Scent of a Cat

Has he elegance? Has he fragrance?

Not remotely. He isn`t Mary Archer, he`s a raggy-arsed nineteen-year-old (at least 8000 in cat) who`s begun to smell like the corpses of all the tiny critters he`s despatched over the years.

Why? 

He always used to groom fastidiously and constantly; he`s still bendy and suffers no arthritic achings...  But these days he`ll have an occasional swipe of face and front paws, then go for a nice lie down.  

Naturally (isn`t it?) he`s always exuded the fumes of hell when he`s breathed on you (from your knee or from the end of the garden); now he reeketh from every pore. Most Unnaturally.

We are what we eat, it is said, and as he plunges further into decrepitude, what he eats becomes ever more unsettling.

Not for Spartapus (guess George`s favourite film) the bowl of Kitty-splatt and those treats with the meeelting centre. He`ll have Tinned Tuna in Sunflower-oil-not-Brine… maybe a couple of thin slices of Sandwich Beef or some spicy Polish Sausage…

After one minute at these delicacies, he stops shovelling and starts Yowling.  He`s not hungry - he`s The Devil.  

"Look in your bowls, evil cat" (we cry) – "you`ve got eight kinds of flesh and some of my Greek yoghurt – we have nothing else to give you!"

He stares unblinking as we sit down to tea and his message is clear: OK - I`ll have what you`re having. 

So we sacrifice chunks of our chicken and he graciously nibbles at them. Briefly.

I pander to his every whim because I feel his pain of downsizing to a tiny garden, and then of losing his twin sister last year. (Though Honestly - they were hardly speaking towards the end…). 

Anyway, if treating the eating is hopeless, can we at least cure his sulphurous aroma that is now seeping from the very walls!

The pet-shop man suggested a Dry Shampoo for wet-averse cats.  I was as thrilled as when they invented Shake n` Vac – would this work as well on the cat as it did back then on my T-shirts?  

 

Acquainted with his claws, George and I plunged positively into the fray wearing ski-gear and protective head-buckets.  Back-comb his fur, the nice man at the pet-shop had said, and rub the powder in with your fingertips. 

I gingerly waved the bottle of powder under Spartapus`s nose, expecting retaliation.  Instead he seemed to inhale, taking a moment to savour it with a look of Hmm, Not Bad...

So we showered him liberally and drily, rubbed it all over and mopped it off with a warm damp cloth.  And he looked FAB.

Had he Fragrance?

Not really.  But we`ve managed three more successful applications and we`re optimistic about the future if we stick to his treatment. 

Silly as it sounds, though, we are slightly concerned now about some kind of contagion...

The other night we popped into The Two Heads and were greeted with, "There you are - a pint and a Pinot Grigio, and - Bloody Hell! - what have you two been eating?"

Let Them eat Toast

Last week Food Writers and Critics were thrilled by the long-awaited launch of ‘Britain’s cheapest lunchtime meal’ – after aeons of in-depthest research by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), this can now be revealed as THE TOAST SANDWICH!

Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
2 slices bread and butter
1 slice toast
salt and pepper to taste
Method
Make sure toast slice in the middle

The amazing thing is that the recipe is not new!  It was created and published 150 years ago by Mrs Beeton  in her Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management – And here is her original version:

 Toast a thin slice of bread
 Butter two slices of bread and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste
 Place the toast between the two slices of bread-and-butter to form  a sandwich

No margin for error there - you can see why her recipes were so successful. Personally, I swear by her Rice Pudding…

So, you may ask, just how cheap is this 'cheapest lunchtime meal'?  Well, the cost these days of the Toast Sandwich is estimated at 7.5p, and energy value at 330 calories.

If You can create a cheaper alternative, however, let the RSC know at once, because you might win a £200 prize!  (How much does a 3oz tatoe cost, I wonder)…  Although you'd spend a goodly dollop on cooking it, probably...

Various thrifty suggestions have been proposed to make the sandwich recipe even more appetising: why not add an egg; a sardine; a slice of courgette…?  say the chefs.

And mine own tasty addition... a dollop of tinned tomato (I love those), or three or four baked beans.  And an exciting smattering of paprika or nutmeg or basil?

The basic recipe could probably benefit from a tantalising Something after all – as highlighted by one of the comments received: "Well I just tried this and it was the most boring, tasteless sandwich I've ever eaten!"  Bit harsh...

I've been trying to remember what I used to eat in destitute bedsit days - Mothers Pride was certainly a favourite. But I could only dream of a toasting implement.  My brother apparently once made pepper soup (to boiling water, add ground black pepper).  Not only was it unsatisfying, he reported, but it tasted bloody awful.

Anyway, here is a Homage to Toast by (hell's teeth - he looks young!) Paul Young in 1978.  On what one can only assume is some strange children's tv emission.  Great hats, though

Just One Galette-oh!

Buy Five – Get One Free!! Was the enthusiastic suggestion on the baker’s counter. Well, you can’t have too many Galettes des Rois at this time of year…

Or can you? What do you actually do with these six dinner-plate-size slabs of puff pastry, stuffed with frangipane - a sort of almond paste - and a tiny ceramic SpongeBob (or Bob l’Eponge, as he's known here)?


Because wherever you may roam in France during the month of January, there will be at least six other galettes lying in wait. Not to mention the seventeen you’re already digesting from previous galette-gatherings…

Last week at our house (of course we do it too) I, as the youngest, (YESSSSS!), had to dive under the table with my eyes shut and wave haphazardly at the next person to take a slice, until all slices had been took.

This, apparently, is the traditional way of avoiding Nasty squabbles over the assigning of SpongeBob. For, whoever gets him is King for the Day, and wears the Special Golden Crown (that lurks within every galette bag), and must buy the next six galettes. The next galette, anyway.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be SpongeBob… it could be anything the baker decides to bake therein (generally inanimate). Until the 1960’s (one gleans from this handy link):
http://www.franceinlondon.co.uk/en-Article-392-Origins-and-Recipe-of-the-Galette-des-Rois-Food--Wine--galette-rois.html
the Thing was a real dried bean. Oh...

Happily for those with the Collecting Urge, there are now many, many categories of charm to collect – animals, films, jobs, sports, celebrities and perhaps more aptly, religious figures. For the Galette des Rois (Cake of the Kings) celebrates their Arrival in Bethlehem on Twelfth Night (or Take the Decorations Down time).

When I was a lad in Englandouroldcountry, people would bake not charms, but silver sixpences into the Christmas Pud. Many of which would then be swallowed by their grannies, putting a damper on the entire proceedings.

Back to this Galette, which was a new taste sensation for George and I when we arrived in France. George took to it immediately, and I took to the filling, but does the cake have to be quite so hefty...?

There are fillings other than almond paste - apple is very popular for example, and you can add cinnamon, amaretto, or walnuts as I once did and which was Not At All popular.

The Galettes do seem to be around for Ages - yesterday we mercifully microwaved our last two slices. These were ten days old and still going strong. The excess crust went onto the bird table - an exciting and seemingly welcome addition to their usual toasted wholemeal...

And so, as January nears its end, we wave a merry farewell to all those Galettes des Rois. We heave our tums out of their wheelbarrows and contemplate perhaps yoghurt or a banana, a situp or two, brisk pastry-melting walks...

For this Bombardment started nearly a Month ago - we need to sprrrring bouncily back to life with a hearty Get thee behind me, Spongebob!


It's been twenty-four hours now.

I wonder if there's any left on that bird table...

Things to do with Kippers

The other day we went round to friends for lunch in the garden – perfect tranquillity on the outskirts of town, warm sunshine, fragrance of fresh rosemary, thyme, mint…

Fabienne’s “light lunch” began with plates of tiny tomatoes, olives, nuts, quiche and water melon; it slipped into gala melon with parma ham; then we had prawns and monkfish with wild rice; wonderful cheeses; and a fruit tart with plums and apricots grown within two hundred yards - the neighbours are very friendly.

George and I have embraced French cuisine enthusiastically – everyone is keen to share their secrets; there are TV chefs and magazines and cookbooks, and our style of cooking has changed a lot since moving here.

Sadly, our style of Presentation has not. Fabienne’s appetisers were colour co-ordinated and came in handy bite-size. The gala melon was displayed like the rays of the sun, with the ham wrapped round breadsticks. The mountain of prawns was a delicate, attractive mountain, (not the unbalanced splodge I’d have constructed). The cheeses were arranged with pleasing symmetry, and the tart glistened lusciously.

Food in France is for savouring, and before savouring, we must be tantalised by hints of fresh and subtle flavours to come…

So what the hell can Fabienne possibly see in Kippers? And how can it be that every so often, she and the neighbours gather at ten in the morning for a Kipper Fest!

Sensibly, they cook them in the garden (one assumes it's by Short Straw), and accompany them with champagne. Which could help. Cats must come from many miles for this...

Personally, I loathe kippers – the taste, the Smell, the Bones. And I’ve always thought of them as a Man Favourite, like Kidneys or Tripe (which always seems to be trying to shudder its way out of the pan). How can such things appeal to a frothy, feminine person, and all her neighbours to boot!

There is obviously still much for us to learn about French cuisine. After all, we'd never have thought of cooking Beef Cheeks till the village butcher unleashed their succulent secrets to us.

Right! Take bunch of Kippers...

Let Them Eat Dumplings

On Saturday night we had friends round for dinner - always a joy.


It's a long time since our first angst-ridden invitations to natives of this Land of the Bonne Cuisine, when I hyper-ventilated my way through three days of preparation, (George unflinchingly laid-back), and guests had a sandwich before they left home Just in Case. (We always clung to the possibility they were joking).


These days their gay banter (and ours) is almost comprehensible, and we have a repertoire of simple but UTTERLY DELICIOUS recipes gleaned from magazines, cookbooks, and Bon Appetit Bien Sûr! on TV.


So why, oh WHY on this occasion, did I let George talk me into doing Stew and Dumplings?

My own thoughts had leaned towards a delicately-spiced "Chicken Tagine with Citron Confit" (from my Tagines for Any Old Nincompoop book). George, however, insisted that Dumplings would be a fascinating new taste sensation for French palates, and that a Big Pot of Festering Stew is just what everyone needs on a cold winter's night.

To do what with?

Back in the Old Country I used to make this every time we had Roast Chicken leftovers - easy and flavoursome. But it was never on the list of what to impress guests with; usually when you parade a dish to the table with your triumphant (but modest) smile, then flamboyantly whip off the lid to gasps of wonder, you're not proffering... A Medley of Animal Bits and Root Veg. Where's the panache?


So I suppose my heart wasn't in it, and I found myself frenziedly chucking in all sorts to add a bit of verve - bushfulls of withered thyme from our kitchen sill, several tattered bay leaves I found at the back of the pantry, a halved lemon (astonishingly potent)...


But what caused universal bewilderment was, of course, the sight of the dumplings bobbling around on the surface like lumpy balls of putty. It's funny how much menace someone can put into the phrase "what are those?" when they think you're trying to kill them.


I have no idea what went wrong - you'd think it was impossible to make dumplings chewy. But our guests valiantly ate them, and even accepted seconds.


They haven't been in touch since with final appraisals. But they're probably still ruminating.

The Trouble with Cherries

If you’ve ever seen Woody Allen’s film "Sleeper", you may remember the expanding pudding that escapes from the pan and keeps on growing in a bulging palpitating mass while he tries to kill it with a big stick.


A scene brought vividly back to life in our own kitchen this week by George’s Cherry Clafoutis. (Eggs, milk, spattering of flour and Lots of Fruit, festered in the oven for a while).


We did have LOTS of fruit left over from an unusually bumper crop. The trouble with cherries is that they all come at once – on everybody’s trees.


Everyone we know is pink with cherry-surfeit, and the streets are filled with people muttering around distractedly, begging strangers to take… maybe a few, then? Sometimes they’ll just leave a huge box-full on a doorstep, ring the bell and run away.


We do the same, and our Lovely Neighbours opposite give us VATS of home-made jam in return, then I make them scones. Which are a novelty over here, but surprisingly popular when tried.


When last week we’d thrust our cherries on everyone we could, George decided to use up the excess by making a Clafoutis. Since he has this ailment whereby he can only cook in platoon-size servings, the excess has indeed been used up. Transformed into a bulging palpitating mass of which Woody Allen would be frightened, and that anyone who ventures over our threshold will be eating for the next month.


By which time, we’ll be well into… The PEACHES!

Village Shops

Did the village shops today. Before we arrived in France, I had this dreamy vision of strolling down each morning for our daily baguette and exchange of cheery repartee in the bar. This was not immediately the case - I was so embarrassed at the inadequacies of ancient school French that I wanted instead to stroll down to the river and jump in it.

However, the enormous warmth and encouragement of just about everybody we've ever met here made our plunges into conversation a heck of a lot easier. Several years on, we still make ludicrous mistakes but nobody minds and I don't get anguished. Now we confidently gabble away to captive audiences in the butcher, baker, bar, grocer and post office, unstoppable until they manage to back their way to the door, or just fall over in a deep trance. (We have a similar effect at parties).

The shopkeepers have always been so kind in helping us to integrate - "The Annual Dinner Dance is coming up"... "Don't forget the Bike Ride on Saturday"... . What's best in the village shops, though, is the masses of advice we're given: what's in all the wonderful breads, who grew these rosy apples, and as for the meat... the butcher only needs to start on "what to do with beef cheeks" to induce a bombardment of age-old family recipes from all the other customers. We've tried every one - after a few hours of festering, beef cheek becomes succulent and flavoursome and a definite favourite of ours. (Ghastly though the idea was when first confronted).

They are generous in their praise of English food, too. The baker told us all the family really liked George's Christmas Cake, and yesterday couldn't wait to show off a "traditional English Easter cake" that someone makes her every year because she loves it. (There are two or three other UK couples in the vicinity). I had no idea what it was, so she made enquiries and today informed us its name is Hot Cross Bun! Good Heavens - I always used to buy supermarket special packs of shiny cellophaned clones - how was I supposed to know the real thing is sort of brown and lumpy?

Anyway, off to assemble some of these fresh provisions into lunch.

The Joy of Eating

Breakfast in the conservatory for the first time this year. Streaming sun, bursting tufts of blossom, bluetits battling away over the grease-blobs in the maple tree - Enormous Joy!

Apparently you shouldn't feed birds in the summer in case they forget what they're supposed to eat and become bloated fat-burger addicts. Soon, then, we'll have to settle for the sight of the worms being heaved elastically out of the soil and snails being smashed against the path until their shells explode. Nature IN THE RAW!

Anyway, enough of the gore. We'd never had a conservatory before - we were lucky that this one was already built when we bought the house four years ago, because it's such a great room. From spring onwards, that is. In winter it's a constant minus 20C and is useful mainly to pin the cats down and stop them bouncing their sodden and splat-covered feet all over the settee.

We've had friends round for two lunches in there during globally-warmed-up March. At least, the first was warm. The second time, people looked horrified at the prospect of leaving the cosy sitting room and asked if they could have their coats and cardis back. They bravely persevered when we brought two more heaters in, and once they could control their quivering cutlery, tucked in to Rosbif and Yorkshire Pudding with gusto. Not to mention Spotted Dick.

George and I love to cook French-style but it's good fun dishing up English stuff sometimes, specially if the guests have never tried it before (so can't compare). The first few times were pretty scary, though. Specially as our home layout is open and all kitchen traumas are shared graphically with people who are going to have to eat the results.

But all you have to do is wimper or start wacking yourself with a ladle, and someone is immediately at your shoulder with handy hints and a tissue. Did you know, for example, that a 1Kg joint of beef only needs 20mins at 220C? I'm sure in the UK I'd have left it in for about a day and a half. (We compromised and did 30mins and it worked beautifully)!

I know - Why don't we open a restaurant?