars, who had learned to eat from my knee, the new one would take cheese from Margreet’s knee just as readily – after the hovering and deciding.
Today our Mr. Robin re-appeared, and the newcomer was chased away in no uncertain terms, though they never came to blows.
But even having been chased away, the interloper is back – dashing in after his hovering trick to smash and grab.
What will happen next?
What did happen next took us quite by surprise. And it took us a little time to realise what was happening. Hoverbird, though still chased off on occasion, started to take cheese bits from us in the shed to feed them to the second brood of robin chicks in our nest box. So our new young were being fed by both parents - and hoverbird.
I was writing in the garden shed when a very big bumblebee flew in, making that lovely loud noise that large bumblebees do in flight.
I wondered if I shouldn’t chase him out, so that he could find real bumblebee food outside among nectar-producing flowers. But I didn’t.
This fellow (or plump lady) stayed for a few minutes, buzzing around beneath the two chairs and around a trug of garden twine and labels, etc. Eventually he left. And all was silent once more.
Then he came back again. What could he possibly find to eat in a dry old garden shed?
So I moved, and bent down to watch. And he was running around – running, and quickly.
Who ever heard of a running bumblebee? Usually we see them gathering nectar from flowers, such as the trumpets of foxgloves (where they fall out backwards like drunken sailors). What he was after was anyone’s guess – but running?
Whatever next? Running bumblebee races?
Friday, May 25, 2007
A new Matthew Smith
It has always been my opinion that the artist Matthew Smith was our greatest 20th century colourist. He was also well known as a painter and enjoyer of luscious nude ladies.
Not long after the war I bought a delightful little painting of his from Freddy Mayor, of the Mayor Gallery. It cost me just over £100 – a large sum in those days. I treasured it.
At a dinner party, given by Anna de Goguel, I found myself to be a fellow guest with the great artist – surprisingly for his female subjects and virile reputation, a frail, bony, pale man. I told him about my painting. He wanted to see it.
So I made my excuses to my hostess and rushed back to my two small council rooms to unhook my treasure from the wall and carry it back to the party.
Matthew Smith was delighted to see it again. He told me that in the 1930s he had painted it in the South of France as a study for a much larger painting. This he did, but no longer knew where it was, or even if it existed.
He told me that he got into some kind of bother (I later heard that it was to do with the Customs) and that the Consul in Nice, one William Ashcroft (the brother of Peggy Ashcroft, the actress), had helped him resolve the matter. In gratitude he had given Ashcroft my painting as a token of thanks.
The painting always had pride of place in my houses, and hung sometimes in the lavatory.
When living in Tangley in the 1980s I very foolishly had the painting valued. And its value was so high that I enquired of my insurers if I might insure it. The answer was that of course they would cover it – for a price and the understanding that I would have to add a burglar alarm to my house, with all the extra precautions of locks everywhere.
It was my habit to keep an open house, with it unlocked and open to friends at all times, except at night time. So I decided not to insure it.
Now, when I was working or relaxing in the garden well away from the house, I started to feel uneasy about the safety of my little painting. So I took it back to the Mayor Gallery for safekeeping.
About that time my marriage came to an end and I parted with the painting as part of the division of jointly held artefacts. I believe it was sold right away, and for a considerable sum.
I have somehow missed that painting more than any other with which I have had to part, and that includes a Rodin, several Burras, a large Paul Nash, a Wadsworth and many others – all going in my bachelor years when the bank manager demanded it.
So when a little Matthew Smith pastel came up for sale at Christie’s, with a reserve at under a thousand pounds, Margreet and I put in a bid for it. The small work on torn paper went for four thousand.
I was rather upset by this, as we had rather set our hearts on getting it. So, to assuage my longing, I bought some pastels (for the first time in my life) and did four little pieces as homage to the great artist. Although I did them in my own way, I used the still life ingredients used by Matthew Smith. To be sure that there would never be confusion, I wrote on them boldly: “Homage to Matthew Smith” and stamped them with my studio stamp. One of them I hung on the wall. I had my pastiche. I was happy.
In a Christie’s catalogue of a sale, when one of my own paintings was on offer, there was a very interesting illustration of a Matthew Smith for sale. We went to see it and were both very impressed. Margreet wanted to buy it so that we could both enjoy its surprisingly light colouring and very Matthew Smith lines. Its title was “Flowers in a Vase”. She took advice from James Gould, the expert there on British 20th century art, and placed a bid.
We went to the auction, knowing how high was her offer, and it was knocked down to her at a much lower price than she had expected. She paid, it was wrapped, and hanging on our wall no more than an hour after the auction.
The artist left the bulk of his unsold work to Mary Keane, who donated the collection to the City of London, with a permanent exhibition at the Barbican Centre. We met her daughter, Alice Keane, at the gallery where Matthew Smith exhibited, then called Rowland, Browse and Delbanco. We already had the Alice Keane excellent biography of the artist. I asked if she would like to see the three drawings in my possession, which she would, but never came.
It occurred to me that in looking at the three books I had on the artist’s life and work, that there might be a clue as to when our pastel was done and where. And there, in Alice’s biography, were three illustrations that absolutely matched our pastel. So not only did we now have the new acquisition, but we also knew that John Russell (the great art critic of the day) and Vera Barry (who he later married) had taken Matthew Smith with them to a house that, in 1956, they had rented in Villeneuve les Avignons, in the South of France. Matthew Smith was nearing the end of his life and not well, so was disinclined to create as much as his host and hostess had wished. But he did produce some work from a room with a balcony overlooking a landscape with water. We had acquired one of those pastels.
When I told the Christie’s man what I had discovered, he told me that had this information been known before the sale, the work would have sold for another two thousand pounds.
Not long after the war I bought a delightful little painting of his from Freddy Mayor, of the Mayor Gallery. It cost me just over £100 – a large sum in those days. I treasured it.
At a dinner party, given by Anna de Goguel, I found myself to be a fellow guest with the great artist – surprisingly for his female subjects and virile reputation, a frail, bony, pale man. I told him about my painting. He wanted to see it.
So I made my excuses to my hostess and rushed back to my two small council rooms to unhook my treasure from the wall and carry it back to the party.
Matthew Smith was delighted to see it again. He told me that in the 1930s he had painted it in the South of France as a study for a much larger painting. This he did, but no longer knew where it was, or even if it existed.
He told me that he got into some kind of bother (I later heard that it was to do with the Customs) and that the Consul in Nice, one William Ashcroft (the brother of Peggy Ashcroft, the actress), had helped him resolve the matter. In gratitude he had given Ashcroft my painting as a token of thanks.
The painting always had pride of place in my houses, and hung sometimes in the lavatory.
When living in Tangley in the 1980s I very foolishly had the painting valued. And its value was so high that I enquired of my insurers if I might insure it. The answer was that of course they would cover it – for a price and the understanding that I would have to add a burglar alarm to my house, with all the extra precautions of locks everywhere.
It was my habit to keep an open house, with it unlocked and open to friends at all times, except at night time. So I decided not to insure it.
Now, when I was working or relaxing in the garden well away from the house, I started to feel uneasy about the safety of my little painting. So I took it back to the Mayor Gallery for safekeeping.
About that time my marriage came to an end and I parted with the painting as part of the division of jointly held artefacts. I believe it was sold right away, and for a considerable sum.
I have somehow missed that painting more than any other with which I have had to part, and that includes a Rodin, several Burras, a large Paul Nash, a Wadsworth and many others – all going in my bachelor years when the bank manager demanded it.
So when a little Matthew Smith pastel came up for sale at Christie’s, with a reserve at under a thousand pounds, Margreet and I put in a bid for it. The small work on torn paper went for four thousand.
I was rather upset by this, as we had rather set our hearts on getting it. So, to assuage my longing, I bought some pastels (for the first time in my life) and did four little pieces as homage to the great artist. Although I did them in my own way, I used the still life ingredients used by Matthew Smith. To be sure that there would never be confusion, I wrote on them boldly: “Homage to Matthew Smith” and stamped them with my studio stamp. One of them I hung on the wall. I had my pastiche. I was happy.
In a Christie’s catalogue of a sale, when one of my own paintings was on offer, there was a very interesting illustration of a Matthew Smith for sale. We went to see it and were both very impressed. Margreet wanted to buy it so that we could both enjoy its surprisingly light colouring and very Matthew Smith lines. Its title was “Flowers in a Vase”. She took advice from James Gould, the expert there on British 20th century art, and placed a bid.
We went to the auction, knowing how high was her offer, and it was knocked down to her at a much lower price than she had expected. She paid, it was wrapped, and hanging on our wall no more than an hour after the auction.
The artist left the bulk of his unsold work to Mary Keane, who donated the collection to the City of London, with a permanent exhibition at the Barbican Centre. We met her daughter, Alice Keane, at the gallery where Matthew Smith exhibited, then called Rowland, Browse and Delbanco. We already had the Alice Keane excellent biography of the artist. I asked if she would like to see the three drawings in my possession, which she would, but never came.
It occurred to me that in looking at the three books I had on the artist’s life and work, that there might be a clue as to when our pastel was done and where. And there, in Alice’s biography, were three illustrations that absolutely matched our pastel. So not only did we now have the new acquisition, but we also knew that John Russell (the great art critic of the day) and Vera Barry (who he later married) had taken Matthew Smith with them to a house that, in 1956, they had rented in Villeneuve les Avignons, in the South of France. Matthew Smith was nearing the end of his life and not well, so was disinclined to create as much as his host and hostess had wished. But he did produce some work from a room with a balcony overlooking a landscape with water. We had acquired one of those pastels.
When I told the Christie’s man what I had discovered, he told me that had this information been known before the sale, the work would have sold for another two thousand pounds.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Paris May 2007
The riots outside our hotel at the Gare du Nord had just been quelled by a ferocious police force. So all was quiet when we arrived for a short stay in Paris with nothing in mind to do except try two restaurants that I had not visited for some 30 years or more.
Even had there been a riot it would have been far below us as we looked from our hotel room across to the splendid Victorian/classical façade of the station, down to newly-formed springtime leaves on plane trees and, not too far away in the distance, the monstrous and unmissable structure of Sacré Coeur atop its hill.
We ate well at the 1925 below and, after a rest, surveyed Paris as it should be – a spectacular view, warm spring sunshine flowing into our room, and with a bellyful of good food and wine.
The district that we were in could hardly be called salubrious. Cosmopolitan would be nearer the mark. So we sat at a local bar for our evening aperitif – watching the passing scene. In a count of about 100 people to pass by, about two thirds were white, one visibly Muslim woman (the men around us were drinking only coffee), one dog and, surprisingly, one cat (on its master’s shoulder and taken for a walk).
Café-sitting in France is an absolute delight – to those of us who like to look at people, their characters, shapes, clothes and manner.
Our café had a palm tree in a pot between its customers and the passers-by. Its fronds encroached on the pavement space. So people either had to duck down as they walked by, or were brushed in the face as they went. A blind man, who walked with a long white stick, and at considerable speed, crashed into a hoarding on the pavement. He made no fuss of it whatsoever and continued as if nothing untoward had occurred.
After our count of people, the dog and one cat, a gang of scruffs passed by, each with a strong dog on a lead. Begging brought them nothing, as people, presumably, thought that if they were able to keep dogs in good condition they must be quite capable of looking after themselves.
Our new addition of the Michelin Red Guide told of two good places to eat quite nearby. So we aimed for one of them – Chez Casimir (the other, Chez Michel, was almost next door). We ate well there, with me choosing the kind of peasant food that we can only cook at home, and usually needing half a pig’s head to do so. An interesting cookery idea for me was that my pig’s cheek came to the table with pearl barley in a sauce as the surrounding vegetable. It made a very nice change from the usual Puy lentils.
We concluded that the food was of a higher standard than our favourite 1925 beneath the hotel – close by, and cheaper.
We expect nocturnal noise where we stay, but our first night was more disturbed than usual. A man, in a most resonant part of the Gare’s concourse beneath us, shouted at the top of his considerable voice non-stop from around midnight until 2 in the morning, when, presumably he either went to sleep or was bonked on the head. One would think it impossible to shout without using a semblance of words. But he did.
Then poor Margreet had to put up with me rising every half an hour of the night to visit the lavatory. As the bathroom door was a squeaky one, I was able to oil the hinges from a small oilcan that I carry to France for just that purpose.
After recovery and coffee the next morning, we set out for the Flea Market at Porte Clignancourt. But despite arriving at 10.30, there were few stalls open for business. So we headed for the Grands Boulevards Metro Station to wander around the adjoining quartier of small eating places, hotels and the Follies Bergères.
The real reason for aiming at this particular district was that in it is my personal favourite restaurant in Paris – Chartier. Its enormous eating hall, left over from La Belle Epoque, its character waiters, its unchanged menu, the proximity of diners (usually sharing a table), and the whole system of delivering the food from kitchen to customer via a concierge who records every item, is, to me just magic. And it is also one of the cheapest places in which we eat.
Then, exhausted after our disturbed night, it was back to our hotel for Margreet to read her holiday collection of women’s magazines, that focus on celebrities, sex lives, fashion, make-up, and how to deal with men. Did you know that to flush the lavatory without the lid down may spread germs?
With our bodies now quite unable to consume more food, we were sitting outside a café for an aperitif (with no meal in mind) when a large spot of rain fell on to the pavement. We had only just reached our hotel entrance when the heavens opened. Which all made for a splendid spectacle from the dry part of our room’s balcony. I had hoped to see lightning strike Sacré Coeur, but the storm was made up of more noise than flash.
A picnic of bread and fresh goat cheese in our room was as much food as we could manage. Unless one’s stomach is in practise to cope with a lot of food, it can not cope (in our case) with two good meals a day. So we find that a hearty French lunch is about as much as we can manage.
Many years ago I ate at Allard with a rather sophisticated girl friend. The wine we ordered was slightly piqué. She sent it back, which rather upset the staff, who said that if we didn’t like it they would drink the wine themselves. I never returned to eat there. Well, this time we went back. And I was sure that after some 30 years they would not recognise me. The house Burgundy was excellent, the food delicious, and the waiting most professional in that old-fashioned way at which the French excel. Naturally, I was not recognised.
It was an afternoon for seeing parts of Paris new to us. We took the No. 2 Metro line from end to end, stopping off at the Parc Monceau, where, on the 5th of May, the foxgloves were in full and glorious bloom.
Around the park stand some of the most select houses and apartments in Paris. So when we went to a café for liquid sustenance, the decoration, staff and clientele were exactly right for the quartier – smart and expensive. We had noticed already that people waiting at Metro stations were surprisingly representative of their area.
The termini of the line were both rather too dull in which to spend time. But we had passed the Saint Martin Canal, so that is where we alighted on our return to its nearest Metro stop. I had heard that the shops, restaurants and accommodation beside the canal were becoming fashionable. But at Jaurès this was not so, it being rather dull thereabouts. But as we walked around investigating, we passed a crowd of clochards sheltering from the elements beneath a secluded colonnade, where a white woman was in bed with a black man and with their companions around them happily imbibing or smoking whatever was available. We had already been surprised (as one probably always is) by the number of vagrants sleeping rough in the streets of Paris. Beneath the colonnade it was touts comforts.
After a light dinner of an omelette we retired to our own bed, having eaten or drunk in seven different venues during the day.
Our tastes in Paris are diverse and flexible, as is illustrated by our final day’s activities. We ate Sunday lunch
at the Brasserie Lipp (the other place where I had not eaten for years). This was eating at the top of the scale, illustrated by our four neighbours, who were discussing the world’s music industry, and how they might change it to make a profit. Then, as we waited for the time of our departure by Eurostar from the Gare du Nord, we drank rather tasteless Turkish beer on the pavement seats of a kebab shop. Here, a man, eating alone and next to us, was asked for a cigarette by a passer-by. The scrounger was offered a bag, from which he took tobacco and a cigarette paper and rolled his own on the spot. It was as if both taker and giver expected it. And having rolled the cigarette, of course he needed a light.
On our return to Waterloo Station we took a taxi home. The cab of this vehicle was even more untidy than the colonnaded quarters we had seen in Paris (no room for a bed). And the driver was as scruffy as any clochard – and probably less civil.
Even had there been a riot it would have been far below us as we looked from our hotel room across to the splendid Victorian/classical façade of the station, down to newly-formed springtime leaves on plane trees and, not too far away in the distance, the monstrous and unmissable structure of Sacré Coeur atop its hill.
We ate well at the 1925 below and, after a rest, surveyed Paris as it should be – a spectacular view, warm spring sunshine flowing into our room, and with a bellyful of good food and wine.
The district that we were in could hardly be called salubrious. Cosmopolitan would be nearer the mark. So we sat at a local bar for our evening aperitif – watching the passing scene. In a count of about 100 people to pass by, about two thirds were white, one visibly Muslim woman (the men around us were drinking only coffee), one dog and, surprisingly, one cat (on its master’s shoulder and taken for a walk).
Café-sitting in France is an absolute delight – to those of us who like to look at people, their characters, shapes, clothes and manner.
Our café had a palm tree in a pot between its customers and the passers-by. Its fronds encroached on the pavement space. So people either had to duck down as they walked by, or were brushed in the face as they went. A blind man, who walked with a long white stick, and at considerable speed, crashed into a hoarding on the pavement. He made no fuss of it whatsoever and continued as if nothing untoward had occurred.
After our count of people, the dog and one cat, a gang of scruffs passed by, each with a strong dog on a lead. Begging brought them nothing, as people, presumably, thought that if they were able to keep dogs in good condition they must be quite capable of looking after themselves.
Our new addition of the Michelin Red Guide told of two good places to eat quite nearby. So we aimed for one of them – Chez Casimir (the other, Chez Michel, was almost next door). We ate well there, with me choosing the kind of peasant food that we can only cook at home, and usually needing half a pig’s head to do so. An interesting cookery idea for me was that my pig’s cheek came to the table with pearl barley in a sauce as the surrounding vegetable. It made a very nice change from the usual Puy lentils.
We concluded that the food was of a higher standard than our favourite 1925 beneath the hotel – close by, and cheaper.
We expect nocturnal noise where we stay, but our first night was more disturbed than usual. A man, in a most resonant part of the Gare’s concourse beneath us, shouted at the top of his considerable voice non-stop from around midnight until 2 in the morning, when, presumably he either went to sleep or was bonked on the head. One would think it impossible to shout without using a semblance of words. But he did.
Then poor Margreet had to put up with me rising every half an hour of the night to visit the lavatory. As the bathroom door was a squeaky one, I was able to oil the hinges from a small oilcan that I carry to France for just that purpose.
After recovery and coffee the next morning, we set out for the Flea Market at Porte Clignancourt. But despite arriving at 10.30, there were few stalls open for business. So we headed for the Grands Boulevards Metro Station to wander around the adjoining quartier of small eating places, hotels and the Follies Bergères.
The real reason for aiming at this particular district was that in it is my personal favourite restaurant in Paris – Chartier. Its enormous eating hall, left over from La Belle Epoque, its character waiters, its unchanged menu, the proximity of diners (usually sharing a table), and the whole system of delivering the food from kitchen to customer via a concierge who records every item, is, to me just magic. And it is also one of the cheapest places in which we eat.
Then, exhausted after our disturbed night, it was back to our hotel for Margreet to read her holiday collection of women’s magazines, that focus on celebrities, sex lives, fashion, make-up, and how to deal with men. Did you know that to flush the lavatory without the lid down may spread germs?
With our bodies now quite unable to consume more food, we were sitting outside a café for an aperitif (with no meal in mind) when a large spot of rain fell on to the pavement. We had only just reached our hotel entrance when the heavens opened. Which all made for a splendid spectacle from the dry part of our room’s balcony. I had hoped to see lightning strike Sacré Coeur, but the storm was made up of more noise than flash.
A picnic of bread and fresh goat cheese in our room was as much food as we could manage. Unless one’s stomach is in practise to cope with a lot of food, it can not cope (in our case) with two good meals a day. So we find that a hearty French lunch is about as much as we can manage.
Many years ago I ate at Allard with a rather sophisticated girl friend. The wine we ordered was slightly piqué. She sent it back, which rather upset the staff, who said that if we didn’t like it they would drink the wine themselves. I never returned to eat there. Well, this time we went back. And I was sure that after some 30 years they would not recognise me. The house Burgundy was excellent, the food delicious, and the waiting most professional in that old-fashioned way at which the French excel. Naturally, I was not recognised.
It was an afternoon for seeing parts of Paris new to us. We took the No. 2 Metro line from end to end, stopping off at the Parc Monceau, where, on the 5th of May, the foxgloves were in full and glorious bloom.
Around the park stand some of the most select houses and apartments in Paris. So when we went to a café for liquid sustenance, the decoration, staff and clientele were exactly right for the quartier – smart and expensive. We had noticed already that people waiting at Metro stations were surprisingly representative of their area.
The termini of the line were both rather too dull in which to spend time. But we had passed the Saint Martin Canal, so that is where we alighted on our return to its nearest Metro stop. I had heard that the shops, restaurants and accommodation beside the canal were becoming fashionable. But at Jaurès this was not so, it being rather dull thereabouts. But as we walked around investigating, we passed a crowd of clochards sheltering from the elements beneath a secluded colonnade, where a white woman was in bed with a black man and with their companions around them happily imbibing or smoking whatever was available. We had already been surprised (as one probably always is) by the number of vagrants sleeping rough in the streets of Paris. Beneath the colonnade it was touts comforts.
After a light dinner of an omelette we retired to our own bed, having eaten or drunk in seven different venues during the day.
Our tastes in Paris are diverse and flexible, as is illustrated by our final day’s activities. We ate Sunday lunch
at the Brasserie Lipp (the other place where I had not eaten for years). This was eating at the top of the scale, illustrated by our four neighbours, who were discussing the world’s music industry, and how they might change it to make a profit. Then, as we waited for the time of our departure by Eurostar from the Gare du Nord, we drank rather tasteless Turkish beer on the pavement seats of a kebab shop. Here, a man, eating alone and next to us, was asked for a cigarette by a passer-by. The scrounger was offered a bag, from which he took tobacco and a cigarette paper and rolled his own on the spot. It was as if both taker and giver expected it. And having rolled the cigarette, of course he needed a light.
On our return to Waterloo Station we took a taxi home. The cab of this vehicle was even more untidy than the colonnaded quarters we had seen in Paris (no room for a bed). And the driver was as scruffy as any clochard – and probably less civil.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Dieppe in April 2007
A dead calm sea outside.
A clear blue sky above it.
Evening sunshine pouring on to us through large windows.
A picnic of paté and mixed cheeses carried to our seats from the canteen.
A bottle of fine South African red wine, brought from England.
What a lovely way to travel.
All right, there was an accident on the M25 in England that held us up, and road works near New Haven that did the same. But we had allowed plenty of time to drive to the coast from London. So a journey usually of 1 1/2 hours took 2. So What. We were on our way to eat, drink, and buy wine and food in La Belle France.
Before we docked in Dieppe, the orange sun sank slowly beneath the horizon, shortening its line of reflection on the calm, blue-to-purple sea as it went.
Then the evening sky, dark blue above, graded its colours downward through pale blue to pale mauve, to darker mauve, and finally to the deepest sea-blue beside the ferry.
Only shore lights, squeezing through delicately coloured haze, signalled that we were near to France. Then came the silhouette of cliffs, ship-guiding lights, the barely floodlit castle, and finally the harbour.
The boat was late in arriving – a not unusual case. So the town and its inhabitants had mostly settled in for the night. The brasserie Tout va Bien contained a few late diners, finishing their meal with crème brûlée and ice cream. We sat there briefly for a night-cap before retiring to our usual room in the Aguado.
For a short stay in Dieppe our actions seem to have become almost ritualistic. After morning coffee we buy French wine at the Auchan supermarket. The choice there is huge, so I aim for a wine of good value that has been aged in oak barrels (fut en chêne). If you can find an assistant to guide you, so much the quicker. We may buy food there, too. Then on we go to a Lidl supermarket. Being a German concern, they offer not just French wine but Australian, Chilean and South African as well. Their prices are remarkably modest, and the quality surprisingly high, when considering that much of their wine has been bulk-imported into Germany and bottled there.
Then, with our main job achieved, we may lunch at the Rouen, take a snooze, and dine at the Victoire. At the latter we always eat fish (carrelet – plaice) and shellfish (moules and scallops when in season). And their cidre bouchée is excellent.
Then, for the second night running we watched the red sun sink over the horizon of sea, but now through a little mist, or vapour, lying close above the surface of the water.
After a little shopping around the wonderful Saturday market we chose to eat (having already booked) at a new restaurant to us, Les Voiles d’Or, high on the cliffs above the port.
The route we mistakenly chose to climb turned out to be more suitable for mountain goats, when steps were available close by.
We arrived early, so were able to investigate that most visible of churches perched high above the harbour and looking almost as it might fall down into the water beneath. Some brightly-coloured brickwork outside indicated that it might have been built around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. And there inside were splendid art deco stained glass windows allowing masses of coloured light to enter and illuminate lots of small stone plaques commemorating sailors and civilians lost at sea.
Food at the restaurant was certainly a cut above our normal fare, with a set menu consisting of what was good and available at the time, with wine thrown in. The scallops. grilled and still attached to their shells were memorable. But a hot fruit salad swimming in zabaglione, topped with raspberry sorbet-filled ginger-snaps was a little over doing the dessert.
I think that a pastis is a good aperitif with which to stimulate the appetite. And so did six rather rotund French men and women who came to sit next to us at the Victoire.
Pastis is fairly high in alcohol, and is offered in generous measure by the patron of the restaurant. So, after the first round, we were quite surprised to see him arrive at their table to pour them all another good measure. We had never noticed others ever starting with a second glass of pastis. So we were even more surprised when the owner appeared a third time with the pastis bottle. The now jolly diners might well have consumed almost a litre of the stuff before their food started to arrive.
Our break over, we returned to England over a calm sea, and to a country where the custom of enjoying even one aperitif is fairly unusual.
A clear blue sky above it.
Evening sunshine pouring on to us through large windows.
A picnic of paté and mixed cheeses carried to our seats from the canteen.
A bottle of fine South African red wine, brought from England.
What a lovely way to travel.
All right, there was an accident on the M25 in England that held us up, and road works near New Haven that did the same. But we had allowed plenty of time to drive to the coast from London. So a journey usually of 1 1/2 hours took 2. So What. We were on our way to eat, drink, and buy wine and food in La Belle France.
Before we docked in Dieppe, the orange sun sank slowly beneath the horizon, shortening its line of reflection on the calm, blue-to-purple sea as it went.
Then the evening sky, dark blue above, graded its colours downward through pale blue to pale mauve, to darker mauve, and finally to the deepest sea-blue beside the ferry.
Only shore lights, squeezing through delicately coloured haze, signalled that we were near to France. Then came the silhouette of cliffs, ship-guiding lights, the barely floodlit castle, and finally the harbour.
The boat was late in arriving – a not unusual case. So the town and its inhabitants had mostly settled in for the night. The brasserie Tout va Bien contained a few late diners, finishing their meal with crème brûlée and ice cream. We sat there briefly for a night-cap before retiring to our usual room in the Aguado.
For a short stay in Dieppe our actions seem to have become almost ritualistic. After morning coffee we buy French wine at the Auchan supermarket. The choice there is huge, so I aim for a wine of good value that has been aged in oak barrels (fut en chêne). If you can find an assistant to guide you, so much the quicker. We may buy food there, too. Then on we go to a Lidl supermarket. Being a German concern, they offer not just French wine but Australian, Chilean and South African as well. Their prices are remarkably modest, and the quality surprisingly high, when considering that much of their wine has been bulk-imported into Germany and bottled there.
Then, with our main job achieved, we may lunch at the Rouen, take a snooze, and dine at the Victoire. At the latter we always eat fish (carrelet – plaice) and shellfish (moules and scallops when in season). And their cidre bouchée is excellent.
Then, for the second night running we watched the red sun sink over the horizon of sea, but now through a little mist, or vapour, lying close above the surface of the water.
After a little shopping around the wonderful Saturday market we chose to eat (having already booked) at a new restaurant to us, Les Voiles d’Or, high on the cliffs above the port.
The route we mistakenly chose to climb turned out to be more suitable for mountain goats, when steps were available close by.
We arrived early, so were able to investigate that most visible of churches perched high above the harbour and looking almost as it might fall down into the water beneath. Some brightly-coloured brickwork outside indicated that it might have been built around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. And there inside were splendid art deco stained glass windows allowing masses of coloured light to enter and illuminate lots of small stone plaques commemorating sailors and civilians lost at sea.
Food at the restaurant was certainly a cut above our normal fare, with a set menu consisting of what was good and available at the time, with wine thrown in. The scallops. grilled and still attached to their shells were memorable. But a hot fruit salad swimming in zabaglione, topped with raspberry sorbet-filled ginger-snaps was a little over doing the dessert.
I think that a pastis is a good aperitif with which to stimulate the appetite. And so did six rather rotund French men and women who came to sit next to us at the Victoire.
Pastis is fairly high in alcohol, and is offered in generous measure by the patron of the restaurant. So, after the first round, we were quite surprised to see him arrive at their table to pour them all another good measure. We had never noticed others ever starting with a second glass of pastis. So we were even more surprised when the owner appeared a third time with the pastis bottle. The now jolly diners might well have consumed almost a litre of the stuff before their food started to arrive.
Our break over, we returned to England over a calm sea, and to a country where the custom of enjoying even one aperitif is fairly unusual.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Camouflage
Small boys generally like military matters. So, as a youngster travelling in Germany before the Second World War, I was most interested in Nazi German fortifications and the way in which they were camouflaged. I had no idea whatsoever that I was witnessing part of a frightful military build-up with the aim of European if not world conquest. Soldiers and guns were for fun.
Then came the war. I joined the RAF. My introduction to British ideas of camouflage was in the form of painted aircraft and airfield hangars.
As a trainee and then pilot, my more intimate contact with this form of art was simply camouflage-decorated aircraft, with bombers, such as the Lancaster, being adorned in flowing patterns of brown and green. Being so large, these aircraft could hardly be hidden, but were well dispersed around the airfields. I flew. The war ended.
After an abandoned medical training due to TB, which was then incurable, I made my life in the arts.
When I did make money, I would buy some work with the proceeds from several exhibitions of paintings and sculpture. In fact, after making a profit, these purchases, of a work by an admired artist, were enjoyed not only for what they were, but also as a reminder of past success.
With cash in hand after such a show, I saw that a wood block print of a dazzle-camouflaged 1918 ship scene in Liverpool docks, by Edward Wadsworth, was about to be sold in a well-known West End gallery.
I rushed along to try and buy it, only to find that the exhibition would not be open to the public for another three days. I was told that if I wanted the print it would be a matter of first come first served.
So I arrived at the gallery door an hour before the exhibition opened. I was first in, and the print was mine.
It was a magical work of art for me, being a Vorticist work, the kind that helped English artists to encompass the new ideas of abstraction and cubism from the continent.
This little print, one that gave me much pleasure for some 30 years, was clearly rising in value. But that was of no note.
Then along came a Christie’s specialist in 20th century art who stopped in his tracks when he saw the Wadsworth hanging on my wall among the odds and ends that I valued just as highly. Might he please take it back to the saleroom for assessment by their print specialist?
I suppose that I was curious about its value, its provenance being without dispute. But I should not have agreed. The last time that I did much the same thing I had to part with a favourite painting or pay a fortune in insurance and fortify my house against thieves.
The new situation was to be exactly the same. My print turned out to be of such great value that I would have been foolish to keep it and possibly see the house go up in smoke and my print with it. In such a case, neither I, nor anyone else, would ever see it again. Moreover, my modest collection of paintings, both large and small, was only insured as house contents, and for a minimum amount. I was not going to change that. So away went my Wadsworth.
But I still had many other treasures, probably valueless, but enjoyed just as much.
And I was able at the time to visit the Imperial War Museum where another Wadsworth print of the same subject, and done at the same time, was on display for all to see.
So, in parting with my little masterpiece, was I being just practical about my insurance position and thieves? Was I being altruistic in possibly allowing many others to enjoy the print? Or was it monetary motivation? Probably a bit of each.
Then came the war. I joined the RAF. My introduction to British ideas of camouflage was in the form of painted aircraft and airfield hangars.
As a trainee and then pilot, my more intimate contact with this form of art was simply camouflage-decorated aircraft, with bombers, such as the Lancaster, being adorned in flowing patterns of brown and green. Being so large, these aircraft could hardly be hidden, but were well dispersed around the airfields. I flew. The war ended.
After an abandoned medical training due to TB, which was then incurable, I made my life in the arts.
When I did make money, I would buy some work with the proceeds from several exhibitions of paintings and sculpture. In fact, after making a profit, these purchases, of a work by an admired artist, were enjoyed not only for what they were, but also as a reminder of past success.
With cash in hand after such a show, I saw that a wood block print of a dazzle-camouflaged 1918 ship scene in Liverpool docks, by Edward Wadsworth, was about to be sold in a well-known West End gallery.
I rushed along to try and buy it, only to find that the exhibition would not be open to the public for another three days. I was told that if I wanted the print it would be a matter of first come first served.
So I arrived at the gallery door an hour before the exhibition opened. I was first in, and the print was mine.
It was a magical work of art for me, being a Vorticist work, the kind that helped English artists to encompass the new ideas of abstraction and cubism from the continent.
This little print, one that gave me much pleasure for some 30 years, was clearly rising in value. But that was of no note.
Then along came a Christie’s specialist in 20th century art who stopped in his tracks when he saw the Wadsworth hanging on my wall among the odds and ends that I valued just as highly. Might he please take it back to the saleroom for assessment by their print specialist?
I suppose that I was curious about its value, its provenance being without dispute. But I should not have agreed. The last time that I did much the same thing I had to part with a favourite painting or pay a fortune in insurance and fortify my house against thieves.
The new situation was to be exactly the same. My print turned out to be of such great value that I would have been foolish to keep it and possibly see the house go up in smoke and my print with it. In such a case, neither I, nor anyone else, would ever see it again. Moreover, my modest collection of paintings, both large and small, was only insured as house contents, and for a minimum amount. I was not going to change that. So away went my Wadsworth.
But I still had many other treasures, probably valueless, but enjoyed just as much.
And I was able at the time to visit the Imperial War Museum where another Wadsworth print of the same subject, and done at the same time, was on display for all to see.
So, in parting with my little masterpiece, was I being just practical about my insurance position and thieves? Was I being altruistic in possibly allowing many others to enjoy the print? Or was it monetary motivation? Probably a bit of each.
Friday, March 30, 2007
A double dish with chickpeas
This double dish is best simplified by using chicken stock made from a cube. However, for those of us who like to use a whole chicken by having a large one halved by the butcher and using half for roasting and the other half for curries, stews and stock, the stew part of this recipe would have had chicken meat added and the dish made with real chicken stock. I would not be without a pressure cooker for such preliminaries, although it is not necessary, but economical and less strain on your economy and the country’s resources. But forget all that. Let’s make it simple.
BEEF - CHICKPEA AND MEAT BALL STEW (plus a prawn dish)
You will need:
Dried chickpeas (canned will do)
Meatballs (see below)
Carrots
Onions
Stock
Pepper and salt
Prawns and garlic for the following dish
Soak dried chickpeas overnight, or overnight and much of the day.
Make meatballs by mixing together minced beef, flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt and the seasoning of one dried herb, then forming this into balls and frying them for a while until brown all over. Keep handy. (You might make more than wanted for this dish, freezing some for spaghetti and meatballs at a later date.)
Cook the soaked chickpeas in chicken stock (to just cover) in the pressure cooker for 35 minutes, or for much longer in the ordinary way. Keep some of the cooked chickpeas aside for a dish on the following day, extracting them from the liquid and coating them in olive oil to prevent them from drying out. (Treat the canned chickpeas for the extra dish with oil in the same way.)
To the cooked chick peas add chopped onion (best fried first), chopped carrot and the meat balls. Add stock to form a thicker or thinner stew as desired. Cook this slowly for about half an hour.
Test for seasoning and serve, possibly garnishing it with chopped coriander or parsley.
For the following dish put the oil-coated chickpeas in a frying pan with more olive oil, pressed garlic, pepper, salt, and prawns. If these prawns have been frozen, first allow them to thaw out and discard the liquid that they will have given off.
Fry the contents of the pan until the prawns have been well heated through.
Test again for seasoning, possibly garnish with chopped coriander or parsley, and serve.
Note: The advantage of using dried chickpeas is that they are so cheap to buy and easy to store (buy from an Indian shop). But they must be soaked overnight or more. The longer that they have been stored in their dry state (like all dried bens), the longer they will need to be soaked.
*****
Note: I have found that some frozen peas added shortly before the completion of my delicious and simple CHICKEN AND LEMON RICE recipe improves the look and probably taste.
BEEF - CHICKPEA AND MEAT BALL STEW (plus a prawn dish)
You will need:
Dried chickpeas (canned will do)
Meatballs (see below)
Carrots
Onions
Stock
Pepper and salt
Prawns and garlic for the following dish
Soak dried chickpeas overnight, or overnight and much of the day.
Make meatballs by mixing together minced beef, flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt and the seasoning of one dried herb, then forming this into balls and frying them for a while until brown all over. Keep handy. (You might make more than wanted for this dish, freezing some for spaghetti and meatballs at a later date.)
Cook the soaked chickpeas in chicken stock (to just cover) in the pressure cooker for 35 minutes, or for much longer in the ordinary way. Keep some of the cooked chickpeas aside for a dish on the following day, extracting them from the liquid and coating them in olive oil to prevent them from drying out. (Treat the canned chickpeas for the extra dish with oil in the same way.)
To the cooked chick peas add chopped onion (best fried first), chopped carrot and the meat balls. Add stock to form a thicker or thinner stew as desired. Cook this slowly for about half an hour.
Test for seasoning and serve, possibly garnishing it with chopped coriander or parsley.
For the following dish put the oil-coated chickpeas in a frying pan with more olive oil, pressed garlic, pepper, salt, and prawns. If these prawns have been frozen, first allow them to thaw out and discard the liquid that they will have given off.
Fry the contents of the pan until the prawns have been well heated through.
Test again for seasoning, possibly garnish with chopped coriander or parsley, and serve.
Note: The advantage of using dried chickpeas is that they are so cheap to buy and easy to store (buy from an Indian shop). But they must be soaked overnight or more. The longer that they have been stored in their dry state (like all dried bens), the longer they will need to be soaked.
*****
Note: I have found that some frozen peas added shortly before the completion of my delicious and simple CHICKEN AND LEMON RICE recipe improves the look and probably taste.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
The Sloe Gin Competition 2007
In the early 1980s Mary Perry, the landlady of The Cricketers Arms, Tangley, north of Andover in Hampshire, held an annual sloe gin competition.
As a wine writer who lived close to the pub, I was asked to be the judge.
For a small country pub this winter contest was a huge success, with sometimes around 40 competitors squeezing into the only barroom, one that would normally hold far fewer, and even then at a squash.
The present owners, Edward and Verity, re-instituted the competition, and asked me to return and be the judge once more.
Since my days of living at Tangley the pub has been expanded in size. It has attracted a large number of clients, who can now eat there and/or stay in the well-appointed chalets at the rear.
Part of the fun of old was to try to catch me out in my judgement. Sometimes the same sample was presented in two separate containers. Occasionally another spirit had been used other than the permitted gin or vodka. Additives crept in to the vintage (almond essence being a popular one).
The containers (not judged) have always been part of the fun. Anything could be used, from scent bottles to enormous flagons. This continues to be the case, one 2007 example being offered in a minuscule, metal hip-flask.
With marks out of 20 given for smell, clarity, colour, taste and balance, the 2007 cup was to be presented by Mary, herself, who returned to her old pub for the occasion.
The outright winner, Bill Catt, and the runners-up, were all regulars at the pub, and much applauded for their success. The Colvin Cup had been won again for the 2007 competition after a dormant life of some 25 years.
Sadly, I was unable to submit a sample of my own sloe gin, as I would have loved to compare it with the others on offer.
My own theory for making this delicious winter tipple is to use a wide-necked, snap-down jar, add a little sugar (to be adjusted later to obtain the right balance) and then fill it to the top with freshly picked sloes. This is then topped up with the spirit, and the lid not snapped down until its possible light fermentation is over.
Then the jar is turned upside down every day until just before Christmas, when the sloe gin should be clear and ready to be decanted and drunk.
The sloe is the fruit of the blackthorn tree, and the sloes produced from an early springtime blaze of white flowers, is small, plum-like, hard and bitter. Unless the summer has been long and hot the fruit is almost inedible.
I believe that the natural bloom on the fruit is important for success, so the less handling of the sloes the better.
Some prick each sloe with a fork or pin. I believe that the stem-opening, made when the fruit is picked from the branch, is enough to allow internal juices to enhance the brew.
But my best tip for regulars and those about to embark on this excellent bucolic pastime is not to throw away the spent fruit at bottling time, but to retain the sloes in their jar and add gin to them in readiness for the following year’s vintage. Thus, the gin used each year will have already gained a little colour and taste before being used.
Although the very flexible rules suggest that only gin and vodka may be used for competition examples, one of the best I ever tasted had been made with brandy. This one was disqualified from the competition because it had not been made from a colourless spirit.
Bought sloe gin, although offered in competitions of the past, never obtained a high mark.
In a year when sloes are hard to find, bullaces and even damsons may be used to make a winter warming drink.
In this age of instant and artificial, long may natural, rustic events like the Sloe Gin Competition continue.
As a wine writer who lived close to the pub, I was asked to be the judge.
For a small country pub this winter contest was a huge success, with sometimes around 40 competitors squeezing into the only barroom, one that would normally hold far fewer, and even then at a squash.
The present owners, Edward and Verity, re-instituted the competition, and asked me to return and be the judge once more.
Since my days of living at Tangley the pub has been expanded in size. It has attracted a large number of clients, who can now eat there and/or stay in the well-appointed chalets at the rear.
Part of the fun of old was to try to catch me out in my judgement. Sometimes the same sample was presented in two separate containers. Occasionally another spirit had been used other than the permitted gin or vodka. Additives crept in to the vintage (almond essence being a popular one).
The containers (not judged) have always been part of the fun. Anything could be used, from scent bottles to enormous flagons. This continues to be the case, one 2007 example being offered in a minuscule, metal hip-flask.
With marks out of 20 given for smell, clarity, colour, taste and balance, the 2007 cup was to be presented by Mary, herself, who returned to her old pub for the occasion.
The outright winner, Bill Catt, and the runners-up, were all regulars at the pub, and much applauded for their success. The Colvin Cup had been won again for the 2007 competition after a dormant life of some 25 years.
Sadly, I was unable to submit a sample of my own sloe gin, as I would have loved to compare it with the others on offer.
My own theory for making this delicious winter tipple is to use a wide-necked, snap-down jar, add a little sugar (to be adjusted later to obtain the right balance) and then fill it to the top with freshly picked sloes. This is then topped up with the spirit, and the lid not snapped down until its possible light fermentation is over.
Then the jar is turned upside down every day until just before Christmas, when the sloe gin should be clear and ready to be decanted and drunk.
The sloe is the fruit of the blackthorn tree, and the sloes produced from an early springtime blaze of white flowers, is small, plum-like, hard and bitter. Unless the summer has been long and hot the fruit is almost inedible.
I believe that the natural bloom on the fruit is important for success, so the less handling of the sloes the better.
Some prick each sloe with a fork or pin. I believe that the stem-opening, made when the fruit is picked from the branch, is enough to allow internal juices to enhance the brew.
But my best tip for regulars and those about to embark on this excellent bucolic pastime is not to throw away the spent fruit at bottling time, but to retain the sloes in their jar and add gin to them in readiness for the following year’s vintage. Thus, the gin used each year will have already gained a little colour and taste before being used.
Although the very flexible rules suggest that only gin and vodka may be used for competition examples, one of the best I ever tasted had been made with brandy. This one was disqualified from the competition because it had not been made from a colourless spirit.
Bought sloe gin, although offered in competitions of the past, never obtained a high mark.
In a year when sloes are hard to find, bullaces and even damsons may be used to make a winter warming drink.
In this age of instant and artificial, long may natural, rustic events like the Sloe Gin Competition continue.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Paris, February 2007. Somethings to do and see
The Metro in Paris is a splendid way to get around swiftly and cheaply. After buying a combined ticket for Metro and busses for the length of your stay at a station, it is only necessary thereafter to refer to a Metro and street map of the city to be free to travel wherever and whenever it pleases you. One of the few snags is that sometimes there are many steps to climb. So old people and invalids beware. And do not expect to see smiles or hear laughter on the Metro. Passengers tend to be dull, sullen, selfish and inconsiderate. So, although the wonderful Art Nouveau entrances entice you into thinking that below ground will be a continuation of the Belle Epoque, Gay Paree will not be in evidence.
My brother-in-law and his wife came to Paris to meet us at the station. The Dutch are very keen to meet and say farewell – and, in this case, to share in a birthday. In fact, birthdays in Holland are the most important days in anyone’s year. So we planned to introduce them to some favourite restaurants and take them on a short tour of Toulouse- Lautrec’s haunts.
From our room in Hotel Terminus Nord, opposite the Gare du Nord station, we had a view of the dome of Sacré Coeur above the zinc roofs of the ubiquitous seven story blocks that form Paris. And it was beneath this church and around part of the hill on which it stands that was our target area. This, of course, included the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin de la Galette
Waldemar Januszczak, who writes on art for the Sunday Times, described in detail where Degas worked, Suzanne Valadon posed and painted, and where Toulouse-Lautrec slept, painted his cabaret artistes and lesbians, debauched, orgied, and drank absinthe to excess.
With my previously marked map, and the newspaper article at hand, we walked up and down hill to cover a comparatively small area to look at the relevant buildings and studios. The area was a small one, as befitted a man short of leg. And it was not only very interesting and instructive, but introduced us to a part of Paris previously unknown to us.
It was during this walk that we ate at Wepler in the Place Clichy (see piece on Food and Drink in Paris).
The other main quest of ours was a regular one. It was to see, once more, the bronze, Dalou sculpture on the tomb of Victor Noir in Père Lachaise cemetery.
The story is that in 1870, Victor Noir, a popular and handsome journalist, known for his partiality to women, was invited to be a witness to the fixing of terms for a duel between Napoleon’s great nephew, Prince Pierre Bonaparte, and a politician. But an argument ensued and Pierre Bonaparte, pistol in hand, shot Victor Noir dead on the spot.
Bonaparte, because of his considerable connections (he was cousin of the ruling Napoleon III), got off scot-free.
This acquittal so upset the population of Paris that the body of Victor Noir was transferred to the famous Paris cemetery of Père Lachaise and money was raised to commission the famous sculptor-of-the-day, Dalou, to make a life-size bronze effigy of the journalist to rest on the tomb.
Dalou seized the chance of enjoying this much-talked-of commission. The bronze appeared as a very dapper Victor Noir, with top hat fallen to the side as though he had just been felled by Bonaparte’s shot.
However, with Noir’s trousers slightly undone, Dalou had created a larger-than-life bulge within them.
The bulge was quite noticeable to any onlooker, especially to the female sex, who right away saw it as a fertility object. So it was not long before that particular protuberance became well polished as the infertile or sex-starved ladies of Paris rubbed a vital part of their anatomy over it. Also, those with expectations of marriage within the year might kiss him on the mouth and rub the toes of his boots.
Along with these motions it became almost obligatory to place flowers in the fallen top hat.
However, these actions were considered to be unseemly by the authorities, and a fence was placed around the statue. But the female population of Paris would have none of it, and the fence had to be dismantled.
So there he lies, the handsome Victor Noir, fresh flowers always in his top hat, and with the greeny/blue verdigris of bronze all over, except where it has been polished regularly to a fine sheen.
It is one of the more delightful sights of Paris.
The cemetery was about to close when we had, at last, found our old friend Victor Noir. So, with fading light, and calls for visitors to leave, it was a pleasure to say goodbye to this enormous collection of tombs that commemorate people that shortly after death were thought to be of great importance and are now almost all forgotten – except for a very few, like Victor Noir.
We set out to renew our acquaintance with the Marais area, its Jewish quarter and the Picasso Museum.
Starting at the Bastille, the Place des Vosges would be our first target. This large and very grand early 17th century square (the first planned square in Paris) never fails to impress with its arch-enclosed promenade pavements. The brick and stone buildings are unified, yet vary slightly in the colour of brickwork.
The Picasso Museum is housed in the most glorious of town houses. Difficult to conduct onself around without either missing rooms or unexpectedly reaching them again, there are some fine paintings to be seen – yet, I had the feeling that many were the works of a very gifted grown-up child having the most glorious time at other people’s often considerable expense. But the rooms, staircase and especially the vaulted cellar, in a way dwarfed the artist’s work housed in them. To me, Picasso was one of the most gifted draughtsmen of all time. But here there were too few of his drawings to be seen – unless we missed some rooms full of them.
On our way out of the Marais we passed the Pompidou Centre which might, or might not, be covered in scaffolding. We are not museum people, and the Picasso showing was enough for the day.
Because of the lack of “modern” buildings, and the apartment blocks that have formed Paris as it is, it is an unchanging city in which one always seems to feel at home. Though I do rather miss the smells of the drains, the Gitanes Mais cigarettes and the convenience and sniff of the pissoirs of old. At least the balayeuses still turn on the water to run down the gutters from the highest point on their length, and to sweep the detritus from street and pavement into it to run downhill to the nearest drain. But the twigs on their brooms of old have been replaced by bright green plastic. So times do change in Paris.
.
My brother-in-law and his wife came to Paris to meet us at the station. The Dutch are very keen to meet and say farewell – and, in this case, to share in a birthday. In fact, birthdays in Holland are the most important days in anyone’s year. So we planned to introduce them to some favourite restaurants and take them on a short tour of Toulouse- Lautrec’s haunts.
From our room in Hotel Terminus Nord, opposite the Gare du Nord station, we had a view of the dome of Sacré Coeur above the zinc roofs of the ubiquitous seven story blocks that form Paris. And it was beneath this church and around part of the hill on which it stands that was our target area. This, of course, included the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin de la Galette
Waldemar Januszczak, who writes on art for the Sunday Times, described in detail where Degas worked, Suzanne Valadon posed and painted, and where Toulouse-Lautrec slept, painted his cabaret artistes and lesbians, debauched, orgied, and drank absinthe to excess.
With my previously marked map, and the newspaper article at hand, we walked up and down hill to cover a comparatively small area to look at the relevant buildings and studios. The area was a small one, as befitted a man short of leg. And it was not only very interesting and instructive, but introduced us to a part of Paris previously unknown to us.
It was during this walk that we ate at Wepler in the Place Clichy (see piece on Food and Drink in Paris).
The other main quest of ours was a regular one. It was to see, once more, the bronze, Dalou sculpture on the tomb of Victor Noir in Père Lachaise cemetery.
The story is that in 1870, Victor Noir, a popular and handsome journalist, known for his partiality to women, was invited to be a witness to the fixing of terms for a duel between Napoleon’s great nephew, Prince Pierre Bonaparte, and a politician. But an argument ensued and Pierre Bonaparte, pistol in hand, shot Victor Noir dead on the spot.
Bonaparte, because of his considerable connections (he was cousin of the ruling Napoleon III), got off scot-free.
This acquittal so upset the population of Paris that the body of Victor Noir was transferred to the famous Paris cemetery of Père Lachaise and money was raised to commission the famous sculptor-of-the-day, Dalou, to make a life-size bronze effigy of the journalist to rest on the tomb.
Dalou seized the chance of enjoying this much-talked-of commission. The bronze appeared as a very dapper Victor Noir, with top hat fallen to the side as though he had just been felled by Bonaparte’s shot.
However, with Noir’s trousers slightly undone, Dalou had created a larger-than-life bulge within them.
The bulge was quite noticeable to any onlooker, especially to the female sex, who right away saw it as a fertility object. So it was not long before that particular protuberance became well polished as the infertile or sex-starved ladies of Paris rubbed a vital part of their anatomy over it. Also, those with expectations of marriage within the year might kiss him on the mouth and rub the toes of his boots.
Along with these motions it became almost obligatory to place flowers in the fallen top hat.
However, these actions were considered to be unseemly by the authorities, and a fence was placed around the statue. But the female population of Paris would have none of it, and the fence had to be dismantled.
So there he lies, the handsome Victor Noir, fresh flowers always in his top hat, and with the greeny/blue verdigris of bronze all over, except where it has been polished regularly to a fine sheen.
It is one of the more delightful sights of Paris.
The cemetery was about to close when we had, at last, found our old friend Victor Noir. So, with fading light, and calls for visitors to leave, it was a pleasure to say goodbye to this enormous collection of tombs that commemorate people that shortly after death were thought to be of great importance and are now almost all forgotten – except for a very few, like Victor Noir.
We set out to renew our acquaintance with the Marais area, its Jewish quarter and the Picasso Museum.
Starting at the Bastille, the Place des Vosges would be our first target. This large and very grand early 17th century square (the first planned square in Paris) never fails to impress with its arch-enclosed promenade pavements. The brick and stone buildings are unified, yet vary slightly in the colour of brickwork.
The Picasso Museum is housed in the most glorious of town houses. Difficult to conduct onself around without either missing rooms or unexpectedly reaching them again, there are some fine paintings to be seen – yet, I had the feeling that many were the works of a very gifted grown-up child having the most glorious time at other people’s often considerable expense. But the rooms, staircase and especially the vaulted cellar, in a way dwarfed the artist’s work housed in them. To me, Picasso was one of the most gifted draughtsmen of all time. But here there were too few of his drawings to be seen – unless we missed some rooms full of them.
On our way out of the Marais we passed the Pompidou Centre which might, or might not, be covered in scaffolding. We are not museum people, and the Picasso showing was enough for the day.
Because of the lack of “modern” buildings, and the apartment blocks that have formed Paris as it is, it is an unchanging city in which one always seems to feel at home. Though I do rather miss the smells of the drains, the Gitanes Mais cigarettes and the convenience and sniff of the pissoirs of old. At least the balayeuses still turn on the water to run down the gutters from the highest point on their length, and to sweep the detritus from street and pavement into it to run downhill to the nearest drain. But the twigs on their brooms of old have been replaced by bright green plastic. So times do change in Paris.
.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Paris. Food and Drink. February 2007
Sensible English, who go to Paris for a break to café-sit and eat well, start at Waterloo Station to board a Eurostar train. And sensible English will not travel first class where, admittedly there is marginally more leg room, because the train food seems always to be served at the wrong time of day, and is hardly worth eating anyway.
Starting early enables you to leave the train at the Gare du Nord, cross the road, and descend on the Brasserie du Nord, 1925, for an excellent lunch.
To eat there before catching a train home is foolish when a tight schedule is involved, because the speed of the meal at this restaurant is delightfully slow at the best of times, and rush and digestion are poor bedfellows.
At the 1925 we order white and red wine in carafe right away, to sip as we read the menu. First course is usually Foie Gras or Ceasar Salad, followed by either Choucroute or Steak Tartare (raw minced beef mixed with egg yolk, chopped onions, capers and Tabasco) The Choucroute is a copious dish that includes saurkraut, boiled potatoes, a Frankfurter, a boiled pork chop, a meaty sausage and a deeply smoked piece of bacon. We finish with sorbet, cheese or crême caramel.
Then it is time for an afternoon snooze in our hotel room almost directly above the restaurant. (On this occasion I watched Ireland beat Wales at Rugby Football on television.)
Now, where for dinner?
There is a sign on the Rue Faubourg Montmartre that says Chartier. You look into a courtyard to see at the far end a dark, brass and mahogany-coloured revolving door. Once inside the restaurant, frequented in Victorian days by Parisian workers, you are led to a table that has above it brass racks for coats (and top hats). If you are a couple you share a table with two strangers. They could be professors, bank managers – or even workers. It is a lively, happy, noisy, cosmopolitan mix. We are told that the entire staff numbers over 60. And it seats, in its vast, galleried space, heaven knows how many.
Waiters at Chartier look as if they were born and raised there, as were their parents before them.
Your order will probably be written down on the paper table covering. The addition, always done with considerable flourish, certainly will.
The menu has probably seldom changed since the place’s inception. So Tête de Veau will be there, with all the French café fare. Chartier red wine, by the bottle, is the best bet. Our neighbours this time were a crowd of happy, rotund, ruddy-faced coarse-fishermen.
Margreet, who had overdone lunch, settled for a plate of green asparagus salad and half a dozen snails. I had mushroom soup and the Tête de Veau (calf’s head). Now, Tête de Veau seldom appears on menus nowadays. And I think that Margreet would prefer it that way, as my dish, with sauce gribiche, came as its gelatinous self with the animal’s nostril intact. If the jelly-like skin is edible, then the meaty cheek inside it is usually overdone and stringy. I enjoyed my feast, but couldn’t finish it. As my favourite Mont Blanc (a pot of chestnut purée coated with crème frâiche or crème Chantilly) had been omitted from the menu, I settled for ice cream.
And that was our first day’s food in Paris.
Of course, Paris is not all food and drink, so my next blog will be about peripheral matters to food, like my brother- and sister-in-law’s visit, a walk around Toulouse-Lautrec country, and much else.
It was during this walk that we ate in Place Clichy at Wepler – recommended by neighbours in London. Here the seafood salad, onion soup and confit of duck were exemplary. The Alsace Riesling and Côtes du Rhône were excellent.
Our evening meal was at one of our favourite places, Au Charpentiers, Rue Mazerine. This restaurant is very cosy, very French, and with very French food – like pig’s trotters. (These I had had on a previous visit and found them a little hard.) We chose beef salad and the restaurant’s paté, followed by ox tongue and Toulouse sausage with lentils. The Alsace Rieling and red Rhône were fine.
One feels that Au Charpentiers will be there for ever, serving people who really take enjoyment in their food. But Chartier offers much the same fare, though not as well or as individually prepared. And it is considerably cheaper – and much more fun.
So we lunched at Chartier the following day, this time sitting next to an old boy (86) who had escaped from the Germans in the war four times. He had made wine and smoked pigs. She had worked in a bank for 45 years. So, although I needed Margreet to translate their rapid-fire French, it was a pleasant get-together.
We chose Jambon de Bayonne and beetroot salad, then Steak au Poivre and Escalope de Veau. And on the lunchtime menu they offered my Mont Blanc. Margreet chose Parfait au Caramel – and excellent it was. And, as usual, our waiter used about a third of our paper table covering to remind him of our order, and priced and added it up with such a flourish that a smiling cartoon face concluded his doubly underlined total.
We had decided to visit the Marais quarter to see how trendy it had become, and eat at a neighbour’s recommended place, called the Gai Moulin. But the gay owners must have fallen out as the place was very much closed, despite announcing that it was open seven days a week.
So we wandered away from the Pompidou Centre toward the Jewish quarter. Getting hungry and not knowing where we might eat, we entered a spectacles shop to ask the lady in charge if she could recommend a “restaurant locale”. There was one, a few doors down at 42, Rue Saint-Croix de la Bretonnerie, called Le Petit Picard.
We were about to enjoy our best meal in Paris, and probably the most reasonably priced. I had a wonderful pisaladière (if that is how you spell it), Margreet the best leeks that either of us had ever tasted, followed by trout and steak. To finish, Margreet chose Crème Caramel and I had a black currant sorbet that only the French seem to be able to make. It is absolutely packed with taste (do they add Cassis when making it?) and has black currants mixed in with the ice.
We left the restaurant (done up to resemble a Pompei ruin) to wish a girl with her family a happy birthday.
It was time for our last evening meal in Paris. Neither of us had much enthusiasm for yet more good food. So we thought we’d wander around old haunts on the Left Bank. We passed the Polidor in Rue Monsieur le Prince, near to Odeon, as being a “menu” kind of place and, thus, too much. Then we looked at the Acropole, rue des Medicins, off Boulevard St-Michel, then Allard in Rue St André des Arts (too gastronomic). So we returned to the Acropole (where the clientele, in a fairly bleak atmosphere, consist mainly of Professors and teachers), to sample the excellent stuffed vine leaves and home-made tarama. Spicy meat balls and veal on a skewer was followed by Halva and ice cream.
With plenty of time to spare we ate our last lunchtime meal at the 1925, where we reversed the dishes we had eaten there previously – Choucroute for Margreet and Steak Tartare for me.
Writing about all this food makes me feel rather bloated. But to eat, drink, and blog it, was our aim, and we did ourselves proud.
Next in the blog come descriptions of where we went on the almost obligatory exercise taken in between the blow-outs.
Starting early enables you to leave the train at the Gare du Nord, cross the road, and descend on the Brasserie du Nord, 1925, for an excellent lunch.
To eat there before catching a train home is foolish when a tight schedule is involved, because the speed of the meal at this restaurant is delightfully slow at the best of times, and rush and digestion are poor bedfellows.
At the 1925 we order white and red wine in carafe right away, to sip as we read the menu. First course is usually Foie Gras or Ceasar Salad, followed by either Choucroute or Steak Tartare (raw minced beef mixed with egg yolk, chopped onions, capers and Tabasco) The Choucroute is a copious dish that includes saurkraut, boiled potatoes, a Frankfurter, a boiled pork chop, a meaty sausage and a deeply smoked piece of bacon. We finish with sorbet, cheese or crême caramel.
Then it is time for an afternoon snooze in our hotel room almost directly above the restaurant. (On this occasion I watched Ireland beat Wales at Rugby Football on television.)
Now, where for dinner?
There is a sign on the Rue Faubourg Montmartre that says Chartier. You look into a courtyard to see at the far end a dark, brass and mahogany-coloured revolving door. Once inside the restaurant, frequented in Victorian days by Parisian workers, you are led to a table that has above it brass racks for coats (and top hats). If you are a couple you share a table with two strangers. They could be professors, bank managers – or even workers. It is a lively, happy, noisy, cosmopolitan mix. We are told that the entire staff numbers over 60. And it seats, in its vast, galleried space, heaven knows how many.
Waiters at Chartier look as if they were born and raised there, as were their parents before them.
Your order will probably be written down on the paper table covering. The addition, always done with considerable flourish, certainly will.
The menu has probably seldom changed since the place’s inception. So Tête de Veau will be there, with all the French café fare. Chartier red wine, by the bottle, is the best bet. Our neighbours this time were a crowd of happy, rotund, ruddy-faced coarse-fishermen.
Margreet, who had overdone lunch, settled for a plate of green asparagus salad and half a dozen snails. I had mushroom soup and the Tête de Veau (calf’s head). Now, Tête de Veau seldom appears on menus nowadays. And I think that Margreet would prefer it that way, as my dish, with sauce gribiche, came as its gelatinous self with the animal’s nostril intact. If the jelly-like skin is edible, then the meaty cheek inside it is usually overdone and stringy. I enjoyed my feast, but couldn’t finish it. As my favourite Mont Blanc (a pot of chestnut purée coated with crème frâiche or crème Chantilly) had been omitted from the menu, I settled for ice cream.
And that was our first day’s food in Paris.
Of course, Paris is not all food and drink, so my next blog will be about peripheral matters to food, like my brother- and sister-in-law’s visit, a walk around Toulouse-Lautrec country, and much else.
It was during this walk that we ate in Place Clichy at Wepler – recommended by neighbours in London. Here the seafood salad, onion soup and confit of duck were exemplary. The Alsace Riesling and Côtes du Rhône were excellent.
Our evening meal was at one of our favourite places, Au Charpentiers, Rue Mazerine. This restaurant is very cosy, very French, and with very French food – like pig’s trotters. (These I had had on a previous visit and found them a little hard.) We chose beef salad and the restaurant’s paté, followed by ox tongue and Toulouse sausage with lentils. The Alsace Rieling and red Rhône were fine.
One feels that Au Charpentiers will be there for ever, serving people who really take enjoyment in their food. But Chartier offers much the same fare, though not as well or as individually prepared. And it is considerably cheaper – and much more fun.
So we lunched at Chartier the following day, this time sitting next to an old boy (86) who had escaped from the Germans in the war four times. He had made wine and smoked pigs. She had worked in a bank for 45 years. So, although I needed Margreet to translate their rapid-fire French, it was a pleasant get-together.
We chose Jambon de Bayonne and beetroot salad, then Steak au Poivre and Escalope de Veau. And on the lunchtime menu they offered my Mont Blanc. Margreet chose Parfait au Caramel – and excellent it was. And, as usual, our waiter used about a third of our paper table covering to remind him of our order, and priced and added it up with such a flourish that a smiling cartoon face concluded his doubly underlined total.
We had decided to visit the Marais quarter to see how trendy it had become, and eat at a neighbour’s recommended place, called the Gai Moulin. But the gay owners must have fallen out as the place was very much closed, despite announcing that it was open seven days a week.
So we wandered away from the Pompidou Centre toward the Jewish quarter. Getting hungry and not knowing where we might eat, we entered a spectacles shop to ask the lady in charge if she could recommend a “restaurant locale”. There was one, a few doors down at 42, Rue Saint-Croix de la Bretonnerie, called Le Petit Picard.
We were about to enjoy our best meal in Paris, and probably the most reasonably priced. I had a wonderful pisaladière (if that is how you spell it), Margreet the best leeks that either of us had ever tasted, followed by trout and steak. To finish, Margreet chose Crème Caramel and I had a black currant sorbet that only the French seem to be able to make. It is absolutely packed with taste (do they add Cassis when making it?) and has black currants mixed in with the ice.
We left the restaurant (done up to resemble a Pompei ruin) to wish a girl with her family a happy birthday.
It was time for our last evening meal in Paris. Neither of us had much enthusiasm for yet more good food. So we thought we’d wander around old haunts on the Left Bank. We passed the Polidor in Rue Monsieur le Prince, near to Odeon, as being a “menu” kind of place and, thus, too much. Then we looked at the Acropole, rue des Medicins, off Boulevard St-Michel, then Allard in Rue St André des Arts (too gastronomic). So we returned to the Acropole (where the clientele, in a fairly bleak atmosphere, consist mainly of Professors and teachers), to sample the excellent stuffed vine leaves and home-made tarama. Spicy meat balls and veal on a skewer was followed by Halva and ice cream.
With plenty of time to spare we ate our last lunchtime meal at the 1925, where we reversed the dishes we had eaten there previously – Choucroute for Margreet and Steak Tartare for me.
Writing about all this food makes me feel rather bloated. But to eat, drink, and blog it, was our aim, and we did ourselves proud.
Next in the blog come descriptions of where we went on the almost obligatory exercise taken in between the blow-outs.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
A wild goose chase?
In 1954, when rebuilding my recently-bought bombed-out house in the Fulham Road, London, I completed two large (2’ x 4’) paintings of Chelsea Football Ground.
The subject was a fairly obvious one at the time as my house (less the original top floor, as I didn’t have enough money to rebuild it) stood right beneath the supporting wall of a stand at the southern end of the ground.
The local district then was an artistic one, with studios all around, the Italian Village and, a stone’s throw away, where Henri Gaudier-Brzeska had lived in penury.
One of my two paintings was of a corrugated, part cover, of a stand at one end of the ground. It was titled “Neighbours on Saturdays” (football was only played on Saturdays at that time). The other was “Chelsea v. Wolves. Sillet’s Penalty Goal. Jubilee Year”.
The former picture I tried to sell for £36, and failed – even when it was exhibited at a smart West End gallery. The latter work found a ready buyer who worked with me on the house. He was probably a plasterer or electrician. I sold it to him for £5. I recall that I had forgotten to paint in some vital part of the scene. So I added it for him.
I retained the grandstand painting, and at one time was about to give it as a wedding present, but the proposed union came to nought.
A Christie’s expert in the field of English 20th century painting (James Gould) saw the painting and suggested that I sell it at his auction rooms. Why not?
The corrugated part cover of the stand depicted in the painting became known as “the shed”. And that end of the ground is still known as “the shed end”. So the painting was re-titled “The Shed, Chelsea Football Ground”. It had considerable provenance added, and sold for £28,000 (the buyer having to pay Christie’s £30,600).
By this time I had already started to paint again, after a writing break of 27 years, and had become interested in both recording past works in the form of a collection of photographs in an album, and listing items of my art sold privately, by galleries, or at auction.
Among the private buyers listed, I found that my second football painting had been bought by Thomas Young, Stafford Mansions, Battersea. I decided to try to track down the picture.
After a gap of some 50 years the chance of finding Mr. Young and/or the painting would be pretty remote. But I not only wanted to see it again, to photograph it and, if possible (should I tell him about the Christie’s sale?), even offer to buy it back.
No amount of computer searching on the Internet came up with anything that might help me in my quest. So I referred to my large-scale map of London, located Battersea, and a Police Station where I might obtain information. I set off. Surely the police would know the whereabouts, past or present, of Stafford Mansions.
It was cold, wet and windy when I located the station, but it appeared to have been closed for some time. So I thought that a publican or someone like the driver of a cab or minicab might be of help. So I set off once more.
Beneath the insalubrious surroundings of railway arches, light industry and heavy traffic, I entered a pub, and ordered beer and lamb’s liver. I sat down near to a distinguished-looking gentleman, of possibly mixed sexual orientation, who was reading a newspaper and enjoying a pint. He was rather too smart to be in a pub like this one, and looked a little out of place.
I asked him if he was local (having seen that his newspaper was a Battersea one). He was. Yes, he knew Stafford Mansions, and recommended a long walk to it through the park. But a bus would be quicker – and warmer. I took the bus. To have spoken with a knowledgeable local was my first stroke of luck.
Map reading my way then to Albert Bridge Road, and walking along it toward the bridge and River Thames, STAFFORD MANSIONS stood in a row among a lot of other red brick Edwardian buildings.
Now came my next piece of good fortune. Leaving the building were two gentlemen, who were obviously good friends.
“Do you know, I asked, “if anyone called Young lived in their block?”
The answer was “No”. In fact, they had been lived there for 35 years and no one of that name had been a resident to their knowledge.
They were sorry to be of no help. The two left to walk down the street, with the elderly one running his fingers through his grey hair, saying that his name was not Young but he felt and hoped that he looked young.
So there we are. Somewhere, hanging on some unknowingly lucky person’s wall, is that £5 painting. Will it ever, do you think, re-surface?
The subject was a fairly obvious one at the time as my house (less the original top floor, as I didn’t have enough money to rebuild it) stood right beneath the supporting wall of a stand at the southern end of the ground.
The local district then was an artistic one, with studios all around, the Italian Village and, a stone’s throw away, where Henri Gaudier-Brzeska had lived in penury.
One of my two paintings was of a corrugated, part cover, of a stand at one end of the ground. It was titled “Neighbours on Saturdays” (football was only played on Saturdays at that time). The other was “Chelsea v. Wolves. Sillet’s Penalty Goal. Jubilee Year”.
The former picture I tried to sell for £36, and failed – even when it was exhibited at a smart West End gallery. The latter work found a ready buyer who worked with me on the house. He was probably a plasterer or electrician. I sold it to him for £5. I recall that I had forgotten to paint in some vital part of the scene. So I added it for him.
I retained the grandstand painting, and at one time was about to give it as a wedding present, but the proposed union came to nought.
A Christie’s expert in the field of English 20th century painting (James Gould) saw the painting and suggested that I sell it at his auction rooms. Why not?
The corrugated part cover of the stand depicted in the painting became known as “the shed”. And that end of the ground is still known as “the shed end”. So the painting was re-titled “The Shed, Chelsea Football Ground”. It had considerable provenance added, and sold for £28,000 (the buyer having to pay Christie’s £30,600).
By this time I had already started to paint again, after a writing break of 27 years, and had become interested in both recording past works in the form of a collection of photographs in an album, and listing items of my art sold privately, by galleries, or at auction.
Among the private buyers listed, I found that my second football painting had been bought by Thomas Young, Stafford Mansions, Battersea. I decided to try to track down the picture.
After a gap of some 50 years the chance of finding Mr. Young and/or the painting would be pretty remote. But I not only wanted to see it again, to photograph it and, if possible (should I tell him about the Christie’s sale?), even offer to buy it back.
No amount of computer searching on the Internet came up with anything that might help me in my quest. So I referred to my large-scale map of London, located Battersea, and a Police Station where I might obtain information. I set off. Surely the police would know the whereabouts, past or present, of Stafford Mansions.
It was cold, wet and windy when I located the station, but it appeared to have been closed for some time. So I thought that a publican or someone like the driver of a cab or minicab might be of help. So I set off once more.
Beneath the insalubrious surroundings of railway arches, light industry and heavy traffic, I entered a pub, and ordered beer and lamb’s liver. I sat down near to a distinguished-looking gentleman, of possibly mixed sexual orientation, who was reading a newspaper and enjoying a pint. He was rather too smart to be in a pub like this one, and looked a little out of place.
I asked him if he was local (having seen that his newspaper was a Battersea one). He was. Yes, he knew Stafford Mansions, and recommended a long walk to it through the park. But a bus would be quicker – and warmer. I took the bus. To have spoken with a knowledgeable local was my first stroke of luck.
Map reading my way then to Albert Bridge Road, and walking along it toward the bridge and River Thames, STAFFORD MANSIONS stood in a row among a lot of other red brick Edwardian buildings.
Now came my next piece of good fortune. Leaving the building were two gentlemen, who were obviously good friends.
“Do you know, I asked, “if anyone called Young lived in their block?”
The answer was “No”. In fact, they had been lived there for 35 years and no one of that name had been a resident to their knowledge.
They were sorry to be of no help. The two left to walk down the street, with the elderly one running his fingers through his grey hair, saying that his name was not Young but he felt and hoped that he looked young.
So there we are. Somewhere, hanging on some unknowingly lucky person’s wall, is that £5 painting. Will it ever, do you think, re-surface?
Friday, January 19, 2007
Stews, Stews, Stews, or Casseroles, Casseroles and Casseroles
To make these wonderful winter fillers and warmers there are a few basic things to do.
In olive oil fry chopped onion and garlic until transparent – or even golden browning. Then add the meat – any old meat, though the time to cook the stew will depend on the cut, remembering that the cheaper cuts will take longer but taste better.
A sprinkling of flour stirred in at this stage will thicken the final juices. Add salt and pepper.
Next add the prepared vegetable, or vegetables of your choice. Using only one kind of vegetable will help to determine the uniqueness of your dish. Think of cabbage, carrots, artichokes, fennel, courgettes, tomatoes, pumpkin or squash as possibilities.
To add cubed potatoes will save you from having to cook them separately but will detract from the clear-cut taste of your effort. Mashed potatoes are excellent. They absorb the delicious juices. Crusty bread to dip in is also good.
You will want to flavour your stew with a herb or spice. Now is the time to add it, but do not throw in your usual mix. Keep the taste pure and simple. One herb or spice will do. Try cumin, or caraway, nutmeg, mace, dill, sage, star aniseed, bay leaf, coriander (seeds or chopped leaves), the pared skin of orange or lemon, olives (green or black) and heaven knows what else that takes your fancy. But be careful of curry powder, as you will inadvertently be making a curry.
It is time for the liquid content. Stock or stock cube(s) in water is enough. The liquid in which you have boiled vegetables is good. The stock from boiling chicken bones and the like in a pressure cooker (for speed) is excellent. But you may want to jazz up the liquid a bit by adding something to it – like tea, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, ketchup, oyster sauce or chilli sauce. But remember that you have already added one herb or spice, and that should be enough.
Be careful about adding wine, fortified wine or spirits. Use them sparingly and not very often.
When cooking these stews or casseroles on top of the stove, the thickening may catch and ruin things. So do not overdo the flour, and keep a close eye on matters. If the liquid is too much or too thin, cook in the oven or on top of the stove with the lid off to allow the liquid to evaporate.
With these ideas in mind the winter will become far more pleasurable. But keep it simple.
And when your plate is nearly clean, but still warm, do as the French peasants do – faire chabreau. That is, pouring a little red wine into the plate, swilling it around, and drinking the result – directly from the plate. It is alright for me, because when it comes to cooking, I’m a peasant.
In olive oil fry chopped onion and garlic until transparent – or even golden browning. Then add the meat – any old meat, though the time to cook the stew will depend on the cut, remembering that the cheaper cuts will take longer but taste better.
A sprinkling of flour stirred in at this stage will thicken the final juices. Add salt and pepper.
Next add the prepared vegetable, or vegetables of your choice. Using only one kind of vegetable will help to determine the uniqueness of your dish. Think of cabbage, carrots, artichokes, fennel, courgettes, tomatoes, pumpkin or squash as possibilities.
To add cubed potatoes will save you from having to cook them separately but will detract from the clear-cut taste of your effort. Mashed potatoes are excellent. They absorb the delicious juices. Crusty bread to dip in is also good.
You will want to flavour your stew with a herb or spice. Now is the time to add it, but do not throw in your usual mix. Keep the taste pure and simple. One herb or spice will do. Try cumin, or caraway, nutmeg, mace, dill, sage, star aniseed, bay leaf, coriander (seeds or chopped leaves), the pared skin of orange or lemon, olives (green or black) and heaven knows what else that takes your fancy. But be careful of curry powder, as you will inadvertently be making a curry.
It is time for the liquid content. Stock or stock cube(s) in water is enough. The liquid in which you have boiled vegetables is good. The stock from boiling chicken bones and the like in a pressure cooker (for speed) is excellent. But you may want to jazz up the liquid a bit by adding something to it – like tea, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, ketchup, oyster sauce or chilli sauce. But remember that you have already added one herb or spice, and that should be enough.
Be careful about adding wine, fortified wine or spirits. Use them sparingly and not very often.
When cooking these stews or casseroles on top of the stove, the thickening may catch and ruin things. So do not overdo the flour, and keep a close eye on matters. If the liquid is too much or too thin, cook in the oven or on top of the stove with the lid off to allow the liquid to evaporate.
With these ideas in mind the winter will become far more pleasurable. But keep it simple.
And when your plate is nearly clean, but still warm, do as the French peasants do – faire chabreau. That is, pouring a little red wine into the plate, swilling it around, and drinking the result – directly from the plate. It is alright for me, because when it comes to cooking, I’m a peasant.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
A Christmas Meal
My written blogs are generally about travel and recipes. Others record daily happenings. This one is both a daily happening and how to make a Christmas meal less of the ordeal than many people seem to make of it. The key, I think, is timing – in the form of a kitchen alarm clock – and making a list of jobs to be done, and when to do them.
One or two items can be dealt with the day before to reduce hassle on Christmas day. I had, for instance, prepared breadcrumbs (for other occasions) from two slightly stale, white sandwich loaves, turning the crusts into breadcrumbs by baking them in the oven and crushing them in a pestle and mortar (no machinery, but helped by Margreet).
And I had made the cranberry sauce by boiling the cranberries in just a little water for 10 minutes. Thinking that orange goes well with cranberries, I had added chopped marmalade – to give them the orange taste and some sweetness. This did not really work. So I had to add the zest from the skin of a large orange and some sugar to get it right (and a little on the sour side to counteract the fatty richness of the goose). It was ready to serve - from a rather nice pot that had held the gift of an orchid.
Stock for gravy had been prepared by boiling up all the giblets in a pressure cooker. (The liver was turned into a small paté for future eating.)
Stuffing for the goose had also been prepared the day before by frying onion in olive oil, adding pounded sage leaves, a gift of prepared chestnuts, pepper and salt. Beaten egg, as binding, would be added before stuffing the bird on Christmas day.
Lastly, the brandy butter was made with butter and icing sugar, worked together with the fingers before the brandy was added. Actually, I experimented with calvados butter and rum butter as well – each served in small earthenware pots marked with garden labels. The outcome was that there was very little difference in taste between them. But into the refrigerator they went.
All these jobs had been done at my leisure and when I felt like doing them.
My timing list was made. Christmas day arrived.
I rose early, only to prick the goose and rub salt all over it – then back to bed.
The idea (and it worked beautifully) was to do the first job at the time prescribed, consult my list when the next one should be put into operation, and set the kitchen alarm for that time.
10 o’clock: Extract the fat from inside the rear of the goose and place it over the breast. Add beaten egg to stuffing, stuff goose, first with large chunks of Bramley Seedling apples (to fill the front cavity) and then sage and onion. Pin up the ends with wooden skewers.
10.45: Shove the bird on to a rack in the oven, with the pan destined for roast potatoes beneath it to catch the dripping fat. Position an oven tray beneath that, and a layer of foil beneath all – to catch fat and protect the oven. Turn the oven up high.
Peel and boil the spuds for 10 minutes (see later).
11 o’clock: Turn down the oven heat to its normal working temperature (for me that is a knob pointing upwards).
Trim and boil sprouts for 10 minutes, and at the same time fry small bits of back bacon until crisp, then adding pressed garlic. Add drained sprouts to the garlic and bacon, and keep an eye on them until they start to brown a bit. Heat it up once more before offering them at the table in a bowl.
Keep an eye on the fat in the pan and keep decanting it into a large bowl to be put into jars and distributed as gifts to friends.
11.20: The spuds are ready to be drained of water and added to the spud pan beneath the dripping goose (but I over-boiled them, or they were the disintegrating kind). Remember to salt and pepper them.
Make bread sauce by frying chopped onion in butter until transparent, adding milk and half an onion stuck with 6 cloves. Keep at the very lowest heat for a while to stop it curdling. Add pre-prepared breadcrumbs until the right consistency has been reached (it will thicken up a bit later) and turn off the heat until shortly before wanted at the table. Make plenty and have a bowl ready for it. It will need quite a bit of pepper and salt.
Make gravy with butter and flour, adding the stock that was made from pressure-cooking the giblets the day before. It might want a very little Worcester sauce, possibly a stock cube, and a touch of vinegar. Add pepper and salt. A little gravy browning added will improve its colour. Taste to get it right. Re-heat and put into a jug before serving.
12 o’clock: Start to heat the water around the supermarket Christmas pudding bowl on its trivet. Brush brandy over the goose’s breast.
12.30: Take the rum, calvados and brandy butter out of the refrigerator to soften.
Keep pouring off fat, now mainly from the potatoes in their tray.
Margreet will by now have made the first course of mozzarella slices between tomato slices with a garlicky vinaigrette, and cocktail sticks, each speared with a green olive, morsel of anchovy, and a quail’s egg. The latter will be for pre-lunch drinks.
1.30 or about: Guests will have arrived, consumed the said quail egg tapas morsels and be ready to eat from a very Christmassy, wipeable table covering, bought for £1 at a shop called Tiger.
A failure on my part was to make a mess of the par-boiled potatoes. The result was that they had partly disintegrated before being put into the pan beneath the goose. They turned out to be delicious, if not exactly potato-shape.
My timings list and kitchen alarm clock made everything go smoothly, but when reading what I have just written it does sound to be quite an ordeal – which it wasn’t at all. But there is quite a lot to think about and do for a Christmas meal, however efficiently, or otherwise, it has been conducted by the cook.
One or two items can be dealt with the day before to reduce hassle on Christmas day. I had, for instance, prepared breadcrumbs (for other occasions) from two slightly stale, white sandwich loaves, turning the crusts into breadcrumbs by baking them in the oven and crushing them in a pestle and mortar (no machinery, but helped by Margreet).
And I had made the cranberry sauce by boiling the cranberries in just a little water for 10 minutes. Thinking that orange goes well with cranberries, I had added chopped marmalade – to give them the orange taste and some sweetness. This did not really work. So I had to add the zest from the skin of a large orange and some sugar to get it right (and a little on the sour side to counteract the fatty richness of the goose). It was ready to serve - from a rather nice pot that had held the gift of an orchid.
Stock for gravy had been prepared by boiling up all the giblets in a pressure cooker. (The liver was turned into a small paté for future eating.)
Stuffing for the goose had also been prepared the day before by frying onion in olive oil, adding pounded sage leaves, a gift of prepared chestnuts, pepper and salt. Beaten egg, as binding, would be added before stuffing the bird on Christmas day.
Lastly, the brandy butter was made with butter and icing sugar, worked together with the fingers before the brandy was added. Actually, I experimented with calvados butter and rum butter as well – each served in small earthenware pots marked with garden labels. The outcome was that there was very little difference in taste between them. But into the refrigerator they went.
All these jobs had been done at my leisure and when I felt like doing them.
My timing list was made. Christmas day arrived.
I rose early, only to prick the goose and rub salt all over it – then back to bed.
The idea (and it worked beautifully) was to do the first job at the time prescribed, consult my list when the next one should be put into operation, and set the kitchen alarm for that time.
10 o’clock: Extract the fat from inside the rear of the goose and place it over the breast. Add beaten egg to stuffing, stuff goose, first with large chunks of Bramley Seedling apples (to fill the front cavity) and then sage and onion. Pin up the ends with wooden skewers.
10.45: Shove the bird on to a rack in the oven, with the pan destined for roast potatoes beneath it to catch the dripping fat. Position an oven tray beneath that, and a layer of foil beneath all – to catch fat and protect the oven. Turn the oven up high.
Peel and boil the spuds for 10 minutes (see later).
11 o’clock: Turn down the oven heat to its normal working temperature (for me that is a knob pointing upwards).
Trim and boil sprouts for 10 minutes, and at the same time fry small bits of back bacon until crisp, then adding pressed garlic. Add drained sprouts to the garlic and bacon, and keep an eye on them until they start to brown a bit. Heat it up once more before offering them at the table in a bowl.
Keep an eye on the fat in the pan and keep decanting it into a large bowl to be put into jars and distributed as gifts to friends.
11.20: The spuds are ready to be drained of water and added to the spud pan beneath the dripping goose (but I over-boiled them, or they were the disintegrating kind). Remember to salt and pepper them.
Make bread sauce by frying chopped onion in butter until transparent, adding milk and half an onion stuck with 6 cloves. Keep at the very lowest heat for a while to stop it curdling. Add pre-prepared breadcrumbs until the right consistency has been reached (it will thicken up a bit later) and turn off the heat until shortly before wanted at the table. Make plenty and have a bowl ready for it. It will need quite a bit of pepper and salt.
Make gravy with butter and flour, adding the stock that was made from pressure-cooking the giblets the day before. It might want a very little Worcester sauce, possibly a stock cube, and a touch of vinegar. Add pepper and salt. A little gravy browning added will improve its colour. Taste to get it right. Re-heat and put into a jug before serving.
12 o’clock: Start to heat the water around the supermarket Christmas pudding bowl on its trivet. Brush brandy over the goose’s breast.
12.30: Take the rum, calvados and brandy butter out of the refrigerator to soften.
Keep pouring off fat, now mainly from the potatoes in their tray.
Margreet will by now have made the first course of mozzarella slices between tomato slices with a garlicky vinaigrette, and cocktail sticks, each speared with a green olive, morsel of anchovy, and a quail’s egg. The latter will be for pre-lunch drinks.
1.30 or about: Guests will have arrived, consumed the said quail egg tapas morsels and be ready to eat from a very Christmassy, wipeable table covering, bought for £1 at a shop called Tiger.
A failure on my part was to make a mess of the par-boiled potatoes. The result was that they had partly disintegrated before being put into the pan beneath the goose. They turned out to be delicious, if not exactly potato-shape.
My timings list and kitchen alarm clock made everything go smoothly, but when reading what I have just written it does sound to be quite an ordeal – which it wasn’t at all. But there is quite a lot to think about and do for a Christmas meal, however efficiently, or otherwise, it has been conducted by the cook.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Another (and very popular) "bites for drinks"
Before I embark on lovely winter stews and casseroles, there is one other "bite" stand-by that has been a huge success with guests in my house.
This is garlic sausage (usually bought cheaply in France, or almost any other available sausage), coated in a vinaigrette of olive oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, pressed garlic and dried dill.
Make this coating in a serving dish, mixing it together with the fingers.
Cut the sausage lengthwise and place each on the flat service of a board. Cut these half sausages into two millimetre slices.
Coat all slices in the vinaigrette mix.
Decorate with a sage leaf or two - or sweet basil leaves.
To make these bites takes very little time. They are very garlicky, but people love them.
This is garlic sausage (usually bought cheaply in France, or almost any other available sausage), coated in a vinaigrette of olive oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, pressed garlic and dried dill.
Make this coating in a serving dish, mixing it together with the fingers.
Cut the sausage lengthwise and place each on the flat service of a board. Cut these half sausages into two millimetre slices.
Coat all slices in the vinaigrette mix.
Decorate with a sage leaf or two - or sweet basil leaves.
To make these bites takes very little time. They are very garlicky, but people love them.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Saleroom Experiences - Chelsea Football Ground Shed End
It was when living in the country in 1988 that my first marriage came to an end. I decided to move back to London in 1989, buy a small house, and rid myself of all the impedimenta that had accumulated over years of life in larger establishments. So a selling-up of objects was planned.
In a division of things marital I had already parted with a valuable painting from my collection and, for its security and cost of insurance, was glad to be no longer responsible for it. I was getting a taste for what I think is now called “downsizing”. The prospect of ridding myself of items for cash became quite a seductive one.
So, when waiting for an expert valuer to appear at the desk of a London saleroom to look at some pieces that I thought might fetch something, I glanced at the catalogue for a forthcoming sale of oriental porcelain and objects d’art. And there, illustrated in colour, was a jar, not unlike the one in which I had kept my paint brushes for the past forty years or more. Should it be of worth, I resolved to sell it, and use an old honey pot instead.
So the next time I was in town, I visited Christie’s saleroom with my jar – having extracted the brushes, scraped off the incrustations of decades of paint, and given it a good scrub in soapy water. I had never seen it looking so glowingly well as I eased it from the wine box used for its transportation to London.
The authority for this kind of thing arrived from behind the scenes, gave it a quick glance and, in lofty tones, pronounced it to have been crudely decorated. My high hopes for making a fortune were cruelly dashed.
“Late Ming, of course,” she continued.
What would come next? If she said five to fifty pounds I would take it home and continue to use it as a brush pot – or even for flowers. Now that I knew more about my pot, I was becoming even fonder of it – for its bulbous shape, and even the “crudity” of its decoration.
“I think we should put a low reserve on it”, she said. I nodded.
“Let’s say £180 and hope for more”.
I made out that I, too, had hoped for more. But as there was a wine tasting I was about to attend, and was reluctant to leave a late Ming pot, however crudely decorated, among the wet raincoats of fellow wine writers, I agreed to the sale. It disappeared into the depths of their storage rooms.
A month or two later the sale catalogue came through my letterbox. They had thought my crudely painted pot to be worthy of a black-and-white photograph. Paintings that I have had to sell in the past, and which warranted a photograph in the catalogue, had the extra cost of photography deducted from the proceeds, but only after my consent. On this occasion there had been no request.
From the expert’s estimate of £180, the “suggested” settling price in the catalogue had been placed at £200-£300.
The day of the sale came and went. I was unable to attend.
Just after the sale date, and too late to have any influence, an article in the Times announced that high prices were being taken for Mings in Hong Kong. I waited for my cheque.
When the statement came it read: Lot 207 sold £580; Commission £58 (VAT at 15%); Charges: Insurance £5.80 (VAT at 15%); Illustration charges £35 (VAT at 15%); VAT at 15% on £98.80 - £14.82; Net proceeds £466.38.
We were all happy. The buyer had the Ming pot. I had more money out of it than expected. Christie’s had done pretty well. An insurance company had gained on the transaction. Even the uninvited photographer, who probably contributed to its higher-than-expected price, got in on the act for just clicking the shutter.
And all this was for an old paint brush jar.
A more spectacular auction was to come many years later, in 2006, when one of my paintings (a 1954, 2’x 4’, scene that included The Shed at Chelsea Football Ground) came up for sale.
The Christie’s recommended guidelines were for a price of £1,000 to £1,500 – which seemed to me to be more than satisfactory should I obtain it.
So along I went, with several of my family and friends, to see the fun.
I had had some previous information that it would sell when someone telephoned me from out of the blue (traced through the net) to say that he wanted to buy the picture at auction, would go to £2,000, and that he would like to reproduce it and sell the prints, possibly with my signature attached. So it looked as if it would be sold. Moreover, my hopes rose even higher when I heard that there would be telephone bidders. In the small print in Christie’s catalogue it stated that bidders by telephone would only be accepted if they were willing to pay the minimum price of £2,000. So these pre-auction omens were good ones. And my family would not be witnessing my disappointment - and almost disgrace - should it fail to reach the reserve, meaning that I would have to take it back.
The saleroom at the auction house was surprisingly small, but well attended.
After what seemed to be an over-long wait for the action to begin, the lady auctioneer came to the rostrum. But her microphone was not working. “We can’t hear you,” shouted a customer from the rear. The fault was rectified, and the sale began
During the sale of early lots there was a constant stream of porters passing through the room with furniture.
Lots came and went as porters held up the paintings and drawings for them to be bought with the clout of a gavel and stacked against a wall. Two paintings fell from these stacks, making a considerable noise. Thankfully, mine was in a stout frame and unglazed.
It seemed to take an age to reach my lot, number 122.
The lady auctioneer started by saying that there was a lot of interest in my lot and that she would start the bidding at £1,600. I had sold it. What a relief.
With five telephone bidders and bids coming from various quarters of the crowd, my brain became a little numb. And being somewhat enumerate I became a bit lost by the speed of it all.
Bidding went up by £50 a time until it reached £2,000 – then by 100s until £5,000. After that landmark they rose by 500 a go until the bidding reached £10,000. From that figure they gathered speed at 1,000 a go until reaching £20,000. Now the bids were raised by £2,000 a time until the under bidder gave up at £28,000. Down came the gavel.
Our happy band congregated at the rear of the saleroom, hardly believing what had just happened.
The press statement I was given afterwards stated that my painting was the “top lot” (which seemed to have some importance), and that the successful bidder was a private bidder who would have to pay £33,600 – being the hammer price plus buyer’s premium. I was led to believe that the under bidder was a dealer.
It was a quite astounding result. What with that Ming vase, and now this, I do seem to have some luck in the auction room.
In a division of things marital I had already parted with a valuable painting from my collection and, for its security and cost of insurance, was glad to be no longer responsible for it. I was getting a taste for what I think is now called “downsizing”. The prospect of ridding myself of items for cash became quite a seductive one.
So, when waiting for an expert valuer to appear at the desk of a London saleroom to look at some pieces that I thought might fetch something, I glanced at the catalogue for a forthcoming sale of oriental porcelain and objects d’art. And there, illustrated in colour, was a jar, not unlike the one in which I had kept my paint brushes for the past forty years or more. Should it be of worth, I resolved to sell it, and use an old honey pot instead.
So the next time I was in town, I visited Christie’s saleroom with my jar – having extracted the brushes, scraped off the incrustations of decades of paint, and given it a good scrub in soapy water. I had never seen it looking so glowingly well as I eased it from the wine box used for its transportation to London.
The authority for this kind of thing arrived from behind the scenes, gave it a quick glance and, in lofty tones, pronounced it to have been crudely decorated. My high hopes for making a fortune were cruelly dashed.
“Late Ming, of course,” she continued.
What would come next? If she said five to fifty pounds I would take it home and continue to use it as a brush pot – or even for flowers. Now that I knew more about my pot, I was becoming even fonder of it – for its bulbous shape, and even the “crudity” of its decoration.
“I think we should put a low reserve on it”, she said. I nodded.
“Let’s say £180 and hope for more”.
I made out that I, too, had hoped for more. But as there was a wine tasting I was about to attend, and was reluctant to leave a late Ming pot, however crudely decorated, among the wet raincoats of fellow wine writers, I agreed to the sale. It disappeared into the depths of their storage rooms.
A month or two later the sale catalogue came through my letterbox. They had thought my crudely painted pot to be worthy of a black-and-white photograph. Paintings that I have had to sell in the past, and which warranted a photograph in the catalogue, had the extra cost of photography deducted from the proceeds, but only after my consent. On this occasion there had been no request.
From the expert’s estimate of £180, the “suggested” settling price in the catalogue had been placed at £200-£300.
The day of the sale came and went. I was unable to attend.
Just after the sale date, and too late to have any influence, an article in the Times announced that high prices were being taken for Mings in Hong Kong. I waited for my cheque.
When the statement came it read: Lot 207 sold £580; Commission £58 (VAT at 15%); Charges: Insurance £5.80 (VAT at 15%); Illustration charges £35 (VAT at 15%); VAT at 15% on £98.80 - £14.82; Net proceeds £466.38.
We were all happy. The buyer had the Ming pot. I had more money out of it than expected. Christie’s had done pretty well. An insurance company had gained on the transaction. Even the uninvited photographer, who probably contributed to its higher-than-expected price, got in on the act for just clicking the shutter.
And all this was for an old paint brush jar.
A more spectacular auction was to come many years later, in 2006, when one of my paintings (a 1954, 2’x 4’, scene that included The Shed at Chelsea Football Ground) came up for sale.
The Christie’s recommended guidelines were for a price of £1,000 to £1,500 – which seemed to me to be more than satisfactory should I obtain it.
So along I went, with several of my family and friends, to see the fun.
I had had some previous information that it would sell when someone telephoned me from out of the blue (traced through the net) to say that he wanted to buy the picture at auction, would go to £2,000, and that he would like to reproduce it and sell the prints, possibly with my signature attached. So it looked as if it would be sold. Moreover, my hopes rose even higher when I heard that there would be telephone bidders. In the small print in Christie’s catalogue it stated that bidders by telephone would only be accepted if they were willing to pay the minimum price of £2,000. So these pre-auction omens were good ones. And my family would not be witnessing my disappointment - and almost disgrace - should it fail to reach the reserve, meaning that I would have to take it back.
The saleroom at the auction house was surprisingly small, but well attended.
After what seemed to be an over-long wait for the action to begin, the lady auctioneer came to the rostrum. But her microphone was not working. “We can’t hear you,” shouted a customer from the rear. The fault was rectified, and the sale began
During the sale of early lots there was a constant stream of porters passing through the room with furniture.
Lots came and went as porters held up the paintings and drawings for them to be bought with the clout of a gavel and stacked against a wall. Two paintings fell from these stacks, making a considerable noise. Thankfully, mine was in a stout frame and unglazed.
It seemed to take an age to reach my lot, number 122.
The lady auctioneer started by saying that there was a lot of interest in my lot and that she would start the bidding at £1,600. I had sold it. What a relief.
With five telephone bidders and bids coming from various quarters of the crowd, my brain became a little numb. And being somewhat enumerate I became a bit lost by the speed of it all.
Bidding went up by £50 a time until it reached £2,000 – then by 100s until £5,000. After that landmark they rose by 500 a go until the bidding reached £10,000. From that figure they gathered speed at 1,000 a go until reaching £20,000. Now the bids were raised by £2,000 a time until the under bidder gave up at £28,000. Down came the gavel.
Our happy band congregated at the rear of the saleroom, hardly believing what had just happened.
The press statement I was given afterwards stated that my painting was the “top lot” (which seemed to have some importance), and that the successful bidder was a private bidder who would have to pay £33,600 – being the hammer price plus buyer’s premium. I was led to believe that the under bidder was a dealer.
It was a quite astounding result. What with that Ming vase, and now this, I do seem to have some luck in the auction room.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Three kinds of bites
Guests are coming to eat with you. Or, perhaps, a crowd are coming for celebratory drinks. You must give them some "bites" to accompany the wine, beer or whatever.
Supermarkets supply such as you might need, but they will have supplied others. So should you have bought some, your guests will know that, as a host, you have not bothered too much. So do the job yourself at a fraction of the price - and in the process gain masses of kudos.
Here are three easy and economical ways of pleasing your friends.
The first is a garlic pancake cut into bite-size pieces.
There may be children coming, and children like pancakes. As for the garlic, you will be surprised how much they will enjoy these bites - even by those who claim not to like garlic.
You will need self-raising white flour, salt, pepper, oil or oil and butter, grated cheese (Cheddar is as good as any), milk, beaten egg, Dijon mustard and pressed garlic.
In a large bowl put the flour, salt, pepper, Dijon mustard and beaten egg. Adding milk, whisk this into a batter to form the consistency of thick cream. Stir in the grated cheese.
As you are preparing the batter, in a frying pan cook the pressed garlic in oil or oil/butter mix, until it becomes brown. On it pour the batter. Cover the pan. Turn the heat down low.
In a while you will see that the sides of the pancake are browning and drying and that the batter surface is bubbling.
Lift an edge of the pancake with a spatula. If the bottom is golden brown, toss the pancake or turn it over with the spatula.
Pierce the brown upper surface of the pancake to allow trapped internal moisture to escape.
When the underside is brown, slide the pancake on to a wooden serving board and cut it into bite-size pieces. Serve hot - or cold.
The proportions used are up to you, but too much cheese will make the pancake greasy.
If the party is a large one, make plenty of pancake mix so that as you are serving one, you can start another.
The next lot of bites involve the use of goat's cheese (but I am sure any other cheese will do).
You will need sliced bread (white or brown), olive oil, goat's cheese (in a small log-shape), salt, pepper, and paprika.
Cut the sliced bread into bite-size pieces. If the goat's cheese is old, cut off the rind. Slice it into discs.
In olive oil fry one side of the bread pieces. Lay them, browned side upwards, on a board. On each place a slice of goat's cheese. Return them to the olive oiled pan and fry the undersides until brown and crisp. You will notice that the cheese is starting to melt.
Place the bites on kitchen paper so that excess oil can be absorbed. Over them all sprinkle salt, and on each put a little paprika for decorative purposes.
Serve on a nice platter, hot or cold.
The last kind of bite is probably the easiest to contrive.
You will need sliced bread (brown or white), grated Cheddar cheese, Dijon mustard, onion or shallot, salt and pepper.
Make a sandwich of grated cheese, smearing Dijon mustard over the inner surfaces of the bread slices, adding salt and pepper, and finely grated or chopped onion or shallot. (A hint of chilli powder will add zest.)
Fry the sandwiches on both sides in olive oil until browned. Allow them to cool on kitchen paper.
When quite cold, cut them into bite-size pieces, discarding the crusts if you will.
Supermarkets supply such as you might need, but they will have supplied others. So should you have bought some, your guests will know that, as a host, you have not bothered too much. So do the job yourself at a fraction of the price - and in the process gain masses of kudos.
Here are three easy and economical ways of pleasing your friends.
The first is a garlic pancake cut into bite-size pieces.
There may be children coming, and children like pancakes. As for the garlic, you will be surprised how much they will enjoy these bites - even by those who claim not to like garlic.
You will need self-raising white flour, salt, pepper, oil or oil and butter, grated cheese (Cheddar is as good as any), milk, beaten egg, Dijon mustard and pressed garlic.
In a large bowl put the flour, salt, pepper, Dijon mustard and beaten egg. Adding milk, whisk this into a batter to form the consistency of thick cream. Stir in the grated cheese.
As you are preparing the batter, in a frying pan cook the pressed garlic in oil or oil/butter mix, until it becomes brown. On it pour the batter. Cover the pan. Turn the heat down low.
In a while you will see that the sides of the pancake are browning and drying and that the batter surface is bubbling.
Lift an edge of the pancake with a spatula. If the bottom is golden brown, toss the pancake or turn it over with the spatula.
Pierce the brown upper surface of the pancake to allow trapped internal moisture to escape.
When the underside is brown, slide the pancake on to a wooden serving board and cut it into bite-size pieces. Serve hot - or cold.
The proportions used are up to you, but too much cheese will make the pancake greasy.
If the party is a large one, make plenty of pancake mix so that as you are serving one, you can start another.
*****
The next lot of bites involve the use of goat's cheese (but I am sure any other cheese will do).
You will need sliced bread (white or brown), olive oil, goat's cheese (in a small log-shape), salt, pepper, and paprika.
Cut the sliced bread into bite-size pieces. If the goat's cheese is old, cut off the rind. Slice it into discs.
In olive oil fry one side of the bread pieces. Lay them, browned side upwards, on a board. On each place a slice of goat's cheese. Return them to the olive oiled pan and fry the undersides until brown and crisp. You will notice that the cheese is starting to melt.
Place the bites on kitchen paper so that excess oil can be absorbed. Over them all sprinkle salt, and on each put a little paprika for decorative purposes.
Serve on a nice platter, hot or cold.
*****
The last kind of bite is probably the easiest to contrive.
You will need sliced bread (brown or white), grated Cheddar cheese, Dijon mustard, onion or shallot, salt and pepper.
Make a sandwich of grated cheese, smearing Dijon mustard over the inner surfaces of the bread slices, adding salt and pepper, and finely grated or chopped onion or shallot. (A hint of chilli powder will add zest.)
Fry the sandwiches on both sides in olive oil until browned. Allow them to cool on kitchen paper.
When quite cold, cut them into bite-size pieces, discarding the crusts if you will.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Dieppe No.3. People (Part 2)
Dieppe is full of shops for women - with, it seems to me, a predominance of underwear vendors.
Now, most of the underwear on display is pretty fancy, delicate and daring - the kind that a flighty girl might employ to good effect. And yet, without I hope giving too much offence to French women, they are, if stylish, on the plain side and rather dumpy. Are all these non-beauties wearing this fancy kit beneath their dowdy exteriors? They must be.
We ate in the centre of town. This place, a restaurant/hotel, was once a fairly murky establishment when I once stayed there many years ago, taking demi-pension.
The place went up-market slowly, then burned down. Now rebuilt, it has turned out to be comfortable and well-appointed. We approve of it.
Around us as we dined was a motley crew. There was a distinguished, red-faced English gentleman with old-fashioned spectacles perched on the end of his large nose. He wore a yellow sweater, a checked shirt in the pattern of a horseblanket and a scarf tied around his neck inside his shirt. His companion looked like a retired all-in wrestler, bald, smart gold watch, and large pristeen white trainers. He ate with his knife and fork in the air.
When a man, who Margreet described as stunning-looking, arrived to join a party, this male couple forgot their food and were transfixed for several minutes by what they saw.
Next to us was about the plainest, middle-aged woman imaginable with a young, good-looking man in tow. On the other side of us sat a couple who, despite their diminutive size (she was nearly a dwarf), ate like giants. Nearby was a Dutch couple (her body had sunk) who were ruddy of countenance. They ate with the manners of peasants.
Then, beside the area designated for mostly single pensionairs, was a crowd of middle-aged Englishmen who must have had something in common (possibly sailing). They were in a jolly mood, enjoying each other's company, and consuming food and wine to the full.
Our meal, with wine available in carafe, was exemplary, and served by a most hard-working pair of waiters who exercised considerable professionalism.
Eating later at a harbourside café, it was appropriate that I chose maqueraux marinée as it was the season for catching them.
Along the length of the harbour/groin/pier/breakwater were some hundred fishermen either casting their weighted lines or reeling in fish. Their bending rods, swishing fore and aft, made a fine and animated spectacle. One fisherman, leaning over the quayside, was exposing a generous amount of nether cleavage.
The bait for mackerel was feather lures, not needing to be replaced after each cast. For a small brown fish, also caught in quantity, hooks were baited with worms.
Mackerel were often beheaded, tailed, and gutted on the spot, with the unwanted pieces returned immediately to the sea. When buckets were full of mackerel in their entire form, heads down, their tails stood aloft like many a modern youth's haircut.
It was a great architectural mistake when extending the harbour wall, not to have included sanitary arrangements for the fishermen and -women. So the combination of defecation and urination in the alcoves at the extremity of the pier, provided the veritable sight and smell of "Old France".
But the pavements of Dieppe seemed to be less cluttered then before with dog mess, though I saw no one bagging it up as is now the general custom in England.
It was when taking our coats to hang them up at the far corner of a restaurant that I passed a family of five sitting at a table. One of the diners was a white dog. As far as I could make out, his table manners were impeccable.
As is often the case, we find that it does not take long to overeat on our brief trips to France.
So, in the evening, after a little shopping and an aperitif, we might retire to our room for a picnic - in comfort and with the huge panoramic landscape before us - sometimes added to by clouds of starlings on their roosting flights.
A typical picnic might consist of baguette with Brittany butter, red wine, fromage tete for me, duck paté for Margreet, and montagne/Pyrenée for us both. Often, our picnics are shared by a large herring gull that stands outside the window waiting for scraps. If it is the same bird each time, it has become, for us, a Dieppe personality. It is an extremely handsome bird, unlike the patronne/waitress at a restaurant tried for the first time, who, despite the excellence of her food, was such a harridan that we will not return.
Gulls are not the only objects flying in the coastal wind. At a kite festival, on the green sward between town and sea, an Indian kite-enthusiast gentleman set up his little kite of a wasp with spinning and buzzing wings, and flew it through kites of all sizes and shapes from around the world - as if to sting each one. His swift-flying kite was so small that possibly only he knew and approved of what he was up to.
Our return journey was once shared with a crowd of Arsenal football supporters. Some of these kept up an incessant flow of hooligan chanting, using often recognisable tunes with recognisably coarse words. Their voices were out of tune and conducted in a slurred, intoxicated way.
The older of the supporters were not chanters, but sat in the ship's saloon pouring endless pints of beer down their throats and into their universally large bellies.
But the supporters' songs were of no avail. Arsenal had lost (2 - 1) to Barcelona the previous evening. God knows what the noise would have been like had Arsenal won.
The journey home is not always straightforward. We have had to go north to Calais by car because of rough weather or ship breakdown. On one occasion, having kissed Christine goodbye at our hotel, we sailed through seas so rough that our ferry was diverted in mid-channel to dock at Portsmouth instead of Newhaven.
But whatever occurs, we enjoy a lovely break in Dieppe, eating, drinking, and watching its people, and returning home well wined and dined, with a car-full of wine and good things to eat, not to mention a fashionable item or two.
Now, most of the underwear on display is pretty fancy, delicate and daring - the kind that a flighty girl might employ to good effect. And yet, without I hope giving too much offence to French women, they are, if stylish, on the plain side and rather dumpy. Are all these non-beauties wearing this fancy kit beneath their dowdy exteriors? They must be.
We ate in the centre of town. This place, a restaurant/hotel, was once a fairly murky establishment when I once stayed there many years ago, taking demi-pension.
The place went up-market slowly, then burned down. Now rebuilt, it has turned out to be comfortable and well-appointed. We approve of it.
Around us as we dined was a motley crew. There was a distinguished, red-faced English gentleman with old-fashioned spectacles perched on the end of his large nose. He wore a yellow sweater, a checked shirt in the pattern of a horseblanket and a scarf tied around his neck inside his shirt. His companion looked like a retired all-in wrestler, bald, smart gold watch, and large pristeen white trainers. He ate with his knife and fork in the air.
When a man, who Margreet described as stunning-looking, arrived to join a party, this male couple forgot their food and were transfixed for several minutes by what they saw.
Next to us was about the plainest, middle-aged woman imaginable with a young, good-looking man in tow. On the other side of us sat a couple who, despite their diminutive size (she was nearly a dwarf), ate like giants. Nearby was a Dutch couple (her body had sunk) who were ruddy of countenance. They ate with the manners of peasants.
Then, beside the area designated for mostly single pensionairs, was a crowd of middle-aged Englishmen who must have had something in common (possibly sailing). They were in a jolly mood, enjoying each other's company, and consuming food and wine to the full.
Our meal, with wine available in carafe, was exemplary, and served by a most hard-working pair of waiters who exercised considerable professionalism.
Eating later at a harbourside café, it was appropriate that I chose maqueraux marinée as it was the season for catching them.
Along the length of the harbour/groin/pier/breakwater were some hundred fishermen either casting their weighted lines or reeling in fish. Their bending rods, swishing fore and aft, made a fine and animated spectacle. One fisherman, leaning over the quayside, was exposing a generous amount of nether cleavage.
The bait for mackerel was feather lures, not needing to be replaced after each cast. For a small brown fish, also caught in quantity, hooks were baited with worms.
Mackerel were often beheaded, tailed, and gutted on the spot, with the unwanted pieces returned immediately to the sea. When buckets were full of mackerel in their entire form, heads down, their tails stood aloft like many a modern youth's haircut.
It was a great architectural mistake when extending the harbour wall, not to have included sanitary arrangements for the fishermen and -women. So the combination of defecation and urination in the alcoves at the extremity of the pier, provided the veritable sight and smell of "Old France".
But the pavements of Dieppe seemed to be less cluttered then before with dog mess, though I saw no one bagging it up as is now the general custom in England.
It was when taking our coats to hang them up at the far corner of a restaurant that I passed a family of five sitting at a table. One of the diners was a white dog. As far as I could make out, his table manners were impeccable.
As is often the case, we find that it does not take long to overeat on our brief trips to France.
So, in the evening, after a little shopping and an aperitif, we might retire to our room for a picnic - in comfort and with the huge panoramic landscape before us - sometimes added to by clouds of starlings on their roosting flights.
A typical picnic might consist of baguette with Brittany butter, red wine, fromage tete for me, duck paté for Margreet, and montagne/Pyrenée for us both. Often, our picnics are shared by a large herring gull that stands outside the window waiting for scraps. If it is the same bird each time, it has become, for us, a Dieppe personality. It is an extremely handsome bird, unlike the patronne/waitress at a restaurant tried for the first time, who, despite the excellence of her food, was such a harridan that we will not return.
Gulls are not the only objects flying in the coastal wind. At a kite festival, on the green sward between town and sea, an Indian kite-enthusiast gentleman set up his little kite of a wasp with spinning and buzzing wings, and flew it through kites of all sizes and shapes from around the world - as if to sting each one. His swift-flying kite was so small that possibly only he knew and approved of what he was up to.
Our return journey was once shared with a crowd of Arsenal football supporters. Some of these kept up an incessant flow of hooligan chanting, using often recognisable tunes with recognisably coarse words. Their voices were out of tune and conducted in a slurred, intoxicated way.
The older of the supporters were not chanters, but sat in the ship's saloon pouring endless pints of beer down their throats and into their universally large bellies.
But the supporters' songs were of no avail. Arsenal had lost (2 - 1) to Barcelona the previous evening. God knows what the noise would have been like had Arsenal won.
The journey home is not always straightforward. We have had to go north to Calais by car because of rough weather or ship breakdown. On one occasion, having kissed Christine goodbye at our hotel, we sailed through seas so rough that our ferry was diverted in mid-channel to dock at Portsmouth instead of Newhaven.
But whatever occurs, we enjoy a lovely break in Dieppe, eating, drinking, and watching its people, and returning home well wined and dined, with a car-full of wine and good things to eat, not to mention a fashionable item or two.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Dieppe No.3. People (Part 1)
Written without prejudice, this is about the people we meet on our various sojourns in Dieppe. They are mostly regular acquaintances - hotel owners, restaurant proprietors and the like. We meet them regularly and are friends enough to, at one time, take presents of Christmas puddings to some of them. They were not used to the treatment of clients bearing gifts, and did not quite know how to respond. Anyhow, my modest "restaurant French" gave me a chance to have my piece ready about how the 'sauce' was made from a mixture (a mélange as far as I know) of butter, powdered sugar and Cognac. Margreet, who speaks the lingo pretty well, listened to my efforts "maternally".
Our boat was once late to dock on an early winter's afternoon, so, having left our luggage in the car, we went straight to one of our favourite restaurants for a late lunch, with pudding under arm. The patron was 'désolé' that his wife, below in the kitchen, had finished cooking for the rest of their half day. We retreated (avec pudding). Christine, who is now taking over the hotel where we stay, is the third generation patronne. Her grandfather was building the place when I first visited it in the late 1940s soon after the war. Then his son took over. This man, once hale and hearty, suffered first from an exploding boiler and then from a brain tumour. He became a shadow of his normal self - grey of hair and demeanour, quiet and slow. But he lives.
Madame, his wife, whose hair is curled hat-like on top like a can-can dancer from the Follies Bergère of the Belle Epoque, and must have looked much like one in her youth, was unhappy that this time we had booked our room through the internet. It meant that she owed the internet company a good sum for each day of our stay. We assured her that it would not happen again, and that we would book directly with the hotel.
Christine, her daughter, is bouncy, elegant, pretty, all eyes and teeth, dresses just a bit tartilly, and usually ties her blond hair into an unsuccessful and scruffy knot at the back of her head. We are delighted that she will take over as soon as both of her parents have retired. We hope that the young man, who now works with her, is more than just a friend. So we put the luggage in our room, presented our Christmas pudding to the proprietress and ate a fine lunch at a recently refurbished brasserie.
This establishment has changed a lot since the 'old days', when it was scruffier, busier, noisier, and my boys could pass quite a bit of the day happily playing with the pinball machines there. With upgrading, the machines have gone.
A statuesque waitress, dressed in the almost obligatory white top and black skirt, served us on sturdy legs, shod with sensible shoes that seem somewhat too large to go with the rest of her body. Her legs were ideally suited to serving her many customers with speed and efficiency. She was a pretty girl, with fair hair, tied at the back in a manner resembling the vane part of a weathervane.
Madame, on the other hand, stockier of build and with close-cropped hair was dressed in a military-brown tunic and trousers, and looked more like a Belsen warder than a restaurant proprietress. And she acted accordingly, with overseeing eye and authoratative demeanour, making sure that her place was run as it should be - with considerable efficiency. She was much slower of foot than the waitress. When reaching our table she was pleasant enough when taking our order.
To have found good food in clean and pleasant surroundings on a Monday in Dieppe was fortunate - though the excellent choucroute Alsacienne of the past had now been replaced by choucroute de la mere.
With other favourite places to eat still closed, we returned to madame's brasserie for an evening snack. I remarked to her that she had changed the colour of her blouse since the morning. She had done it because of the cold. It was a warmer top.
Breakfast in bed at the hotel is always so good that we are unable to do justice to lunch after it. So we buy a tart or croissant in a bakery to take to a nearby bar/tabac to eat with our grande crème coffee.
The black-moustached waiter of old at this bar/tabac had some altercation or other with the then landlord, left, and graduated to a smarter place (where the bier de Noël was excellent. The old boss, too, had left, to be replaced by an unsmiling, middle aged couple, who, without style, serve drink and take money for papers and cigarettes in a businesslike fashion. But the coffee is good, so we favour the place as our breakfast venue.
At another favourite restaurant, where we always eat at least once, the patron was delighted with our gift of a Christmas pudding, as was madame.
Madame, whose greying hair is cropped at the sides and curly on top, slides around the restaurant doing most of the waitressing, unobtrusively, charmingly, and slowly. It is not a restaurant where one would eat in a hurry. But the food is always excellent - plain, traditional French. Margreet finished her meal with an apple ice covered with calvados. We are now experimenting at home in England with this light, yet formidable dessert.
On leaving, we were presented with a bag of a Bordeaux speciality - little raised sweet tarts, sticky, and tasting of almonds. This was, presumably, in thanks for our gift of a Christmas pudding.
At a warehouse on the outskirts of Dieppe, where you can have your bottles or barrels filled from tanks of 12 percent wine from various regions of France, we enquired if they still sold a wine of our choice, bought at an earlier date. The bespectacled youth in charge, who did not deign to raise his eyes from the computer or his head above the high counter unless he thinks you are about to buy, assured us that we were mistaken in thinking that the wine was sold by him (he was correct). But we did buy six bottles of cheap red from the Tarn, on the assumption that as most of his wines for sale were choice and expensive ones, the Tarn, too, might be good (it was only fair).
Two prominent wine shops in Dieppe had closed since our last visit. Could this be a manifestation of the decline of wine-drinking in France?
In wanting a choucroute in the evening at a corner brasserie, the patronne was apologetic that no food was served in the evening, but if we wanted to eat locally, not to patronise the first six restaurants opposite along the Quay Henri IV.
Their kitchens, she said, were not hygienic, as she rubbed her tummy and made a sour face. But we had already eaten at the first one without ill effects.
We returned to the now open first choice restaurant, a favourite place for plaice and Coquille St Jacques. Our pudding gift was gratefully received by monsieur, whose back is now straightened from bent. Dressed in jeans and a pink striped shirt, he comes from somewhere in France where 'merci' is pronounced as 'meerci', and 'pardon' as 'paardon'.
We have never seen madame, who stays below stairs in the kitchen, receives shouted commands, and cooks each dish as it is ordered. This is another restaurant where one is expected to take time over a meal - and get each dish in perfect condition.
An excellent bistro on the Pollet island, in the middle of town, was started by two gays, who rather dominated the place. Under new ownership the restaurant is more sedate, but just as good. The slightly rotund waitress has been employed there since the restaurant's inception and has a charm and wonderful knack of making you feel very much at ease and at home.
There we eat our favourite Coquille St Jacques, the season for them starting on the 4th of October and ending on the 15th of May.
Soon after we had taken our seats just inside the window of another restaurant, an old cyclist appeared, dressed in Tour de France gear, wearing a brightly coloured cap with upturned peak. He looked not only rather rediculous in it, but also somewhat tramplike.
We, and the patron of the restaurant, watched as he took a long time to chain his bicycle to some boxes of petuneas that were attached to the front of the establishment. He used a rusty iron-link chain, usually seen attached to old-fashioned lavatory systems.
The proprietor looked on aghast at this potential customer whose presence, in or out, might discourage smarter-class clientèle from entering.
But in came the cyclist, who was thoughtfully offered a table in the window next to us - so that he could keep an eye on his bike.
The old codger ordered well, in a squeakily high voice, in French, well accented in English.
Beore we left, we engaged in conversation with him. He had been in public service in England, was retired, 69 years old, and cycled daily for distances from 80 to 100 miles. Cycling was his life - his entire life.
I asked if he had ever ridden in the Tour de France. No, but he followed it each year, cycling with it. When the contestants rested at night, he would cycle on ahead to witness the following leg of the race.
He was a cheery, red-faced man, who had obviously been involved in a dreadful accident, as part of his face had been crushed and his teath did not fit the usual space in his mouth.
He had written much on his sport for journals, but no longer had the time to do so or write a book on his cycling experiences. Being so old and so active would not, he thought, give him the ability or time. He rather wanted do die in his saddle.
End of Part 1
Our boat was once late to dock on an early winter's afternoon, so, having left our luggage in the car, we went straight to one of our favourite restaurants for a late lunch, with pudding under arm. The patron was 'désolé' that his wife, below in the kitchen, had finished cooking for the rest of their half day. We retreated (avec pudding). Christine, who is now taking over the hotel where we stay, is the third generation patronne. Her grandfather was building the place when I first visited it in the late 1940s soon after the war. Then his son took over. This man, once hale and hearty, suffered first from an exploding boiler and then from a brain tumour. He became a shadow of his normal self - grey of hair and demeanour, quiet and slow. But he lives.
Madame, his wife, whose hair is curled hat-like on top like a can-can dancer from the Follies Bergère of the Belle Epoque, and must have looked much like one in her youth, was unhappy that this time we had booked our room through the internet. It meant that she owed the internet company a good sum for each day of our stay. We assured her that it would not happen again, and that we would book directly with the hotel.
Christine, her daughter, is bouncy, elegant, pretty, all eyes and teeth, dresses just a bit tartilly, and usually ties her blond hair into an unsuccessful and scruffy knot at the back of her head. We are delighted that she will take over as soon as both of her parents have retired. We hope that the young man, who now works with her, is more than just a friend. So we put the luggage in our room, presented our Christmas pudding to the proprietress and ate a fine lunch at a recently refurbished brasserie.
This establishment has changed a lot since the 'old days', when it was scruffier, busier, noisier, and my boys could pass quite a bit of the day happily playing with the pinball machines there. With upgrading, the machines have gone.
A statuesque waitress, dressed in the almost obligatory white top and black skirt, served us on sturdy legs, shod with sensible shoes that seem somewhat too large to go with the rest of her body. Her legs were ideally suited to serving her many customers with speed and efficiency. She was a pretty girl, with fair hair, tied at the back in a manner resembling the vane part of a weathervane.
Madame, on the other hand, stockier of build and with close-cropped hair was dressed in a military-brown tunic and trousers, and looked more like a Belsen warder than a restaurant proprietress. And she acted accordingly, with overseeing eye and authoratative demeanour, making sure that her place was run as it should be - with considerable efficiency. She was much slower of foot than the waitress. When reaching our table she was pleasant enough when taking our order.
To have found good food in clean and pleasant surroundings on a Monday in Dieppe was fortunate - though the excellent choucroute Alsacienne of the past had now been replaced by choucroute de la mere.
With other favourite places to eat still closed, we returned to madame's brasserie for an evening snack. I remarked to her that she had changed the colour of her blouse since the morning. She had done it because of the cold. It was a warmer top.
Breakfast in bed at the hotel is always so good that we are unable to do justice to lunch after it. So we buy a tart or croissant in a bakery to take to a nearby bar/tabac to eat with our grande crème coffee.
The black-moustached waiter of old at this bar/tabac had some altercation or other with the then landlord, left, and graduated to a smarter place (where the bier de Noël was excellent. The old boss, too, had left, to be replaced by an unsmiling, middle aged couple, who, without style, serve drink and take money for papers and cigarettes in a businesslike fashion. But the coffee is good, so we favour the place as our breakfast venue.
At another favourite restaurant, where we always eat at least once, the patron was delighted with our gift of a Christmas pudding, as was madame.
Madame, whose greying hair is cropped at the sides and curly on top, slides around the restaurant doing most of the waitressing, unobtrusively, charmingly, and slowly. It is not a restaurant where one would eat in a hurry. But the food is always excellent - plain, traditional French. Margreet finished her meal with an apple ice covered with calvados. We are now experimenting at home in England with this light, yet formidable dessert.
On leaving, we were presented with a bag of a Bordeaux speciality - little raised sweet tarts, sticky, and tasting of almonds. This was, presumably, in thanks for our gift of a Christmas pudding.
At a warehouse on the outskirts of Dieppe, where you can have your bottles or barrels filled from tanks of 12 percent wine from various regions of France, we enquired if they still sold a wine of our choice, bought at an earlier date. The bespectacled youth in charge, who did not deign to raise his eyes from the computer or his head above the high counter unless he thinks you are about to buy, assured us that we were mistaken in thinking that the wine was sold by him (he was correct). But we did buy six bottles of cheap red from the Tarn, on the assumption that as most of his wines for sale were choice and expensive ones, the Tarn, too, might be good (it was only fair).
Two prominent wine shops in Dieppe had closed since our last visit. Could this be a manifestation of the decline of wine-drinking in France?
In wanting a choucroute in the evening at a corner brasserie, the patronne was apologetic that no food was served in the evening, but if we wanted to eat locally, not to patronise the first six restaurants opposite along the Quay Henri IV.
Their kitchens, she said, were not hygienic, as she rubbed her tummy and made a sour face. But we had already eaten at the first one without ill effects.
We returned to the now open first choice restaurant, a favourite place for plaice and Coquille St Jacques. Our pudding gift was gratefully received by monsieur, whose back is now straightened from bent. Dressed in jeans and a pink striped shirt, he comes from somewhere in France where 'merci' is pronounced as 'meerci', and 'pardon' as 'paardon'.
We have never seen madame, who stays below stairs in the kitchen, receives shouted commands, and cooks each dish as it is ordered. This is another restaurant where one is expected to take time over a meal - and get each dish in perfect condition.
An excellent bistro on the Pollet island, in the middle of town, was started by two gays, who rather dominated the place. Under new ownership the restaurant is more sedate, but just as good. The slightly rotund waitress has been employed there since the restaurant's inception and has a charm and wonderful knack of making you feel very much at ease and at home.
There we eat our favourite Coquille St Jacques, the season for them starting on the 4th of October and ending on the 15th of May.
Soon after we had taken our seats just inside the window of another restaurant, an old cyclist appeared, dressed in Tour de France gear, wearing a brightly coloured cap with upturned peak. He looked not only rather rediculous in it, but also somewhat tramplike.
We, and the patron of the restaurant, watched as he took a long time to chain his bicycle to some boxes of petuneas that were attached to the front of the establishment. He used a rusty iron-link chain, usually seen attached to old-fashioned lavatory systems.
The proprietor looked on aghast at this potential customer whose presence, in or out, might discourage smarter-class clientèle from entering.
But in came the cyclist, who was thoughtfully offered a table in the window next to us - so that he could keep an eye on his bike.
The old codger ordered well, in a squeakily high voice, in French, well accented in English.
Beore we left, we engaged in conversation with him. He had been in public service in England, was retired, 69 years old, and cycled daily for distances from 80 to 100 miles. Cycling was his life - his entire life.
I asked if he had ever ridden in the Tour de France. No, but he followed it each year, cycling with it. When the contestants rested at night, he would cycle on ahead to witness the following leg of the race.
He was a cheery, red-faced man, who had obviously been involved in a dreadful accident, as part of his face had been crushed and his teath did not fit the usual space in his mouth.
He had written much on his sport for journals, but no longer had the time to do so or write a book on his cycling experiences. Being so old and so active would not, he thought, give him the ability or time. He rather wanted do die in his saddle.
End of Part 1
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