Seven Things

31st October
A 'seven-things' meme landed  in my in-box, here are seven memorable kitchen moments:

1. I am 18, in Athens, I have a job in a restaurant kitchen. I arrive in the morning to wash up piles of plates stacked on the floor. There is a toy sink in a room the size of a shower cubicle. I have tepid water and the last gasp in the bottle of washing-up liquid at my disposal. As I pile up the plates on the draining board the cats start using them as stepping stones to come in from the roof through the ceiling window.

2. A few months later I’m in Amsterdam, an employment agency has sent me to a family home where they have told me that I will be required to babysit for a couple of hours. I am met by a woman in a hurry to leave. She says that I should have dinner on the table by 7pm and I’ll find what I need in the fridge. At 7pm there is an old man shouting at me to get the table laid. While I’m doing that, the chops catch fire. The food I set before these people has many faults but the man decides to focus on the fact that there is no gravy, he gets really noisy. I hear his plate hitting the wall as I run out of the door.

3. Aged 19 I am supposed to waitressing in a restaurant but I am in the kitchen watching the chef at work.

4. I am being interviewed in a pub kitchen, I have applied for a job as a barmaid, the bar manager hasn’t actually read my cv,  just the name of the restaurant I last worked at (as a waitress) he assumes that I am applying for the cook’s job. I went along with it - and got the job.

5. Three months later I bump into the chef from kitchen 3, now working at a posher restaurant she asks me to be her sous chef. In this restaurant kitchen the proprietor tells me that the waitresses will classify the customers by putting an alphabetical code on their order, AA being the best, these customers will get favourable treatment. I ask what happens if I see a 'C' on the order
It’ll be a couple of lesbians drinking tap water - give them the bum end of the paté or anything else you want to get rid of

6. Aged 22 and working as a freelance cook, I have a contract to provide lunches for a Sexy Beast architect and his clients in a country mansion. Sexy Beast’s wives wear fishnet tights, shorts and thigh boots. Lining the corridors are explicit photographs taken by the Beast. The house is built around a central courtyard which has been roofed over and turned into a tropical-themed swimming pool with a wave machine, there are trees clad in orchids and parrots. I have to carry food across a suspended rope bridge from the kitchen to serve lunch by the pool.

7. Two years later I’m attending agricultural college during the day and cooking vegetarian suppers at a recording studio every evening. Although I change my clothes at the end of the day there is nowhere to shower. Halfway through a week when I am working in an intensive pig unit I arrive at the studio kitchen and see that we have an extra guest for supper. It is Kate Bush, wearing the most pristine white top I have ever seen, she looks utterly sparklingly clean. All I can think about is the intense piggy odour emanating from me.

Cocktail Hour

30th October
After the yoga class this week we had our picnic supper in the Salle des Fetes. Pulling together six small plastic picnic tables we were completely dwarfed by the cavernous hall. Bic Biro brought out his apperitif drinks; bottles of Muscat (sweet wine), Ricard and a French brand of Whisky. Mme Bontette had got her fish soup simmering away on the bar counter and was in exuberant mood. She wanted everybody to try a Manhattan - which in her head means equal parts Muscat and Whisky. We don’t have ice and the bottles have not been near a fridge. It takes very special circumstances before I can look at cheap, warm whisky with anything approaching desire. French people think it’s very odd that English people often opt for red wine as an aperitif.

Despite the echoey, swimming-pool quality of the hall I asked Bic if I can use it as a venue for our film show, he’s thrilled with the idea - we have a date.

Star Wars Soup

29th October
Hercule is a robust six-year old, I met him over the weekend at a communal picnic event. I was so impressed by his gourmandising that I invited him for lunch. He bowled into the Lovely House, sat at the table, spotted a bowl of beetroot and made a grab for it. His mother restrained him while I served the soup. I commented that it was made from the remains of a Coq au Vin and had some wine in it. Hercule took a spoonful and became Yoda
Unusual wine in soup to have - it is strong - but rather good

After lunch Hercule had a go at mending one of the cameras with The Director and the Camera Boys. This somehow resulted in a Star Wars fight with torches.

Hercule's mother, Florence is lovely and looks a bit like Amélie. I've been wearing my yeti shrug constantly since I bought it last week, the picnic was no exception - Florence thought it a wonderful thing, then we discovered that we find the same sort of things funny and that we have eerily similar music collections. Florence went to the supermarket before meeting me yesterday, they were selling rubber wellies shaped like cowboy boots - she bought us a pair each, we wore them on our pre-lunch mushrooming expedition.

We went looking for something that I had sloppily translated as 'Love Trumpets’. When the name Trompette de la Mort is explained to me (they should be gathered by All Soul’s Day – 2 November) I suddenly realise that we are actually picking Death Trumpets. We collected lots and I must now lay them out on newspaper for a few days to dry.

Timelapse Filming

27th October
The boys are finishing the autumnal establishing shots. A technique we like a lot is timelapse photography - ideal for recording events that take place over a long period like flowers blooming and dying, insects making cocoons or spiders spinning their webs. One simply pops a stills camera on a tripod in front of the subject, set the timer to take a snap every few seconds or minutes. Then, when it's done, run the frames at 25 frames per second and Hey Presto! you see the process fast forwarded. Here’s an example and I really like this one

Timelapse is a good way to show time transitions i.e day to night, sunrises, sunny day turning to bad weather, and so on. In this case it gets a lot more complicated partly because the light changes more, which will have implications on shutter speed and aperture settings. The other complicating factor is that The Director and the Camera Boys have been experimenting with mechanisms that move the camera during the period of the timelapse so that the camera can follow the arc of the moon rising, or sweep the horizon as rain clouds gather. To make these mechanisms one needs a lot of big Meccano-type bits and some clockworky stuff, then you set up your moving tripod and hope the weather does what you’ve predicted. It’s all trial and error but somehow very beautiful and satisfying when it works.

I've just been searching Youtube for a good example of a tracking timelapse - and failed which might make us world pioneers or it might just mean that I'm a bad researcher

Supper and A Lap Dancing Exhibition

26th October
The Director and two Camera Boys flew in from the UK last night. On the way back from the airport we decided to stop at the bar to see if we could enveigle a bit of supper out of Mrs Strange. It was getting late and most of the After-Pétanque diners had gone home except for Vera and the pétanque club captain who were snogging on the barstools. This surprised me a bit because it did look quite uncomfortable and also because he is French and Vera has recently been very scathing about the erotic talents of French men.*

Mrs Strange asked me to help her with the supper so that she could make sure that I’m keeping quiet about her departure in a few days. She tells me that she’s trying to persuade one of her sons to come back and take over.

*if anyone is interested in Vera’s preferences vis a vis Nationality of Lover, I haven’t had time to compile a comprehensive league table yet, but her Top Lover is a motorbike-riding German, his being a mendacious psychopath and married are considered negative factors however they are outweighed by two large positive factors.

Showgirls and Boys

25th October
Mme Bontette and her friends are all in their late fifties and older. The women have hair and nails done weekly and are slightly competitive about grandchildren. I have so far completely failed to correctly judge the dress code/formal tone of events I’ve attended with these people.

Mme B had suggested that I dress up - and said that she would be wearing leather trousers. Keen to match her Marianne Faithful, I went all out on my version of Girlfriend-of-a-Rolling-Stone look. The car was late to pick me up, so I continued to add decorations to my person while I waited.

When the car did arrive I saw a lot of denim being worn. At the venue we piled out of the cars, I towered above my companions in my shiny, spiky shoes. Mme B was not leather-clad and I guess was just hoping I’d wear clothes without mud or food on. But I have learned that older French people do wear strange and flamboyant outfits, often with vivid hair colourings, my outfit was not out of place at our venue and my friends were delighted with my efforts.

We were celebrating the end of Michelle's messy divorce, her son Yves had choreographed the night’s entertainment, a burlesque event – with lots of boys. Yves, wearing a very flouncy white shirt, joined our table. As he greeted us Mme B, worried that I wasn’t keeping up, whispered in a voice that would carry above the other noise,
He’s a homosexual you know

The show was hilarious, Near nude girls pirouetted with feathers while male dancers in a series of hastily velcroed-on outfits (they were bell boys, they were sailors…) danced and flirted with each other. We applauded like mad things during the finale as the boys descended to the stage on ropes, gyrating slowly and dressed as flames while the sound system pumped out Crazy Arthur Brown’s Fire.

I'm off to pick up The Director from the airport when I've finished putting the antiseptic dressings on my feet.

Shopping With Vera

24th october
Vera and I have decided to try and become friends. We're a similar age, childless, both foreigners in France. Never mind the slightly bumpy start, we're bound to get on - aren't we? As a bonding exercise we arranged to go shopping together yesterday afternoon. My chic neighbour Mme Bontette has invited me to join a group outing to a dinner spectacle tonight, I have never been to such a thing. Mme B has said that I should ‘dress up’. I only have one ‘good dress’ and need some sort of jacket to wear with it.

Vera’s style icon is Doris Day and she loves malls. I agree to start our expedition in one of the shopping centres on the edge of town. I say that I’m looking for something fluffy. After she's held up some preppie cardies I suggest we go into town. I head us to les fripes (vintage clothes shops) and find a fake fur jacket. The jacket illustrated above is a bit tame. Imagine that I’d waylaid a yeti and decapitated it, then snipped the body off below the armpits to make myself a yeti bolero with sleeves - it’s more like that, very ‘rock chick’- great! I can see from Vera’s face that she's neither keen on it nor the fact I've dragged her into this kind of place. Undaunted I bagged it and we went for a drink where she told me some stories and I discovered that she is astonishingly promiscuous - the day then became a whole lot more entertaining.

Food - and Yoga

23rd October
My reasons for not mentioning my background as a cook to French people are different from my UK reasons;
a) They will laugh heartily at the idea of an English person cooking. French people from all regions and in all age groups absolutely love recounting stories about their friend's old auntie, who once went to England and how terrible she found the food.

b) French people like the idea of 'stability', people who chop and change careers, are instable - and if you do use that word in a sentence when you're discussing someone, say it with a shocked upturned note.
I let my neighbours assume that I have the correct insectologist and fluffing qualifications and have been doing this job constantly since graduating.


I’ve joined the weekly yoga class that takes place at our Salle des Fetes. Half the class are couples; The Bontettes the Bic Biros and the Sheep Farmers, then there is a pregnant postlady, the lady that cleans the church and Jeanne who runs the lunch café in the next village. My bank manager takes part and Scary Eena does the session in her slippers. The instructor is lovely and helps Eena and the Postlady into reclining postures while the rest of us find new ways to stand on one leg.

The evening always starts with lots of kissing and lengthy greetings. After this week's session Mme Bontette declared that next week we should have a group picnic supper after the class and that she will provide fish soup, Scary Eena immediately volunteered her rilletes, Mme Biro offered a salad and Mme B then told the rest of the class what they must bring – having failed my tomato-chopping task at last month’s sports day I am appointed bread monitor.

Translation needed

21st October
I've just got back from my cooking episode - one of my American clients uttered a phrase that has been buzzing around in my head puzzling me.

She was teling me about her church (episcopal) and said
We're having pastor trouble

In what way?
Well the congregation feel he is too European

Is anyone reading this who can translate, What would a priest do that is specifically European and considered bad form - buy unpasteurised cheese?

The Great Escape

19th October
In Real Life I’m a cook, but I try not to let on, once people know what I do, I find that I don’t get invited to supper.

With what turns out to be uncanny timing, I’ve accepted a job cooking in a chateau for a few days. I don’t know this area, nor had I previously met the owner. I arrived just before the guests, meeting the Chateau Owner briefly before he dashed off back to the UK. He spent the little time we had together explaining the peculiarities of the tv remote control unit.

I ask what he does, he says that he works ‘in the City’ advising people how to invest.
Are you busy?

Well no there’s nothing to do because my clients only invest borrowed money and no-one is lending - I still go to the office but I’m getting all my photo albums sorted out.

This is the first time the property has been let out. The kitchen is a classic TYPE I MAN KITCHEN; fashionable wide drawers, lots of stainless steel and granite. Eight industrial-sized gas burners and not a single pan big enough to sit on one. The big drawers contain electric drills and the small ones have a collection of corks, corkscrews and orange neoprene Champagne wrappers. The cooking equipment is not dissimilar to what I had in my first bedsit; mismatched, slightly broken things. Clearing cupboard space I collected up eight part-used super-large ketchup bottles, several opened boxes of Chocolate Nesqik and many bags of marshmallow-based sweets.


The Chateau has a very grand website, one would expect to arrive at a high class private hotel. The guests are American, half the party are elderly and they are horrified that there’s not a proper grown-up in charge. None of the bedrooms has a bedside table or reading light. They spend their first day moving tables and lights upstairs, I spent mine trying to find a town that isn’t an extended gift arcade so I can buy cooking pots.

There is a plague of flies in the Chateau, originating from a circular room, sort of done out as a bar, in that it has a bar and bar stools but no liquor or glassware, the flies are coming from somewhere in here that no one wants to investigate. We shut the door tight and listen to the buzzing in horrid fascination when we walk past. Downstairs the lamps have all disappeared. In the gloomy candlelight we now appear to be part of a Murder Mystery event where someone has cut off the power - no-one can work the telly either.

The Chateau Owner has written lists of instructions but couldn’t print them, he has asked me to get everyone to read the file on his computer. They are mostly things you have to do to take care of his chateau. It has become a parlour game; the guests take turns to go and have a look, when they come back into the room they recite their favourite part while the rest of us roll around laughing

Please ensure the chateau is secure when you leave
To close the kitchen shutters you need to climb first onto the worktops and then on to the window sills, then you will be able to lean out, and, using the hooked stick, pull the shutters in and fasten them.

The guests are here to celebrate the birthday of Mother, her children and siblings are here with their partners.

Mother is the neatest, trimmest cattle rancher you ever did meet, someone who knows how to take care of antiques and 'doesn’t like a fuss’. On our second day she sought me out to reassure me that she wasn’t wearing the same clothes every day
It’s just that I have five identical sets of black slacks and peach blouses in my luggage.
Then she admires my jewellery and says,
I have some turquoise earrings but they’re too pretty to wear

The elder daughter tries to control proceedings, I am not sure whether style-wise she is channelling Groucho Marx or Deputy Dawg but I’m finding it hard to resist the urge to offer her a cigar.

The brother is as misshapen as his sister but he has inherited her share of charm, he recounts a childish escapade and his mother laughs heartily, the daughter whines
Hey, whenever I did that I’d get into trouble
Mother snaps at her
I know you all did the same stuff - it’s just that you were so irritating when you did it I couldn’t help but bawl you out

I am just beginning to build a head of sympathy for the daughter, when they get the television going and Barak Obama comes on, her attention is riveted, she yells at the screen.
Tow-well Heead

Too Much Information

14th October
The boys have gone back to the UK to prepare studios for the pre-edits which start later in the month (editors will make rough cuts of the footage, The Director and the writers will start writing scripts). There is also a film festival going on next week - The Director will be showing our work there.

We have decided that in November we’ll put on a film show for the villagers to show what we’ve been doing here. I wanted to use the local bar and their big screen telly, I fixed a date with with Mr Strange at the bar and have started telling people about it - before Mrs Strange told me about their secret plan to disappear. Mr Strange does not know I know, nor must he.
I wish I did not know.

A New Sort of Back Therapy

In the bar at the weekend we met the people Mrs Strange suspects of druidism. My druid knowledge comes from the Asterix books so might not be accurate. Mrs Druid is grey-haired and earnest. She does a lot of peering over her glasses at us. The Director mentions that he has done something to his back, she says that she'll heal it for him. He tells her that he is leaving in a couple of days and won't have time to visit her,
Oh you don't have to be there, I just need your age
The Director, slightly flummoxed gave that information and soon after that we went home.

Sunday was mayhem here, The landlord stuff, the shooting ... plus The Director and the boys were preparing to go back to the UK. In the midst of all this Mrs Druid arrived with two sheets of paper closely handwritten on both sides. It was unintelligible, Mrs Druid launched into an explanation of all The Director's psychic problems. We were gape-mouthed in fascination. I have never seen The Director so unable to deal with a situation. I think he has forgotten about his back problem though.

Damn!

13th October
I was out scrumping figs this morning, on my way home I saw Mme Bert walking back from her mailbox. We exchanged the usual pleasanteries and I asked how her husband was doing.
His hip is giving him a lot of pain, he was at the hospital on Friday
I thought maybe he had rheumatic problems and asked what treatment he is getting,
Well the cancer is quite advanced, so there's nothing much they can do now.

Getting Shot At By The Landlord

12th October
It was very misty this morning and the Camera Boys were out around the house getting atmospheric shots of dewy spider webs at sunrise. Suddenly I heard them running in and shouting that someone was shooting at them. We all went out to see who was there and the figure of our foxy-faced landlord in his brand new hunting clothes loomed towards us, proudly carrying a very small dead bird in his pocket.
I'll be back later for lunch
He strode off and we put camerawork on hold for the morning.
I was disgruntled

He came back for lunch having done no more damage apparently, he seemed impressed by all the work we'd done clearing up the outbuildings. The Director wanted me to establish if we could be there another year at least, so I asked the landlord if he was planning to put the property on the market, he said no, we could be there as long as we liked. I then asked about laying a concrete floor in the barn adjoining the house so we can set up a filming studio there, the landlord has agreed to pay half the cost of doing this.
I'm still disgruntled

Secrets and Lies

11th October
I've worked out that I probably can find other places for us to film if the landlord decides to reclaim his property, so I'm back to holding tripods and making fun of the neighbours. Landlord's said that he'd turn up end of the morning tomorrow so I've suggested he has lunch with us.

We went to the bar last night and Mrs Strange was going on about her (druid?) neighbours again - when they walked in. Which was interesting because
a) I don't think I know any druids
and
b) they came in to book a Christmas party and Mrs S said yes lovely but I know that Mrs S is planning to do a flit next month. But I can't tell anyone or she might have to kill me.

I think that's a bit naughty.

Pacing

October 9th
I’m impossible to have around now that I’ve got worked up about what the landlord’s impending visit might mean. Apart from the fact that I don’t want to leave - ever, the more pressing need is to be able to finish the filming next year. What we’ve done so far is just research; getting to know the area, find good habitats and set up systems for filing and storing the footage. We’ve also spent a lot of time clearing out the outbuildings in preparation for studio filming.

We didn’t actually have a contract for the series when I came location hunting so I hedged my bets and made a 3-month notice agreement with the landlord. Only idiots or mad people would consider buying the damp, crumbling pile that is the Lovely House. We have those qualities in spades but we also have plenty of debt - that idea must be put firmly aside.

I am in danger of getting stabbed if I don’t get out of the house so I accept Mrs Strange from the bar’s suggestion to take a walk together. Mrs Strange spends most of the walk being very agitated. When I tune in, it seems to be about her neighbours - I don’t know them but I have noticed that they tend to wear matching stripey jumpers which must be annoying her, but Mrs Strange also thinks that they’re into 'weird stuff’ - druids or something - and Mrs Druid parks on her driveway sometimes too.

As we got back to my place Mrs Strange tells me that she and her husband are going 'abroad’, they will both be leaving next month - but I mustn’t tell anyone. I think she wanted to talk about it, but I excused myself as I’ve formulated a plan, actually it’s not a plan - but it might become one if I can go somewhere and pace in peace.

Discombobulation

7th October
Today, instead of snoozing though interminable alarm calls, something possessed me to leap out of bed, and go straight off for an early morning walk (OK I dressed first). Mist rising off the rolling hills – very poetic. I stopped in with M and Mme Bert for coffee on my way back. M. Bert is the twinkly man who first showed me the Lovely House he has an impeccable potager, and is an archetypal French Paysan, bright blue trousers, dark wrinkly skin, always in a hat. Mme Bert is tiny and has bright blue eyes that she uses to gaze in admiration at her husband the expert shot, collector of mushrooms and gardener extraordinaire. She follows conversations mouthing along with the talker, which is disconcerting. She tells me to check my walnuts.

There are great numbers of crayfish in the lake, of various sorts but dominated by a very invasive species; the Signal Crayfish which they are keen to eradicate in France. I’m doing my bit for the cause – these days the crayfish are busy having sex at the edges of the lake. I put on a rubber glove, creep up behind them and put them in a bucket.

I accumulated masses of live crayfish, so I delivered a bowlful to Mme Bontette, the French lady tells me at length about the court bouillon she will make to cook them in and all the rest of her planned evening menu. I then took a bowlful to Mrs Strange from the bar, she has just been round to return the empty bowl. She told me that she couldn’t be bothered with them and just dumped them out (still live) in the stream at the bottom of her garden.

I went to check the walnuts, their skins are splitting, I picked a few and took them round to the Berts to see if they are ready enough. M. Bert tells me to take off the skins and leave them in the open for three days. My fingers are like prunes from wearing rubber gloves to catch crayfish so I do the walnut job bare-fingered. I now look as though I have a very heavy smoking habit.

For our supper I made a bowl of aioli, salad and steamed potatoes to eat with our crayfish.

The landlord phoned this evening to say that he’s coming by next weekend (he lives a four-hour drive away) and would like to see us. Having fallen in love with this place and anyway dreading the day when we will have to go, I am now convinced that he has decided to sell the property soon and is coming to ask us to leave. An hour after the call The Director is already tired of the sound of my gnashing teeth.

I Get a Proper Job at Last

5th October
I went along to the bar to join the Saturday afternoon boule game which was unusually busy and found Mrs Strange in a flap about supper, she was booked out and shorthanded, I said I’d waitress that evening if she wanted.

The pétanque players are mainly retired people, the expats come with their spouses and the elderly Frenchmen come in their slippers and bring family members who are visiting for the weekend. There are a few single people; local men whose dental state and dress sense are possibly factors in perpetuating their single status. And there is Vera, a bubbly, flirty Dutch woman who likes to be the centre of attention, she has not spoken to me before, but today she fizzed up to me and demanded.
Who are you, do you have a husband – where is he???
I pointed out that it would be foolish to bring a husband along, given the man-hunting opportunities for me here.
Well don’t you hunt my man she warned me, turning on her heel.
I am intrigued – which one?

There were no clues that evening either as Vera sat with a group of women, the 'eligible’ men were all getting red and sweaty on their own table which I supplied with large of amounts of Ricard then large amounts of red wine then large amounts of beer containing shots of peach- or mint-flavoured syrup.

Have got Wednesdays hairdresser glue out of my hair which is now in plaits, I'm totally channelling those stein-carrying maidens you see at German beer fests

Hornet Fans Forever

3rd October
Whenever I mention hornets to a French person I get told that,
Three stings from a hornet could kill a man

The Director snorts with derision at this, apparently hornets are just large but non-aggressive wasps. He is a big hornet fan, last month he spent days filming a hornet going backwards and forwards from a pear hanging on it’s tree. The pear rotted and fell off the branch while it was being eaten, I had to sew it back on the branch so we could continue filming the whole pear disappearing.

I have great faith in The Director but, faced with the three-sting line from every single resident I’ve met, I’ve not been pushing to find a nest. Wednesday afternoon, with my invincible hair, I bit the bullet and headed to the bar to scout out farmers. I found a stocky man whose own head of dark hair stands up vertically and starts from an unusually low hairline, he is known by the local girls as Hérisson. When I said we needed a hornet’s nest he told me about a felled oak in one of his fields,
it's full of hornets, you can come and film that if you want.

Yesterday morning M.Hérisson took us to his field with the oak.
I’ve just thrown a rock at them to see if they're still there

We wanted to film the nest entrance and the way hornets organise security - they’re like night club bouncers, checking out everyone who wants to come in. The rock stuck in the entrance did make getting a good camera angle a bit tricky but we persevered. After a day with the hornets I’ve come to really like them and their wobbly flying.

That is the last of the insect footage that we expect to get until the spring. Insects tend to hibernate or die off for the winter so the next couple of weeks will be concentrating on getting establishing shots of landscape and habitats. Then the production goes back to the UK to edit the footage we have(100 hours so far) and write the scripts.

Hornet Conquering Hair

1st October
French ladies get their hair done a lot more than English ones and, possibly as a hint to get myself sorted out, I was recently given a gift coupon to use at a coiffeuse in the nearby town. I came back from Paris feeling a little grungy and have just used my hair coupon.

The vogue around here is for a helmet effect, either a shiny bobbed one, or, as the girl sitting next to me was having done, the wig-on-backwards look, where the hair is brushed forward and winged out in front of one’s face. Strong colour effects are a bonus to any style obviously. I have emerged with solid hair, the sort of thing you might clip onto a lego lady,  with such powerful hair I now feel confident enough to tackle the task I have been avoiding since July - finding a hornet’s nest to film. I will be marching the Director and the Camera Boys to the hairdresser tomorrow to get the same invincible hairdo - and then we will conquer the hornets.