Good on Kiwi Corner, the only New Zealand restaurant in Paris, for hosting a fundraising dinner on Tuesday night. Don't even bother trying to book, it was sold out within hours. And never mind the French, it will be wall to wall expat Kiwis. I think they could hold a fundraiser every night of the week and still book out. Please support this great "little restaurant that could" any other night that you can.
Now, back to our normal program schedule.
It's all Tsar's fault. I was looking for something to read with my morning coffee and so I picked up 'Ministry of Food'. I sneered at the patronising introduction where he exhorts people to pass recipes on, like some kind of gourmet 'Big Society' - and then I started reading the recipes.
Simple, easy to follow - for the first time in years, a recipe book made me think "I could make that right now." Within about five pages, I was hooked. I started reading bits aloud to Tsar. Perfect roast lamb! Banana tarte tatin! And then I got to the vegetable jalfrezi and jumped up off the sofa - I have to buy this book!
And yes, I know you can get recipes online. But I'd much rather spill curry sauce on a paper book than on my laptop keyboard... and I am actually one of those old fashioned people who is rather attached to books. The more people talk about the digital revolution, the more of a forcefield I exert on the printed word, before it feels like books are just falling out of the sky...
Ok, so this has been exacerbated by the fact that my birthday has just come and gone. 9 out of 10 presents were books, and very welcome they were too. Here's what's on my bedside table right now:
Fast-forward to Saturday, and Emma, Miles and I are paying a visit to their local butchers. This is exactly the kind of old-fashioned neighbourhood butchers you would expect Jamie (look, we're on first name terms already!) to drop into for three pounds of organic mince, with a camera crew in tow of course.
[Incidentally, vegetarians may want to look away now]
There are three men behind the counter, but no-one is in a hurry, so we wait patiently, reading posters extolling the tastiness of wild venison, welsh lamb and their free range chickens.
I have a recipe in mind which needs three quail. I tried it at Christmas with poussin (essentially baby chickens), but I want to spread my wings, so to speak. I inspect the freezer, and there are some little birds nestling in their own individual wrappers, but I want some for tonight. Have they got any fresh?
No quail today, unfortunately, but they have partridge.I know what the recipe says, but I like hearing from the experts, so I ask him how long he reckons they should cook for. A beardy chap with glasses behind us in the queue pipes up "15 minutes, tops, if you sear them in the pan first". Typical. Everyone's bloody Jamie Oliver these days.
So I take three tiny partridges home with me and marinate them lovingly in olive oil, garlic and lemon juice. Then I go out with Emma. Shopping ensues.
I come home several pairs of shoes later and carefully plan the whisky risotto, green vegetable sides and partridge to all be ready at the same time. I pull the partridge out after 15 minutes and poke it confidently. It runs a rosy shade of pink. I blanch. Not wanting to poison two of my best friends in the world, I call Miles for a second opinion.
Hmmm. We stand around and think. WWJD - What Would Jamie Do? Eventually Miles prescribes popping them back in the oven with foil over the top. Another 15 nervous minutes pass before they are pronounced cooked. Bloody amateur Jamie Olivers, I mutter, as I pick at my over-cooked asparagus.That's the last time I listen to a beardy guy in a butchers (who isn't actually wearing an apron).
But a good pinot gris cures many ills, and the setback is soon forgotten. It is agreed I have outdone myself with dessert - thinly-sliced pears (what else?) on flaky pastry, with an orange marmelade glaze drizzled over the top.
Ooh la la, I hear you say. How Frainch! Confession time: I got the idea from Mum. I never would have bothered until she showed the way - but it's an incredibly simple dessert and you can use just about any fruit at all. If you're at all nervous about the outcome, buy some rum and raisin icecream as a backup... easy peasey!
Maybe booking a Eurostar ticket first thing in the morning after my birthday wasn't such a good idea. Got home from the restaurant at 12.30 and was up again at 6.30. Yawned my way across Paris on the metro and then nodded off completely in the Chunnel. Woke up with a start and realised I was in England. Jumped up just in time to get off the train in Ebbsfleet. Not as glamorous as arriving in St Pancras, but on the other hand it's not every day I get picked up from the train.
Suspicious Minds
Oh, but first I had to get on the Eurostar. The part that always makes me nervous is UK Immigration. They have this way of looking at me like I'm a shifty customer, just dying to ditch my return ticket to Paris and crash illegally in Surbiton for months on end. Huh.
This time I negotiated the usual interrogation by a dull-eyed official - how long are you going to be in the UK? What is the purpose of your visit? What do you do in Paris? Do you have a residents card? I pulled out the card, and then before she could even spot the expiry date, I pulled out another official-looking bit of paper and said "I'm in the process of renewing it, and here's my recepisse." Her shoulders sagged. Catherine one, UK Immigration nil.
Walking along the empty platform in the misty English morning, I felt oddly like I was coming home. The train guard saw me passing and I smiled at him. He smiled back and gave me a friendly nod. Yep, you're not in France any more, Toto.
At the top of the escalator, a bulky gentleman stood behind a booth marked Kent Police. This is more security than they have when you get off in London, and I had a moment of paranoia. He inspected my passport and said "Whereabouts in New Zealand you from?". I said "Wellington" and he broke into a smile. "I'll be there in a month", he said.
I come over to London so often that arriving is not a matter of slow-motion running and tearful reunions, but a quick hug and "Awright love, how are you". It's really my home away from home, staying with the Kiwi Mafia. I don't come over to be a tourist, I come over to see some of my oldest and closest friends. So it was straight home to Tonbridge to inspect the new digs and have a cup of tea on the sofa.
Tsar's new place is huge, massive - quite disorientating after my tiny apartment. I wandered into what I thought was the kitchen, but is in fact just the Aga room. Through an archway is the actual kitchen, which, no kidding, could eat my apartment for breakfast and still have room for lunch. I popped my home-made banana muffins in the Aga to warm up and we sat around with a cup of tea.
We did the school run, through gorgeous English countryside, starkly beautiful in winter. The school is on one side of the village green, with the cricket club grounds at the far end and the medieval village church, complete with tower, at the other. These kids are growing up in a landscape straight out of the books I used to read when I was growing up.
Swimming lessons were in a private school just down the road, in a country house like a mini-Hogwarts, all glowing honey-coloured stone and battlements. The sun was a huge fiery disk on the horizon. When we came out, the sun had been replaced by the lemony moon. The kids were fizzing with excitement, because tonight was the school disco!
Murder on the Dance Floor
I know what you're thinking - I mean, I didn't go to my first disco until I was at least 10. But the school is frantically fund-raising for new classrooms - behind the idyllic rural facade, the Con-Dem cuts are biting deep. So some volunteer teachers and a wedding DJ had hired a disco light machine and bulk-bought the crisps. When we arrived, the party was already in full swing. There was possibly more running and sliding than your average nightclub, but the volume level and incidence of fisticuffs was about the same - except that they had their mummies to kiss it better.
I've never been to a disco that finished before tea time. The younger classes had their party first, and then the older kids were starting. I sat around watching 5 year olds get their freak on to Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, thinking "discos were better when I was a kid", but then the DJ made a daring retro move with Kylie Minogue - and Madonna! And I cheered up a bit.
Most of the dancing consisted of jumping up and down and flailing their arms wildly - a pure joy in movement that far too many adults have lost. But some kids had seen more than a few music videos and were pulling some pretty fancy moves - there were even a few floor spins and arm waves.
But at 6.30 the lights came back on and we had to drag the ravers away, aided by the inducement of lightsaber bubble-blowers.
First, Annoy Your Cheese
Back home, we fed the kids sausages and I unwrapped my master-stroke, the Vacherin Mont d'Or. Vacumn-packed on rue de Sevres, it had survived the trip under the Channel, to release its perfume in Tsar's kitchen. "Trust me", I said, "it'll taste better than it smells", hoping that this would be the case.
I found a tray, wrapped the box in foil, sprinkled a bit of Savoyard white wine on top, and popped it in the Aga, feeling like I was having some kind of colonial/mother country homecoming. Steamed a few veges, unwrapped the ham and salami, and voila, dinner. The cheese went down all too easily, as did the white wine and then we collapsed on the sofa with the DVD of 'Boy', by Taika Waititi.
It's a lovely movie. I'm not sure how much English Pete absorbed, but Tsar and I were in fits of giggles at recognising large chunks of our childhood. Michael Jackson! Poi E! Lollies from the local dairy! Daggy haircuts! But then we never had to deal with the heartbreak of absent parents or the despair of poverty. The story was bittersweet, but the acting was superb. I'm not sure that finishing the film with the Poi E / Thriller mashup was quite the right tone after the wrenching story had played out - but good on them for thinking of it.
