Category Archives: Epic Eavesdropping
Slow-ing Down in Trapani
For our first full day in Sicily, Monsieur and I took the advice of a friend and headed for the north-west coast of the island, to a town called Trapani. Dark clouds loomed but, ever the optimists, we drove on, along the autostrada where anti-mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone’s convoy was blown up by an under-road tunnel of explosive, thereby meeting an untimely demise, and on past the turn-off for the airport.
As we left the coast behind for a while, the mountainous landscape to our left was nothing less than magnificent, the clouds gathering at their zeniths only enhancing their mighty appearance. Then the rain began, just as we passed the signs for Segesta, a Greek temple complex that I had been too ill to visit on my last trip here. Ah, well. We’d just have to hope that the weather would be better after lunch.
As we entered Trapani, we were initially frustrated by the mess of narrow streets and traffic lights, but eventually located a large, open lot in which to park the car. We wandered along the adjacent seafront looking out at the sea now mirroring the grey of the sky. The water was curiously clear, however the litter on the beach marred the otherwise arresting view. The shore was strewn with dented cans and bottles, its rich, green seaweed plaited with battered plastic bags.
We’d wanted to see Trapani’s fish market in action, but it was closed for the holidays, not a prawn in sight. Walking on through the old town, we found cobbled streets lined with intriguing little shops and ornate Baroque civic buildings and churches. Nothing was open, however. Everyone had gone for lunch, even the priest at the cathedral dedicated to San Lorenzo, one of the patron saints of chefs. I’d really had my heart set on lighting a little candle at the feet of his statue, asking for his protection from sharp knives, soaring gas flames and salmonella, but as the saint and the priest were off enjoying a lengthy midday repast, Monsieur and I needed little encouragement to do the same.
We walked along the docks where ferries were anchored, rear ends open to a motley crew of vehicles destined for the little islands of Egadi just off the coast, but turned away from these giants, back to the tangle of Trapani streets. There we saw fake Santa Clauses hanging from ladders attached to various windows, (judging by how many of these we saw, it was THE 2008 decoration of preference in these parts), and braving the suspicious stares of local folk, sought out a restaurant for lunch.
We’d heard good things about a little place in the Old Jewish ghetto, called Cantina Siciliana . It had been bestowed with the Slow Food badge of approval for authentic, home-cooked Trapanese food and had its own wine shop just next door in case you sipped on something scrumptious and wanted to take a bottle or two of the same to your cellar at home. The entrance was about as unprepossessing as is possible for an eatery, and once inside, the small front room was simply decorated with Moorish blue tiles from floor to mid-wall, high shelves bearing rows of wine bottles, presumably of revered vintage, and the unexpected accessories that bore little resemblance from one group to the next, for instance, from the ceiling was suspended a carriage wheel and above the entrance stood a line of mismatched vases in the shapes of ancient Greece.
Towards the back of the room sat a family gathering, including kids of all sizes, from new-born to around ten years old. A very pregnant waitress with long, dark hair and a kindly face seated us near her station at the front. The sky outside darkened, dimming the room. Across from us, a well-dressed Italian couple finished their lunch and in the midst of the room, a young couple courted over the remainder of a bottle of red.
Monsieur and I decided to share a starter of mixed seafood, as is so often our preference when travelling in the sort of environment where fresh seafood and fish thrive. Today, we were blessed with slices of smoked tuna, its texture dissolving gently against the palate, and bright red prawns which were so fresh and slippery that they almost escaped our grip each time we tried to shell one. The octopus was fresh and juicy, somewhat unexpected on a dark December day, and the sardine in breadcrumbs, one of Cantina Siciliana’s signature offerings, was quite possibly the best sardine I’ve ever tasted. Why? The little fish were first marinated in a little vinegar before being lightly floured and fried. It’s incredible what a little vinegar can do to a dish when added in the right way. The end result is often not even vinegar-y to the tastebuds.
Monsieur followed this lip-smacking selection with scaloppine al limone, whilst I stuck to local fare, ordering the pasta alla Trapanese, made with a salsa of tomatoes, basil and garlic so incredibly fresh that it stung to eat. Traditionally, this dish often includes a handful of processed almonds, but in this case the garlic was so mouth-igniting that I couldn’t honestly tell if nuts made it into the salsa or not.
The women and children from the family gathering had now left the restaurant, with all children and related baby paraphernalia in tow. Three menfolk remained, whispering misdeeds with mean eye whilst polishing off a last bottle of blood-coloured wine. For once, I was quite pleased that I couldn’t eavesdrop.
A couple of espressi and a very reasonable bill later (tip refused and discount given for cash payment – what is it with Sicily and cash? No need to answer that…), we left Cantina Siciliana, in the hope of reaching Segesta for a wander through its ruins. Unfortunately for us, the weather had quite a different plan in mind.
London Dates – A Cruddy Lunch at Bloody French
(Flags in Toulouse)
The events of recent weeks have been an uphill struggle, to put it mildly, so Monsieur and I were in dire need of a date to distract us. On a recent weekend, instead of brunching on my fine Eggs Benedict at home we went out. I’d been hearing good things about a place called Bloody French in Westbourne Grove so we thought we’d give it a whirl. Well, actually, I thought we’d give it a whirl. Monsieur was in favour of our local deli, Raoul’s, or nearby Café Rouge. In hindsight, his preferences were safer, but I argued that it was time to try somewhere new, so Bloody French it was.
The online reviews for Bloody French gave a very different picture from what we experienced. The positive posts were high in praise for everything from the food to the service; the negative complained of lackadaisical wait staff and booking mix ups. We were also cautioned that it got quite crowded at weekends, so we booked a table but on arriving no one bothered to ask if we’d reserved. A waitress with a rushed air about her, even though the restaurant wasn’t even half full, plonked us down next to the front door, and thus we benefitted from gushing cold air every time it opened, which, luckily for us was not too often.
The menus were written on small blackboards which stood on the table. There was a deal on – 2 courses and a hot drink for £16.90. Hot drink? Could they be more specific? When Monsieur later asked the waiter to clarify this, it was as you’d expect – coffee, tea or hot chocolate, but it just seemed strange to offer a free “hot drink” with a lunch menu. Breakfast – fine. Lunch – wrong. Given that the menu only had a couple of vaguely breakfasty options, and it was now past 1pm, this was definitely lunch.
The bread arrived and Monsieur, the resident bread connoisseur in our household, took one sniff and said “Ocado.” For those of you who don’t live in the UK, Ocado is the supermarket delivery service that we often use. Sometimes we buy long-life baguettes that we can keep in the cupboard as an emergency measure, flinging one into the oven on the odd occasion where we’ve run out of bread and can’t be bothered battling the ‘fine’ English weather to run out to the shop for more. This looked like an under-cooked emergency baguette to me. I took a slice, bit into it and had to agree with Monsieur. “You’re right,” I said, “it tastes just like Delice de France and it needs another 5 minutes in the oven.” In a place that purports to be French, with French wait staff and visible patronage from the local French community, this was a proper faux pas. The real French don’t do heat-up bread, at least not in public.
Surprisingly (if you believe the bad online reviews), we didn’t have to wait long for our food to arrive. Monsieur and I both ordered the feuilleté with chèvre and pesto to start. The pastry was spread with tasty dark pesto, more like a tapenade in flavour, and the chèvre was perfectly warm as opposed to sticky melting goo but the pastry itself was once more undercooked. By rights it should have been golden and crackling when it arrived, instead of which it both looked and tasted a bit pale and soggy. I started to wonder whether the feuilletés were also bought in from somewhere like Delice de France and then someone in the kitchen hadn’t read the directions on the side of the pack.
To give credit where it’s due, our waiter was an eager young Frenchman who presented and cleared our plates without delay. We were well looked after in that regard. However, my main course just about finished me off. I had chosen the Salade Landaise – a country salad of endive tossed with potatoes, slices of smoked duck breast and duck gizzards. This is one of my favourite French salad treats, but sadly not at Bloody French. The salad looked a few days old, with brown bits on leaves that should be white and zero crispiness left in it. It was limp, like wet tissue. The new potatoes, which should have had some texture to them, were wrinkled and mushy. They tasted like old kitchen leftovers, which are fine if they’re in your own kitchen, but not when you’re dining out. The redeeming feature of the salad was the duck breast – to me these morsels embody the south west of France. I even like the gizzards. Normally. But when I bit into my third or fourth gizzard, something went horribly wrong and for the first time ever I had to say I didn’t like the gizzard. In fact, that’s a mild way of putting it. I almost gagged my stomach contents into the middle of my still quite-full plate. That was the end of my interest in lunch. I make a far superior Salade Landaise at home so I won’t be coming to Bloody French for a repeat performance of this weak effort.
As I quietly choked on the foul-tasting gizzard Monsieur was tucking into the far more reliable steak frites and they were, quite simply, steak frites. You’d have to be the village idiot to get this meal wrong but for once, at a single glance, I could tell that Monsieur could also do better if he’d cooked this himself. Monsieur may not cook very much these days, not now that he’s ‘hired’ me, but he certainly knows how to make himself a good plate of steak frites.
On the beverage front, I had asked for a glass of rosé. It was a small glass (175ml) of regular pink plonk that certainly didn’t warrant the £5.00 we paid for it. The sparkling Badoit was as you’d expect, but rather pricey considering that it’s water, not wine, and Jesus isn’t likely to perform His miracles at Bloody French any time soon. The cappuccini were hot, as advertised, but I’m not going to dedicate any more time to a hot drink with nothing more exciting to its name than a frothy top. It tasted exactly as you’d expect – nothing more, nothing less. This could have been a Starbuck’s coffee i.e. nothing to write home about.
Speaking of frothy tops, the couple just next to us were the obvious product of a Big Night Out and a subsequent one night stand. He was tall, strawberry blond and very English, right down to his Oxford flop of hair, tweed jacket and tan brogues. She was blonde with big eyes and a fine pair of bazookas which were pushed into the public arena by a hypnotic lacy pink bra which was difficult to ignore as it peeked out from a leave-nothing-to-the-imagination white blouse. The food at Bloody French was awful but the entertainment of this pair partly made up for that.
“Are your eyelashes REALLY that long?” asked English. The girl giggled, batting said lashes up at the object of her interest in a way that screamed “I want to lick whipped cream off your torso!” And somehow, without ever mentioning the words ‘false’ or ‘fake’, she admitted that her eyelashes were enhanced as she pushed her upper arms into her sides, promoting her assets once again. “I really shouldn’t go out so much,” she purred, coyly. “Why not?” asked English, genuinely confused by this statement. “Oh because I’ve been out so many times recently and I get really tired.” If you’re male and, like English, you’re confused by this, let me explain what she’s really trying to say. By mentioning that she goes out a lot, she’s saying that she’s popular with a keen social life. She probably thinks he’ll find that attractive, so call this self-advertising, but for all we know, she’s a homebody with a knitting habit. She’s also trying to tell him that she’s ready to give up the long nights for something a bit quieter, presumably him, if he plays his cards right. Given the amount of hair flicking, giggling, bosom thrusting and eye-batting that was going on to my right, I’m pretty sure this girl thought she’d found a catch and she wasn’t about to let go in a hurry. Isn’t human nature fascinating? Lastly, had Darwin been with us, he would have used this couple as an example of natural selection. Physically, they were very well matched.
Apart from the table-side entertainment with heaving bosoms, however, we won’t be returning to Bloody French. Why? Because for us, eating at Bloody French was a Bloody Big Mistake. Point final.
Clos Maggiore
When a top restaurant website rates an eatery number one in more than one category, you know you’re onto a good thing. When a friend recommends the same place, you know the reviews must have substance. Clos Maggiore is just such a place and really does live up to expectation.
We reserved a table recently for a birthday celebration and I surreptitiously e-mailed the restaurant to ask them to wish Happy Birthday to the Birthday Boy. The General Manager, Jean Kessler, replied courteously that he would pass on the message to his ‘boys’. I started to get that sneaky smiley feeling that happens when I’m planning a surprise for someone, then proceeded to count the minutes to our reservation.
When we arrived at Clos Maggiore, the receptionist exhibited brusque efficiency as she took names, whirled coats into closets and handed us over to the warm and welcoming wait staff. Located in London’s busy Covent Garden, to be led off the street into the warmth of this place is to be led into a very different world. It’s calm, it’s intimate, the artworks have been chosen by someone with a good eye for European painting and (sculptures of winged pigs), and what’s that at the back of the restaurant? A large dining room decorated to feel like an outdoor terrace, replete with trellises and spreading trees, but gladly lacking in threat of inclement weather.
Our table wasn’t in the terrace itself; we were located just outside that area, but our unusually early 6pm booking coincided with plenty of those in the know who were already part-way through their pre-theatre meals. Near us, a pair of girls finished off their meal, one of them sharing at volume unappetising tales of a baby with a sixth toe and its forthcoming operation, but her kind would be a foghorn in even the loudest of environments so this was easily forgiven, especially as we had glasses of kir to enjoy and menus to savour. Meanwhile, I watched the staff out of the corner of one eye to see when the Birthday Boy might be greeted. Or perhaps they’d forgotten? Their manner was so discrete it was impossible to tell.
Now it was time to test the oeuvres of Clos Maggiore’s chef, Marcellin Marc. Formerly of Michelin 2 star, le Clos de la Violette in Aix-en-Provence, the website tells us he “brings a Mediterranean style of cooking to every dish at Clos Maggiore”, with a keenness for seasonal fare. By now drooling in anticipation, we opened our menus and began.
I started with chargrilled wild scallops which were so perfectly seared that they still smacked of the sea, making me wonder if I’d ever before eaten such idyllic scallops. Perched on a crush of Charlotte potatoes, with adjacent nest of something crunchy (potato again perhaps?) to contrast the textures, this small plate offered what some might call an elegant sufficiency. It was just right, providing enough taste and sustenance to carry one over to the main course with room to spare. Having said that, the other starters sounded suitably seasonal for such an unforgiving February, such as pumpkin and pine nut soup with parmesan biscuit and truffle oil or braised shoulder of Loire Valley rabbit. Monsieur settled for the smoked aubergine caponata with basil pesto, murmuring his appreciation until the last morsel had disappeared.
Choosing the next course was genuinely hard work. The various options were all tempting and Clos Maggiore’s reputation for European fusion cuisine was beginning to show. I nearly went for the oven-roasted Maine lobster medallions and mousseline served with etuvée of winter vegetable in a cognac scented lobster bisque, but the Birthday Boy had already chosen that so I had to find something different. The steamed fillet of sea bass with basil sounded good; I love sea bass, but I’d already eaten it that week. Meanwhile, the slow cooked fillet of Cornish cod glazed with ricotta cheese and chive with a fëdûa of shellfish and chorizo cream sounded like a Basque sea front feast. (Fëdûa is a pasta-based paella of sorts). Then, for the carnivorous connoisseur there was the slow-cooked Charolais beef cheek, or the roasted fillet of ‘Duke of Westminster’ venison. I turned them all down in favour of the roasted ‘black leg’ chicken with Burgundy snails and foie gras, served with sautéed spaetzle, wild mushrooms and a sauce supreme. Now, that’s what I call a rollicking combination.
The chicken had been rolled with a farce of foie gras and a sneaky snail hidden in each of its three sections. It was tender, the snails were delicious, almost completely devoid of earthy taste, and the spaetzle appeared as irregular drops of eggy batter, quite different to the long noodles we’re accustomed to. The wild mushrooms were small and sweet, retaining a bit of moisture to give them bounce, and most of the snails had been sensitively pierced by a single toothpick, easy to remove by the less adventurous diner. I was only sorry that two thirds of the way through my main I had to stop, or not be able to try the dessert menu lest I pop with gastronomic pleasure.
For the vegetarian there are a couple of decent pasta options, including the decadent potato gnocchi stuffed with gorgonzola and served with celery, walnut pesto and poached pear, however, if that doesn’t float your boat, a combination of the side dishes of vegetables and salads would make a hearty meal in their own right.
As for the wine list, well, comprehensive is a relatively short word to describe its contents. If you enjoy wine, be prepared to spend time salivating over the Clos Maggiore selection.
Now, back to my preoccupation with the Birthday Boy. Still nothing had been said, no greeting made. Perhaps there had been some miscommunication along the way? Once again, I didn’t worry about this because we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, right down to the friendly banter with the waiters and I say this to all budding London waiters out there: if you want to learn how to do it properly, save your pennies and visit Clos Maggiore. Their training is impeccable.
We hummed and hah-ed a bit about whether or not to have a dessert, but in the end relented, choosing the selection of ice creams and sorbets. As with every dish this evening we were thrilled by the presentation – spoonfuls of a creamy chocolate semi freddo along with lemon sorbet and another fruity variety which I forget now… The portions were well gauged so as not to overwhelm at the end of an epicurean evening, and what was that on the Birthday Boy’s plate? The chef had written Happy Birthday in a drizzle of chocolate sauce around the rim, and a single candle flickered in the central scoop of ice cream. Birthday Boy was surprised. ‘How did they know?’ he asked and on noticing the mischievous twinkle in my eye, he knew it was me. Thank you Jean Kessler and team. Your really made the Birthday Boy’s night, and I’m not just talking about the candle.
NB I didn’t take photos of my food here because somehow it just didn’t seem appropriate in the serenity of this restaurant. There are plenty of images to whet your appetite on the restaurant website. I suggest you have a look… Meanwhile, thanks to the LondonTown website for providing the image above.
Malaysia Part 19 – Dining companions
Monsieur and I may have been travelling à deux through Malaysia, but we were never short of dining companions. One night, a waiter told me the name of the umbrella trees which were dotted around the resort, looking like something out of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. ‘It’s a Rhu tree,’ he told us. ‘the native tree of Langkawi.’ So some nights, we learned new things from the hotel staff, who were tirelessly patient with our questions.
Every night we spent on Langkawi, the tail-less cats of Pelangi Resort skulked near the tables of diners. We chatted to them, coaxing them closer for a tidbit or two, but careful not to alert the waiters to what we (and others) we doing, lest they chase them away with a “Wah wah!” warning in Malay. We’d already seen it in action on several occasions and felt sympathetic towards the feline scavengers, but the waiters were under orders from management that the guests not be disturbed by anything with a tail, no matter how stumpy, so “Wah wah!” they did.
One evening, as we sat at a table on the beachfront at dusk, we watched what can only be described as a ballet of crabs. They danced all over the sand, braving the beach now that giant interlopers had left for the day. In and out of their holes they went, sometimes slow, often in a flash. The timid dancers edged out, suspicious head and goggle eyes first, waiting until they were sure the coast was clear before exiting the safety of their burrow. Others held claws, dancing together, or was that a crab fight we witnessed? There were chases up and down the sand, leaving little tracks, barely perceptible now the sun had gone. The performance mesmerised. This was the theatre of nature playing out before us.
The Female Bore at the table next to us would never have noticed such a spectacle as she definitely couldn’t see past her own nose, let alone as far as the lowly crabs. ‘Crass’ and ‘braggard’ spring to mind when I think of her. She and her husband foisted their uninvited conversation on the young couple to their other side, who obviously wanted to be left alone, but there was no chance of that happening. How lucky we were that night; it could so easily have been us on the receiving end of Female Bore’s monologues plural. First she talked about holidays.
“So is this your first time to Malaysia?” she asked
“Yes, it is. We’re on our honeym…” came the interrupted reply. Female Bore was only asking the question to seem vaguely as if she cared about someone other than herself. This was a waste of time, really. She was a dire act when it came to feigning interest in something. The young couple were trying to tell her (in vain) that they were on their honeymoon, but F.B. wasn’t interested in their story. Off she went:
“This is our third time in Malaysia but our first in Langkawi. We travel a lot and we’ll be back again next year. It’s quite nice here at Pelangi but I think the Four Seasons might be better next time. The chalets here are getting a bit tired, you know?” That plastic nose crinkled up in well-practised snobbishness.
The chalets weren’t ‘tired’ at all. MOST unfair to the resort, but the point wasn’t the condition of our rooms. Female Bore simply wanted to point out that they could afford the Four Seasons if they wanted to. Yawn. If she did but know it, F.B. was more effective than valium at bed-time.
There was no respite from our foghorn neighbour. We heard about every holiday she’d taken for the past decade and trust me, that’s a lot of holidays to get through without taking a breath. I started to worry that she wasn’t getting enough oxygen, but just as I was calculating how much brain damage she could do if she didn’t breathe soon, Female Bore changed the topic of conversation and I was about to see my jaw hitting the floor as she showed what a flashy cow she really was.
“Well, of course, we’ve been to Bali. Know it well, but it wasn’t right for this holiday. No, we haven’t been back since those dreadful bombings. Terribly tragic. Our friends lost their daughter in the attack and it took days to piece together her body parts. I mean, can you imagine? I think they identified her from her dental records in the end. What a horrible, horrible thing to happen. An arm here, a leg there, blood everywhere. Devastating for the families. Our friends went to that memorial in Bali recently. You know, it was on the news? Yes, well, they were there. With all those other poor, poor people who buried parts of their loved ones. I don’t know if there were any whole bodies to bury after that blast. Honestly. What is the world coming to?”
Took the words right out of my mouth. Just what IS the world coming to when people boast about knowing people who lost their lives in terrorist acts. I know that technically ‘boast’ isn’t correct in this context, but the one thing I can’t do on this blog is show the manner in which these words were spoken, and ‘boast’ would become a verb of great relevance if you could hear Female Bore in action, no matter what the subject at hand.
Luckily, not all evenings were like that. Far from it. But we did have a small issue with meal-crashing.
One night, we were at Niyom Thai, the Thai restaurant at the resort, when my New Best Friend from the island-hopping day, spotted us. He waved hello, jumped a low hedge and stood chatting to us about his day as our meal grew cold. The way that his eyes darted from our faces to our bowls of Tom Yam indicated that he wouldn’t decline an invitation to join us, and on another day perhaps we would have done just that, but that particular day my head was killing me with the threat of a migraine so making small talk wasn’t high on my list of priorities. We promised to catch up with him another night and eventually, he got the hint and left us to slurp our cold tom yam.
We kept our promise and caught up with New Best Friend on the night that we finally decided to visit the Pelangi Lounge. There he was, sitting at a table with a couple of free seats, staring expectantly at the stage. He waved us over.
“Come and join me!” he beckoned, “my friends are singing tonight. They’re a pair of Thai girls, so pretty, and so talented.” (My guess was that NBF’s idea of what consitutes talent might be a tad different to mine.)
NBF made it sound as if he and the Thai girls had known each other for generations, but the way they ignored him when they got up on stage indicated otherwise. They sang covers and they sang well, as the beer flowed and the lounge filled up. Soon, there wasn’t a spare seat anywhere and the barmen were shaking cocktails in an endless stream of alcohol and miniature paper umbrellas.
The set ended and NBF beckoned to the singers. With a slight shrug of ‘whatever’, they joined us for a couple of minutes, but just as NBF started his rave review of their performance so far, they excused themselves to fetch a drink and once that was achieved, sat with a group on the other side of the lounge.
Poor NBF. I almost felt sorry for him. He must have noticed that his interest in the Thai singers wasn’t exactly reciprocated, and instead of changing the subject, he instead continued his version of a Thai Singer Appreciation Society.
“Yes, well, the girls have their friends here tonight. That’s who they’re sitting with now. Mmmm. They told me they might not have as much time as usual to chat during their breaks. I’m sure they’ll be with us for the next one.”
NBF’s eyes didn’t leave the girls for longer than a few seconds. He reminded me of one of those cartoon dogs who salivate like Niagara Falls as they follow the perfect poodle with the pink ribbon all the way down the street, in spite of being the doofiest dog on the block. Feeling far from comfortable as we observed NBF behaving more like a seventeen year old than a seventy year old, Monsieur and I tried to leave on a few occasions, but each time NBF pushed us back into our chairs as he hailed a waiter to order another round of drinks. Just prior to the point where we risked falling under the table from that heady mix of local lager and fatigue, we finally managed to settle up and return to our room, by which time Monsieur and I were feeling more than a little buzzed. It would certainly seem we were turning into bar lightweights and the surreal evening we’d just experienced hadn’t helped. That was the last time we saw NBF because we left Pelangi the following day. I often wonder what happened to him. I think he meant well, even if he was annoying and more than a bit deluded about his attractiveness to women.
PS – in case you’re wondering why the singers at Pelangi were Thai and not Malay, it’s because Malaysia is a Moslem country so it isn’t deemed appropriate for Malay women to sing pop songs for a crowd in a skimpy outfit. However, Thai women are not Moslem, so the rules change. They hop across the border into Malaysia, where there is plenty of resort and bar work for attractive non-Malay girls who can hold a tune.
Epic eavesdropper in Brussels
It’s thanks to a stuffed horse that I overheard the following conversation. At the Roy d’Espagne pub in Brussels, there’s a horse by the bar (photo yet to be posted, but yes, it’s coming), an impressive example of large animal taxidermy (although how fine, I wouldn’t want to comment. When I saw the horse there were tufts of hair missing). I had to see the horse. It would be criminal to be in the same city as a bar with a famous stuffed horse and not pay my respects. So that’s how we found ourselves at the Roy d’Espagne sipping on Kriek and Hoegaarten in the afternoon sun.
At a neighbouring table there was an American woman and her parents. From the great detail of her conversation with them, I was able to deduce that she lives in Paris, her parents live on the East Coast of the States, they were visiting for a few weeks and this was a weekend excursion. I couldn’t talk to Monsieur at all while she was there. The things that American Woman said fascinated and horrified me beyond being able to speak myself.
“You know how I’ve changed my psychiatrist. Didn’t I tell you? Yeah, well, I have. So, anyway, I have my appointment with the new psychiatrist on Tuesday at 4.15, then on Wednesday I have my swimming at 3.30. On Thursday there’s nothing. It’s a holiday.”
Did I mention she displayed no physical signs of needing oxygen to survive? Superhuman, this one.
“On Friday I’m going to a new dermatologist and then to see my new doctor,”
Verging on the hypochondriac, apparently…
“but then I’ve made reservations for Marie Antoinette at 11.30 so you just go straight there and I’ll meet you as soon as I can after my doctor’s appointment. Okay? And then we can have lunch. If the weather’s nice we can lunch at the museum. They have a really cute brasserie with a terrace, but if it’s not nice then I know a place just around the corner so that’ll be fine. It just all depends on the weather really.”
I was getting tired listening to her schedule and started to wonder what kind of work she did that allowed her so much flexibility for appointments.
“On the last Tuesday we’ll all have lunch at the Bastille. It’ll be really nice. But remember that guy I told you about, the one that just moved here from the New York office? Yeah, well I have a lunch with him next week, too, and I just think it’s better if you don’t come to that one cos you know what it’s like? One day he’s in Tokyo and then I’m in Thailand and we’ve been trying to have lunch for sooo long and he says he’d like to meet you but I’m just not sure it’d work. You know?”
Even the parents were starting to glaze over by now. They hardly spoke. There was no point. Their daughter was doing enough speaking for all three of them. Finally, the mother dared to ask a question.
“How about we go shopping on Thursday, then?”
“No, no, no, Mom. I told you. Thursday’s a holiday. Everything will be closed.”
“Well, what about a manicure?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Yeah, okay. Most of the Chinese girls will probably be working that day.”
(I guess in Paris a lot of manicurists must be Chinese. Fascinating what you learn when you hear conversations like this.)
Mother pipes up again.
“So tell me, what’s your dress like.”
“Well, it’s white. They had two colours, actually: grey or white. The grey’s more practical cos it won’t show up stains so much but I got the white cos it suits me better, even though I just know I’ll spill something on it like the second or third time I wear it and then it’ll be ruined, but at least it looks good.”
I couldn’t resist. I had to sneak a peek at this point. There she was: American Woman. She was wearing a short skirt, showing off her long, tan legs that would be better suited to life on a tennis court than sitting around outside a pub with a dead horse inside it. Her long, thick hair had weekly appointments at worst. She was a little bit freckly in a nice way and no, she didn’t wear anything on her ring finger. From what I was hearing, American Woman would need to settle down with a deaf millionaire with excellent health cover.
Mom speaks again.
“So how ’bout we go shopping on a Saturday.”
“No, Mom.” This was said with a very impatient drawl. “I’m allergic to shopping on a Saturday. I just can’t stand the crowds.”
I looked across at Mom, who’d just travelled half-way around the world to see her daughter, only to be told that everything she suggests is impossible or won’t fit in with existing plans. My heart sank. How on earth does such a pain-in-the-ass develop? Perhaps we can blame her old shrink? I’m so relieved she has a new one.
