A plethora of walnuts have come my way. I’m a nut lover, a lover of nuts but I do not freely share this love with all nuts. I have my pride and I also have a very small nutcracker …… smirking doesn’t suit you. Brazil has much to recommend it save for its nuts. Brazil nuts are the Sirens of the nut world that will seductively lure the nut eating ingenue into believing that their creamy interior is freely and easily available when in reality, unlike the g-stringed jolies fesses of Copacabana, they are concealed and contained by an impenetrable chastity shell. The aphorism of “being between a rock and a hard place” originated as “put it between a rock and a hard place” and the “it” was the Brazil nut. The nuts that give me the most pleasure are those that shed their coverings with some small show of resistance. Filberts, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, macadamias, pecans, chestnuts and pistachios are the gigolos of the fruit and nut bowl while la volupté is provided by meltingly succulent dried fruits, plump raisins, translucent grapes and thththe soft
and the soft scarlet flesh of fresh figs; getting down and dirty with fruit and nuts is indeed fessetive(sic).
The apogee of this sensual nuttiness is to be found in a wonderful walnut tart that is to be found in “Under the Sun”, a corker of a book about food in the South of France by Caroline Conran. The recipe below is taken directly from the book, save for my pencil conversions from cups to grams. I hope that neither Caroline nor the publisher will be offended by my cavalier use of their property. The photograph of the the tart is my own as the home economy
The Jolly Roger rarely comes into the sight line of the curmudgeonly grandpa character that I have studiously created, and behind which it is thought that I sit in paroxysms of jolly laughter, and when it does it is the skull and cross bones graphic, rather than apprehension of the sudden appearance of ear ringed corsairs with nothing but my booty on their minds, that strikes a chill into my heart as no bones are crosser than mine. There is nothing like age, or the rack, to make one aware of quite how many bones we have and how each of them offers the owner its own particular discomfort. An infinite variety of aches, pains moving willfully from one part of the body to another without notice. It may be that I have not suffered much severe pain in my life, some would say not nearly enough, that makes me acutely aware of the new and annoying behaviour of previously obedient bones and joints. The change that oncoming age brings is a sense of inevitability which is happily completely absent in youth. I remember that as a young man most problems, which were really appetites, were concentrated in the soft tissues of the body, namely stomach and cock. A yearning for Brigitte Bardot was so much easier to relieve without an arthritic wrist.
I’ve lived the lie for long enough. Of the lies to live with, whilst remaining covert, it may well be the easiest as its nature is hardly believable. I have hidden in plain sight for so long that, for much of the time, I not only believe the lie but forget that it is a lie. My disguise is as simple as it is thorough; to all appearances I am what I profess to be, but which I absolutely am not. Were my habits to be examined, my computer checked and the house searched I would pass muster with flying colours. For this impersonation to remain watertight it is essential that certain items, items that could not have another purpose, are present and conspicuous in one’s home or business setting and they are; each and every one. And yet, for all this careful subterfuge, I always knew that there would be a moment when a crack, a fissure, would appear in the delicate fabric from which this travesty was woven. And so it has; on this very morning in August I went through my morning ritual of making coffee for Jenny, feeding Molly the finest fillets of mackerel and it was then that I realised that I didn’t feel like a coffee at all. Not only did I not feel like a coffee this morning, I haven’t felt like a coffee in the morning, afternoon or evening for the last 50 years. It has been a ritual that I have performed with conviction for the better part of my adult life. Coffee with sugar, although I drank it like that for the majority of my coffee years, is a pointless beverage as the idea of coffee is that it should be an intense coffee experience, not a coffee and sugar experience that is only intense in unpleasantness. I have never been into any Starbuck or its ilk and do not propose to ever be the victim Caramafuckinglatte as long as I shall live. In the end coffee is not as good as it smells……this said, I shall undoubtedly reply “yes” to “Would you like a coffee”on, hopefully, many more occasions as it is part of a pleasant ritual between people at table. A coffee with Calvados or something similar can be good but, even better to my mind, without the coffee.
It’s the end of June, I’m in France and it’s grey outside. How happy I would be if that statement was an oxymoron but in this current annus horribilis, which is as horrible as an annus can be, happiness is seasoned with bad shit, in all its many and varied disguises. Were I to travel back through the pieces which I have written over the years, I would not be surprised to find that I have written similar words at the end of many Junes past; yet I still dream of the sun filled Junes that my mind conjures from the fragmented memories of long gone childhood summer holidays. There was a smell to rented summer holiday homes that was only evident at very particular moments; coming downstairs early on a summer morning when I was the only one awake in the house or, for a split second, if I was the first through the door when the family returned from sailing or the beach. I smelt that smell a few days ago when the sun was with us and it felt as warm as bread at 6.30 in the morning. It was a proper summer morning. Getting up meant waking, throwing off a sheet, putting on a pair of shorts and quietly going down the stairs to the kitchen for coffee; half way down the stairs it was there and was wonderfully comforting and full of optimism. It troubles me that I can’t define or expand on something so clear and present; it’s reminiscent of being asked to clearly define happiness when you were 5 years old.
…two, count to three before you say it.,,,,,oh, f-f-f-f-fudge. Fudge is an odd substitution for the infinitely more potent f word which is fuck by name but not by nature….any more. Fuck has left the bedroom and is in the street effing and blinding at any effing thing or abusing old ladies for not giving up their seats, or because it’s fucking raining or just being fucking angry….it’s left the slick genitals and joined the base ball bat generals. It’s bloody angry is what it is and you can fuck off if …if you…if ..oh,fuck off. It’s been kidnapped…. it’s been taken…… hi-jacked by script writers……very few stand up comedians will utter less than a score of fucks in a set and neither goodies nor baddies would get a laugh without a plethora of well placed fucks; that’s what has happened to a much valued word in my vocabulary which I have become more and more loathe to use.
Thighs chapped and sore by wet grey flannel flogging around them in the freezing Worcestershire winters of privileged prep school misery generated in me a longing for long trousers. The move to long from short was profound. To find an equivalent in the progress of a child of today is beyond me as I can’t find any parallels. Long trousers were an iPhone, were liberty, were privilege, were a new hopeful life. We were doomed to wear fucking awful clothes, to be seen and not heard or ideally not seen and not heard but to be put on trains and waved to as we disappeared down the line to be cared for by a mixture of recently demobbed pederasts, priests and brilliant teachers; during this time shorts were for sports. My father and his friends wore shorts that had little to do with that nomenclature as they were as wide as they were long and they were very long; far too long to be short. I have often thought that those responsible for designing uniforms for the British army worked for the enemy or someone very spiteful who had been turned down by the selection board as he made shorts that made tall men short and short men ridiculous….the long, the short and the tall all look short in shorts as they were long. And then I went to the South of France and saw people who wore shorts which didn’t make them look complete cunts. Around that moment I decided, at 7 years old, that I would live there one day.
This sort of misunderstanding starts wars….or warts. John, hits the space bar instead of the “r” key, now known as the “tur” key, and Norman’s status as an island is lost in a flash The bell has been tolling for Norman and not for you or me over eons of time as nobody has asked, because he asked us not to , as to why the bell is always tolling. Norman can’t hear the bell, doesn’t give a fuck about the bell….what John should have mentioned first is that Norman is not only a clod but is also stone deaf which is why he was writing a note to Norman about the danger of being washed away by the sea and so he’d be aware that a bell was tolling for him and to make it clear that it wasn’t and isn’t tolling for me or you as it was ringing for him. We’ll never know why J.Donne was warning Norman as he, JD, heard the bell and thought it was ringing for him and not for Norman and so he went to the bell, foolishly not asking for whom it tolled, without leaving a note explaining the note he had left for Normam soon to be known down the ages as Noman. The fate of the world turns on moments such as this.
“We are not going out” is the mantra by which we all are condemned to live in these troubled times. Were I to be young at this time in history I would find the “we are not going out” restriction hard to bear or, more succinctly, unbearable: but I am not young, I am old. As one imperceptibly grows old it makes one aware that there is a difference to the oldness perceived from the outside when compared with one’s view from inside where it appears that nothing much has changed apart from the body becoming less obedient to simple commands. The “we are not going out” of which I speak is the self contained life into which we, my wife and me, have metamorphosed over the last 20 years in the French countryside; a slow conversion from hyper active city dweller to semi dormant hermit happily existing and creating in peace and isolation. There is a virtual “we are not going out” that affects me and it relates to memories; memories of particular bars or restaurants where I ate or drunk something unforgettable at different times of my life: to some of which I may return, to others of which I have a faint hope of returning and to those to which I will never return as they are gone, changed or too far away.
Of those three conditions, “changed” is by far the worst. Among my memories of ideal bistrot food was that served at Chez Allard. This is a restaurant that I loved but it is also a restaurant that has changed as it is now an Alain Ducasse establishment which is the polar opposite to the nature of the restaurant that I remember and loved. I have the memories and the new Chez Allard had, and hopefully will have again, the tourists. There were few drawbacks to Chez Allard save being able to draw back one’s chair from the table as they were so tightly packed together – not a place for those with a weak bladder. Seeing the waiters, with laden arms raised high above their heads, dance agilely through the minimal gaps between tables without accident was to witness a bravura performance of adagio dancers. My first visit was in the late 60’s when Paris was being terrorised by the OAS ( Organisation de l’Armée Sécrete who were deeply anti de Gaulle) with random killings in bars and restaurants. It was a nerve racking time and I spent one night, after I had been picked up while wandering the streets by a passing Gendarme van, for my own protection. It was an entertaining night sitting at long tables drinking coffee and learning French in a fortress, which is what police stations had become in that era. Back to Chez Allard: I can’t remember what I ate but I do remember feeling very uncomfortable as a long haired hippy surrounded by crop haired Colonels, from the Légion Étrangere or REP (Régiment Étrangere Parachutiste), who were entertaining either a male or female lover, sometimes both, before setting off to join in planning yet another attempt to assassinate de Gaulle. It looked like they didn’t like the look of me and I didn’t like the look of them: I was fascinated by the theatre of the place and yet felt that I should exit stage left sooner rather than later. I ate quickly, left quietly and came back 35 years later. This time I was able to enjoy the nature of the place in a more relaxed fashion. The tables were still as close together but it was the extraordinary tobacco patina of the place that caught my eye: it appeared as though it had been untouched by duster or spit and polish, well maybe spit, since my last visit. But, above all, it was the feeling that I was in a place run by people that really knew about good food and wine and who did not feel that interior design would play any part or improve on the food that they served. Chez Allard was not known for “fine dining” but for the old classics, not reinvented, but served perfectly cooked and served simply as was originally intended: it was not a place for gastronomic adventures, rather it was a place where one would meet up with classic bistrot dishes as if with old friends. « Les clients ne viennent pas chez nous faire des découvertes gastronomiques mais faire de vieilles connaissances culinaires » They specialised in Volailles de Bresse, meaning a whole Bresse chicken with a mountain of girolles or cépes to be shared by two people, or duck and olives, escargots, pigeons and peas, rabbit stew, salads of beets and mache; quite wonderful gear. And I’m sure the same dishes will be on the menu when Chez Allard reopens but it won’t be the same ; it has changed.
Social distancing has resulted in my getting up close and familiar, on a daily, nay, hourly basis, with a multitude of complete strangers the majority of whom I insult and given half a chance would maim or kill without a second thought. The very word “distancing” puts one in a much safer place when employing the “cunt” word or similar erudition when arguing a political point or any point come to think of it even if it’s pointless. Within a week or so of my rejoining, after more than a few years, the Twitter fraternity/sorority the magazine of my verbal assault rifle is empty…my last “fuck off” has been fired and it looks like I shall have to fall back on the use of pithy and apposite vocabulary in well constructed sentences seasoned with razor sharp aphorisms if I’m to get out this alive: the Twitter trenches are no place for dilsexycis.
Food, Photography & France 