Thank you, everyone, for the great suggestions about what to serve my characters at their party feast. After much tinkering around, I have finalised the menu. (”Final”, of course, is relative with me. Being a champion perfectionist and procrastinator, I change everything nine billion times before I’m even halfway satisfied).

Menu

Seville orange consommé

Bombes de foie gras

Asparagus tips (thanks Charlotte)

Sevruga caviar

Venison slow-roasted with juniper berries

Poires Belle-Hélène

Lavender ice cream

Quince syllabubs

Savoy cakes

Um, can you tell from this that I’ve been rabidly craving sweet food? It must be the colder weather, although how I survived in UK for the best part of seventeen years without turning into a house end I don’t know. I’m wondering if Seville orange consommé might taste bitter and disgusting, like cold thin liquid marmalade. How I despise marmalade! Would a chef make something like this? I’m thinking probably not, but it does sound posh.

I haven’t included the cheese course because the POV character leaves as the cake is being served.

I’ve almost finished re-rewriting chapter one of Surviving Kelly Tracey. I have to go over the final section, which shouldn’t take me too long, if I don’t start mucking around and being too much of a perfectionist. All I need to do after that is re-redraft chapters two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Then I might finally be getting somewhere. Somewhere in this process I have acquired an extra chapter, which probably means negative progress if only I could work it all out…

Popularity: 4% [?]

Today I overheard the following conversation between a grown-up son and his mother:

Son: (to his mother, who looked sad and depressed in a way I could very much relate to) Why you worry? What’s the point in that? Mars could collide with the Earth tomorrow. Jesus come back. And what’s everybody doing? We’re all dead. So no point worrying.

Never a truer word spoken, I would say.

Popularity: 5% [?]

So my characters are sitting down to eat a posh feast, and what can I serve them? Help! I have no idea, especially after confronting the fact that I don’t know posh. These poor party-goers have been stranded at the banqueting table for a year now. They rejected the first meal I served to them, and so to help my brain cook up a more palatable and convincing feast, I have compiled the following list of ingredients. I’ve been influenced by the type of food the party hosts prefer. They are dainty, old-fashioned women so I haven’t added food like steak or more tropical ingredients such as mango or papaya. Any suggestions to add to this list would be greatly appreciated!

fruit, nuts and vegetables
almonds
apricots
artichokes
asparagus
blood oranges
cherries
damsons
dates
fennel
figs
hazelnuts
horseradish
muscadines
nashi pears
persimmons
pink grapefruits
pistachios
plums
pomegranates
porcini
quinces
Seville oranges
shallots
vine leaves
walnuts
white truffles

meat
Bresse pigeon
duck
foie gras
kidneys
prosciutto
quail
venison

seafood
baby squid
caviar: Caspian, Beluga, Oscietra, Sevruga
crab
langoustines
octopus
oysters
prawns
salmon
squid ink
trout

dairy
mascarpone
Roquefort
quail’s eggs
vacherin

herbs, spices, flavourings and condiments
bergamot
cinnamon
cloves
elderflower
ginger
gold leaf
juniper berry
lavender
liquorice
nutmeg
orange flower water
orange zest
rosewater
saffron
star anise
tarragon
vanilla beans

savoury sauces
Béchamel
Périgueux
velouté

sweet food and desserts
acacia honey
blancmanges
bombes
Chantilly cream
cheesecakes
crema catalana
custard
ice cream
ices
jelly
millefeuille
Palet D’or
parfaits
Poires Belle-Hélène
pralines
puff pastry
sablé Breton
Savoy cake
semifreddo
syllabubs
tarte tatin
trifle
wafers

basic dishes
carpaccio
consommé
gnocchi
mirepoix
potage

preparation styles and methods
baked
concasse
confit
frozen
grilled
moulded
oven-roasted
Parmentier
poached
roasted
roux
slow-roasted
spiced
stuffed
wrapped

drinks
amaretto
champagne
Earl Grey
maraschino
Marsala
Noilly Prat
sake

Popularity: 7% [?]

I am squinting at the screen here - I need to take my contact lenses out. I also need to go and do lots and lots of writing, and hang the washing out, and launder a contingent of stinky teddies, but first I have to share some funny language stuff. OK, I’m procrastinating. Humour me.

Kiko loves caterpillars and calls them colour-pitters. His toy caterpillar he calls Patter. He is still being heavily influenced by The Very Hungry Caterpillar and sometimes shouts out: “Sausage! Pickle!” for no apparent reason. He is also very impressed with par carks. This is where you cark your par, I’m sure. When he’s hungry he is partial to a champidge. Despite the exotic sound of this word, a champidge is nothing more thrilling than a vegemite sandwich.

Unrelated to Kiko chatter, the other day I saw a sign when we were walking along the street. The sign was advertising a room for rent in a shared house. The accommodation sounded rather decent, especially as the building was:

…only 5-6 minuets from train station…

What a picture this created in my mind. I saw, under the bridge and hanging electric cables, lavishly-dressed couples with plumes in their wigs doing a stately dance up to the railway station.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’ve discussed toilet procedures so many times in this blog, that I probably won’t lower the tone any by sharing this latest piece of exciting news.

Stop press….

Today, for the very first time, Kiko did a wee-wee in his potty!

I am utterly astonished. The toilet training had gone so far backwards that he was refusing to let me change his nappy let alone deign to go near the potty. I hope we can build on this shock development. Since bribes of biscuits and chocolate haven’t yet worked (believe me, I’ve tried) I gave him a sticker of a big digger which he proudly stuck over his tummy button and flashed at regular intervals. What a big boy he’s turning into!

Popularity: 9% [?]

When I was five and we were living in England for six months, my teacher, Mrs Prior, asked us to write a story. I decided, instead, that I was going to write a book that would fill up my whole notebook. The subject of my book was: “Going to see my Grandma and Grandad” and I wrote masses and masses about them, their house and what I did when I visited them. I can’t remember if I achieved my goal of “writing a book”, but I did start cheating and leaving huge margins at the top of the page and writing on a violently sloping tilt so the space would be easier to fill. Naturally, Mrs Prior wasn’t fooled but she mentioned my “book” to my mum at an open day and my mum was proud. This was the one open day in my primary school career where I didn’t get into trouble afterwards. I was not usually a praiseworthy pupil.

I wish I had that book now. I wish I knew my five-year-old perspective on visiting my Grandma and Grandad. My memories now are stuffed into a box, thirty-four years compacted, and shrinking with each day. There will be no adding to them.

I remember my Grandad’s Ford car. The keys once got switched for the car keys of my auntie, who also owned a Ford, and both cars still started and ran without too much trouble despite the wrong keys being used. “These Fords are tough,” my auntie marvelled when, eventually, the mistake was discovered.

I remember Grandad walking into the dining room doing a little dance and singing: “Hello, Helly-Welly!” That was what he called me. I have such a clear image of him in my mind because at that time, even though he was in his early seventies, he still had jet black hair. I marvelled over this. Nobody else’s grandfather had black hair.

I remember, several years after this, a few of us walking through the back streets to Grandad’s allotment. He was a champion leek grower and showed us the leeks he was going to enter into that year’s competition. I was more interested in the allotment itself, the broken down and overgrown sections around the edges, but I remember how white and perfect the leeks looked. In those days, leeks, to me, were inedible objects of wonder. Only recently have I started cooking with them and still feel extravagant chopping them up and flinging them into risotto.

I remember Grandad’s amazed expression on his 80th birthday when he walked into the back room of the working men’s club and saw the entire family gathered for a surprise party.

I remember feeling sad when my Grandma wrote to me in Japan and told me Grandad had given up his allotment.

I remember how astonished Grandad was when I told him about visiting Waverley Cemetery in Bronte, Sydney, and how so many people of our family name are buried there. He marvelled over the number of Irish people, perhaps some of them related to us, who had emigrated to Australia.

He played the squeeze box and his favourite song was The Fields of Athenry.

He had a broad Cork accent until the day he died.

Happy Birthday, Grandad.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Kiko is currently obsessed with spaceships. He sees them everywhere. Apparently there is one permanently landed on top of the car park near where we live. We have not got into the ins and outs of why this spaceship is there. Kiko seems to take spaceships as part of daily life. Today, when we were walking by the road, he got very excited and was bouncing up and down in his pushchair.

Kiko: Spaceship! Spaceship! SPACESHIP!

I scan the sky for UFOs before realising Kiko is indicating to a row of large orange traffic cones.

Kiko: (excitedly, points his finger and “counts” them) Two, two, two, two!

Mammy: Those are traffic cones. Big orange traffic cones.

Kiko: Comb hair! Comb hair! Comb hair wif traffic comb.

Mammy: ???? Oh! Traffic comb. You’d have a job combing your hair with one of those.

We pass a piece of wasteland with one traffic cone in the centre, and, close to the fence, another that has been knocked over.

Kiko: More spaceship! Oh… (his voice becomes sad) Spaceship fall down. Gentle, spaceship, gentle.

He makes patting gestures with his hand.

Is it me or is he absolutely crackers? Just before we saw the spaceships, he was telling me about “buttons” (the small plastic discs that mark the path in the park) and how they had all run away and were hiding in the trees… I suddenly had this weird image of the Walrus and the Carpenter.

“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:

John Tenniel illustration from Wiki Commons.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I have one very grown-up and insightful post on the drawing board, and have read a couple of books that are crying out to be reviewed, but I seem to have pulled a big important muscle in my shoulder and neck, seemingly the one that keeps my head on, and I’m in agony! Especially sitting at this *&$%# computer! This is probably a result of being glued to said computer for three days solid, hammering away at page ten of Surviving Kelly Tracey and not making much progress beyond page ten. Well, I am now on page fourteen but that was not the kind of progress I was hoping to make this week. In any case, since my brain is wholly preoccupied by pain and finishing the re-redraft of SKT, I’m not going to make much sense today, so I will let the Chocolate Oracle speak for me.

What Your Taste in Chocolate Says About You

You are intense, powerful, and dramatic. People respect the things you do… And they’re not sure if they could do them! You are driven and focused. You crave success. A total perfectionist, you hold yourself to high standards. While you life a charmed life, people feel like you are too hard on them. You love new adventures and activities. You enjoy living a full life, even if it is chaotic. You feel lost when things are quiet. You’d rather not think… you prefer to just do!

This is actually semi-true but do people feel like I’m too hard on them? Kiko might think so - all this bedtime nonsense is really too trying for a busy man like him!

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As I was getting us ready to leave the house yesterday, out of the corner of my eye I noticed Kiko sneaking his little handie into the going-out bag. With an expression of delight, he pulled out a tangerine. He won’t get far with that, I thought, when, to my astonishment, he began casually peeling it and dropping the bits back into the bag.

Mammy: What are you doing?

Kiko: (concentrating, only able to give Mammy half his attention) Oh.

He starts peeling the tangerine onto the table instead. As I’m debating to myself whether or not I want to get into the Don’t steal tangerines from Mammy’s bag then peel them! fight, he finishes and points to the pile of peel.

Kiko: Need put in bin.

Mammy: sighs and helps him put the peel into the bin

When I turn around, the tangerine has vanished and Kiko is looking smug.

Mammy: (alluding to Kiko’s monster appetite) Where do you put it, Buster?

Kiko: (rubs his tummy with a self-congratulatory smile and puts on his surprised voice) Oh! Where orange? Where put it?

We’ve nicknamed him Survival Of The Fittest.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Kokeshi Dolls: from Wikipedia Commons

In 1996, when I was 22, I worked in Japan for a year at the now defunct English school, Nova. The Japanese staff at the school I worked at were discouraged from associating with the “foreign teachers”. One staff member, who I’ll call T, ignored this edict and we became friends. T shared my interest in reading and history, and we visited Kyoto together.

At the time, I didn’t realise how lucky I was. T showed me the tourist sights but ones off the usual bus routes and not in my English-language guidebook. I would never have ventured so far off the beaten track if I hadn’t been with her. After we’d visited a traditional Japanese garden, she went down one street and then another until we came across a hole in the wall that led to an old courtyard. In a recess at the courtyard side was a tiny tea shop, nothing more than a counter with a few tables and stools set out in front. Behind the counter were shelves and shelves of Japanese dolls, not pristine as you might expect, or covered in protective plastic, but old, well-loved ones. There were so many my brain couldn’t record every detail and they were grey with dust, their paint worn from age. I remember that one of them was a Fukusuke doll. He is meant to invite prosperity. Here is a photo of a window display of Fukusukes I took just after Christmas in 1998.

That old tea shop stuck in my mind and the next time I visited Kyoto, this time with my parents, I set out to find the place. Several years had passed and my memory was hazy on exactly where the shop had been. Nevertheless, I led us to the right place. Unfortunately, we arrived too late. The tea shop had been demolished and the courtyard modernised to the extent that hardly an original brick remained. A much larger cafe had been built in the doll tea shop’s location, and my mum and I caused huge-yet-silently-acknowledged controversy by not understanding the queuing system and jumping the line. This is what I ordered:

The new cafe was lovely to visit but I did wonder what had happened to all the old dolls.

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