The cat appears to have got my tongue. It has also laid claim to my pen and my keyboard. The cat in question is, contrarily, a dog. Dog days of summer render me contentedly comatose. Although always peaceful, this little corner of France becomes dormant from this point to the end of August. What little is normally here, has upped sticks and gone fishing. I relish this time particularly as the pool, realising how one person can spoil it for everyone, has pulled itself together. From the moment the pool acquiesces to the blue drugs, I lose the desire to swim in it. I don’t think the desire to swim in it is ever as high as it should be. it’s just there and if it’s there it needs to behave in a pool like way. I suppose that’s like saying children should be seen and not heard. I’m still looking for the mistake in that…..I give up.
The song should read “Summertime, when the eating is easy..”.Summer food is truly effortless. I managed to drop a tortilla effortlessly onto the floor, as I turned it over to cook the the other side, whilst preparing our supper yesterday evening. The damage was hardly noticeable, so I won’t show you… a bit like damaging your Dad’s car when you’re young. I once had an assistant who, as he hurriedly gathered up his belongings, said to me :“I scratched the car whilst parking in Wardour.St. You can’t see it..really”. Strangely enough, the one thing I didn’t see again was him. The “scratch” involved a lorry taking off one side of the car. Back to the undamaged tortilla. The plan had been to serve it with pepperonata, in a sort of “tapas” style of dinner. As I made the pepperonata I kept eating damaged pieces of the undamaged tortilla, which soon rendered it tiny as well as undamaged. It was not long before it became apparent that the dinner would comprise pepperonata alone, which quickly rendered “tapas” to the singular form, “tapa”. One “tapa” for two people was not going to do it so, in one bound Dick was free ( sounds worrying, but followers of Dick Barton will get the gist) and the “tapa” became a pasta sauce, changing country as smoothly as catching a train from Waterloo in rush hour. It’s not surprising that Wellington named his famous battle after a railway station. Getting home to Stratfield Saye on the 6.05 must have made facing the French Cuirassiers a piece of cake. The pasta was a huge success, as was the Battle of Waterloo, and it was served with crisp fried breadcrumbs which Napoleon hadn’t been expecting. So victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat,,,, a welcome change for me.
I want to eat all those colors!
..and they’re delicious:)
You live in a beautiful spot. 🙂 Another post that makes me want to reach for a lovely glass of wine, a good book, and a comfy chair in the shade.
I’m glad:)
I’m sure the vocabulary was as colorful as the language, once the tortilla tried to make an escape. Profanity, like cooking, is an art which goes well together, or at least I’ve been of that opinion in the past.
Profanity is an essential in cooking….so right:)
Phew – well saved!
I know what you mean about dog days of summer – I’m half way through a job and the client has gone on holiday. I have to wait for him to get back and approve what I’ve done so far… zzzzzz
That’s just crap when clients do that. My son is slaving away in a hot studio at the moment, waiting to have a break over here:)
I love that August stasis, as a holidaymaker. We used to head up to the Plateau D’Albion in the Alps for a week or so every year. I wondered if it was the heady scent of the lavender fields on the air which made time simply lie down in the shadow of our gite like Toby the farm’s dog. But now I realise it’s a French thing. We can never achieve that space and silence here in the UK. We’re too frenetic.
I was “frenzy”, until we came here some 12 years ago. You’ve made a very clear diagnosis, Kate.
We follow the 5 second rule here, too. 🙂
A good rule:)
. . . and in the end they did live happily ever after . . . 🙂 ?
Hoorah:O
Yippeh!!
🙂
there’s so much goodness in your words… and in the image! I ate it all up!!
Nice to see a clean plate:)
That looks lovely and makes me long for my garden tomatoes to just hurry up and ripen!
Your own garden tomatoes are always the best:)
Excellent prose Roger…..Shades of Kerouac…loved it..
Many thanks, Ken
Oh the good old tapa 🙂 Glad you made something great out of it–success! Though with a view like that I’m sure everything in life tastes a little bit better 🙂
🙂
Wow, that was some “scratch.”
Do you do all the cooking? If so, you’re worth your weight in gold.
Unfortunately I’m not worth my weight in feathers, but I do do all the cooking:)
It appears whoever had your tongue returned it to you undamaged. I can attest to the fact that some of the best meals are made under similar circumstances. 🙂
You’re right, it often happens that way.
Hmmm.. the “jaws of da feet” was that intentional:D Pools and children rarely behave as we expect. Said point, my son who called me at the airport once and said “Don’t worry, I hit a lady but she’s ok.” While I was certain that he’d run someone down and how I might “fix that”, he then managed to point out that it was just a fender bender.
We’re ready to hear the bad stuff and it’s a relief when it’s not the case.