So despite my handicap I’m writing again. Mostly for Wendy and a website or three she’s managing for a couple of American ladies who’ve set up in the gite, property flogging and (I am NOT making this up – I’ve told you before it’s already weird enough being me without making anything up) online dating. NTTAWWT, I’ve found at least half a dozen fine ladies via such websites.
What about? Mostly property development, house buying, immobilier-type stuff. But there’s some personal bits in there too including a new column, Selon les arrivages du marché which, I know, may well not be grammatical but there you go. Regular readers will already know just how much I Care, No Really I Do.
It combines a bit about my life in the restaurant here in Avignon with stuff about cooking, centred around what’s seasonal at the time of writing; the first one featured a recipe for soupe aux girolles et poireaux, the next one for carpaccio de Coquilles Saint Jacques avec saumon deux façons.
The one I’m working on at the moment is about how to start a fist-fight in a harbour-side bar in Marseilles, something that is halfway towards one of my current ambitions as keen readers already know (the fist-fight part – I want to fight a clown, not Marsellais toughs, because I saw it in one of the last English-language programs I saw before moving here, an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, a program I watched because I fancied his mother). But I digress.
Yes, currently it’s Bouillabaisse, aka Mediterranean Fish Stew and, like opinions and arseholes, everyone round here has a recipe for it. Or two. Recipes, that is, although I’m suspicious about the other things too as far as some people are concerned.
Yes, we have Stagaires, Work Experience kids in the restaurant at the moment. There were a couple of 15-year-olds in to start with, in for a fortnight straight from collège, which is French for middle- or pre-secondary-school. They weren’t talented or clever enough to wash out the dustbins, so I got to do that as usual. They were talented enough to piss me off on a regular basis, though, by messing about with my sinks and washing up water so, like Chef, I shouted at them.
Another, this one in his second year at the local restaurant college, has just finished; we’re glad to be able to reclaim the space in the kitchen which he was wasting.
And currently we have two in the place; one’s from a school that may be Valence – wherever it is, they apparently only teach their students how to continuously wear an expression that says, “You want me to do WHAT?” He thinks Chef shouts at him because of a lack of respect, and he’s right – but it’s the other way round to what he thinks. The other has already done his formation as a cuisinier and is now into his second, this one as a patissier and, as a qualified cook, is eminently better suited to not getting on my tits. In fact, I almost like him – albeit not enough to remember his name. I’ve been calling him Giles all week when it turns out it’s Jean-Luc. There you go.
So. Other new stuff in my life since I wrote this ? Well, I’ve moved house, sort of. Vergele is Still For Sale, buy it please, but now I’m working full-time in and/or near Avignon I’ve rented a studio flat in the heart of the city – next door to the Palais des Papes, no less, in a very chi-chi area; I can buy tourist tat and a Picasso without any problems, but have to walk bloody miles to get a baguette. Well, hundreds of metres anyway.
Roger my BMW is broken down and I can’t afford to get him mended, or even towed to the garage.
So it’s lucky that Delphine, the new lady in my life, has a van (a white one! I’m White Van man) which dates back to her Florist shop days; right now she’s furtherly educating herself to be a higher level florist than she was before so doesn’t have a shop. Natch, when I lived in Vergele I was going out with Marie (she’s fine, thanks, still writing eruditely every day or so over at http://www.vioulac.com ) here in Avignon; now I’ve moved to Avignon I’m going out with Delphine who currently lives near Sauve but who will be moving to Montpellier Any Day Now. Good grief.
And I’m working full-time as a cuisinier, as I tell people who need to be impressed, or a plongeur – washer-up – as I say to people who really need to be impressed.
And, as may be becoming obvious, I really don’t give a toss any more; my life philosophy now is that, not only do I not do things I don’t want do do – I only do things I actively do want to do. So there.
Apart from that I get Saturday afternoons, Sundays and Monday mornings off and spend that sleeping and not much else; I get a two or three hour break every afternoon between three and six, otherwise I work from nine in the morning until midnight or later. Which means I don’t get much spare time, and that which I do have is devoted to writing something for Wendy and seeing Delphine; my apologies if this means I haven’t seen some of you as much as I’d like, I really would like to (this doesn’t necessarily apply to you, Alex, either bit). Try e-mailing me, you never know.
A toot.