Although I hardly knew my paternal grandfather, as one who is interested in most horticultural matters, I am very proud of him.
Educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge with a brother who became Dean of Salisbury, he chose to live as a horticultural country vicar. There were quite a few in his time. He was the parson at Schole, Norfolk (around 1875), Halstead, Kent, and finally, until 1927 when he died, at Strathfieldsaye, in Hampshire.
Although his brother was more famous than he was in their day, except for the stained glass window in Salisbury Cathedral and some books on religion, it is the Reverend F. Page-Robert’s name that lives on.
I knew grandfather’s gardener, Arthur Keep, and stayed with this lovely old boy, who smelled of smoky beehives, in his retirement cottage when I was painting landscape in the vicinity during the early 1950s.
With the advent of the motor car, Keep (as he was called in those stratified days), was offered the post of gardener/chauffeur. But when given the car to handle, he took it to the end of the drive and got out, saying that such a new-fangled contraption was not for him – gardening was.
When I stayed with his daughter, Doris, also when painting, she told me that one of her jobs as a small girl, at the end of the 19th century, was to follow the Reverend as he budded briar roses. These he had paid his parishioners to recover for him from the hedgerows thereabouts.
He would bud a thousand to two thousand a year, with Doris Keep following behind to tie in the buds with sticky string.
The Reverend was, indeed, a rose specialist, becoming President of the National Rose Society (now Royal) and Dean Hole Memorial Medallist.
Doris told me of when grandfather was walking with a friend in the country, they came across a body lying in a ditch. The Reverend was for walking past, when his companion suggested that they stop, which they did. Grandfather poked the parishioner with his stick, saying with a laugh: “you see, drunk again”, and on they went.
His name lives on in several ways. Cant’s, of Colchester, named a handsome yellow-flushed-with-red rose after him, which was very popular at the time, and was used for hybridising in Israel. It still exists, though hard to find.
His stately, bearded figure was much illustrated in rose books, which he often edited, in magazines like Gardeners’ Magazine (1898), where he is pictured in his rose garden with my father as a child, and in The English Flower Garden (1901 edition), standing, flat-capped, beneath towering Eremurus robustus flowers. In writing on this plant with authority, he must have been quite knowledgeable about it.
And what should pop up in Which? Gardening’s September 2008 issue but a picture of Sidalcea “Reverend Page Roberts” – again, I suppose, available. So he must have had some strong connection with that flower.
He was already dead when, in 1935, the Duchess of Marlborough sued the writer of an article in an American magazine, called Hooey, for a “foul libel”. It was suggested in this piece that the Rev. H. Robertson Page and the Duchess of Marlborough share the same bed. The Reverend F. Page Roberts and the Duchess of Marlborough were, at that time, both well-known and popular roses.
McGill, that great saucy-seaside-postcard artist, cashed in on this national joke, using the Reverend Page Roberts’s name (he being deceased) and, for fear of being involved in another libel case by raising the Duchess’s ire, changing her name to “Queenie Robinson”. How grandfather would have loved all that.
Why the discrepancies in the seemingly arbitrary use of the hyphen in our name? It seems that grandfather’s brother, the Dean, who married a titled lady in the latter part of the 19th century, paid to have the hyphen added between the surname and the last Christian name given to all members of his family. With it he added a coat of arms, crest and motto. But grandfather initially declined to use it, thinking it to be too ostentatious, but later he seems to have done so. I have chosen to include it in my correspondence and books, but not on my paintings. It is a sort of compromise that both churchmen might have approved of – clergymen’s compromise, perhaps?
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Scents, smells and body cream
For mostly better, and sometimes worse, I have always had a very acute sense of smell.
Had I been aware of this natural ability early in life I might have made my way in the scent trade instead of plying my way through a myriad of other endeavours. But anyway, the war intervened and made all of us who participated in it see and think things differently. I became a medical student.
As an example of my olfactory attributes, some 30 years after leaving a preparatory school, a man passed me as I was sitting in a London bus, and I knew exactly who he was by his smell.
That I always knew when I was near to a woman enduring her menstrual period is a sensitivity that I am glad to have lost in my later years.
After I had broken my wrist as a sculptor and been unable to complete a large exhibition of objects/creatures out of elm wood (soon after the disease had infected and killed England’s large elm trees), to enter the wine trade seemed a natural change of direction for me. As a writer on wine (several books and lots of articles) my ability to distinguish and separate smells was a great asset when determining grape varieties and districts, etc.
Throughout the 1960s I could discern each Bordeaux year accurately, and sometimes the district from whence came the wine. But in those days good claret was every-day wine – delicious and moderately priced. So the English drank a lot of it. I even imported Bordeaux in cask and bottled it in London – but that is another and longer story.
What I am leading up to is Body Cream.
Women of my knowledge love to use body cream. After a bath or shower and then drying off surface water, they like to apply body cream to their skin.
So, being the loving husband that I hope to be, I once bought a fancy pot of body cream that was perfumed with one of my wife’s favourite scents. It cost so much that I thought it to be unfair.
There is an inexpensive substance available called cold cream. The white bulk of the expensively scented creams must, I thought, be this cold cream. And there it was, obtainable in every chemist, not as cold cream but as aqueous cream (although the chemist believes both creams to be comparable in many ways) – and very cheap it turned out to be.
So I thought that all I now needed to do was to buy aqueous cream, add scent to it and, hey presto, I would have made body cream.
Those of us who buy scent for wives and girl friends know that when buying some expensive (they all are) scent, sample phials of perfume, usually made by the same house, are given away as samples to test. If these are not offered, it is wise to ask for them.
May I digress a second to tell you that during a friendship with the mistress of a French scent baron (who gave her samples which she sprayed on ants to keep them at bay), I learned that nearly all scents are made in chemical laboratories (he kept a factory in Grasse only as an advertising medium for tourists). And on later consideration, I thought that many a powerful perfume must be dirt cheap to make when you consider that lavatory deodorants, often pleasant, and always strong, are available at a modest price – as are near identical copies of famous marques of scent obtainable, for instance, in Greece.
So take these small sample phials, given away with a scent purchase and, with a dessert spoon, stir their contents into a 50-gram pot of aqueous cream. Decant the result, if wanted, into smaller and smarter jars as gifts. And out of it all have a happy mate at minimum expense - well, certainly a lesser expense than normal.
Had I been aware of this natural ability early in life I might have made my way in the scent trade instead of plying my way through a myriad of other endeavours. But anyway, the war intervened and made all of us who participated in it see and think things differently. I became a medical student.
As an example of my olfactory attributes, some 30 years after leaving a preparatory school, a man passed me as I was sitting in a London bus, and I knew exactly who he was by his smell.
That I always knew when I was near to a woman enduring her menstrual period is a sensitivity that I am glad to have lost in my later years.
After I had broken my wrist as a sculptor and been unable to complete a large exhibition of objects/creatures out of elm wood (soon after the disease had infected and killed England’s large elm trees), to enter the wine trade seemed a natural change of direction for me. As a writer on wine (several books and lots of articles) my ability to distinguish and separate smells was a great asset when determining grape varieties and districts, etc.
Throughout the 1960s I could discern each Bordeaux year accurately, and sometimes the district from whence came the wine. But in those days good claret was every-day wine – delicious and moderately priced. So the English drank a lot of it. I even imported Bordeaux in cask and bottled it in London – but that is another and longer story.
What I am leading up to is Body Cream.
Women of my knowledge love to use body cream. After a bath or shower and then drying off surface water, they like to apply body cream to their skin.
So, being the loving husband that I hope to be, I once bought a fancy pot of body cream that was perfumed with one of my wife’s favourite scents. It cost so much that I thought it to be unfair.
There is an inexpensive substance available called cold cream. The white bulk of the expensively scented creams must, I thought, be this cold cream. And there it was, obtainable in every chemist, not as cold cream but as aqueous cream (although the chemist believes both creams to be comparable in many ways) – and very cheap it turned out to be.
So I thought that all I now needed to do was to buy aqueous cream, add scent to it and, hey presto, I would have made body cream.
Those of us who buy scent for wives and girl friends know that when buying some expensive (they all are) scent, sample phials of perfume, usually made by the same house, are given away as samples to test. If these are not offered, it is wise to ask for them.
May I digress a second to tell you that during a friendship with the mistress of a French scent baron (who gave her samples which she sprayed on ants to keep them at bay), I learned that nearly all scents are made in chemical laboratories (he kept a factory in Grasse only as an advertising medium for tourists). And on later consideration, I thought that many a powerful perfume must be dirt cheap to make when you consider that lavatory deodorants, often pleasant, and always strong, are available at a modest price – as are near identical copies of famous marques of scent obtainable, for instance, in Greece.
So take these small sample phials, given away with a scent purchase and, with a dessert spoon, stir their contents into a 50-gram pot of aqueous cream. Decant the result, if wanted, into smaller and smarter jars as gifts. And out of it all have a happy mate at minimum expense - well, certainly a lesser expense than normal.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
A day out at Lord's Cricket Ground
Many aspects concerning Lord’s Cricket Ground are both unique and very English. (Although many a Lord will have been a member of M.C.C., the name derives from a Thomas Lord, who originally owned the ground.)
There has just been a one-day final match there between the teams of Essex and Kent.
Lord’s, on such an occasion, is a microcosm of true Englishness. All ages, from all walks of life (on this occasion there would hardly have been a non-Englishman among them), are there to enjoy a day’s outing, cheering on their respective teams, lauding their heroes, and directing their wishes of ill fortune toward their opponents.
I am seldom partisan, going just to watch good cricket, and prone to agree with the catch phrase of the pundits, namely that “cricket is the winner”.
The ground, too, is a winner, with its lofty, almost tented Mound Stand (very cleverly expanded by resting a large tier of seats and boxes, held elegantly aloft above the original stand on six slender columns). There is its sedate, Victorian, red brick pavilion, peopled by gentlemen who have waited many years to become members (so they are inclined to be old – and some older still). Then there is the new grandstand, with its roof suspended beneath a length of steel latticework with wires attaching it high up to either side of a central flag pole. Finally, for me, there is a gentleman’s convenience at the so-called Nursery End of the ground. Why do I even mention such a place?
With the club’s new expansion plans, this gem may well be lost to not only those who want to let the beer flow through, but to people like me who see it as an Edwardian, porcelain, sculpture park. It consists of many rows of Shanks stalls with their chinaware cisterns above that rest on columns to supply flushing water. The stalls in the middle stand back to back (or face to face), so, when urinating, you might be looking eye to eye with someone close to and directly opposite with the same intent. I suppose they represent an age when personal privacy was considered less important than it is now. I not only hope that this “Gents” will be retained, but brought to the notice of those who plan, and would hopefully appreciate a treasure of architectural grandeur. Surely it should be a listed building.
Cricket on the day in question was a close enough contest to be interesting throughout. But in between the overs and intervals there were other fascinating sights on view.
To someone like me, to whom meteorology was a life-saving study when flying in the war, a constantly cloud-changing sky was on view. Patches of sunlight broke through a variety of clouds that moved swiftly overhead. Sometimes a thicker layer than most brought relative semi-darkness to the ground. But seen above, and throughout the day, were fine examples of alto stratus, alto cumulus (beautiful), fracto cumulus, straightforward cumulus, and even a lenticular cumulus (if I remember the names correctly).
And because the clouds were high and the air clean, aircraft flight patterns in and out of London’s Heathrow Airport were clear to see.
In the morning, aeroplanes took off in an easterly direction – roughly over Lord’s. After leaving the circuit and using our part of the sky, they could be seen to set course for northern Europe, Scandinavia, over the pole to California, or to the western side of America. Those on long haul, and heavy with passengers and fuel, struggled to gain altitude under full throttle.
Then, in mid-afternoon, aeroplanes took off and landed in the other direction – toward the west. So now they appeared from all directions to join the flight path, either directly into the airport or heading east to turn around and take their turn to join the final, westerly approach. These were quieter aeroplanes than those leaving heavily laden. Their engines were throttled back. Flaps and wheels had not yet been lowered.
Usually sitting among friends, after a day's play, spectators return home to their families exhausted. Those at home can not understand that sitting down for most of the day watching cricket is a very exhausting process. But it is. Concentration on every ball and the many aspects of this most complicated of games, results in sapping, mental strain - and, in my case, with the added concentration on clouds and aeroplanes.
That is the way of it. And it all goes to make up a lovely day.
There has just been a one-day final match there between the teams of Essex and Kent.
Lord’s, on such an occasion, is a microcosm of true Englishness. All ages, from all walks of life (on this occasion there would hardly have been a non-Englishman among them), are there to enjoy a day’s outing, cheering on their respective teams, lauding their heroes, and directing their wishes of ill fortune toward their opponents.
I am seldom partisan, going just to watch good cricket, and prone to agree with the catch phrase of the pundits, namely that “cricket is the winner”.
The ground, too, is a winner, with its lofty, almost tented Mound Stand (very cleverly expanded by resting a large tier of seats and boxes, held elegantly aloft above the original stand on six slender columns). There is its sedate, Victorian, red brick pavilion, peopled by gentlemen who have waited many years to become members (so they are inclined to be old – and some older still). Then there is the new grandstand, with its roof suspended beneath a length of steel latticework with wires attaching it high up to either side of a central flag pole. Finally, for me, there is a gentleman’s convenience at the so-called Nursery End of the ground. Why do I even mention such a place?
With the club’s new expansion plans, this gem may well be lost to not only those who want to let the beer flow through, but to people like me who see it as an Edwardian, porcelain, sculpture park. It consists of many rows of Shanks stalls with their chinaware cisterns above that rest on columns to supply flushing water. The stalls in the middle stand back to back (or face to face), so, when urinating, you might be looking eye to eye with someone close to and directly opposite with the same intent. I suppose they represent an age when personal privacy was considered less important than it is now. I not only hope that this “Gents” will be retained, but brought to the notice of those who plan, and would hopefully appreciate a treasure of architectural grandeur. Surely it should be a listed building.
Cricket on the day in question was a close enough contest to be interesting throughout. But in between the overs and intervals there were other fascinating sights on view.
To someone like me, to whom meteorology was a life-saving study when flying in the war, a constantly cloud-changing sky was on view. Patches of sunlight broke through a variety of clouds that moved swiftly overhead. Sometimes a thicker layer than most brought relative semi-darkness to the ground. But seen above, and throughout the day, were fine examples of alto stratus, alto cumulus (beautiful), fracto cumulus, straightforward cumulus, and even a lenticular cumulus (if I remember the names correctly).
And because the clouds were high and the air clean, aircraft flight patterns in and out of London’s Heathrow Airport were clear to see.
In the morning, aeroplanes took off in an easterly direction – roughly over Lord’s. After leaving the circuit and using our part of the sky, they could be seen to set course for northern Europe, Scandinavia, over the pole to California, or to the western side of America. Those on long haul, and heavy with passengers and fuel, struggled to gain altitude under full throttle.
Then, in mid-afternoon, aeroplanes took off and landed in the other direction – toward the west. So now they appeared from all directions to join the flight path, either directly into the airport or heading east to turn around and take their turn to join the final, westerly approach. These were quieter aeroplanes than those leaving heavily laden. Their engines were throttled back. Flaps and wheels had not yet been lowered.
Usually sitting among friends, after a day's play, spectators return home to their families exhausted. Those at home can not understand that sitting down for most of the day watching cricket is a very exhausting process. But it is. Concentration on every ball and the many aspects of this most complicated of games, results in sapping, mental strain - and, in my case, with the added concentration on clouds and aeroplanes.
That is the way of it. And it all goes to make up a lovely day.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
A day at the horse races
I have never particularly liked horses. As a boy in the country I took them lightly (except for our cart horse), falling off and laughing, much to the annoyance of my sister, who felt that to ride and be fond of horses somehow raised the quality of one’s life to a higher plane.
I don’t like the smell of them, and they kick. Moreover, as they can not be house-trained, as it were, they leave their droppings where they feel like it.
As for catching a horse when it is loose in a field, I seem to remember that it was not easy. So we had to wait for the nag to pass water. Then one of us would dash toward it with a bridle (or some such) in hand, knowing that during this relieving process it would not move an inch.
My cousin, Fred, is a horsy/racing man, and is a member of that rather elite club, called Goodwood. And once a year he invites Margreet and me to the Goodwood races.
It is a lovely day out for us, but we have instructions to dress for the part. This means respectable – a jacket and tie for me, and something smart for Margreet.
This year we had the invitation to join him on Glorious Goodwood’s Ladies’ Day, which meant more dressing up than usual.
So off we set, with Margreet adorned in gold and amber colours, with a hat that wouldn’t blow off in the usual downland wind, long antique amber necklace, diaphanous long dress of warm colours, with woven golden shoes and matching handbag.
With my grey jacket, houndstooth pattern trousers (a bit like a chef), bright bow tie and suede shoes, we looked the part – a bit racing and a bit racy.
We were to transfer to Fred’s member-placarded car at the car park of a Chichester hotel.
On our arrival there it was clear what a different-from-usual day it was, when, in the car park there was a “limmo” that looked like half a dozen large shoe boxes glued together, with blacked out windows and wheels at either end. Behind it, at tables of drink, was a gaggle of gaudily-dressed and hatted young giggling ladies. Were they the "staff” of a London night club perhaps?
We transferred to Fred’s car and made our way slowly along the narrow roads toward the racecourse, with our genial host (late 80s) complaining of overtakers, large vehicles, and any hold-up for any reason. We were enjoying ourselves already.
With not only a member’s badge but an invalid driver’s badge as well, we were ushered into a field car park near to the winning post and important stands.
Then we were each lent a member’s badge. Badges are important in the world of horse racing. Ours allowed us to enter or pass through members’ enclosures. Stewards slightly dipped their heads as we passed. In the distance helicopters were landing (nine at my first count) to disgorge their cargoes of jockeys, potentates and owners.
Soon we were drinking Champagne and eating gravedlax and large prawns in a tented dining space. Toward the end of our meal a short cripple (a “character”, as many are at the races) came to sit at our table. He was a real racing man, having visited each racecourse in the United Kingdom. As there had recently been much publicity in newspapers and on television about the skulduggery involved in racing, (jockeys and their colleagues betting on dead-cert winners to lose), I asked him if he knew any of the crooks. “Two of them,” he replied. I had a feeling that he knew more.
Around us paraded a complete social mix of the elite and far-from-elite, dressed to the nines, Panama hatted, well bellied, short skirted, exposed bosomed, gaudily coloured and colourfully hatted – with no two outfits alike. It was strange that some of the shortest skirts barely covered some of the more formidable legs. We were told that in many cases the most outlandish costumes sported by the ladies were designed primarily to catch the eyes of television cameramen.
With the help of newspaper pundits, and before the racing had even started, Margreet and I placed our each-way Tote bets on the certain winners of each race.
Goodwood racecourse is considered by many to be the most beautiful of any. And I am sure it is. The view from every position is over rolling downland to where the start of every race, short or long, can be seen by all, and then followed, either through binoculars or on a large screen, until the finish.
The enormous fields within our panoramic vision were mostly yellow ochre in colour. Their grain was about to be harvested. Each field contained a patch of green maize as cover and food for pheasants, birds that would later be the targets for guns of winter shoots.
Below, and over the heads of a fascinating collection of animated colour, and the bright umbrellas above the bookies’ stands, I was delighted to see my choice for the first race romp past the winning post a clear winner. Such masterful equine selection was not to last, although I almost broke even on the day.
But win or lose, the results were immaterial when the occasion was the star reason for enjoying a lovely day at the races. Thank you, Fred.
I don’t like the smell of them, and they kick. Moreover, as they can not be house-trained, as it were, they leave their droppings where they feel like it.
As for catching a horse when it is loose in a field, I seem to remember that it was not easy. So we had to wait for the nag to pass water. Then one of us would dash toward it with a bridle (or some such) in hand, knowing that during this relieving process it would not move an inch.
My cousin, Fred, is a horsy/racing man, and is a member of that rather elite club, called Goodwood. And once a year he invites Margreet and me to the Goodwood races.
It is a lovely day out for us, but we have instructions to dress for the part. This means respectable – a jacket and tie for me, and something smart for Margreet.
This year we had the invitation to join him on Glorious Goodwood’s Ladies’ Day, which meant more dressing up than usual.
So off we set, with Margreet adorned in gold and amber colours, with a hat that wouldn’t blow off in the usual downland wind, long antique amber necklace, diaphanous long dress of warm colours, with woven golden shoes and matching handbag.
With my grey jacket, houndstooth pattern trousers (a bit like a chef), bright bow tie and suede shoes, we looked the part – a bit racing and a bit racy.
We were to transfer to Fred’s member-placarded car at the car park of a Chichester hotel.
On our arrival there it was clear what a different-from-usual day it was, when, in the car park there was a “limmo” that looked like half a dozen large shoe boxes glued together, with blacked out windows and wheels at either end. Behind it, at tables of drink, was a gaggle of gaudily-dressed and hatted young giggling ladies. Were they the "staff” of a London night club perhaps?
We transferred to Fred’s car and made our way slowly along the narrow roads toward the racecourse, with our genial host (late 80s) complaining of overtakers, large vehicles, and any hold-up for any reason. We were enjoying ourselves already.
With not only a member’s badge but an invalid driver’s badge as well, we were ushered into a field car park near to the winning post and important stands.
Then we were each lent a member’s badge. Badges are important in the world of horse racing. Ours allowed us to enter or pass through members’ enclosures. Stewards slightly dipped their heads as we passed. In the distance helicopters were landing (nine at my first count) to disgorge their cargoes of jockeys, potentates and owners.
Soon we were drinking Champagne and eating gravedlax and large prawns in a tented dining space. Toward the end of our meal a short cripple (a “character”, as many are at the races) came to sit at our table. He was a real racing man, having visited each racecourse in the United Kingdom. As there had recently been much publicity in newspapers and on television about the skulduggery involved in racing, (jockeys and their colleagues betting on dead-cert winners to lose), I asked him if he knew any of the crooks. “Two of them,” he replied. I had a feeling that he knew more.
Around us paraded a complete social mix of the elite and far-from-elite, dressed to the nines, Panama hatted, well bellied, short skirted, exposed bosomed, gaudily coloured and colourfully hatted – with no two outfits alike. It was strange that some of the shortest skirts barely covered some of the more formidable legs. We were told that in many cases the most outlandish costumes sported by the ladies were designed primarily to catch the eyes of television cameramen.
With the help of newspaper pundits, and before the racing had even started, Margreet and I placed our each-way Tote bets on the certain winners of each race.
Goodwood racecourse is considered by many to be the most beautiful of any. And I am sure it is. The view from every position is over rolling downland to where the start of every race, short or long, can be seen by all, and then followed, either through binoculars or on a large screen, until the finish.
The enormous fields within our panoramic vision were mostly yellow ochre in colour. Their grain was about to be harvested. Each field contained a patch of green maize as cover and food for pheasants, birds that would later be the targets for guns of winter shoots.
Below, and over the heads of a fascinating collection of animated colour, and the bright umbrellas above the bookies’ stands, I was delighted to see my choice for the first race romp past the winning post a clear winner. Such masterful equine selection was not to last, although I almost broke even on the day.
But win or lose, the results were immaterial when the occasion was the star reason for enjoying a lovely day at the races. Thank you, Fred.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Laoutaris
It was an odd day that started with one man accusing another of racial abuse in public, and then with me buying a drawing.
Near to where I live is the home of an artist. He is moustached, walks rather like a panther about to pounce, and is of distinguished demeanour.
We have known each other for almost twenty years, buying our daily newspaper early each morning from a local Indian-run shop.
For a long time I was unable to discover what he did in life. Being of retirement age, he would, unpaid, help the ailing lady owner of the shop to move the heavy pile of papers each day. Even she was unaware of his profession. Then one day I discovered that he was an artist. So we could then talk about current exhibitions, about all of which he visited.
At one time he even told me his name – which I forgot – even though no forename was attached to it.
Refusing all invitations to come to my place for social drinks, he actually agreed to a visit, but only to look at my eclectic mix of pictures. This allowed me to go to his place to look at his works of art – only his, as he said that he had never had the money spare to buy other people’s work.
What I saw in his house was a most wondrous collection of 1950s drawings, and walls full of his abstract paintings – colourful, delicate and delightful. They were quite obviously of a highly professional standard.
I dearly wanted to acquire something of his – anything, for both friendship and artistic reasons. But, no.
The man was quite obviously a recluse, a hermit – creative hermit. And he was also quite obviously ill at ease with the company of fellow humans. He lived in an artistic envelope – sealed to the outside world.
Slowly I got to know a little of his past.
He mentioned that in the 1950s, when the angry young men of the theatre were much in vogue, a journalist on The Daily Telegraph dubbed him “the angry young artist”. So he must, at one time, have been well known.
He related that he had indeed been a contrary kind of person, an early attitude to life and art that he had come to regret. I learned more.
Offered a place at the Slade School of Art, he didn’t like his interviewers and declined to attend. They begged him to paint there, but to no avail.
Although exhibiting at the Zwemmer Gallery, The London Group, Gallery 1 and others, he declined to have a one-man show at the prestigious Rowland, Browse and Delbanco Gallery, in Cork Street. “Cold feet”, he said.
Now, in his 70s he wishes that he had not fought, but embraced the artistic establishment in his rebellious youth.
And at last I discovered his Greek name – LAOUTARIS. He was born in Egypt.
Well, we met once more at a Hammersmith bus stop, where the afore- mentioned abuse took place. We were unable to board the 27 bus as a passenger was blocking the entry and, on his mobile telephone, was trying to interest the police in taking action against the bus driver who had racially abused him. The interesting part of this contretemps was that both aggrieved passenger and driver were black.
So Laoutaris and I talked once more, the outcome being that he invited me into his house to choose a drawing. There were many framed drawings lining the walls of his staircase, one of which I could buy, but with his right of veto. I suggested one of three and he told which one I could have. Money changed hands and I made off with my prize.
I was delighted with the drawing and wanted, as is my custom for those who might acquire the work in years to come, to write on the back of the frame a little about the artist and his life. I roughed out something and put it through his door for amendment.
It had been a wonderful day for me, but that was not the end of it.
Margreet and I decided to hang the drawing where another was hanging close to a rack of wine bottles – one lying on top of the other. In unhooking the incumbent drawing in its frame, my elbow, or some part of me, nudged a bottle beneath others. The bottles, being of slightly different shapes began to slide. And down came one to smash on the tiled floor beneath, and then another – and so forth.
The floor beneath became awash with wine and covered with shards of broken glass. But both the old drawing and the new one by Laoutaris remained dry, safe, and with glass unbroken.
Laoutaris amended my little history of him and this was stuck to the back of the frame.
Now he had actually sold something and been paid for it. It was, in a way, just a little recognition. But surely much greater, and public, recognition should come his way in his lifetime. And what if he died unrecognised for his years of insular creation? His executors might have difficulty in dealing satisfactorily with his considerable artistic estate. He should be a part of the history of English (and Greek) 20th to 21st century art.
I put these ideas to Laoutaris. Reluctantly, I felt, he agreed, and I managed to get a Christie’s man to appraise the paintings. The expert on English 20th century art’s reaction was like mine, so he offered part of a Christie’s sale catalogue with history, description and paintings, or even one single painting for sale, to get his name known and on record.
But there was a snag. Laoutaris’s daughter refuses to allow her father to sell anything. She was furious that a drawing had been sold to me.
So that is where the matter rests.
Near to where I live is the home of an artist. He is moustached, walks rather like a panther about to pounce, and is of distinguished demeanour.
We have known each other for almost twenty years, buying our daily newspaper early each morning from a local Indian-run shop.
For a long time I was unable to discover what he did in life. Being of retirement age, he would, unpaid, help the ailing lady owner of the shop to move the heavy pile of papers each day. Even she was unaware of his profession. Then one day I discovered that he was an artist. So we could then talk about current exhibitions, about all of which he visited.
At one time he even told me his name – which I forgot – even though no forename was attached to it.
Refusing all invitations to come to my place for social drinks, he actually agreed to a visit, but only to look at my eclectic mix of pictures. This allowed me to go to his place to look at his works of art – only his, as he said that he had never had the money spare to buy other people’s work.
What I saw in his house was a most wondrous collection of 1950s drawings, and walls full of his abstract paintings – colourful, delicate and delightful. They were quite obviously of a highly professional standard.
I dearly wanted to acquire something of his – anything, for both friendship and artistic reasons. But, no.
The man was quite obviously a recluse, a hermit – creative hermit. And he was also quite obviously ill at ease with the company of fellow humans. He lived in an artistic envelope – sealed to the outside world.
Slowly I got to know a little of his past.
He mentioned that in the 1950s, when the angry young men of the theatre were much in vogue, a journalist on The Daily Telegraph dubbed him “the angry young artist”. So he must, at one time, have been well known.
He related that he had indeed been a contrary kind of person, an early attitude to life and art that he had come to regret. I learned more.
Offered a place at the Slade School of Art, he didn’t like his interviewers and declined to attend. They begged him to paint there, but to no avail.
Although exhibiting at the Zwemmer Gallery, The London Group, Gallery 1 and others, he declined to have a one-man show at the prestigious Rowland, Browse and Delbanco Gallery, in Cork Street. “Cold feet”, he said.
Now, in his 70s he wishes that he had not fought, but embraced the artistic establishment in his rebellious youth.
And at last I discovered his Greek name – LAOUTARIS. He was born in Egypt.
Well, we met once more at a Hammersmith bus stop, where the afore- mentioned abuse took place. We were unable to board the 27 bus as a passenger was blocking the entry and, on his mobile telephone, was trying to interest the police in taking action against the bus driver who had racially abused him. The interesting part of this contretemps was that both aggrieved passenger and driver were black.
So Laoutaris and I talked once more, the outcome being that he invited me into his house to choose a drawing. There were many framed drawings lining the walls of his staircase, one of which I could buy, but with his right of veto. I suggested one of three and he told which one I could have. Money changed hands and I made off with my prize.
I was delighted with the drawing and wanted, as is my custom for those who might acquire the work in years to come, to write on the back of the frame a little about the artist and his life. I roughed out something and put it through his door for amendment.
It had been a wonderful day for me, but that was not the end of it.
Margreet and I decided to hang the drawing where another was hanging close to a rack of wine bottles – one lying on top of the other. In unhooking the incumbent drawing in its frame, my elbow, or some part of me, nudged a bottle beneath others. The bottles, being of slightly different shapes began to slide. And down came one to smash on the tiled floor beneath, and then another – and so forth.
The floor beneath became awash with wine and covered with shards of broken glass. But both the old drawing and the new one by Laoutaris remained dry, safe, and with glass unbroken.
Laoutaris amended my little history of him and this was stuck to the back of the frame.
Now he had actually sold something and been paid for it. It was, in a way, just a little recognition. But surely much greater, and public, recognition should come his way in his lifetime. And what if he died unrecognised for his years of insular creation? His executors might have difficulty in dealing satisfactorily with his considerable artistic estate. He should be a part of the history of English (and Greek) 20th to 21st century art.
I put these ideas to Laoutaris. Reluctantly, I felt, he agreed, and I managed to get a Christie’s man to appraise the paintings. The expert on English 20th century art’s reaction was like mine, so he offered part of a Christie’s sale catalogue with history, description and paintings, or even one single painting for sale, to get his name known and on record.
But there was a snag. Laoutaris’s daughter refuses to allow her father to sell anything. She was furious that a drawing had been sold to me.
So that is where the matter rests.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008
a Summer/Winter Stew
This simple to make and quite delicious dish can be prepared with light summer ingredients or richer, fuller winter ones. It can also be cooked in the oven for an hour when all its parts are cut into smallish pieces. Or slow cooked in a slow cooker when the pieces can be larger. Buy whole olives and stone them. Those already without stones will have lost much of their taste. But you may find the stoning process (with some designs of garlic press) to be too tedious. Then buy stoned ones.
A SUMMER/WINTER STEW
You will need:
Olive oil
A red meat for winter or a white meat for summer
Onions
Garlic
Potatoes
Plenty of rosemary for winter, or less mint and/or thyme for summer
Black olives for winter or green ones for summer
Robust red wine for winter or white for summer.
Salt
Milled black pepper (plenty) for winter or white ground pepper for summer
Into a flat cooking pan place the meat on a wiping of olive oil - in one piece, small pieces or a piece per person.
Cover it with potatoes, onions, garlic, olives, the herb, pepper and salt.
Sprinkle wine over all.
Cook as mentioned above.
A SUMMER/WINTER STEW
You will need:
Olive oil
A red meat for winter or a white meat for summer
Onions
Garlic
Potatoes
Plenty of rosemary for winter, or less mint and/or thyme for summer
Black olives for winter or green ones for summer
Robust red wine for winter or white for summer.
Salt
Milled black pepper (plenty) for winter or white ground pepper for summer
Into a flat cooking pan place the meat on a wiping of olive oil - in one piece, small pieces or a piece per person.
Cover it with potatoes, onions, garlic, olives, the herb, pepper and salt.
Sprinkle wine over all.
Cook as mentioned above.
Monday, June 16, 2008
An old school friend in Paris, 2008
We settled in, and had an aperitif at Conti, in the Place Buci, where crowds of the monde and demi-monde passed by. And then we ate at the Orestias, two doors from our hotel, for the princely sum of £28 (three courses and a bottle of Greek wine). Here the waiter could only speak at a shout, and had probably done so ever since I first ate there soon after the Second World War.
That is a way of Paris, and that is the way of this unchanging small part of the 6th Arrondissement where the rue de Seine, rue de Buci, Mazarine, St André des Arts, Dauphine, Ancienne Comédie and Grégoire de Tours more or less converge. All are artistically and boutiquely inviting streets, holding many a bar and interesting restaurant.
The occupants of this quarter, shop at the market stalls, flower shop and supermarket, and rest from their exertions by taking a glass or cup of something while gaping at the goings-on in front of and around them.
A glamorous film star lady, with long legs and short skirt, was being followed by a director, 4 cameramen, 2 soundmen and other hangers-on. She wandered, entered cafés, and generally acted the part of a famous and much-fêted star.
Her lady companion was plainer by far.
Above a café opposite, the outside of which being much photographed, was a banner saying “Entrée des Joueurs”. She and her companion entered for a while. We imagined that she could have been the first prize, but not her companion.
The objectives of these film people was clearly to paint a background picture of Latin Quarter life for, later, we saw one of the photographers directing his lens at a local, characterful worthy. This ancient and bebobble-capped gentleman was bent over his pastis in contemplation, perhaps, of the current ideas of some French, left-wing philosopher.
There was an objective to our Paris visit. An American Taft School friend, from my early war years in that country before I was old enough to return to England to become an RAF pilot, was to be in Paris with his French wife of 60 years. We were to meet at last after several times of trying, and failing to co-ordinate a rendezvous in France. This was one reason why we had chosen to stay in the Latin Quarter (at the Grand Hotel de l’Univers, no less), an area frequented and enjoyed by both of us in the past.
One of the windows in our room overlooked an almost cubist depiction of roofs, chimneys and balconies – all zinc and cream surfaces.
As I was doing one of my postcard drawings of the scene (Paris is not as crumbly as it used to be), an animated little scene took place on an exposed and distant roof terrace. And who should the participants be but the girl and film crew seen from our seats in the café. And what were they doing on this exposed terrace?
Well, the cameramen and soundmen were now directing all of their attention to the prettier girl. Several times she rehearsed a scene where she had to prance (dance?) around, take off all of her clothes, and throw them to the floor in either anger or disgust. Between takes she wrapped herself in a white towel to keep warm, as the springtime Parisian late afternoon air was decidedly chilly.
We then dined at the Polidor restaurant, a favourite of old in the rue Monsieur le Prince, before walking off the effects of it and getting lost in an area that I should have known better. But we did pass a nice looking little eating place in the rue Jacob, where one of the first courses, written on the menu in English and displayed in the window, was - six nails.
My old school friend of 67 years ago, Ted Mason, and his wife, Ginny, take a small apartment each year near to the Eiffel Tower. We went to see them there, opening first, as so many people have to in Paris, those huge and formidable doors that lead from the street to accommodation beyond. Behind them was a quiet courtyard, in this case with the focal point of a large, potted olive tree, pruned to look like a Bonsai.
Our instructions were then to ring a certain doorbell, admitting us into a hallway from which we entered the smallest lift imaginable. Inside it there was room for two – just – or an adult and a dog.
On the 5th floor, the third barrier door to unwanted entry (one thinks of the French Revolution) was their apartment door.
Once inside the apartment, decorated as if frozen in time, we were able to meet my old pal (being absolutely in demeanour the intelligence, policy-making Lieutenant Colonel he had become in the army) and his charming French wife, whose accent had retained a very strong affinity to her roots. It was a great occasion.
We lunched well at a local brasserie, and parted as the good friends he and I had once been, and now with them both as a devoted pair.
It is almost obligatory when visiting Paris to enter the Galleries Lafayette for, if nothing else, to marvel at the ornate interior of its enormous Belle Epoque dome of plaster, gilt, bronze and stained glass. And the shopping to be done on its seven floors around the dome is many a woman’s dream.
Not far, along Boulevard Haussman, by the Grands Boulevards Metro Station, is a street to the left, called rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Here, shortly on the left-hand side, at the far end of a small courtyard, is Chartier.
Here one eats in a vast, Victorian, working man’s restaurant. The menu can hardly have changed since the restaurant’s inception, and the food is served sometimes by waiters almost as old as the place itself.
Created in 1896 to serve traditional bouillon to customers at marble tables, hats (bowler or top) and coats are accommodated on brass racks and hooks above where you sit. You are put to share tables with strangers. The restaurant still retains numbered drawers for customers’ napkins.
Do not omit to finish your meal with a Mont Blanc (cream on top of a purée of chestnuts) – even if it is not on the menu.
To give an idea of this restaurant’s success, they serve over 1,200 meals a day. And excellent they are – reasonable, too.
So well will you have eaten that it is quite possible to leave and forget to take with you the bags of Lafayette shopping that you have placed on the racks above.
There was a Vlaminck exhibition on at the Musée du Luxembourg. Although one of my favourite artists, as with any large show of someone’s work, one tends to make comparisons, to see repetition, derivation and influences, whereas, just one single work (almost any in this case), if seen alone, would be quite enough to astound and please the senses.
We ended our stay in France’s capital city with a stroll on the gravelly sand of the Luxembourg Gardens. In sunshine, and in shade beneath trees, we passed many chess players, hunched over the park’s chess boards, either in solitary combat or beneath the admiring gaze of a ring of spectators.
Around the pond behind the Palace, crowds of people were relaxing in the Saturday afternoon sunshine, picnicking, herding happy or fractious children, or running around the pond with sticks to re-direct their hired model sailing boats. And of course, being Paris, there were lovers, staring vacantly into each other’s eyes as lovers do.
It was a Seurat scene, one we had to leave, but will keep in the memory.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Another Dutch Wedding 2008
Simon J. Sluis is an 87 year old Dutchman about to marry a younger (72 years old) Lidy Klees (my wife’s cousin). We were invited to their wedding in Laren, a small and select township to the east of Amsterdam.
Simon (pronounced Seemon) is all that a prosperous Dutchman should be – with a name translated as sluice (plenty in Holland), of patrician stature, a plant and seedsman of world renown, and congenial.
He and I had spoken of plants several times before. I remember him telling me that most modern climbing French beans have Blue Lake in their ancestry. So I continue to plant Blue Lake in England, and with confidence (not buying his seeds – though perhaps so initially – but saving my own, as it is not an F1 Hybrid).
It has been our custom to either go by air or car to Holland. This time, we did not intend to return laden with foreign goodies, and chose to travel by rail – Eurostar from London to Brussels and then Thalys train on to Amsterdam.
The Singel Hotel, on a canal and fairly near to Amsterdam’s Central Station, has at times been a convenient base for us when visiting that magical city – one where only to turn one’s head never fails to reveal yet further architectural gems. But the hotel’s rooms have been a bit on the seedy side. Learning that these had now been refurbished, we chose to book in once more.
The contrasts on our rail trip to Amsterdam were considerable.
At Eurostar, St Pancras, we were funnelled into a large and light basement where we refreshed ourselves, sitting on comfortable chairs, surrounded by a plethora of Victorian cast iron columns that still continue to hold up the railway platforms above.
So clean and tidy was it that the hot chocolate that I bought to help while away the time was whisked from a table top by an over-enthusiastic cleaner when my back was turned.
With sunshine outside we made our way to the Eurostar platform above, where the fine span of the old St Pancras iron-arched covering was gleaming in its fresh coat of paint and cleaned glass.
To change trains in a rather dreary and rainy station in Brussels was not as easy to master. A café snack there took such an age to acquire that it was a close run thing to board the Thalys train to Amsterdam on time.
From the dirty carriage windows the flat and rainy landscape of Belgium led inexorably to the flat and wet landscape of Holland. The train, designed for speed but going at a normal train’s pace, passed through small townships and over countless level crossings. At least the seating, though shabby, gave us more legroom than Eurostar, and had the edge over the latter by having a water supply for basins and lavatories – which is more than could be said for Eurostar. For luggage space, Eurostar was the better.
The strange part about going to Holland is that although our two countries have much in common and with many historical ties, it is a very foreign place. Even Margreet, who had not lived there for some 40 years, finds it so each time she returns.
You can walk along a most respectable canal street in Amsterdam and suddenly see an almost naked lady sitting in a floodlit window hoping for custom.
There are plenty of cannabis shops, selling a selection of seeds and all the accoutrements necessary for ingesting the several parts of that plant. The perfume of pot pervades the pavement air.
One wonders at the speed of cyclists on their designated paths who ride like the clappers and never collide with pedestrians, or one another.
And then you might pass Coffeeshops to see youths, drugged up to the eyebrows, reclining languidly in the windows.
As for the food on offer, the Dutch grub is, by tradition, substantial, filling, warming and, let’s be plain about it – plain.
So, to provide sophisticated cuisine to the now sophisticated Dutch, the cuisine from foreign parts is used and adapted to the Dutch idea of food (satay, for instance is made with lumps of meat, and schnitzels are thick).
At a “Dutch” restaurant recommended to us, we were offered an Italian type first course and a Thai style one for the main course.
And then, in a café afterwards, we ate a brownie and ice cream, the brownie bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the kind invented by the Americans, but was semi-toffee-liquid, with walnuts and a smidgen of normal brownie mix. It was delicious, yet one wouldn’t want to eat it again too often. (“Brownies”, incidentally, are also eaten – not to assuage hunger - in coffeeshops.)
Our hotel room was also uniquely Dutch. It was situated at the very top of a typical 17th century canal-side house, and approached via the hotel’s lift and an outside alleyway between a wall and tiled roof. Situated directly beneath a roof of dark tiles, the room’s inside consisted of a plethora of angles and planes that twisted and rose and fell in all directions. It was a bit like being inside a small diamond on which a cack-handed Amsterdam apprentice diamond-cutter had been having instruction. A small window at the side allowed a bit of light and air to enter, but a dormer window on one side would have offered a fine view of the Singel canal. I imagine that stringent building regulations prevented it – and probably rightly so.
So “Dutch” was this room that one felt very much as Amsterdam people must have felt for over three or four hundred years in a city where space in their prosperous community has always been at a premium.
The Dutch Reformed church for the wedding in Laren was unadorned and without an alter.
We arrived in the nick of time as the café waitresses nearby, where we had ordered drinks three times and they had failed to produce the goods, forced us to cancel. Being only just in time at the church, and with all pews seemingly packed tight, we were directed to the few seats in the very front of the congregation – when we would rather have been at the back.
The service was a long one, with the “vicar” having a great deal to say, taking relish in both his voice and the words he used. Understanding nothing (a position with which I am accustomed in Holland) I tried to look interested throughout (a tiring business).
The order of service had the music to hymns printed with the text.
The elderly groom and his bride were obviously in love, holding hands when they were able, kneeling centre stage toward a raised pulpit (unused during the service but surrounded by a very local choir).
Then came the reception at the nearby Ateliercafé Mauve, named after a famous artist from Laren (where all this took place).
We drank (well, I did) copiously, and ate bitterballen, one of the most delicious of Dutch snack/delicacies, consisting of crisp and crunchy balls containing a palate-burning mixture of creamy meat (horse, thought to be one of the best, but veal the most common) and eaten dipped in mustard.
As we were waiting for dinner, we continued to drink whatever we chose from waiters’ trays, under the efficient command of Yvette, the bride’s daughter-in-law.
It was during this dormant period of drinks between the reception and dinner that something delightful (to me) took place.
On our table, beneath the trees outside on a balmy late afternoon, was a round, blue vase containing campanula plants. I noticed a honeybee taking nectar from its blue flowers. Never before had I seen honeybees enjoying flowers in a vase. Word clearly got back to the hive that the nectar from our campanulas was tasty. So the bee’s fellow workers joined in to take advantage of what was on offer.
It was almost as if this was a gesture of celebration on the part of the hive, as our groom had made his fortune in horticulture, where bees had been the vital instruments for his pollinations.
Besides the charm of an elderly bride and groom, and the stylishness of their many guests, the red wine at the dinner was a Château Rocher Calon, merlot, from Montagne Saint-Emillion, the very same hamlet in the Bordeaux region where we had so recently enjoyed another lovely wedding.
That a single grape variety should be produced in Saint-Emillion was quite new to me, and very successful it was.
Kind relations, Dick and Reina, escorted us to the Hilversum railway station where a train soon transported us back to Amsterdam Central Station, where we made our way by foot to the nearby Singel Hotel.
If you are of the opinion that the Dutch railways are always highly efficient, think again.
On the following day we needed once more to return to Amsterdam Central from Hilversum, the station and surrounds of which were in a state of reconstruction.
To obtain a ticket it was necessary to use a machine – needing a credit card and a local’s considerable computer expertise.
We knew that the train would leave from platform 5, needing a double descent of stairs and one to climb – difficult for Margreet with one foot in a temporary surgical boot.
Having descended, we found that our intended platform had been taped off, in the way that a murder scene is taped off. Margreet, by now, was quite willing to commit some violence that might well have warranted a taping-off.
As there had been no indication whatsoever, in a notice or official’s guidance, that trains would not be leaving for Amsterdam from Hilversum at that time, we had to retrace our steps. We then learned that passengers for Amsterdam would have to take a local, stopping bus to Weesp, a station nearer to our destination. We were obliged to take it.
So, a normal 20 minute journey took over an hour, and we had had to descend and climb countless stairs pointlessly in the course of it.
It had been a most upsetting experience for Margreet, with a stress fracture in her foot.
On the advice of Tobias at the Dutch Embassy in London, we made our way to the rear of the Central Station in Amsterdam to the de Ruijterkade where (free) ferries leave for the far side of the very wide IJ (pronounced eye) river.
The one to take is for the destination IJ plein. This name will be marked up on an electronic signboard and on the back of the ferry.
From the ferry dock at IJ plein, you turn right to walk along the IJ riverbank to the Wilhelmina-Dok (sic), which is also called Caffé Tazza d’Oro. Here, on a sunny day or warm evening, you can sit (almost on the river) to drink and eat.
It is a lovely experience there to watch the commercial and private shipping pass by from a table in the open or under giant orange umbrellas – umbrellas that stand out so clearly, from both sides of the river, amid a setting of fairly drab utilitarian buildings.
On our final day in Amsterdam, we bought three kinds of cheese (brokkel oud, young white goat cheese from a cartwheel, and komijne), all unique to Holland, and headed back to England with our food gifts and having enjoyed such a pleasant and interesting visit.
Simon (pronounced Seemon) is all that a prosperous Dutchman should be – with a name translated as sluice (plenty in Holland), of patrician stature, a plant and seedsman of world renown, and congenial.
He and I had spoken of plants several times before. I remember him telling me that most modern climbing French beans have Blue Lake in their ancestry. So I continue to plant Blue Lake in England, and with confidence (not buying his seeds – though perhaps so initially – but saving my own, as it is not an F1 Hybrid).
It has been our custom to either go by air or car to Holland. This time, we did not intend to return laden with foreign goodies, and chose to travel by rail – Eurostar from London to Brussels and then Thalys train on to Amsterdam.
The Singel Hotel, on a canal and fairly near to Amsterdam’s Central Station, has at times been a convenient base for us when visiting that magical city – one where only to turn one’s head never fails to reveal yet further architectural gems. But the hotel’s rooms have been a bit on the seedy side. Learning that these had now been refurbished, we chose to book in once more.
The contrasts on our rail trip to Amsterdam were considerable.
At Eurostar, St Pancras, we were funnelled into a large and light basement where we refreshed ourselves, sitting on comfortable chairs, surrounded by a plethora of Victorian cast iron columns that still continue to hold up the railway platforms above.
So clean and tidy was it that the hot chocolate that I bought to help while away the time was whisked from a table top by an over-enthusiastic cleaner when my back was turned.
With sunshine outside we made our way to the Eurostar platform above, where the fine span of the old St Pancras iron-arched covering was gleaming in its fresh coat of paint and cleaned glass.
To change trains in a rather dreary and rainy station in Brussels was not as easy to master. A café snack there took such an age to acquire that it was a close run thing to board the Thalys train to Amsterdam on time.
From the dirty carriage windows the flat and rainy landscape of Belgium led inexorably to the flat and wet landscape of Holland. The train, designed for speed but going at a normal train’s pace, passed through small townships and over countless level crossings. At least the seating, though shabby, gave us more legroom than Eurostar, and had the edge over the latter by having a water supply for basins and lavatories – which is more than could be said for Eurostar. For luggage space, Eurostar was the better.
The strange part about going to Holland is that although our two countries have much in common and with many historical ties, it is a very foreign place. Even Margreet, who had not lived there for some 40 years, finds it so each time she returns.
You can walk along a most respectable canal street in Amsterdam and suddenly see an almost naked lady sitting in a floodlit window hoping for custom.
There are plenty of cannabis shops, selling a selection of seeds and all the accoutrements necessary for ingesting the several parts of that plant. The perfume of pot pervades the pavement air.
One wonders at the speed of cyclists on their designated paths who ride like the clappers and never collide with pedestrians, or one another.
And then you might pass Coffeeshops to see youths, drugged up to the eyebrows, reclining languidly in the windows.
As for the food on offer, the Dutch grub is, by tradition, substantial, filling, warming and, let’s be plain about it – plain.
So, to provide sophisticated cuisine to the now sophisticated Dutch, the cuisine from foreign parts is used and adapted to the Dutch idea of food (satay, for instance is made with lumps of meat, and schnitzels are thick).
At a “Dutch” restaurant recommended to us, we were offered an Italian type first course and a Thai style one for the main course.
And then, in a café afterwards, we ate a brownie and ice cream, the brownie bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the kind invented by the Americans, but was semi-toffee-liquid, with walnuts and a smidgen of normal brownie mix. It was delicious, yet one wouldn’t want to eat it again too often. (“Brownies”, incidentally, are also eaten – not to assuage hunger - in coffeeshops.)
Our hotel room was also uniquely Dutch. It was situated at the very top of a typical 17th century canal-side house, and approached via the hotel’s lift and an outside alleyway between a wall and tiled roof. Situated directly beneath a roof of dark tiles, the room’s inside consisted of a plethora of angles and planes that twisted and rose and fell in all directions. It was a bit like being inside a small diamond on which a cack-handed Amsterdam apprentice diamond-cutter had been having instruction. A small window at the side allowed a bit of light and air to enter, but a dormer window on one side would have offered a fine view of the Singel canal. I imagine that stringent building regulations prevented it – and probably rightly so.
So “Dutch” was this room that one felt very much as Amsterdam people must have felt for over three or four hundred years in a city where space in their prosperous community has always been at a premium.
The Dutch Reformed church for the wedding in Laren was unadorned and without an alter.
We arrived in the nick of time as the café waitresses nearby, where we had ordered drinks three times and they had failed to produce the goods, forced us to cancel. Being only just in time at the church, and with all pews seemingly packed tight, we were directed to the few seats in the very front of the congregation – when we would rather have been at the back.
The service was a long one, with the “vicar” having a great deal to say, taking relish in both his voice and the words he used. Understanding nothing (a position with which I am accustomed in Holland) I tried to look interested throughout (a tiring business).
The order of service had the music to hymns printed with the text.
The elderly groom and his bride were obviously in love, holding hands when they were able, kneeling centre stage toward a raised pulpit (unused during the service but surrounded by a very local choir).
Then came the reception at the nearby Ateliercafé Mauve, named after a famous artist from Laren (where all this took place).
We drank (well, I did) copiously, and ate bitterballen, one of the most delicious of Dutch snack/delicacies, consisting of crisp and crunchy balls containing a palate-burning mixture of creamy meat (horse, thought to be one of the best, but veal the most common) and eaten dipped in mustard.
As we were waiting for dinner, we continued to drink whatever we chose from waiters’ trays, under the efficient command of Yvette, the bride’s daughter-in-law.
It was during this dormant period of drinks between the reception and dinner that something delightful (to me) took place.
On our table, beneath the trees outside on a balmy late afternoon, was a round, blue vase containing campanula plants. I noticed a honeybee taking nectar from its blue flowers. Never before had I seen honeybees enjoying flowers in a vase. Word clearly got back to the hive that the nectar from our campanulas was tasty. So the bee’s fellow workers joined in to take advantage of what was on offer.
It was almost as if this was a gesture of celebration on the part of the hive, as our groom had made his fortune in horticulture, where bees had been the vital instruments for his pollinations.
Besides the charm of an elderly bride and groom, and the stylishness of their many guests, the red wine at the dinner was a Château Rocher Calon, merlot, from Montagne Saint-Emillion, the very same hamlet in the Bordeaux region where we had so recently enjoyed another lovely wedding.
That a single grape variety should be produced in Saint-Emillion was quite new to me, and very successful it was.
Kind relations, Dick and Reina, escorted us to the Hilversum railway station where a train soon transported us back to Amsterdam Central Station, where we made our way by foot to the nearby Singel Hotel.
If you are of the opinion that the Dutch railways are always highly efficient, think again.
On the following day we needed once more to return to Amsterdam Central from Hilversum, the station and surrounds of which were in a state of reconstruction.
To obtain a ticket it was necessary to use a machine – needing a credit card and a local’s considerable computer expertise.
We knew that the train would leave from platform 5, needing a double descent of stairs and one to climb – difficult for Margreet with one foot in a temporary surgical boot.
Having descended, we found that our intended platform had been taped off, in the way that a murder scene is taped off. Margreet, by now, was quite willing to commit some violence that might well have warranted a taping-off.
As there had been no indication whatsoever, in a notice or official’s guidance, that trains would not be leaving for Amsterdam from Hilversum at that time, we had to retrace our steps. We then learned that passengers for Amsterdam would have to take a local, stopping bus to Weesp, a station nearer to our destination. We were obliged to take it.
So, a normal 20 minute journey took over an hour, and we had had to descend and climb countless stairs pointlessly in the course of it.
It had been a most upsetting experience for Margreet, with a stress fracture in her foot.
On the advice of Tobias at the Dutch Embassy in London, we made our way to the rear of the Central Station in Amsterdam to the de Ruijterkade where (free) ferries leave for the far side of the very wide IJ (pronounced eye) river.
The one to take is for the destination IJ plein. This name will be marked up on an electronic signboard and on the back of the ferry.
From the ferry dock at IJ plein, you turn right to walk along the IJ riverbank to the Wilhelmina-Dok (sic), which is also called Caffé Tazza d’Oro. Here, on a sunny day or warm evening, you can sit (almost on the river) to drink and eat.
It is a lovely experience there to watch the commercial and private shipping pass by from a table in the open or under giant orange umbrellas – umbrellas that stand out so clearly, from both sides of the river, amid a setting of fairly drab utilitarian buildings.
On our final day in Amsterdam, we bought three kinds of cheese (brokkel oud, young white goat cheese from a cartwheel, and komijne), all unique to Holland, and headed back to England with our food gifts and having enjoyed such a pleasant and interesting visit.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Bulgarian Wine
I used to write about wine (4 books and about 700 articles) specialising in the lower market sector. So I knew more or less what I was about – especially as I was tasting about 2,000 wines each year. Now I am just an ordinary punter.
Because I have been both wine writer and publisher, a kind invitation comes my way each year to visit the London International Wine Fair, now held at ExCeL, in London’s dockland, and organised by Brintex. I generally decline to go, no longer having a column in which to pass on helpful information on wine. But this year I accepted.
In the 1970s and early 1980s Bulgarian wine was generally available. And excellent, reliable wine it was - reasonably priced as well. Bulgaria, bless it, was introducing the British public to the pleasures of drinking good red wine. After all, they had been making the stuff since at least the 5th and 4th century BC. So they should know what they were about. And they made masses of it (mainly Cabernet Sauvignon), swilled down with much pleasure by generations of appreciative Britons.
In 1986, when most supermarkets were selling their Cabernet Sauvignon for under £2 a bottle, I wrote that Bulgaria could become the next great wine- producing country, flooding the world with their products – a view later confirmed during a private visit to that country when I saw what ideal conditions prevailed there. Progress was such that they were even using helicopters to spray the vast vineyards.
But this has not happened. So I tried to piece together the story of decline.
I was told that their government in 1944 turned a fragmented, small-holding operation into a modern, far-sighted, co-operative industry. But in the latter part of the 1980s, because of their close ties to Communist Russia, they did as they were told in a crusade against alcohol consumption and grubbed up vines in many of the best areas. They have yet to recover. One voice predicted that it would take another ten years. The overall picture was gloomy. Some of the trouble lay, so one person almost whispered in my ear, was due to politics, Mafia, graft and social upheaval. About which, I am glad to record, I know almost nothing.
But wine is still made in considerable quantity, and small, boutique wineries are beginning to flourish.
I tried to promote the idea that good and low priced wines should once again be marketed in the UK – if only to get the public to think of Bulgarian wine as a sound choice once more – starting at the bottom end of the market.
That they can make fine wine there is no doubt. I tried several at ExCeL, some of which have not yet found an outlet in England.
One particularly fine blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Mavrud and Rubin, made by Vinza–Assenovgrad, and called Ententa, is available at Vinopolis at around £25. Only about 7,000 litres of it are made each year. There are also other of this company’s wines available at Vinopolis. Another red to seek out is Enira. This is made by Frenchmen, who are trying to change the image of Bulgarian wine in the Bessa Valley. Waitrose sell this excellent 2006 blend of Merlot 60%, Syrah 15%, Petit Verdot 15% and Cabernet Sauvignon 10% for £8.99.
I had a chance to taste only some of Bulgaria’s upper-market wines. But there must be more reasonably priced wines around in the market place, and more on their way for sure.
It made me very sad to see the declining fortunes of one of Great Britain’s favourite suppliers of good table wine.
So let us hope that they will get their act together again and start flooding our wine shelves with the wine that they once made and marketed so well.
And let us also hope that this will take place well within that predicted 10 year time scale.
Because I have been both wine writer and publisher, a kind invitation comes my way each year to visit the London International Wine Fair, now held at ExCeL, in London’s dockland, and organised by Brintex. I generally decline to go, no longer having a column in which to pass on helpful information on wine. But this year I accepted.
In the 1970s and early 1980s Bulgarian wine was generally available. And excellent, reliable wine it was - reasonably priced as well. Bulgaria, bless it, was introducing the British public to the pleasures of drinking good red wine. After all, they had been making the stuff since at least the 5th and 4th century BC. So they should know what they were about. And they made masses of it (mainly Cabernet Sauvignon), swilled down with much pleasure by generations of appreciative Britons.
In 1986, when most supermarkets were selling their Cabernet Sauvignon for under £2 a bottle, I wrote that Bulgaria could become the next great wine- producing country, flooding the world with their products – a view later confirmed during a private visit to that country when I saw what ideal conditions prevailed there. Progress was such that they were even using helicopters to spray the vast vineyards.
But this has not happened. So I tried to piece together the story of decline.
I was told that their government in 1944 turned a fragmented, small-holding operation into a modern, far-sighted, co-operative industry. But in the latter part of the 1980s, because of their close ties to Communist Russia, they did as they were told in a crusade against alcohol consumption and grubbed up vines in many of the best areas. They have yet to recover. One voice predicted that it would take another ten years. The overall picture was gloomy. Some of the trouble lay, so one person almost whispered in my ear, was due to politics, Mafia, graft and social upheaval. About which, I am glad to record, I know almost nothing.
But wine is still made in considerable quantity, and small, boutique wineries are beginning to flourish.
I tried to promote the idea that good and low priced wines should once again be marketed in the UK – if only to get the public to think of Bulgarian wine as a sound choice once more – starting at the bottom end of the market.
That they can make fine wine there is no doubt. I tried several at ExCeL, some of which have not yet found an outlet in England.
One particularly fine blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Mavrud and Rubin, made by Vinza–Assenovgrad, and called Ententa, is available at Vinopolis at around £25. Only about 7,000 litres of it are made each year. There are also other of this company’s wines available at Vinopolis. Another red to seek out is Enira. This is made by Frenchmen, who are trying to change the image of Bulgarian wine in the Bessa Valley. Waitrose sell this excellent 2006 blend of Merlot 60%, Syrah 15%, Petit Verdot 15% and Cabernet Sauvignon 10% for £8.99.
I had a chance to taste only some of Bulgaria’s upper-market wines. But there must be more reasonably priced wines around in the market place, and more on their way for sure.
It made me very sad to see the declining fortunes of one of Great Britain’s favourite suppliers of good table wine.
So let us hope that they will get their act together again and start flooding our wine shelves with the wine that they once made and marketed so well.
And let us also hope that this will take place well within that predicted 10 year time scale.
Friday, May 02, 2008
THE VIABILITY OF VEGETABLE SEEDS
In preparation for sowing seeds in flowerpots, with a view to growing more vegetables in the small, paved garden in London, I opened my ancient toffee tin of garden seeds to see what was inside.
Some used packets had been bought recently, like climbing French beans, broad beans and parsley. Other seeds, taken from the previous year’s crop, like tomatoes, clung to the kitchen paper on which they were dried. Others were tied in plastic freezer bags, like rocket and chillies.
But there were seeds there of unknown age and origin, some loose - all later to be cast haphazardly in open urban ground.
In looking through a 1962 diary, where I have, since then, recorded the rotation of crops, arrival of house martins, first cuckoo notes and other observations of nature, I found my list of seed viability.
Now, by nature, my life is made up of experiments. This manifests itself, especially in the kitchen, where nearly every dish is contrived differently from that cooked previously, and in the garden.
In gardening, like cooking, we are inclined to believe what we are told by “experts”, or have learned from, and believed, the printed word. When some sage has pronounced (perhaps erroneously) on a subject, and, right or wrong this has since been perpetuated, we believe it.
So when I wrote an unpublished work on vegetable gardening, a proposed section was to be the viability of seeds with some original input.
It struck me that merchants might possibly suggest that their seeds did not remain viable for as long as they actually did (quite untrue, I’m sure), and that “Packed in the year ….” did not necessarily mean the year harvested. And I had noticed that some packets of seeds sold in foreign countries suggested longer viability than those sold at home.
So, with a combination of discovering packets with the longest seed viability recommended at home and abroad, and my own experiments over many years, I drew up a list. It has been very popular among my gardening friends.
One point to note is than when compiling it many years ago, there were few, if any, F1 Hybrid seeds on the market. These do not necessarily produce a good crop from saved seed. So my list is for non-F1 Hybrid seeds – old-fashioned, normal seeds.
Another point is that the following viability list depends on seed gathered and dried by your self, with the following year for planting being recorded as year one.
As a note of interest, it is not always necessary to dry tomato seeds – though I usually do, especially to keep two excellent unknown strains going. Once, when eating a splendid salade tomates in France in springtime, I extracted some tomato seeds from the vinaigrette dressing and planted them on my return to England. I was eating those very same tomatoes that summer. This year I have grown plants successfully from the fresh seeds of two kinds of mini tomatoes.
A final point is that the seeds in the following list may well last for longer – some much longer – than here recommended (we learn quite often that seeds from ancient civilisations have been germinated successfully).
Here they are, with the years of their viability, all in a line to save space, and in the original order from my book:-
CUCUMBER 6, CELERY 6, PARSNIP 2, MARROW (AND PRESUMABLY COURGETTE) 6, CABBAGE 5, RADISH 5, LETTUCE 5, SPINACH 2, CHARD 5, CARROTS 3, LEEKS 3, ONIONS 3, TURNIPS 2, PEAS 2, BEANS 2, TOMATOES 5, PARSLEY 3, CELERIAC 4, BEETS 5, KOHL RABI 4, SALSIFY 2, SWEDE (RUTABAGA) 2, AND PEPPERS (UNRECORDED).
Some used packets had been bought recently, like climbing French beans, broad beans and parsley. Other seeds, taken from the previous year’s crop, like tomatoes, clung to the kitchen paper on which they were dried. Others were tied in plastic freezer bags, like rocket and chillies.
But there were seeds there of unknown age and origin, some loose - all later to be cast haphazardly in open urban ground.
In looking through a 1962 diary, where I have, since then, recorded the rotation of crops, arrival of house martins, first cuckoo notes and other observations of nature, I found my list of seed viability.
Now, by nature, my life is made up of experiments. This manifests itself, especially in the kitchen, where nearly every dish is contrived differently from that cooked previously, and in the garden.
In gardening, like cooking, we are inclined to believe what we are told by “experts”, or have learned from, and believed, the printed word. When some sage has pronounced (perhaps erroneously) on a subject, and, right or wrong this has since been perpetuated, we believe it.
So when I wrote an unpublished work on vegetable gardening, a proposed section was to be the viability of seeds with some original input.
It struck me that merchants might possibly suggest that their seeds did not remain viable for as long as they actually did (quite untrue, I’m sure), and that “Packed in the year ….” did not necessarily mean the year harvested. And I had noticed that some packets of seeds sold in foreign countries suggested longer viability than those sold at home.
So, with a combination of discovering packets with the longest seed viability recommended at home and abroad, and my own experiments over many years, I drew up a list. It has been very popular among my gardening friends.
One point to note is than when compiling it many years ago, there were few, if any, F1 Hybrid seeds on the market. These do not necessarily produce a good crop from saved seed. So my list is for non-F1 Hybrid seeds – old-fashioned, normal seeds.
Another point is that the following viability list depends on seed gathered and dried by your self, with the following year for planting being recorded as year one.
As a note of interest, it is not always necessary to dry tomato seeds – though I usually do, especially to keep two excellent unknown strains going. Once, when eating a splendid salade tomates in France in springtime, I extracted some tomato seeds from the vinaigrette dressing and planted them on my return to England. I was eating those very same tomatoes that summer. This year I have grown plants successfully from the fresh seeds of two kinds of mini tomatoes.
A final point is that the seeds in the following list may well last for longer – some much longer – than here recommended (we learn quite often that seeds from ancient civilisations have been germinated successfully).
Here they are, with the years of their viability, all in a line to save space, and in the original order from my book:-
CUCUMBER 6, CELERY 6, PARSNIP 2, MARROW (AND PRESUMABLY COURGETTE) 6, CABBAGE 5, RADISH 5, LETTUCE 5, SPINACH 2, CHARD 5, CARROTS 3, LEEKS 3, ONIONS 3, TURNIPS 2, PEAS 2, BEANS 2, TOMATOES 5, PARSLEY 3, CELERIAC 4, BEETS 5, KOHL RABI 4, SALSIFY 2, SWEDE (RUTABAGA) 2, AND PEPPERS (UNRECORDED).
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Pistachio and pepper paté
I may cook certain dishes quite often, but seldom in the same way. I devise new ones, or alter familiar recipes to either simplify or improve them. When this happens, and I am pleased, the recipe, alterations, or perhaps timings, get written down on any old piece of paper that’s handy. This one for a paté I made and took to a party in
PISTACHIO AND PEPPER PATE
You will need:
Whole grain or granary bread (three slices)
Pistachio nut kernels (3 tablespoons)
Green peppercorns (1 teaspoon)
White wine and Calvados (or another spirit – containing aniseed if you like it)
Pepper and salt
Parsley, chives and mint (any or all)
Minced pork (300 grams and a bit fatty)
Butter
Cut off the crusts from three slices of whole grain or granary bread and, with the fingers. Work them into breadcrumbs in a large bowl.
Pour off any surplus liquid left from the 24 hour plus marinating of the pistachio kernels and peppercorns in white wine. Liquid will be absorbed, so add more to keep them covered.
Add the drained kernels and peppercorns, salt and plenty of milled black pepper to the breadcrumbs.
Chop up fresh herbs, like parsley, or chives, or mint, or all.
Having buttered your paté dish with a large lump, cut the remainder into the smallest possible pieces and add these.
Now put in the 300 grams of minced pork and, with the fingers (like making the breadcrumbs) work it all together for an even blend. The mixture will be slightly tacky.
Finally, using a wooden spoon, stir in a beaten egg to which you have added a good slosh of Calvados.
Put all this into the buttered paté dish (my favourite takes the form of a green duck with yellow beak, bought in the 1950s in
Put the lidded paté dish in a baking tray and surround it with boiling water to about half way up the pot (a bain-marie), and give it 1½ hours in a medium oven, taking the lid off for the last 15 minutes or so to dry out the upper surface. Check during the cooking that the water has not evaporated, topping up with boiling water if necessary.
Allow the paté to cool before eating it with crusty bread.
Note: Omitting the peppercorns and Calvados will make a mild paté, more to the taste, possibly, of children.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Bolivian Begonia
A plant, to me, is as important in the scheme of things as a person. It is just because we can think that makes us believe we are more important than plants, trees or animals. We are not.
And when we come to the end of our lives the process and end result is much the same as anything else coming to the end of its time on earth.
This is a blog about a plant.
I think it must have been when my wife, Margreet, was recovering from an operation to her foot that she was presented with a Bolivian begonia (B. boliviensis “Firecracker” to be exact) as a get-well present from her Embassy.
It was a truly magnificent plant of long, arching, well-branched stems, festooned with bright orange, pendant flowers.
Our newly acquired treasure, now thriving in a blue glazed pot, had pride of place, holding sway over all other colourful flowers in the centre of a peninsular of other pots in the centre of our flagstone-paved
I was not sure which kind of begonia it happened to be – fibrous rooted or corm (tuberous).
In late autumn at the onset of its first winter with us, a large corm became visible as its few fleshy stems withered and then finally fell away from the corm base.
I read that begonia corms should be dried up then and packed away in sand for the winter – which I did.
The display throughout the following year was just as spectacular, after having had the pleasure of seeing small shoots springing out of the dried and dead-looking tuber.
For last winter I decided to dispense with the previous year’s storing procedure and left it in its pot, but well insulated from the frost in bubblewrap. It was a disastrous decision. Beneath its insulation, the corm, damp and unseen, rotted away. It had to go to the compost heap, along with its soil, which was thickly matted with fine roots.
So I searched and found a nursery that would supply me with a replacement. I paid for it by post and awaited its arrival with happy anticipation.
When the cardboard box arrived from the nursery, the exterior dimensions were smaller by far than the whole of my original corm.
On prising open the cardboard I found only shredded paper as packing – but no Bolivian begonia.
About to contact the nursery in question, my fingers touched something very small among the packing. It was my new corm – so minute in size in its cellophane tube that I had very nearly thrown it away into the recycling bin with its wrapping.
Looking pathetically small, it has now been planted in the old pot with fresh, composty soil.
How many years, I wonder, will I have to wait and cosset this tiny stem with its few drooping leaves before, once again, I have a plant to fill my summer garden with colour?
I know that gardeners need patience. I will certainly need some for the begonia.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Dieppe, March 2008
Why don’t we do our weekend shopping in Dieppe? What a nice idea.
We would drive to Newhaven, take the car ferry to Dieppe, eat a lovely dinner, sleep in our accustomed room at the Aguado Hotel, do our shopping, lunch well, and be home by the evening. Perfect.
But, of course, we had not reckoned with the vagaries of this most pleasant crossing of the Channel.
Seldom in the past has the ship left or arrived on time. On occasion we have been re-directed to other ports, The engines have under-performed and we have travelled slowly at sea. The sea has occasionally been too rough for a crossing. And once we were telephoned before departure to be told that they had read the tides incorrectly and there would be a delay.
But off we set. And this time we half expected that there would be some form of trouble as two violent storms had just passed through and there was a strike at Dover – causing many trucks to converge on alternative Channel ports.
So it was no great surprise to be told on arrival at Newhaven that we would be going to Le Havre instead. Apparently, the car loading ramp at Dieppe had failed.
So we arrived in Le Havre on a dark and rainy evening without map or direction. But Dieppe was to be our unalterable destination (we had ordered wine to be collected there) and there was a motorway for much of the way.
Now, either we are very dense, French sign posting is dreadful (especially around road works) or the locals already know the way and, for foreigners, hard luck.
So instead of finding the motorway we found ourselves amid road works and on a country route – a pleasant one, no doubt, on a fine summer’s day with time to enjoy the countryside and coastal scenery.
Any sign posting in the countryside was difficult to see in the dark and rain. And without a good road map (I had torn out a cursory one from a ferry brochure on gardens of note in Normandy) made accurate direction a bit of a lottery.
But late in the evening, after a harrowing 100 kilometres, we arrived in Dieppe – somewhat shattered.
Even the restaurant of our choice was, for some reason, closed.
So we selected a new restaurant to us, one that had plenty of diners still eating there at the late hour. It was Le New Haven.
The meal and wine were exemplary, the pan-fried scallops the largest and tenderest encountered.
At last our projected sojourn of pleasure was taking shape. But it took much of the meal for us to unwind.
And we slept like logs.
Shopping the following day proceeded as planned – French, Spanish, Chilean wine from two supermarkets (the “foreign” wine having somewhat dusty bottles as the French do not think that anyone else can make it properly, so don’t buy it), garlic sausage, top class beef (probably chewy but tasty, being French) smoked chickens, bouillon cubes, Normandy cider, olive oil (mostly from Spain), Neufchâtel and goats’ cheese, Pont l’Evèque and Roquefort, paper handkerchiefs, sliced raw ham, leeks, apples and avocados, trinket presents and I’m sure other things, many unique to France or much cheaper than in England.
After an excellent lunch at the Bistrot du Pollet (I ate calf’s head) we drove (this time the 100 kilometres on the motorway) to Le Havre (one hour in the dry as opposed to three on country roads in the wet).
We had expected to have to wait a long time for our ship’s departure, but a large ferry was shortly due to leave for Portsmouth. So, thanks to a kind lady at LD Lines who arranged for us to transfer, we were on our way, and were at home when our arranged ship was still at sea.
Because of the inconvenience suffered, we were given a free return trip at some time in the future.
I think that we might do our weekend shopping in France again, and expect both pleasure and strife, as we always do on our crossings to Dieppe by ferry from Newhaven.
We would drive to Newhaven, take the car ferry to Dieppe, eat a lovely dinner, sleep in our accustomed room at the Aguado Hotel, do our shopping, lunch well, and be home by the evening. Perfect.
But, of course, we had not reckoned with the vagaries of this most pleasant crossing of the Channel.
Seldom in the past has the ship left or arrived on time. On occasion we have been re-directed to other ports, The engines have under-performed and we have travelled slowly at sea. The sea has occasionally been too rough for a crossing. And once we were telephoned before departure to be told that they had read the tides incorrectly and there would be a delay.
But off we set. And this time we half expected that there would be some form of trouble as two violent storms had just passed through and there was a strike at Dover – causing many trucks to converge on alternative Channel ports.
So it was no great surprise to be told on arrival at Newhaven that we would be going to Le Havre instead. Apparently, the car loading ramp at Dieppe had failed.
So we arrived in Le Havre on a dark and rainy evening without map or direction. But Dieppe was to be our unalterable destination (we had ordered wine to be collected there) and there was a motorway for much of the way.
Now, either we are very dense, French sign posting is dreadful (especially around road works) or the locals already know the way and, for foreigners, hard luck.
So instead of finding the motorway we found ourselves amid road works and on a country route – a pleasant one, no doubt, on a fine summer’s day with time to enjoy the countryside and coastal scenery.
Any sign posting in the countryside was difficult to see in the dark and rain. And without a good road map (I had torn out a cursory one from a ferry brochure on gardens of note in Normandy) made accurate direction a bit of a lottery.
But late in the evening, after a harrowing 100 kilometres, we arrived in Dieppe – somewhat shattered.
Even the restaurant of our choice was, for some reason, closed.
So we selected a new restaurant to us, one that had plenty of diners still eating there at the late hour. It was Le New Haven.
The meal and wine were exemplary, the pan-fried scallops the largest and tenderest encountered.
At last our projected sojourn of pleasure was taking shape. But it took much of the meal for us to unwind.
And we slept like logs.
Shopping the following day proceeded as planned – French, Spanish, Chilean wine from two supermarkets (the “foreign” wine having somewhat dusty bottles as the French do not think that anyone else can make it properly, so don’t buy it), garlic sausage, top class beef (probably chewy but tasty, being French) smoked chickens, bouillon cubes, Normandy cider, olive oil (mostly from Spain), Neufchâtel and goats’ cheese, Pont l’Evèque and Roquefort, paper handkerchiefs, sliced raw ham, leeks, apples and avocados, trinket presents and I’m sure other things, many unique to France or much cheaper than in England.
After an excellent lunch at the Bistrot du Pollet (I ate calf’s head) we drove (this time the 100 kilometres on the motorway) to Le Havre (one hour in the dry as opposed to three on country roads in the wet).
We had expected to have to wait a long time for our ship’s departure, but a large ferry was shortly due to leave for Portsmouth. So, thanks to a kind lady at LD Lines who arranged for us to transfer, we were on our way, and were at home when our arranged ship was still at sea.
Because of the inconvenience suffered, we were given a free return trip at some time in the future.
I think that we might do our weekend shopping in France again, and expect both pleasure and strife, as we always do on our crossings to Dieppe by ferry from Newhaven.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Chicken- Chicken on Swede
Here is a cheap, simple and peasant-like dish, elevated to dinner party status by a spirited addition. This dish is almost invariably a huge success.
CHICKEN- CHICKEN ON SWEDE
You will need:
Swede (rutabaga)
Stock (optional)
Butter
Pepper and salt
Ouzo, Pernod or another aniseed spirit. Or star aniseed. Or other liqueur or spirit.
Boned chicken thighs (or legs)
Olive oil
Milled pepper
Pare away the outer skin of a swede or two, or more. Cut the flesh into smallish cubes Cover them with water or stock and boil for 20 to 30 minutes - or until soft. If you are using star aniseed instead of an aniseed spirit as the flavouring for the swede, add three stars to the water in which you are boiling the swede. Discard them when the swede has been boiled.
Pour off the cooking water for the start of a later-to-be-enjoyed soup.
Mash the swede with butter, pepper and salt.
Now stir in a measure (say, a dessertspoon) of Ouzo, Pernod, Ricard, or other aniseed spirit. Or you may have imparted enough aniseed taste from the star aniseeds used when boiling the swede.
Cover the bottom of an ovenproof dish with the mashed swede.
Take chicken thighs (better than legs) from which you have extracted the single, central bone (if you have done this earlier, tie together and put the bones in with the swede when you are boiling it to obtain extra flavour). Keep the skin on the thigh pieces and roll them into bundles before arranging them (one large or two small per person) on top of the mashed swede. If boning chicken legs, also discard the sharp bone lying close to the leg bone and use kitchen scissors to trim away the little white ends of tendon. Wrap in their skin, as with thighs.
When the thighs are in position, and just pressed down a little into the mashed swede, dribble or brush a little olive oil over each. Add salt, and give them a good milling of black pepper from the pepper mill.
If it is more convenient, the preparation can be done well before the dish is ready for the oven. Give it about an hour and a half at a medium setting (longer seems to make little difference, so it is an excellent dish might you be late or very late to eat). Anyhow, after the chicken skin has become crisp and golden, the dish will be ready for the table.
That's it. And it's a stunner. Serve on its own, or with baked or mashed potato, or beans, or a salad, or...
Perhaps you do not like the taste of aniseed. Then don’t add any. It will be almost as good. It is also possible to use any spirit or liqueur for this excellent dish. Use your favourite, or any at hand. Grand Marnier, for instance, is excellent.
I have also made this dish with slightly liquid mashed potato instead of swede, and it was excellent. I flavoured the mash with pressed garlic and de-seeded red chillies, finely chopped.
But start with swede, star aniseed and chicken thighs.
*****
CHICKEN- CHICKEN ON SWEDE
You will need:
Swede (rutabaga)
Stock (optional)
Butter
Pepper and salt
Ouzo, Pernod or another aniseed spirit. Or star aniseed. Or other liqueur or spirit.
Boned chicken thighs (or legs)
Olive oil
Milled pepper
Pare away the outer skin of a swede or two, or more. Cut the flesh into smallish cubes Cover them with water or stock and boil for 20 to 30 minutes - or until soft. If you are using star aniseed instead of an aniseed spirit as the flavouring for the swede, add three stars to the water in which you are boiling the swede. Discard them when the swede has been boiled.
Pour off the cooking water for the start of a later-to-be-enjoyed soup.
Mash the swede with butter, pepper and salt.
Now stir in a measure (say, a dessertspoon) of Ouzo, Pernod, Ricard, or other aniseed spirit. Or you may have imparted enough aniseed taste from the star aniseeds used when boiling the swede.
Cover the bottom of an ovenproof dish with the mashed swede.
Take chicken thighs (better than legs) from which you have extracted the single, central bone (if you have done this earlier, tie together and put the bones in with the swede when you are boiling it to obtain extra flavour). Keep the skin on the thigh pieces and roll them into bundles before arranging them (one large or two small per person) on top of the mashed swede. If boning chicken legs, also discard the sharp bone lying close to the leg bone and use kitchen scissors to trim away the little white ends of tendon. Wrap in their skin, as with thighs.
When the thighs are in position, and just pressed down a little into the mashed swede, dribble or brush a little olive oil over each. Add salt, and give them a good milling of black pepper from the pepper mill.
If it is more convenient, the preparation can be done well before the dish is ready for the oven. Give it about an hour and a half at a medium setting (longer seems to make little difference, so it is an excellent dish might you be late or very late to eat). Anyhow, after the chicken skin has become crisp and golden, the dish will be ready for the table.
That's it. And it's a stunner. Serve on its own, or with baked or mashed potato, or beans, or a salad, or...
Perhaps you do not like the taste of aniseed. Then don’t add any. It will be almost as good. It is also possible to use any spirit or liqueur for this excellent dish. Use your favourite, or any at hand. Grand Marnier, for instance, is excellent.
I have also made this dish with slightly liquid mashed potato instead of swede, and it was excellent. I flavoured the mash with pressed garlic and de-seeded red chillies, finely chopped.
But start with swede, star aniseed and chicken thighs.
*****
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Beef - beef and orange
This delicious beef dish is best made when blood oranges are in season. But it is not necessary. It is a very special beef stew – ideal for a cold winter’s evening when served either with mashed potato or baked potatoes.
BEEF – BEEF AND ORANGE
You will need:
Stewing beef, like shin
Onions
Garlic
Oil
Flour
Oranges
Red wine
Stock cube
Pepper and salt
Gravy browning (optional)
In an iron casserole put oil, chopped onions and chopped garlic. Just brown them.
Now add cubes of shin of beef and brown them. Sprinkle some flour over it all and stir.
As this has been going on, take six medium-size oranges (possibly blood oranges) and, using a sharp knife with a thin blade, pare the zest off three of them. Chop this rind into very small pieces. Squeeze all the oranges and place the juice and the chopped skin in a bowl. To this bowl add red wine measuring half the volume of its orange juice contents.
Add this liquid to the casserole. Add pepper and salt, a crumbled stock cube, and a little gravy browning should you want the final result to look more appetising.
Cook the stew on a very low heat for about an hour and a half – or even more. Test the meat to see if it has become tender, and add a little water as it is cooking if you think the sauce is too thick or beginning to catch.
Serve with mashed or baked potato.
BEEF – BEEF AND ORANGE
You will need:
Stewing beef, like shin
Onions
Garlic
Oil
Flour
Oranges
Red wine
Stock cube
Pepper and salt
Gravy browning (optional)
In an iron casserole put oil, chopped onions and chopped garlic. Just brown them.
Now add cubes of shin of beef and brown them. Sprinkle some flour over it all and stir.
As this has been going on, take six medium-size oranges (possibly blood oranges) and, using a sharp knife with a thin blade, pare the zest off three of them. Chop this rind into very small pieces. Squeeze all the oranges and place the juice and the chopped skin in a bowl. To this bowl add red wine measuring half the volume of its orange juice contents.
Add this liquid to the casserole. Add pepper and salt, a crumbled stock cube, and a little gravy browning should you want the final result to look more appetising.
Cook the stew on a very low heat for about an hour and a half – or even more. Test the meat to see if it has become tender, and add a little water as it is cooking if you think the sauce is too thick or beginning to catch.
Serve with mashed or baked potato.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Feral Pigeons and Walnuts
I am a bird lover (and I love my wife, too).
On the top floor of our house is a small room that incorporates our spare bed (on which I paint from a kneeling position), my wife’s modern computer, and my own computer, which is really a sophisticated word-processor and unconnected to the net.
We are very cramped in this room, but it is our joint den, and very cosy.
Outside old inward-opening windows (a real curse, needing drainage channels and a tube to a bucket to deal with wind-blown rainwater) is a wide sill.
Above this sill I suspend a contraption for feeding birds with sunflower seeds.
Beside the normal run of blue tits and great tits came feral pigeons that ate both the dropped seeds and even their husks. They made a noise and a mess, were plain greedy, and deterred the other birds from enjoying a share.
So I constructed a frame of 1 ½” x 1 ½” woodwork on which I attached rows of spikes – used to keep pigeons away from the perching places on public buildings and monuments.
After adjustments and filling gaps with yet more spikes, the feral pigeons tried for seed and failed.
But the husks fell, started to fill the frame, and began to congeal and rot.
So I scraped and vacuumed to keep the sill hygienically clean. This was a painfully spiky and nuisance job.
It then occurred to me that if I lifted the gutter side of the frame, rainwater would run beneath it and wash the detritus into the gutter and then away.
I was eating a walnut when thinking of a simple method to raise the woodwork with something rot-proof and sightly that would be impervious to the elements. So I used broken walnut shell to do the job.
Walnut shells seem to be indestructible, and easy on the eye. So the broken shells were replaced with intact half shells.
Now the rainwater washes away the husks from the front of the raised frame, and it looks nice, too.
With this success I have hung a Niger seed dispenser above the sunflower seed one.
So now goldfinches have joined the tit crowd, the sill is clean, and there is neither the sight nor sound of a feral pigeon.
On the top floor of our house is a small room that incorporates our spare bed (on which I paint from a kneeling position), my wife’s modern computer, and my own computer, which is really a sophisticated word-processor and unconnected to the net.
We are very cramped in this room, but it is our joint den, and very cosy.
Outside old inward-opening windows (a real curse, needing drainage channels and a tube to a bucket to deal with wind-blown rainwater) is a wide sill.
Above this sill I suspend a contraption for feeding birds with sunflower seeds.
Beside the normal run of blue tits and great tits came feral pigeons that ate both the dropped seeds and even their husks. They made a noise and a mess, were plain greedy, and deterred the other birds from enjoying a share.
So I constructed a frame of 1 ½” x 1 ½” woodwork on which I attached rows of spikes – used to keep pigeons away from the perching places on public buildings and monuments.
After adjustments and filling gaps with yet more spikes, the feral pigeons tried for seed and failed.
But the husks fell, started to fill the frame, and began to congeal and rot.
So I scraped and vacuumed to keep the sill hygienically clean. This was a painfully spiky and nuisance job.
It then occurred to me that if I lifted the gutter side of the frame, rainwater would run beneath it and wash the detritus into the gutter and then away.
I was eating a walnut when thinking of a simple method to raise the woodwork with something rot-proof and sightly that would be impervious to the elements. So I used broken walnut shell to do the job.
Walnut shells seem to be indestructible, and easy on the eye. So the broken shells were replaced with intact half shells.
Now the rainwater washes away the husks from the front of the raised frame, and it looks nice, too.
With this success I have hung a Niger seed dispenser above the sunflower seed one.
So now goldfinches have joined the tit crowd, the sill is clean, and there is neither the sight nor sound of a feral pigeon.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Latest Painting
Having started to paint (in pastel to be exact) again after a 27 year break for writing (14 books and some 700 articles), I have now amassed, since June 2006, 28 A1s (19 ¾” x 15 ¾”) (50 cm x 40 cm) and countless “working” A4s (11 ½” x 8 ¼”) (29.5 cm x 21 cm).
So although “Jim’s Paintings” – reached through LINKS beside my blog (www.webpageroberts.blogspot.com) – displays examples of my work over a 75 year period, I thought it might be of interest for viewers to see the latest A1 completed.
As I use my own computer solely for writing, it is my wife Margreet, exercising her skills on a more modern machine, who now enables those interested to see the most recent work.
All my paintings are for sale. It is, however, my 1950s and 1960s paintings that are at present popular with both private collectors and sale room buyers of 20th century art
So, the way I look at it is that in around another 50 years time these new works (which I call my second childhood paintings) will be just as popular as the earlier ones are now. Or, it could happen much earlier.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
A Cat Fight
It had been an excellent Saturday before Christmas.
The painting on which I had been working made good progress.
With friends coming for mid-day drinks I made tasty “bites” by frying small squares of my home-made bread in olive oil, turning them over, adding slices of goats’ cheese, milled pepper, salt, a pinch of paprika, and then frying the other side after adding a little more oil. The result is a crisp base with slightly melting cheese on the top. The paprika is for looks. They are very popular.
The guests came and went. Then a wine merchant friend appeared for a while.
As he was leaving through the front door, Fusker, a local cat, owned by a TV motoring personality and debunker of wine snobbery, dashed in to the house and ran up the stairs.
He had done this before. And it was fun to find him, catch him and put him out.
At last I had him in a place where I could bend down to pick him up. But on this occasion he suddenly attacked me viciously with teeth and claws. If an animal chooses to pick a fight with me, and on my territory, I fight back, and fight to win.
And this fight was a considerable one, accompanied by those very loud shrieking noises made by cats when fighting at night.
It took a while to subdue the wild creature, before chastising him with words and actions before ejecting him from the door through which he had entered.
We took stock of my wounds.
The gore was mopped up, and disinfectant put on nine cuts, some superficial, some deep - with two deep ones perilously close to veins.
As we waited for the blood to dry, we both thought that perhaps it might be wise for me to seek an anti-tetanus injection. So we took a mini cab to the Accident and Emergency Department of our local Charing Cross Hospital.
After a short wait, a doctor cleaned each of the nine wounds, and sprayed them with iodine from a spray can (how nice to still be using a substance that was put on to our cuts and grazes as children over 80 years ago). He then dressed them with iodine- impregnated gauze plasters. The anti-tetanus injection followed, and a course of antibiotics started. How wonderful is our National Health Service.
We were wise to seek help, learning that cat bites and scratches were more dangerous to the human body than those of dogs. And we were told that at the slightest sign of infection I was to go back to a hospital immediately.
I intend to die in my own time, but to have “MAULED BY A CAT” as my epitaph would be ignominious in the extreme.
Postscript
James May is a friend and neighbour.
Seeing him one day we said that he should Google “Fusker the cat” or read our blog concerning the above confrontation.
What would you do if a cat savaged a friend and neighbour, probably returning to your house with that neighbour’s blood on tooth and claw?
Would you ignore it? Would you dispatch the cat? Would you apologise? Or would you send him a case of wine in recognition of the pain caused, blood let, taxi fares to and from hospital taken into account, and creative and family time wasted?
He chose the first option - to ignore it. Would you do the same?
James is probably right. For, as my Dutch wife, Margreet, says: The English consider animals to be more important than people.
The painting on which I had been working made good progress.
With friends coming for mid-day drinks I made tasty “bites” by frying small squares of my home-made bread in olive oil, turning them over, adding slices of goats’ cheese, milled pepper, salt, a pinch of paprika, and then frying the other side after adding a little more oil. The result is a crisp base with slightly melting cheese on the top. The paprika is for looks. They are very popular.
The guests came and went. Then a wine merchant friend appeared for a while.
As he was leaving through the front door, Fusker, a local cat, owned by a TV motoring personality and debunker of wine snobbery, dashed in to the house and ran up the stairs.
He had done this before. And it was fun to find him, catch him and put him out.
At last I had him in a place where I could bend down to pick him up. But on this occasion he suddenly attacked me viciously with teeth and claws. If an animal chooses to pick a fight with me, and on my territory, I fight back, and fight to win.
And this fight was a considerable one, accompanied by those very loud shrieking noises made by cats when fighting at night.
It took a while to subdue the wild creature, before chastising him with words and actions before ejecting him from the door through which he had entered.
We took stock of my wounds.
The gore was mopped up, and disinfectant put on nine cuts, some superficial, some deep - with two deep ones perilously close to veins.
As we waited for the blood to dry, we both thought that perhaps it might be wise for me to seek an anti-tetanus injection. So we took a mini cab to the Accident and Emergency Department of our local Charing Cross Hospital.
After a short wait, a doctor cleaned each of the nine wounds, and sprayed them with iodine from a spray can (how nice to still be using a substance that was put on to our cuts and grazes as children over 80 years ago). He then dressed them with iodine- impregnated gauze plasters. The anti-tetanus injection followed, and a course of antibiotics started. How wonderful is our National Health Service.
We were wise to seek help, learning that cat bites and scratches were more dangerous to the human body than those of dogs. And we were told that at the slightest sign of infection I was to go back to a hospital immediately.
I intend to die in my own time, but to have “MAULED BY A CAT” as my epitaph would be ignominious in the extreme.
Postscript
James May is a friend and neighbour.
Seeing him one day we said that he should Google “Fusker the cat” or read our blog concerning the above confrontation.
What would you do if a cat savaged a friend and neighbour, probably returning to your house with that neighbour’s blood on tooth and claw?
Would you ignore it? Would you dispatch the cat? Would you apologise? Or would you send him a case of wine in recognition of the pain caused, blood let, taxi fares to and from hospital taken into account, and creative and family time wasted?
He chose the first option - to ignore it. Would you do the same?
James is probably right. For, as my Dutch wife, Margreet, says: The English consider animals to be more important than people.
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