petite anglaise

I find a new purpose for my macbook!!!*

If ever, dear reader, you feel just a smidgeon uncomfortable after ploughing through a five course meal in a palatial hotel in Lisbon (cheap deal, I hasten to add, and I’m not sure I quite strike the right tone with my ripped jeans…), I can wholeheartedly recommend setting a warm macbook on the offending tummy for at least half an hour. It’s working wonders as a digestion aid. Truly, it is.

In the meantime, I try to have a foodie conversation with my friend Meg, who is one of those people who – when she can be bothered to actually blog – is able to write reviews of restaurants without resorting to clichés like “doesn’t the foie gras melt in your mouth?” or “don’t these oysters taste of the sea?”

The conversation goes something like this.

“Well, first of all I had this kind of amuse bouche thing, which was a very small piece of beef on toast with some spready goat’s cheese, nothing special really. And then there was a filo parcel-thing with slices of fig and proper goat’s cheese with rind on, inside. And I think the leaves on the side were watercress, they were a bit peppery, and there were pine nuts: grilled ones. Next I had a swordfish medallion with a crispy crust made of prawns and things, and some squid on the side and some unidentified vegetables, a bit like the ones you put in ratatouille. And then a quail stuffed with a special white sausage, on top of some spinach. And it had an egg on top. A quail’s egg. And a sprig of lavender. Which had made the egg taste a bit dodgy… And then…”

I don’t think I need to go on, do I? If I have any writing talent at all, it is most definitely not of the food critic variety. There were more incidences of “and then” in that last paragraph than in the whole a whole page of the Da Vinci Code.

Eating, I can do. Describing the eating experience, I cannot.

So – to cut a long story short – I’ve popped over to Lisboa for a few days while Tadpole is spending a second week of quality time with her mamie and papy, and I am suitably excited about the prospect of meeting long time blog buddy Lucy Pepper for the first time, tomorrow. The point of this trip was that it should act as a carrot of sorts, to help me through the pain of finishing tweaking the book (yes, it’s not quite over, but nearly, I hope) and to tide me over until Boyfriend and I escape to the Cyclades for a fortnight at the end of August.

I cannot begin to describe how confusing I find the notion of having someone knock on the door to “turn down the bed” for me. At 6pm. But give me time, and I’ll have these luxury ways off pat. You’ll see.

*Permission to use opening line format obtained from JonnyB.

Do you blog? Are you in Paris on Saturday 9 June? Do we look like the sort of people you would like to spend quality time with?

Details here, including email for signing yourselves up…

Tadpole and I walk hand in hand up the rue de Rebeval, bound for home and, as usual, I try to extract some meaningful information from my daughter about what she has been up to that day.

Our conversation goes something like this.

Me: “So, what did you do at school today sweetie?”

Tadpole: “Er… something nice”

Me: “Something nice. I see. Did you draw some pictures?”

Tadpole: “No.”

Me: “Read some books?”

Tadpole: “Yes.”

Me: “What were the books about?”

Tadpole: “Er… I can’t remember.”

Me: “And what did you have for lunch?”

Tadple: “Chips. And chocolate.”

It is like extracting blood from a stone, pulling teeth or trying to establish whether Mr Frog has a girlfriend. A meeting with her maîtresse last Saturday was enlightening: we were told that all children tend to be reluctant to discuss what goes on at school with papa and maman. Maybe the school day is so action packed that it all becomes a blur in her tiny head. Or she so enjoys having her own little jardin secret that she resents my trying to peep over the top of the hedge. Whatever the reason, it is clear that nothing more is forthcoming.

I have a fair idea of what a typical day comprises: play, some supervised activities, lunch, storytime, sleep, a stint outdoors, and the fascinatingly named motricité sessions held in the school hall. This appears to be a typically French, scientific sounding word for PE, which includes circuit training and teetering about on stilts made from upturned buckets with string handles.

There is however one part of Tadpole’s day that I can spy on from the comfort of my own home. Canteen lunches are detailed on a very helpful website. There is week 38 in all its glory. Accompanied by an illustration of a dragon flying through the sky with two suitcases in his hands. Chips and chocolate indeed. On the day in question the menu was, in fact:

Betteraves (beetroot)
* * * * *
Rôti de dinde (roast turkey)
Gratin de blettes (gratin of ??????)
* * * * *
Petit-Suisse (sort of fromage frais thing)

The mind boggles. My very own Little Miss Fussy has been busy eating things I don’t even have the wherewithall to translate. My first thought on “blettes” was cockroaches – until, happily, I realised I was confusing “blettes” with “blattes”. Extensive web research yielded “Swiss chard”. Now let me see, I may have tasted it once, in Nice, in the filling of my ravioli niçoise, but until I looked on google images, I couldn’t have told you whether it takes the form of a bean, a root vegetable or a leaf. Tadpole eats Swiss chard? Swiss chard gratin? My daughter, the same child who refuses to mix peas and carrots (canned) in the same forkful? Who invariably turns up her nose at any item she has never tasted before? And which sadistic dinner lady dreamt up the idea of feeding beetroot to 3 year olds? Clearly one who won’t have to wash their clothes afterwards.

I suppose I should be thankful that Tadpole appears to be getting a balanced diet, something Jamie Oliver would no doubt work himself into a lather of enthusiasm over.

Later that evening, I decide to give the interrogation one last try, fortified with this new information.

Me: “So, did you have some beetroot for lunch? Some little purple squares? Some betteraves?”

Tadpole: “No, I had chips and chocolate. And cereals. And after, I had a strawberry milkshake!”

I can’t help giggling. Not only is she maintaining her barefaced lie, but now the little monster is embroidering around it, adding increasingly implausible embellishments.

Tadpole: “Mummy! Why you laughing?”

I snort apple juice out of my nose.

Tadpole: “Is it because I talking rubbish?”

I take my seat with a group of girlfriends at L’Apparemment Café, an old haunt of mine deep inside the Marais, opposite the Musée Picasso, where you can choose from a long list of mouth-watering ingredients – sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, fresh marinated anchovies – to build your own salad. Except it is Sunday today and I had completely forgotten that on the day of our Lord they serve only brunch.

This would be perfect if I hadn’t already ploughed through a copious Pain Quotidien brunch the day before, a major blowout involving lashings of praline spread, confiture de lait and other sinful concoctions which, if they didn’t taste so good, might as well be applied directly to the thigh area with a palette knife.

Waving my healthy salad goodbye, I settle in for the long haul: juice, coffee, a boiled egg, mountains of crusty bread, pancakes with maple syrup, a cheese platter (the French always seem to add a random unnecessary savoury dish into every brunch menu, which I never have room for), fromage blanc and blackberry coulis… and conversation.

“I can’t believe you snogged two guys on the dancefloor last night. Seriously, you are a menace to society!” My friend blushes, as she has only just arrived, doesn’t know the other ladies present particularly well. She should be used to me by now.

“No”, she says, recovering her composure remarkably quickly, “they were the menace to society. Fancy reaching your mid-thirties and not knowing how to kiss. Appalling. One of them had a technique like a washing machine. His tongue went round and round in a clockwise motion, then suddenly went into reverse and swept round and round in the other direction. It was so, well, mechanical.” She shudders at the memory.

All this talk of domestic appliances calls to mind the last person who chatted me up: a Darty man who delivered my new cooker. Granted, I indulged in a little eyelash fluttering, but only because I wanted him to take away an old refrigerator left in the apartment by my predecessors, and that wasn’t strictly his job…

The result was ten or more messages left on my mobile in semi-literate text speak before my suitor finally drew the appropriate conclusions from my resounding silence.

“Men just seem like too much trouble right now, I don’t even have time to do all my own stuff, let alone take anyone else into account,” I say, almost thinking aloud. “Mind you, I kind of wish my favourite toy hadn’t gone missing when I moved.”

Because, yes, of all the things that could have inexplicably failed to materialise when I unpacked my boxes, it had to be that. I live in fear of it turning up at an inopportune moment (say, during a visit from my ex-mother in law).

Embarrassment potential: critical.

I am woken by a text message and realise that

beer + ill advised gin based cocktail because it was cheap in happy hour + beer + beer + beer + ?

is a disastrous equation which can only = feelings of nausea and throbbing pains behind the eye sockets.

The text message invites me to lunch. At 2pm. At the “Zéphyr”. It is 10am. The idea of eating food, even drinking water, is uninviting at this juncture, but I dare to hope that things may feel a little different in four hours’ time. And the message clearly reads “buy you lunch”. Le Zéphyr is rather nice, in that artfully shabby, old fashioned sort of way which Paris does so well. It’s even within walking distance of my house, which is a thoughtful touch. Such an offer cannot be refused. I text back “ok”, hoping my inability to type anything further will not be construed as rude.

Shortly before 2, I make a triumphant dive for the one available table on the raised decking outdoors. The sky is making a respectable attempt at blue, although experience over the past two weeks has proved that caution should be exercised. I inspect the awning overhead: it wouldn’t protect us from one of the bibilical style deluges Paris has been subjected to of late, but is better than nothing.

I take out my book and find my page. The fact that I have reached a section written in a sonnet sequence does not make it ideal hangover reading, but I perservere, wishing I had brought a Voici from the stack Mr Frog’s mother so thoughtfully brought to Paris. My friend calls to announce his lateness and I hunker down in my seat, unperturbed. It’s a nice spot, the sun is (almost) shining and I am determined to savour my well-deserved screen break. I don’t have a clue I have been waiting for almost three quarters of an hour until the waiter comes over to warn me that his lunch shift is almost over.

I panic and call my friend, and after some confusion – the menu seems to have changed since he last ate there – I order us both a steak and he promises to appear in time to eat it.

Ten minutes later he phones back (apparently not for the first time, but my phone is vibrating quietly in the depths of my bag, the sound indistinguishable above the grumble of passing traffic.)

“Hi, where are you? I can’t see you anywhere.”

“In Le Zéphyr, sitting out front!” I reply, craning my neck, seeing no sign of him on the pavement. In any case, the terrasse is now almost empty, I really shouldn’t be too difficult to spot.

Suddenly I realise what has happened here, and suppress a violent urge to bang my head against the window. Repeatedly.

“I’m guessing that there is more than one Zéphyr in Paris, am I right?” I sigh.

Indeed I am. My friend is at the Café Zéphyr, halfway across town, at Bonne Nouvelle. He doesn’t have his motorbike with him today. He could never manage to get here in time to eat his steak warm. This is officially A Fiasco.

As I reassure him, through gritted teeth, not to worry, that it will be fine, I’ll cancel his order, the waiter appears, bearing two plates.

The phrase “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” springs cruelly to mind, as I start to wish I’d never crawled out of bed in the first place.

I glance down at my watch, startled to see it is already way past two. Time for a change of scenery; an hour or two outside my own head. I grab a book, at random, from the teetering tower by my bedside, find my purse, and, noting the ominous colour of the sky, arm myself with an umbrella.

The rue de Belleville is a wasteland of shuttered shops and extinguished lights. Welcome to Paris in August. A whole city to myself, with the exception of the most obvious tourist traps, but much of it closed for business.

I hesitate outside a shabby looking Thai joint with a seven euro lunch menu which I have never eaten at before, usually favouring the flashier Thai further down the hill, which pulls in the crowds on the strength of a favourable review in the ‘98 Routard.

A little girl with sleek black pigtails, presumably the proprietor’s granddaughter, captures my attention. She darts among the empty tables with her older sister, shrieking in a language I do not understand. She must be Tadpole’s age, give or take a few months. Momentarily overcome by a rush of tenderness for my own absent daughter, I picture her sleeping on her belly, fingers curled into a fist in front of her face.

I choose a window table, amused to see I am seated directly opposite the famous trompe l’oeil advertising hoarding. A perfect reading spot.

Opening my book I plunge into the first short story and am slowly but surely reeled in, the sound of the girls playing receding as I become increasingly indifferent to my surroundings. When my food arrives, I am brought back to reality with a jolt, but luckily have the presence of mind to request cutlery, so I can keep one hand free to turn the pages as I bring forkfulls of beef and lemongrass salad to my lips.

An hour later I tip the owner and set off back home, resolving to eat out alone more often. With regular practice, maybe I’ll be able to master book in one hand, chopsticks in the other.

There’s something worthwhile to aspire to.

Last night, preparing my third batch of mince pies this month for yet another gathering involving mulled wine (mulled by someone else this time, thankfully, as I found my own attempt at the weekend was a little too dominated by the pungent taste of cloves), I had an out of body experience.

From my vantage point on the kitchen ceiling, I looked down in some consternation at the spectacle of a blonde thirtysomething year old (whose dark roots could bear a little retouche, incidentally, as seen from this particular angle) gently tapping icing sugar through a sieve with a teaspoon, onto a mince pie which was partially covered with a cardboard cut out of a star, with a smaller star inside it. The results (see photo) were undeniably very fetching, but I had to wonder whether this lady shouldn’t be devoting her energies to some other, more rewarding activity than drawing stars on pieces of card and cutting around them with nail scissors.

The domestic goddess thing (if one can qualify for goddesshood when the pastry is bought ready rolled, the mincemeat out of a jar, and one is not wearing an apron) may have gone just a little too far.

As I snapped back into my body again, with an elastic band like twang, I hastily grabbed a beer from the fridge and wiped my shaking, floury hands on my jeans, in an attempt to sully the tableau of myself as Pastry Goddess.

I did however keep the cardboard cut out. It might be needed again on Christmas day. You never know.

*****

Later still, I reluctantly prepared to do some ironing. At the best of times, this is a task which tends to be deferred until not one pair of work trousers remains and it absolutely cannot be avoided. On this occasion, to add insult to injury, the (mostly black) garments which awaited their turn had accidentally been washed with a pink jumper of Tadpole’s (with a delightful cat motif, courtesy of belle maman), and were all, without exception, covered in a fine dusting of pink fluffy lint.

This was a job for the “sticky toilet roll on a stick” device, if ever there was one. I have no idea what this contraption is known as, either in French or in English, and, in case you were planning to take it upon yourself to enlighten me, I would prefer not to know, as there are some things in life that should remain a mystery.

But the sad fact of the matter is that it was only yesterday that it came to me in a sudden and unexpected flash of enlightenment that there are actually SEVERAL LAYERS of sticky stuff on the (loo)roll.

Who knew?

There was me thinking that the “sticky toilet roll on a stick” was the most wasteful invention in the Western world, because after cleaning the lint off a single T-shirt it had to be consigned to the bin and a new one (or a toilet roll refill) purchased. How misguided was I? How could I have been blind to the existence of the several layers of untouched, virginal, supremely adhesive roll which lie beneath?

So, in case any other poor souls are labouring under the illusion that sticky toilet rolls on a stick are single use products, I decided to share my (latest) epiphany with the internet.

Please tell me I was not alone in thinking this?

I think I will have to resign myself to the fact that I am doomed never to be mistaken for an elegant parisienne.

I haven’t the faintest idea how to knot a Hermès scarf just so around my neck. In fact, I’ll go so far as to admit that I don’t even care for Hermès scarves. Nor have I ever understood the whole jumper knotted loosely around shoulders over the top of winter coat look. Unlike most French girls, I am congenitally incapable of arranging my hair in a charmingly dishevelled little chignon, so that it looks as though it was twisted up and secured with a pencil in less than twenty seconds (a look which I suspect takes half an hour to achieve). I simply don’t look French, a point which was confirmed by several (disappointed) British bloggers I met recently.

Even if looks don”t betray my non French origins, my uncouth foreign behaviour inevitably will. Whether it be downing several beers in quick succession, or partaking of snacks in public places, something will always give me away.

Which brings me neatly to the story of the ill advised bolognaise panini on the line 7 métro.

The scene: horribly late for work, following a distastrous morning where a suspected, but in fact non-existent, infantile tummy upset and an errant nanny with no mobile phone conspired to force me to take a whole morning off work. One sixth of my precious three statutory days off to care for a sick child squandered for no good reason. Having finally deposited the irritatingly high-spirited, perfectly healthy Tadpole with the childminder, I realised I wasn’t going to have time to grab lunch before work, so there was no alternative but to eat on the run.

My hungry eyes spied a baker’s shop by the entrance to the metro. Upon closer inspection however, the sandwiches on offer did not look particularly appetising. French bread may in itself be A Very Lovely Thing, but many shops don’t use a great deal of imagination when concocting their sandwich fillings. Ham and plastic emmental cheese. Plastic emmental cheese with salad. Rosette sausage. Nothing which took my fancy. And after the stress of the morning, I craved something slightly naughty, as a pick me up.

My attention was arrested by a small, handwritten sign advertising paninis. I enquired about available fillings. They were a little odd. The classic mozzarella and cheese, or mozzarella and Italian ham had sold out, so all that remained were steack haché and bolognaise flavours. I opted for bolognaise, in what I can only describe as a moment of temporary insanity.

I regretted my choice almost immediately. It took for ever to cook. Standing next to a refrigerated cabinet of cakes, I tapped my foot nervously and glanced compulsively at my watch every thirty seconds or so. But it was too late to change my mind now, I had already paid. And the baker’s wife is a scary looking, red-faced person; not a woman whose feathers you would want to ruffle.

At last, the panini was toasted, and the lady handed it to me in its long paper bag with a single serviette. I snatched and ran. Into the métro, down the steps and onto the platform, where I paused, and first became aware of my predicament.

The paper bag was already translucent with grease, and rather a large amount of bolognaise and cheese filling appeared to have freed itself from the confines of the bread and and oozed down into a corner of the bag, which was visibly weakening by the second. The serviette was already drenched, my fingers slick with sauce. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the bag began to drip. Garish red liquid, which narrowly missed my clothes, occasionally splattering one of my shoes.

It also occured to me that the contents of my sandwich did not look dissimilar to the nappies I had changed that morning. Which clearly didn’t help.

Any sane person would have consigned the cursed sandwich there and then to the nearest rubbish bin, but my rumbling tummy and sheer pigheadedness prevented me from doing so.

So, drawing a small amount of comfort from the fact that Paris is a big city and none of the people sharing my métro carriage were ever likely to lay eyes on me again, I slumped down on an available strapontin and began nibbling gingerly at a corner of the sandwich from hell, studiously avoiding eye contact with my fellow passengers.

Pieces of minced meat leapt out and deposited themselves on the floor of the carriage around me. A piping hot chunk of chopped tomato landed on my toes. The bag continued to drip, drip, drip, even enveloped in my entire packet of emergency tissues. I had to hold the sandwich away from my body after every cursed bite, whilst I used a baby wipe on my mouth and chin, so as not to look like some sort of crazed métro vampire.

A perfectly groomed Parisienne got on at Chaussée d’Antin and wrinkled her delicate nose in distaste at the odour of my food. The only available seat was next to mine, and she declined to take it, preferring to stand well out of range. I could imagine what she was thinking only to well. Judging by her figure, she had never so much as sniffed a panini in her entire life, and the only thing which she would deign to put to her lips in a public place would be a bottle of Evian.

My journey over, I dropped the greasy packaging and remnants into a bin, wiped down my shoes and peeping toes, and inspected my trousers.

And emerged from the métro vowing never to buy a bolognaise panini as long as I live.

Even English girls have their limits.

“GOT TO FIND SOME CAKE!” shouts Tadpole, at the top of her lungs, to no-one in particular. She has got into the habit of repeating everything I say, turning the words over in her mouth so see how they sound.

As a result, I have to exercise extreme caution when we are out and about. No more thinking aloud along the lines of “I must remember to pack some seriously negligent pants for the weekend”.

I am feeling rather desperate. Mr Frog is due to appear to whisk off Tadpole for the evening in just under half an hour, and I promised Tadpole we would have surprise cake and candles for his birthday. Forgetting a key piece of information when I did so: our local bakery is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I peer half-heartedly through the window of the Chinese takeaway, with its unappetising looking boules de coco and almond tarts. Not really Mr Frog’s thing, and definitely not Tadpole’s. How about a brownie from the kosher sushi and bagel emporium across the road? No go. The metal shutters are pulled firmly closed. With a sigh, I retrace my steps towards the garage, which harbours a huit à huit minimarket. Cake out of a packet will have to do. Sacrilegious in a country where the pâtisserie fare is so unbelievable, and the packaged cakes so dire, but it can’t be helped.

Intentions: good. Execution: room for improvement.

The minimarket has a predictably poor selection. Some tired looking madeleines, a cake anglais (which generally refers to a rather pale and wan fruit cake containing glacé cherries, the likes of which I have yet to actually eat in England), and a bag of individually wrapped fondants au chocolat. I settle for the chocolate cakes, and dash home.

Mr Frog appears, shortly after the appointed hour, and I ask him to stay for a beer, to give me an excuse to repair to the kitchen. I have arranged three cakes on a plate, a striped blue candle lolling at a drunken angle in the centre of each. Tadpole, the soul of discretion, says “happy birthday cake mummy” in a stage whisper as I am leaving the room, but I don’t think Mr Frog notices.

As I bring my masterpiece through to the living room, Tadpole starts singing “happy birthday” right on cue. Mr Frog looks up, startled, and I can see he is genuinely touched.

For a fleeting moment, I catch myself wishing that we were still living together as a little family, sharing moments like this every day.

I bought three hens at lunchtime. Three milk chocolate hens, perched atop three chocolate wicker baskets, presumably filled with lots of little Easter goodies. I haven’t rattled them – in fact I barely dare approach the bag for fear of being overcome by a whiff of chocolate escaping from under the cellophane wrapping and succumbing to temptation. Which is why I am telling you there are THREE chickens. So that I can’t eat any of them between now and Easter Sunday. And if I mumble sheepishly upon arrival that one of said hens got smashed into smithereens when my hand luggage was scanned at the airport, DO NOT BELIEVE ME. Look for telltale signs of chocolate consumption around my and Tadpole’s mouths.

This is, after all, the same mummy who bought gingerbread pumpkins for her daughter and daughter’s playmates at Halloween and then ate all three in one sitting with a nice cup of tea. (In my defence, I thought the ginger flavour might be a bit too potent for 16 month old toddlers.) The same mummy who has bought a Lindt easter bunny, complete with red neck ribbon and dinging bell, with the last two Saturday’s groceries. At Tadpole’s insistence. And polished off each one, after allowing Tadpole to bite off the tips of their ears.

Sadly, the chocolatier I found within striking distance of my office only stocked traditional fare: eggs, chickens, bells, fish and rabbits. I was hoping to find at the very least a frog for him indoors, and some other more original gifts. A little forward planning probably wouldn’t have gone amiss, but somehow Easter has slunk up and pounced on me: the visit which seemed to be permanently several weeks away is now happening tomorrow. I winced at the price tags (yes, they do look home-made and artisanal, prettily wrapped in patterned cellphane with their yellow ribbons, but they also cost rather more than your average Dairy Milk egg.)

I have a vivid memory of a visit to a chocolatier in the rue de Courcelles (17th arrondissement) where I once shopped for Easter fare. I marvelled at the divine smell which permeated the tiny shop, wondering if it was possible to get a seratonin high from just breathing it in, and subsequently got chatting to the shopkeeper about how superior French easter chocolates were to the pre-packaged, supermarket-bought eggs I had known in the UK. The flattery paid off – it never hurts to pander a little to a French person’s innate superiority complex, I find – and the lady offered to show me behind the scenes, around the laboratoire du chocolat where her husband and son worked their cocoa magic. Oh the heavenly aroma which the vat of melted chocolate gave off as it waited to be poured into a multitude of different moulds.

Would Mademoiselle like to taste one of the little fishes?

Mademoiselle most certainly would. Mademoiselle would also like to know if it would be possible to ask for their son’s hand in marriage.

Yesterday was Chandeleur (fête des chandelles) in France, a date on the Christian calendar which translates as Candlemas in English. I know this only because a well-meaning colleague has brought a stack of crèpes and a vat of chocolate spread into the office this morning. I’m on my fourth. It is 11am.

I decided, between crèpes, that I ought to have a look on the interweb to see why I was being obliged to put my New Year’s resolutions on pause (again). This is what I found:

Churchgoers celebrate this originally pagan festival of lights by bringing a special, blessed candle home from Mass. If the candle remains lit all the way home, this is taken to be a good omen for the year to come.

Celui qui la rapporte chez lui allumée
Pour sûr ne mourra pas dans l’année

Crèpes are consumed on this day because according to old proverbs, this guarantees a good wheat harvest. Superstition also has it that if you hold a gold coin in your left hand while successfully flipping over the first crèpe it will bring you prosperity and good fortune. I’m not sure if a gold-coloured 50 centime coin would be considered good enough for this purpose, but in any case, I’ve missed the boat as far as this year is concerned. Probably a good thing as I imagine I would have spent a delightful evening scraping partially cooked crèpes off the kitchen floor.

Superstition and religious festivals aside, to my mind it would be more appropriate to rebaptise this ‘la fête du nutella’. Ditto for Mardi Gras (‘Fat Tuesday’ where the French eat beignets and the English eat pancakes), which rather unfortunately (for my thighs) falls only a week later. Naturally I don’t observe Lent, which would help to make amends for all this gluttony, because I’m selective about which ‘religious’ festivals I celebrate.

Crèpes are one of those foods which I see primarily as a delivery device for naughtier things. Like popcorn, which I only eat for the salt or sugar sprinkled on top, or Pringles which are so much better with a dip. Sure, I could eat a crèpe with lemon juice, but where’s the fun in that, when I could be spreading several centimetres of chocolatey, hazelnutty melty goo on instead?

Fact: Nutella is sold in 3kg tubs. That should be illegal.

If you are a vegetarian, or a person of a naturally squeamish disposition, please refrain from reading any further.

Click on one of the links in the ‘favourite sites’ menu to the right, for an alternative source of entertainment. Except JonnyB’s private secret diary, because yesterday’s post was a veritable bloodbath involving the dismemberment of hares, and you probably won’t like that either.

It is our office Christmas lunch today. Lunch, as opposed to dinner or party, so as to avoid the kind of lecherous, drunken, fesses-photocopying debauchery that typically goes on during office Christmas parties where Brits are involved. This is probably A Good Thing, as I think we are all out of A3 paper.

Instead we will be partaking of a gourmet, civilised meal in a very fine Parisian establishment located inside the Gare de Lyon railway station. It’s not your average station snackstop. If you have seen Luc Besson’s French film ‘Nikita’ (not the nasty Hollywood remake), you may remember ‘Le Train Bleu’ (pictured above) as the posh restaurant where Nikita executes a complete stranger before making her memorable exit via the kitchen garbage shoot.

As is customary over the Christmas season, the menu features foie gras as a starter. It will be my first foie gras of 2004, with more to follow on Christmas Eve when we have Christmas dinner with the EVILs (EVil-In-Laws).

Foie gras (literally: fat liver) is one of those foods which tastes very nice indeed (in moderation) but it does you no good whatsoever to reflect on how it is made. Being a glutton for punishment however I have done some background reading on the subject and am now beginning to wish I had opted for the moelleux aux champignons instead.

Ducks and geese are overfed with corn (using a kind of funnel or catheter inserted forcibly into their throats) over a period of several weeks prior to ‘harvesting’. A process charmingly referred to as ‘cramming’, which enlarges their livers to approximately ten times their natural, healthy size. Anti-foie gras campaigners refer to this delicacy as the ‘fur of the food trade’. To protestors this technique equals torture. To its defenders, it is simply farming.

Allegedly humans’ fondness for this luxury food came about when the livers of ducks and geese were consumed in Ancient Egypt during their ‘winter sun’ holidays. As the birds had gorged themselves in preparation for their migratory journey, their livers were naturally swollen with stored fat. Defenders of foie gras are anxious to point out that a fattened liver is not synonymous with a diseased liver, so it is inaccurate to say that this luxury food is nothing more than cirrhosis on your plate.

Strangely, it is not the decidedly unpleasant desciptions of ‘cramming’ that are causing my appetite to falter. It is the use of the word ‘lobes’ on one website which helpfully explains that foie gras entier is made from one or more ‘entire liver lobes’. Lobes? Not on my plate. Let it not be said that Petite Anglaise is a lobe eater.

Foes of foie gras will be pleased to note that Arnie has outlawed (I won’t say ‘terminated’) foie gras produced by inhumane methods in California, in a bill which will come into force in 2012. So that gives producers another seven years or so to devise a ‘humane’ method.

I wish them luck. It may turn out to be even trickier than trying to persuade the Tadpole to eat her greens.

Well, I don’t suppose any of you thought I’d let another opportunity to talk about food pass me by. Especially cheese of the ‘akin to socks worn for ten days with trainers and athletes foot’ variety. I am nothing if not predictable.

To get to the kitchen from the bedroom in our apartment, one has to cross the living room, walk down a corridor, and turn to the left. It is 45 fairy steps from bed to fridge (I just checked – the Frog thinks it’s still the drugs). However when the Frog opens the fridge door, I can distinguish from my bed whether there is an unpasteurised Camembert Le Rustique skulking in there. Or perhaps a couple of goats cheeses lurking out of sight. The little egg shaped plastic thing which also lives in the fridge and claims to neutralise all forms of pong, whiff and odour remains powerless against the pungency of these cheeses. Emprisoning the cheese in a tupperware container works, but creates a ticking time bomb: it is advisable to wear goggles/nose-peg when you decide to liberate the contents.

The cheeses mentioned above are freely available in our local Franprix supermarket. Kept refrigerated, and securely wrapped in clingfilm. In a proper cheese shop, or at an outdoor market they are just sprawled out on a counter, and ooze merrily in all directions. I would probably be able to smell those in my fridge if I was collecting the post from my letterbox five storeys below.

Coming from a family of mild white (or red) Cheddar eaters, who might also treat themselves to a slab of Wensleydale with their Christmas cake, I think my palate has made considerable progress since living in France. It has been more of a slow progression than a sudden epiphany. First I learnt to appreciate cheeses similar to English and Dutch cheeses with which I was already familiar, like Cantal, Emmental and Swiss Gruyère. Later I was introduced to proper non-pasteurised Brie and Camembert during my year in Normandy. The family I stayed with had their cheeses on a platter in a cupboard, never in the fridge, and it all looked worse for wear when it emerged at mealtimes, tough outer crusts with lots of messy oozing in the middle. But once I got past the offputting pong and appearance there were some surprises in store. (Sometimes blocking my nose and letting my tastebuds continue unbiased helped.)

Traveling around France has also been a source of inspiration. On my regular trips to the Jura I have been initiated to regional cheeses: runny garlicy Cancaillotte, made in a factory where Mr Frog once had a holiday job, Morbier, Mont d’Or, nutty earthy Comté. I’m now also very partial to ewes milk cheese from the Basque region (Ossau Irraty, Etorki), and Brocciu from Corsica.

I do have my limits though. Green veined Roquefort I can handle. But anything which has a layer of festering mould on the outer skin, or that ressembles a sheeps dropping someone found at the back of the barn several months later is unlikely to meet with an enthusiastic response, no matter how good the glass of red that accompanies it. A cheese with worms crawling inside it is not making it onto my plate. (I didn’t make that up – read ‘Almost French‘.) I’m not much good when faced with washed rind cheeses. I just can’t get past the odour of the rind, I don’t care how good the innards are supposed to taste. So I don’t think the Vieux Boulogne (the cheese with the title ’smelliest cheese’ was bestowed upon) would be my cup of tea.

Extract from the Guardian article by Patrick Barkham, “Smelliest Cheese Honour”, 26/11/04:

“The odour of rotting vegetables and the scent of a goat on heat wafted down Farringdon Road a full five minutes before the cheese strolled in the door. “It’s gone to the post room,” said the man in the courier hut. “It was smelling the place out.”

…

Unwrapped from its plastic covering the Vieux Boulogne sent an aroma of six-week-old earwax floating through the Guardian’s offices. From a safe distance of 50 metres, the cheese emitted a pleasant eau de farmyard, replete with dung and Barbour jackets. Close up, its firm orange flesh, flecked with a delicate mould, recalled varnish.”

However I might be willing to sample it for a price, especially as it is described as ‘a cure for winter colds’. How about I add a paypal button and when the price is right, I’ll broadcast the Vieux Bologne sampling fest via webcam?

I feel I have to warn you though, it might end up looking like the Jackass egg eating competition.

The 22nd of December 2001 was a black day for English expats in Paris: Marks and Spencer finally closed down their Paris Haussmann and Rivoli branches.

In a last desperate bid to stock up on crumpets, English breakfast tea and mature cheddar I braved the closing day 40%-off-sale hordes. Anarchy reigned. Protestors were making their anger felt by tearing the wrappers off triangle sandwiches in the food hall and scoffing them without paying. The clothes section looked like a jumble sale. Extra security guards had reportedly been taken on for the day to keep the peace.

Once the store closed, I began to fully comprehend what I had lost. Never again when feeling a bit low or homesick could I turn to English comfort foods like toasted teacakes and hot cross buns to munch in front of Eastenders. There were to be no more properly spiced chicken biryani ready meals. Crispy duck with pancakes, plum sauce and a side order of crispy seaweed was a thing of the past. (Parisian Chinese restaurants don’t seem to serve this, my favourite dish, more’s the pity.) Rice pudding, custard, cheddar and stilton were definitively off the menu. I would have to learn to recover from hangovers without the help of a bacon and tomato ketchup sandwich.

When I first moved to Paris, I started off terribly enthusiastic about all things French. Thus I watched the French terrestrial TV channels, read only (terribly serious) French novels, and ate 100% French food. As the months stretched into years and it was clear that France was to be my permanent home I started to crave a bit of English food, English language literature and television programmes. Nowadays I have gone to the opposite extreme and watch exclusively English/American films and TV programmes on cable TV (apart from the odd good French programme on Canal+ like ‘+Clair’ or ‘90 minutes’) and order English/American fiction via Amazon. I watch Eastenders religiously every night, even when it is going through a bad patch. I read Heat magazine when I can lay my hands on it (even though I’ve never seen the English version of any of the reality shows they harp on about ad nauseam). In my former life in the UK I wouldn’t have been seen dead reading a gossip mag and I didn’t follow Eastenders. I suppose I clutch at any Englishness I can get my hands on these days.

Don’t get me wrong, my love affair with France is by no means over. I just missed my English side a little bit. Especially during the period where I worked for Franco-French companies and spoke only French all day long. My Englishness is an important part of who I am, and I want to preserve it.

And I feel the best way to cultivate this is by eating crumpets and drinking tea.

Below is a list of what I’ve eaten during my stay in the UK (so far). This is a note to self to remind me what a lump of lard I would become if I lived here permanently…

Thursday

lunch somewhere over the English Channel:
2 bacon and ketchup rolls (free plane food – one for me, one ‘for Tadpole’)

afternoon snack:
1 cadbury’s flake
1 chocolate covered flapjack bar
2 cups of tea

dinner:
fish, chips, mushy peas and bread and butter, with ketchup
2 cups of tea

Friday

breakfast:
banana fruit loaf and tea

in town shopping, lunch scoffed while walking around:
sausage roll
pork and apple mini sausage roll
bacon and cheese mini sausage roll
iced bun

afternoon tea:
apple doughnut
several cups of tea

dinner at tapas bar:
tapas
crema catalana
too much red wine

pre-bed munchies:
apple doughnut

Saturday

breakfast
2 crumpets dripping with butter (yum!)

lunch in town:
quiche, coleslaw and pasta salad
half a (huge) slice of lemon meringue pie (shared with my mum)

tea, tea and more tea

I think I should take a leaf out of ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ and think about having only salad tomorrow. But in the meantime, maybe I’ll stick the kettle on and see if there are any doughnuts left…

It’s distressing when the Frog tries on my clothes, because he invariably looks better in them than I do.

A story in last weekend’s Observer amused me no end. The ‘French paradox’: how is it that French women are so slim despite putting away ‘as much ice-cream, rich pastries and steak frites as they want’.

Excuse me while I laugh so hard I eject hot tea out through my nostrils. I have never seen a French woman stuffing her face with fatty foods. Ever. When we go for dinner with French friends, I tend to be the only female who doesn’t order salad, the woman with no will power who caves in and orders dessert. Watching me with a mixture of jealousy and contempt as I scrape the last of the fondant au chocolat from my plate, the French girls take a long hard drag on their cigarettes.

My main problem (apart from not being a smoker) is that I may have lived here for many years now, but my tummy still thinks I’m just here on holiday and an evil little voice in my head tells me I really should try that exotic, foreign foie gras mi-cuit, or treat myself to a confit de canard while I’m here.

The thinnest French girls I know are covert adepts of what I call the ‘herbal tea method’. In every office I have worked in, there has been a girl who put on the kettle after lunch and then disappeared into the toilets for ten minutes or more, presumably to purge herself of the steamed broccoli she had just feasted on. Resurfacing, she would take her herbal mouthwash tea back to her desk wearing a smug expression. And tight white trousers which clung to her bottom-cheeks-which-had-never-met. Trousers which would never make a rubbing sound when she walked.

There is only one French person I know who does live out the French paradox without cheating: Mr Frog. With his aversion to all things vegetable, he gorges himself on a high sugar, high cholestorol, high carb combination of cheese, charcuterie, bread, fraises tagada and liquorice shoelaces and never puts on an ounce. The way he eats radishes is a thing to behold, each one carefully paired with a knob of butter as large as the radish itself and a liberal sprinkling of rock salt. Thereby cancelling out the merit of having eaten a healthy foodstuff. And he doesn’t even have high cholestorol – although it will catch up with him in the end if there is any justice in this world.

So when he puts on my Chinese dress and feather boa and dances to the Scissor Sisters I admit to feeling rather piqued at the injustice of the French paradox. And jealous of his shapely legs.

But I’m also thankful that there is no danger of him stretching my clothes out of shape.

As of tomorrow Tadpole and I will be back in the UK for a four day weekend of fish and chip eating and relatives cooing ‘ooh hasn’t she grown?’ Hopefully the latter will be in relation to Tadpole and not my hips.

The parents have some interference on their phone line and so not only is broadband down, even the museum piece dial up slow-mo(dem) is unavailable. Aarrghh! Cold turkey!

The Frog is therefore responsible for publishing Friday’s post. If it doesn’t materialise, I apologise, but computers don’t like him much. I just hope he doesn’t take it into his pretty little head to publish a post of his own…

The Frog read Friday’s post (he reads, but not regularly, as he is a particularly busy amphibian) and he was quite shocked that I (still) felt such animosity towards his parents.

Strangely though, this weekend went off without a hitch. I took a step back and left Tadpole alone with her grandparents for much of the time, taking the opportunity to catch up on some much needed beauty sleep and going shopping without a pushchair for the first time in aeons. I think I have been letting the bad experiences I had when Tadpole had just been born cloud my judgement somewhat, and maybe the fact of ‘emptying my bag’ (as they say in French) in Friday’s post finally enabled me to put all those bad feelings to bed. I still plan to stay away altogether next time, but for more positive reasons and as someone pointed out in my comments, a healthier relationship with the In Laws will be better for the Tadpole, who was probably picking up on all those bad vibes flying around.

The only negative thing about the weekend was the amount of food I managed to bring back (in my rather painfully distended tummy). MIL pulled out all the stops and we feasted on winter warmers like choucroute (sauerkraut, speciality from Alsace with various meat and sausages), a raclette (melted cheese heated in little shovels and poured over spuds, eaten with cold meats), pintade (guinea foul?) with wild mushrooms picked by the In Laws in the woods and served with big wedges of polenta… All lovely dishes provided you are going for a spot of skiing afterwards. But if you are going to be lazing around and you already have a well-developed case of ‘blogger’s behind’, possibly a bit too calorific.

As the Frog has always been rather a picky eater the In Laws make a big fuss about how great it is to have someone around who ‘enjoys her food’, piling on extra helping whenever I pause to pick up my wineglass.

I may now have cause to bring the exercise bike/thermometer out of early retirement.

A decade of living in France has sadly taught me little about wine.

The Frog and I tend to drink mostly Bordeaux, which according to Father In Law is the only red worth drinking. However, I haven’t got a clue which years are supposed to have been good years. Or which bottles are supposed to be kept for a while, as opposed to the ones which are suitable for drinking now. I once bought a book about French wine (now gathering dust on my bookshelf) with the intention of starting a cave so that we would always have a plentiful supply on hand. However there is nowhere suitably dark and cool in our apartment. I did put a couple of bottles in our cellar when we moved in, but the fact that I’m scared to go down there on my own (it’s very badly lit, a torch is required and there are several dark corridors where I can all too easily imagine things to be lurking), and that we live on the fifth floor tends to prevent us from uncorking a bottle from the cellar on a whim. It’s less hassle to go the corner shop.

When I have to buy some wine because we have guests, there is much crossing of fingers and I tend to play safe and buy a bottle with (grand) cru classé or cru bourgeois written on it. Or just throw sufficient money at the problem. If it costs over € 15, I consider it should good enough to take around to someone’s house for dinner. If the label proudly boasts that the wine won a médaille d’argent in 1996, I am just confused. Does this mean that what they produced in 2004 is any good? Or are they just trading on their former glory? If I really want to make a good impression, I ask an assistant in the wine shop to recommend something. But this inevitably leads to questions like ‘what will you be eating?’. What am I supposed to do, phone the host and ask?

The English tend to like a bit of Côtes du Rhône (to my FIL’s horror), and pay well over the odds in the UK for bottles which would be relegated to the bottom shelf in any French supermarket. In a gastro-pub in Yorkshire where I recently had a gorgeous meal with my family, the wine, costing about a tenner, turned out to be a vin de table made from ‘a blend of French wines’. The kind of bottle that should have had a screw top and that would be fit only for outdoor consumption by alcoholic clochards in France. Now when in England, I tend to stick to New World wines, because they seem to be far better value for money.

The French, chauvinistic as they can be, do not acknowledge that wine is produced anywhere else in the world but in France. Go into any Nicolas wine shop and have a look around. All the French regions are represented, but you’ll be unlikely to find any Australian, Californian or South African vintages on offer. The only place you might find these would be in a restaurant specialising in food from those countries. I would very much like to perform a ‘pepsi challenge’ type test on the FIL to see whether he can actually tell the difference between an Australian red and a similar French wine. I have my doubts.

Of course, I may be an oenological philistine, but at least I have the excuse of hailing from working-class, ale-swilling Yorkshire stock. The Frog has no such excuse. On a rare occasion where I deigned to cook for some French friends and actually impressed them with my warm goats cheese and pear salad followed by roasted salmon with wild rice (I think they were half expecting boiled meat and baked beans), Frog was dispatched off to get some white wine. As he reached for the corkscrew, our guests caught sight of the label and cried out in horror.

The Frog had bought dessert wine. I don’t think he will ever live that down.

I will never cease to marvel at the tantalising array of cakes on offer in a typical French Pâtisserie. When I first arrived in Paris, I set myself the not unpleasant challenge of eating a different pastry every day until I ran out of options. I soldiered on for three whole weeks before abandoning the enjoyable experiment, as there was no end in sight and I was already unable to fasten my trousers.

As I have said before, purchasing a new cake for the first time is a rather tricky business, as baker’s shops never seem to put the gender on the little cardboard signs. Probably on purpose. So that only French people can buy them without having to resort to undignified pointing.

A firm favourite of mine is the religieuse (situated to the right of the éclairs in the photo) It’s like a round eclair with another round bobble of choux on top. So called because it resembles a churchgoing lady in her Sunday best. Allegedly. Very tasty as long as the filling (chocolate or coffee, not plain whipped cream like in the UK) is strongly flavoured enough. Personally I’m rather fond of moussey layer cakes with elegant names like Opéra, but these must be transported with care and eaten with a spoon, so are not suitable for a quick sugar fix when on the move.

One which I have yet to try is the gland, another variation on the choux pastry theme, but this time with rather vivid green icing and chocolate sprinkly bits on top. I have no idea what the flavour of the filling is and prefer not to speculate. Gland in French means ‘acorn’. This has the same connotations in French as in English. So, being a girl who can’t even eat a banana in public without first breaking it into small pieces, you’ll understand why I won’t be partaking of a glans gland any time soon.

I stood in front of the baker’s shop window yesterday evening, pondering over what I could buy as a little treat to brighten up my otherwise dreary Monday, and was surprised to feel a pang of longing for a boring old British cake. A bun with fluorescent icing and smarties on top. Or an iced bun – i.e. a bread finger with icing on. Then I remembered the gingerbread ghosts I had purchased in England last weekend, supposedly for Halloween.

*wipes crumbs off keyboard*

With the benefit of hindsight, I think the ginger would have been too strong for the Tadpole anyhow. And she’s too young to understand about Halloween. Isn’t she?

*Try this at home: type the word ‘gland’ in google and search for images. Only then will you appreciate what I went through to find a photo of the French cake. Not for the faint hearted.

I had some guests over from England this weekend. As usual, deciding what/where to eat became a thorny issue. France being renowned for its gastronomic delights, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it should be easy to keep guests fed and watered. Not so in the case of most of my guests I’m afraid.

Take this weekend, for example. Our visitors were down to earth Yorkshire folk who like plain cooking: nothing spicy, no garlic, meat burned to a crisp. The type of people who when they go on holiday prefer to play it safe by eating at restaurants serving only English food. Oh, and they don’t like cheese. Sacrilege in a country producing over 350 different regional cheeses…

After much agonising over a choice of venue, we went to a wine bar I like at Châtelet (only to discover my guests could only tolerate lager) and I instructed the waiter to please cremate their steaks until they were black and not a single drop of blood could conceivably be wrung out of them. I winked conspiratorially and asked him to apologise to the chef, as I’m sure this was against everything he stood for. For once my request was taken seriously: the meat was still pink, but I didn’t have to send it back to the kitchen for extra cooking. I held back (with difficulty) from ordering an assortment of cheeses for myself with a glass of red. I suspected the aroma might offend.

My sisters and several of my friends in the UK are, quite unhelpfully, vegetarians. A dirty word as far as most French people are concerned. My own brief flirtation with vegetarianism in my teens ended during a visit to a French pen friend. There are a few whole food/organic/veggie type cafés in Paris, but most French restaurants don’t have a single vegetarian option on the menu. I took one veggie friend to a lovely bistrot in my neighbourhood only to discover that they wouldn’t even cook her an omelette. She ended up eating some boiled vegetables in stock – all the while eyeing up fellow diners’ plates nervously. At the next table someone had ordered a steak tartare (raw minced steak with raw egg poured over it) and even my fish arrived with its head on and bulbous staring eyes, which didn’t help matters.

So on the whole I tend to dread taking Brits out to dinner. Can you blame me?

petite anglaise wrote this post whilst polishing off one packet of Walkers roast lamb and mint sauce flavoured crisps, followed by one packet of Walkers roast beef and yorkshire pudding flavour crisps. Bliss.

I gave in to temptation this morning and bought a pain au chocolat on the way to work. The chocolate was warm and runny and the pastry was so buttery that the paper bag gradually became transparent in places. It smellt heavenly. But I didn’t eat it there and then. No! I waited an excruciating half an hour until I had arrived at the office before tucking in. Why? Not because I enjoy torturing myself, but because in France you just don’t see people eating in public places. It is just not the done thing. If you do decide to snack in public, you must be prepared for some funny looks and even passers-by wishing you “bon appétit” in a sarcastic, disapproving manner.

This is one of the things I think the French have got right. Eating here is something to be taken slowly and seriously: you don’t cram food in your mouth while running down the metro escalator, you sit down, and probably have a much healthier digestive experience as a result. Although many people now use the restaurant tickets their employers provide to buy a take-away lunch of sandwiches or salad to eat in the work kitchen or – if they work in an anglo-saxon company – at their desk, there are still just as many who eat a proper two or three course meal in a restaurant. In some parts of town every second building houses a different café, restaurant, bistrot or brasserie; without lunchtime diners I doubt even half of these would survive.

Snacking between meals does not seem to be part of French culture. Go into any tabac and instead of several square metres of confectionery (as you would find in the UK), you’ll have to choose between a solitary twix, a couple of snickers bars, and a dust-covered kit kat, all housed behind a glass case next to the cashier. Crisps are not even sold in single-serving small packets (nor in appetising flavours). They are meant only as an accompaniment to the evening’s aperitif, not as a between meals stop-gap. Cakes on sale at boulangeries/pâtisseries are mostly the layered moussey type which require the use of cutlery, not easily eaten on the run. You might have noticed that vending machines have recently been introduced in metro stations, but I am the only person I have ever seen buying food from them, on the rare occasions that they are working.

On trips home to England, my eyes light up when I see the tantalising array of candy on the shelves. It seems every chocolate bar I grew up with has spawned five or more different flavoured offspring, or been subtley changed and rebranded as an entirely new product. But maybe there is just too much choice? Sometimes it is all too much and I end up walking away empty handed. And let’s face it, the UK’s growing obesity problem must have a lot to do with our snack culture. I have been known to moan (me? moan?) about how it is not fair that French women are generally stick thin and hipless – but perhaps if I hadn’t been brought up on a diet of Rowntree’s misshapes I too would have an androgynous figure and would not be subject to sugar/salt cravings at inappropriate times of day.

Talking of which, I would KILL for a Cadbury’s flake right now. Or a Curly Wurly…

On the left is the calorific bouquet I had delivered to the Frog’s office on his birthday. I’m now rather popular there, as even the Frog can’t get through 50 Chupa Chups without some assistance.

The Frog adores sweets: packets of fraises tagada are always mysteriously falling from supermarket shelves into our shopping trolley when my back is turned. If he ever leaves me it will no doubt be for his dentist, with whom he is spending increasing amounts of quality time.

As our expedition last weekend to find a suitable present was unsuccessful (he is very fussy), I thought I’d better have something up my sleeve on the day to make up for it. Actually, that makes me sound much less calculating than I really am: my primary motivation was to make him feel guilty that he never surprises me on my birthday… Not that when he thanked me over the phone through a mouthful of liquorice shoelaces he could have cared less about any intended subtext…

Last night we went out for a meal at Chez Georges, the Frères Costes’ über-trendy restaurant on the top floor of the Centre Pompidou. The experience made me remember why I love Paris: there is a marvellous view of the city skyline and all the major monuments are lit up at night. Inside the restaurant the view isn’t unpleasant either. The waiters are very suave, and the beanpole waitresses look like models. There must be a clause in the girls’ contracts which specifies that at least 1m20 of skinny bare leg must be shown at all times. Their outfits would have been more appropriate in a glitzy nightclub – never have I seen so many sequins (except perhaps in Miss Selfridge).

At the end of our meal, feeling I’d overindulged on rich food and bordeaux I asked our waiter for a carafe of water with the bill: meaning tapwater, not the mineral water on the menu at €8 a bottle (which even I know is ridiculously expensive). He looked at me calculatingly and said “de l’eau municipale?” I’ve never heard tapwater called by that name before, but I concede it is a very clever use of the word ‘municipal’, a word which conjures up images of street cleaners, sewerage works and dodgy lead piping and almost made me have costly second thoughts.

Incidentally, I stuck to my guns and got my tapwater, and as you can see I’m still alive, if a little “hanged over”.

Walking past the ‘Le Gange’ restaurant this morning on the way to drop off Tadpole at childminder’s, I was overcome by a sudden craving for an ‘English style’ curry. I won’t say an ‘authentic’ curry, because I’ve never been to India or Pakistan and doubt whether what passes for a curry in the UK bears any ressemblence to what the natives eat. I suspect not. But it definitely beats the dishwater one is served on this side of the Channel.

If you order a dish claiming to be ‘au curry’ in a French restaurant, be prepared for a non-descript, creamy sauce to which a teaspoonful of curry powder has been added. The curryhouses of Paris – few and far between as different immigration patterns mean that North African couscous emporiums outnumber them 50 to 1 – are little better. I know because I tried them all in the final weeks of my pregnancy. The helpful midwife suggested sex, exercise, nipple tweaking and spicy food as strategies to force my overdue Tadpole out into the world. Not being able to face options 1 and 2 at that stage, I became acquainted with every takeaway in the city of lights and ate curry morning, noon and night for a week. The Tadpole was unimpressed.

Following this extensive research I can report that:

¤Chicken curry in France tends to contain ‘dark meat’ and bones. Not a nice bit of breast like in the UK. The bones are so small that you have to wonder whether the chicken was underage, or face up to the possibility that you are eating a pigeon or rodent.

¤It is very rare to get anything ‘correctly’ spiced. Despite trying a wide variety of dishes which claimed to be ‘hot’ I never once tasted a curry which lived up to this description. Or that had any depth of flavour. I’m no Madhur Jaffrey, but I remain sceptical as to whether fresh spices ground in a pestle and mortar were involved at any stage in the proceedings.

¤You can’t get a peshwari nan for love nor money. Flavours are plain, cheese (with some sort of dairylea in it, yuck) or meat flavour.

Incidentally, Le Gange claims to offer both Indian and Pakistani specialities. That strikes me as a bit odd. Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought the two countries were not the best of friends?

In case you were wondering, I did also try the tweaking. It did not have the desired effect either, but it kept me occupied.