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| El Journal |
Back in Girona region after a few weeks in the UK where it felt like summer. Got back to grey drizzle. Mmmmmmm! Cooking for American guests in the area. Living off scraps. Not bad actually. Thai Perch risotto with coconut. Duck pate. Gambas. And mashed potatoes !!
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Mid May 08 |
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Gironedges. Driving the twisting mountain road. Glance down into the glow of industria, The solid immemorial Cathedral My mind is full of American voices and dark Night air rushing past. Nothing I plough on, window down; a BM passes. Joanville. I laugh. Everytime I laugh. |
| Haneke has remade Funny Games. I applaud him for this, wanting to 'reach' the originally intended audience (English speaking) and making this film again; it is most certainly relevant. However, it is depressing that English speaking viewers have a blind-spot where foreign language films are concerned. And my gut feeling is that a large part of these viewers will simply not 'get' this film - because their Holywood blood-splattered expectations will not be met. The last couple of decades has filtered out much of the 'real' from mainstream film, younger audiences are growing up on a diet of baser instincts and digital fireworks; violence is often just another storytelling device. Sex, spectacle and bloodshed dominate. Modern videogames have a similar deeply addictive, manipulative one-track narrative that wasn't possible 10 years ago - of stunning verisimilitude and excess. I hope Haneke's film is received well - and if nothing else it demonstrates a (subtle) resistance to the domination of violence in culture. |
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I was impressed by the Observers 'poets' anthologies.
Closed eyes Convenience Rough upon locked Slowly revolve and fly. Death allotment. Me behind
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Can I sum up the last 6 months in a 100 words - I doubt it - especially at my usual tangential rate. Not that I'm limited. We're in Tamariu near Begur where 4 years ago this very week of fireworks and flaming barcas we discovered the flat in Figueres and our lives changed forever. I have to confess I have a copa de vi blanc from Castillo Perelada, a Chardonnay in fact which Zoe says she isn't keen on - the grape in fact. It's not bad, sweetish and fragrant. This is the last of the wine drinking following our Wine Dine Dali tour last week where we were immersed in a sea of fine wine and gastronomia from our beloved Emporda in northern Catalunya. |
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We went back to 'Blighted' for Christmas in Essex and New Year in Manchester. Strange so strange to be back at Zoe's house with it's shiny floorboards and empty white rooms. I struggled for about a month. I was in denial. The fact I'd left Catalunya. By April when we were due to come back to Spain I was re-converted to a pub going Brit and wasn't sure about how I'd fair in Spain. 5 weeks back in Catalonia and I feel good. Like we never left. We never did leave. We'd spent 4 months in the UK earning a few winter dineros. Any highlights: seeing family and friends; (ironically) the Spanish & Latin American film festival in Manchester at Cornerhouse with a good selection of Catalan films including a real winner called Ficcio . A lovely weekend in Devon with my sis and her family - including our interfamily/friends footie match on the village football field. Classic. 2 days earlier we'd seen the local team in a gruelling game - better than any TV you've seen, especially this years' drab FA cup. We also went to see Joan As Policewoman in Manchester. Great gig. We happened to be stood behind 'Lard' - Mark Riley, whose 6music show I love. I'd had two trips to Oxford to help Ioan build a bathroom for his Dad. Ioan and I went to see the Howling Bells. Sadly, Ioan's Dad didn't get to see the finished bathroom - and finally slipped away in the night. RIP.
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A wrong turn in Chartes took us into the ancient old quarter, bridges, churches, ghosts, oneway streets and massive churches... on our return south. We made it to the cornfields - on the 'route de blat', where we stayed in a comfortable chambre d'hote - where a little mouse sat next to us as we watched TV that night. We left the shimmering green lakes of wheat near Sancheville and hit the autoroute south at Orleans. As we arrived at the roundabout in Gaillac (which has vines tended and growing upon it - a particularly creative and decent French innovation - that provokes my reverie as it has grown annually since I first saw it in 1990) I was sidetracked with the emotion that comes with the realisation that life is passing: quickly. I first came to Gaillac as a very green inbetween student in the autumn of 1990. The town has changed hugely. One aspect being the number of English who now reside there... maybe they'll rename it Gay-lake. |
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At Pete and Irene's we're told about Sam's new job house sitting and on the second day went to see the inordinately large domaine which some expat business exec has thrown money at, great handfuls of cash, wads of it, dosh dripping from the chintzy walls. Impressive but tasteless (yes, I'm a tinge green - but c'mon, taste is taste. You can't buy style). An old pal from Australia was there. What coincidence. I first met 'BigRob' in 92 or 93. He now lives in Oz with his French wife and their child. |
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"When's the food ready?" Is my prompt. I'm just cooking some of last night's barbeque leftovers: only blackened red peppers and potatoes - now sauted in garlic with chickpeas and a bit of anchovy, splash of wine etc etc. Our Figueres neighbours Jordi & Marta came for the evening. A wood fired BBQ, goatcheese & Fig papillotte, prawns in garlic, magret with cherry sauce... you know, the usual BBQ. We also went back to our newly discovered wines of the Emporda - with a great red in Arche Pages Satirs a cunning crianzed mixture of Garnatxa negre, Cabernet Sauvignon and Carinyena... mmm good stuff from the 28 year old wine maker - part of the 'revival' in Upper Emporda Catalunya. |
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We cooked magret(poor soul) last week for our big group of singers in France - 28 of them. I pan fried and finished it in the oven. Very juicy. I cooked an inspired cherry sauce as they're everywhere at the minute. Sauce was cherry juice, stock, cherry vinegar (dash), red wine, reduce reduce - add the previously simmered and de-stoned cherries, finish with a little slab of butter. Very, very good. This was for Pete Churchill's choral group. They deserved great nosh as they were producing some beautiful sounds every day in the 'performance room' which as Nia calls it: the "green lounge" by night is where some interesting tunes are heard from Welsh folk songs (astoundingly simple and deeply moving) through a certain amount of Jazz standards and choral innovations. |
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Tamariu is beautiful. Although I get the distinct impression the locals & staff our jaded from tourism. Lets face it. Brits traipsing all over everything with 2 words of Spanish - not even the real language. I had a coffee this morning looking at the sparkling sea - searching for metaphors and onomatapoeic language that would convey the diamond brilliance of the shimmering sea and the sloosh and simmer of the waving waves. Driving around the resort - and it is a resort one can't help feeling it's like a great big estate. They're building everywhere. Problem is: there is no real sense of community. It's us and them. |
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I saw an amazing construction. A house built entirely from polystyrene. Yep. Polystyrene sections of varying depths with a mixture of reinforced steel wirework on the surface which is then rendered with very tough cement. Very innovative and presumeably better than using so much concrete. Floors, walls, entirely polystyrene. Brilliant. I took this observation to Peter's - where they lent me The Straw Bale book. Which huff pufff blew me away. Straw. childhhod of throwing bales buidling dens, summers on wagons... Lincolnshire. jumping from bale stacks into grain pits. Straw scuffed ankles. Burning straw. And here the possibility of building a house with it. I love this idea. the image here is in New Zealand. |
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We'd been staying in a villa - our well deserved holiday - which was very comfortable. We were a little bit critical of the 80's décor and the hardness, ubiquitous in Spanish ceramic surface homes, but the villa is obviously a home with a very well stocked kitchen (utensils) at least a years supply of firewood - or as we used it barbeque wood, known as llenya in catalan; very clean and efficient bathrooms and a general air of cleanliness and home. We (lets not say greedily) took a second week [hang on, Zoe is scooping grass out of the pool and has spotted a 'bright red' dragonfly basking on the side], in another villa, closer to Tamariu on the old road (vell cami). It's not to our taste. In fact, apart from a family of African immigrants - newly arrived in the land of milk and honey I can't think who'd like or even live in this brown corridor. To sum up: ill equipped, out-of-date dirty décor, utterly characterless even with some rotten badly chosen paintings and awful reproduction furniture. And so, we will make the most of the pool and the outdoor space, and perhaps learn to spot when one has had a good thing. |
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First Blood was on the Spanish TV last night. It is at least 20 years since I've seen it. In fact it was one of the first few films we watched on our newly aquired Betamax video player - yes, suckers for quality, the Betamax. My childhood to teenage hangout - known as the farm (partly perhaps because it was a farm - oh, the layers of irony), they were also Betamax suckers. The first 3 videos we watched in their entirety were (apart from snippits of the Warriors - "Warriors, come out to play-yey... Warriors, come out to play-yey..." seen on the widely appreciated VHS player - and also featuring the delightfully offensive phrase: "Mutha-fucka" - whence I was immediately removed from the TV room and although my parents were pretty good at cussing during their arguments, "mutha-fucka" was a new one on me, sending my into a solipsemantic pirouette regarding it's etymology) ET, Friday the 13 th part II (not sure where part one had got to) and John Carpenter's visceral The Thing . We watched Friday the 13 th part II and The Thing again and again. ET was a pretty bad 'rip' (not that they said 'rip' back then, 'pirate' was the term: which tends to mean attractive vagabond-Johnny Depp today). |
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Yesterday was a good journal day. We cycled to Perelada (stopped for a coffee) at 10am after digging the bikes out of the celler. Back at 28, Zoe took the 7DW helm and I got on with sorting out the ceiling in the en-suite shower, I now want to use waterproof plaster for a decent finish rather than tiles. Michael invited us over for a glass. En route we bought an air-con unit (as you do). His masia is looking spectacular. Real attention to detail... more from there again... we sat out until midnight... shooting the breeze... patting the dog... sipping some rouge. |
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Pacino as Dali. I've often wondered about Salvador Dali's final days in his garret by the museum in Figueres. The lonliness, the craziness, the softed edged dripping memories spilling in... what a good - reverie spliced play it would make: the merging of memory with madness. Anyway, I'm pleased to see that Holywood have chosen Andrew Niccol to head the production of a film called Dali & I - with Al Pacino to play Dali. The film is apparently about Dali's final years.... so, the play can wait I guess. It is filming this summer. I'll look out for Pacino in Figueres! (Feb 07) |
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| Pas de la Casa - Andorra - 10th december 2006 |
The snow - limited as it is - arrived... yes, global warming is breathing it's oil fired breath down our necks and we're feeling the effects. Nevertheless Rob, Ioan and I went to Pas de la Casa in Andorra. We stayed in our favourite hotel: Petit. Even though Grand Valira was only 10% open we managed 4 days of boarding. I learned some new tricks, like cartwheeling down the piste - also, backward somersaulting down an icefield - on ones head and arse. Ioan gouged a mountainous looking map of scratches on his new Santa Cruz board - and Rob impoved his style - after a break of 2 years. |
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Bulli for you and me. Voted the best restaurant in the world... with the world's best chef, michelin stars etc etc. Can you imagine the trepidation in our approach to this world famous restaurant. Here on cap de Creus, the sea caressing the stony beach, moonlight, a wide rocky bay with pine trees and wild rosemary. The iron sign impressively rusting at the entrance to El Bulli.
What an event. As we crossed the threshold the first question was: 'Did we want to see the kitchen?" Yes we did. Overwhelming for me. Impressed with all 300 and odd square metres of it with the forty chefs - cheffing away. Ferran Adria was in situ smiling. 'Oh my god, the man himself - Ferran Adria. We shook his foody genius hand and shuffled off to our table - a table where he himself and the former owners have indeed sat many times. (This reminds me of working in a French restaurant in Edinburgh called Pierre Victoire, Pierre the owner before he got greedy and over-franchised this neat little bistro had named the place after the street in which it sat: Victoria street (leading down to the grassmarket). Me and Bruno were potwashing in the tiny kitchen where 3 other chefs busied producing the Nouvelle-ish cuisine in about 15 square metres of space for sometimes 200 festival guests in an afternoon. There we are scrubbing away and in comes Pierre to check on his favourite (first) restaurant; he's chatting to Jim and Bruno's eyes are widening into sink size behind his misty specs: 'Eez zat Pierre?' he gasps to me. 'Pierre Victoire?' 'Yes, that's him.' I didn't bother to fill him in on the etymology; I guess it made him slightly prouder to be in the same hot underpaid space as a fellow countryman. Back to a real culinary genius - Ferran. I later spent 9 hours drinking-in the elbulli website to see it's history and development; Michelin starred for years, with the unmistakable influence of French cuisine; this fact then sending me off on my own investigation of nouvelle cuisine and the likes of the Troisgros bros and all those other bright whited sparks of the culinarium. I can't say anymore than this: it was out-of-this world. We had four gastronomic hours - food joy. Most of the time grinning. It was superb. About 30 courses. Textures, combinations, innovations, and the apotheosis of great cooking/eating. A philosophical dining experience, existential, scrummy, divine. When you've spent 35 years eating one need a refreshing experience now and then - this was it. Joyous. Perfect. Now I know it's named after bulldogs ! And all thanks to Hans Schimmer. |
18th Aug
06
Not that I think Juan is a gangster. Far from it. A damn fine barber. And I still have my neck... and a natural fringe. |
Fast-food fast. How
about a fast-food fast eh? |
| Mcdonald's litter... trap |  |
August It was cooler
in France too. Northerly winds bending the trees and blowing on the pool. |
| Morning book talk... |  |
Imagine getting up and singing Walk on the Wild Side and actually being applauded for it ! Good on you Ken – and not even a karaoke machine in sight. From Folk through jazz to rock and electronica – a week of song writing and nightly performances. Everyones’ was different which meant the performance on the final night was a real treat. 3 weeks of catering is hard. I feel for those of you who cook full-time. I only hope you are paid well and respected for it. Cooking is fundamental, creative and a joy. I love it. The leading question is – where did you learn to cook ? France of course. |
| Ken goes Wild... |  |
| HOT it got hot. Windows open. Flowers with their heads down. Dogs all tongue. Cracking splitting earth. Verges bursting into flames. Sleeeplessness, the whinestinging of motorbikes ripping the night as you lie sweating half-conscious. Ryanair had good value flights for the UK so we headed back for 8 days. It was cooler. I caught up on some sleep – went down the pub. Saw my friends and read the books ready for our Booklovers’ holiday. |
| How much fun was this ? Late in the week we decided on pool volley ball. |  |
Mid June Although our Novel Writing week with Charles for some cosmological reason did not prove to be a best seller we ran with it anyway and had two ‘filmic’ people as well as a 'vacationing' Charles. This made a cinemascopic week. It inspired
me enough to get back to my ‘pyrennean’ novel, over which
I was labouring last night. Following, an exclusive extract… |
| Chicken or Lamb tonight ? |  |
| The sun shone
every day during the painting holiday in May. On the last day we braved
the sunlight and drew Ioan, not happy with my conventional sketch I tried
a futuristic image of him ! Bette tried lots of different approaches during
the week; our painters tried every medium and every method of putting ideas
onto the canvas. It is entirely satisfying being in this creative environment.
Wagclubcomedy reigns once more. Sarah did us proud; what a week. And Steph's article got us into the Observer. The house is amazing. I lay by the pool, ricky tells me he's going to jump out of a plane and I think, I could probably die now. It doesn't matter what happens from here. James said to us as he was leaving the show: '5 days, 5 days to bring these people together... what an achievement !' |
| A striking resemblance - what ? |  |
I feel that we're suitably recovered after our week in Bretagne. The wild and windy coast with it's menhir dinosaurs and Picasso-ish blocks of strange standing stones guarding wide wide beaches sea smoothed and cleaned by the fresh turquoise sea was a change of scene we well and truly needed. A week never far from growing vegetables: the advantages of the precipitation and the gulf stream - meaning days of the farty smell of cabbages. We spent a week in a Hopper-esque house: grey and square against an elephant belly of sky and surrounded by chou-fleur. I read 'All quiet on the Western front' which was staggering. Slaughter. Yesterday was serendipity. We negotiated the town of St Jean d'Angely- skirting the supermarketed outskirts and soon found ourselves by a large canal. More like a slow running river; complete with ducks and fishermen. There were people drinking at tables in the late afternoon sunshine. The bar was located in some old converted cognac wharves. Our hostelry was also one of these port side dwellings. The Etoile du port overlooks the wide sunshining water of the canal. In the large upper room - known as the ballroom - Zoe and I were beside ourselves with our accommodation. Really quirky and well thought out decoration, they describe it as eclectic. It makes the most of the tall/wide space of the upper room and the stone fireplace is beautiful with Tyrone the cat sleeping nearby. Bookcases, ornamental lamps, silver Italian lamps, mirrors from several different decades of style, a wide shelf of books including Zen & the Art... a painted dresser, large baubles-in a row suspended from a beam, 3 little couches elbowing for the fire, a marvelous canvas covering on the walls - which happens to be a feature left over from the late sixties in hessian. And the bedroom... a large bed, plumped up pillows and clean cotton sheets, pillows and Klimtesque paintings, mosaics made by Nicolene our host, a stone fireplace and the early evening sun flashing in the mirror of the water. Our hosts brings a chilled sherry aperitif with smoked almonds, the cat knots itself around our legs and we plan to go to the restaurant. Over wine and a meal which involved us cooking meats & fish on a hot stone we reviewed our present tense. Here we are: lucky, happy, alive... sometimes struggling - and ever open to new paths. The etoile was shining on us indeed. We felt invigorated and inspired. Ready for the next challenge. Morning glory: fresh air and sunlight bathes us through the open window mingled with the fragrance of wisteria and a hint of last night's wood fires. The ducks calmly quack on the banks of the water, beneath the chestnut trees. Nicolene brings breakfast up into the airy 'ballroom': juice, compote, yoghurts, toast, nuts, croissant, chocolate pastries, fruit, tea, coffee... a lordly feast. And feasted,we surveyed the brilliant property and cast off southerly toward Toulouse and another night closer to Figueres. |
| The star.... |  |
Thoughts on a title.
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The Curlious Incident of the Spewing Dogs in the Nighttime.
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Ioan had
stayed on for several days in order to help me fix some of the kitchen:
units and worktop mostly; I was also going to pick his brains –
as they spray – about web design; he has a great eye for design,
photo taking and innovative quirkiness – I would choose Ioan for
his flair anytime. On Sunday we decided to take a stroll in the forests
to the north-west of Figueres. We took the little nissan onto the winding
foresty roads and found an appropriate spot to park and dive into the
woods. Very peaceful; especially after being in the centre of Figueres
for a while. As we wound our way through the tree lined path I couldn’t
help but notice some huge specimen mushrooms; white monsters, fabulous
– I was already constructing a stew with said mushrooms and the
wild rosemary that lines the paths. We were on one of the well trekked
G R routes – which criss-cross Catalunya. You could wade for days
up sylvan mounts with nothing but an occasional wildboar crossing your
path. After a twenty minute stroll we decided to grab some deadfall wood
for the fire and head home. I was already pulling up the huge mushrooms
and stuffing them in my shirt; they looked tasty; they felt tasty. Only
slight problem was this cheesy smell they had – I avoided tasting
them until I got home…. |
#1 Tuesday 30th August 2005 At seven Zoë runs. I follow on the bike; I peddle once every 50 yards - which obviously isn't exercise for me... it's a constant downhill and flattening as we runride past vineyards with bunches of fullstops and leaves already infected with autumn. We strike out north as a perfect globe is orange and land bound in the east. This is a little bit of quiet time before the Jazz crowd gets going. They emerge at eight for yoga by the pool; Zoë goes off to join them in their bendings and peaceful pullings - I make coffee and pour the orange juice ready for the nine o'clock rush. After breakfast and morning coffee the day is our own. We sit and doze by the pool and listen to the singing and saxophones that sweep through the garden and remind us of their presence as we sit in the solitude of the oleanders. At night these practiced, tutored and perfected voices go on show for all. I often look at the people singing and playing. Here and now in an intense musical experience having the time of their lives - it is no wonder they come back year after year to taste more of the little community; breaking bread together and sharing a bottle of rose in the evening beneath starry skies and looping bats. I have just read an article in the LRB about the misapplication of funds in Iraq; it has taken the edge off the morning; eroded the stillness and security I had gathered from among the solitude of empty streets and still vineyards - here it is beautiful - but only an escape; the world goes on. Occasssionally a newspaper is bought and read and left and I catch the headlines; I haven't escaped. Here we are making good. Helping people in being. Being creative. Expression. Building positivity and peace. My mint tea is up and I must make coffee for the choirists who are sounding sublime. An almost religious resonance pouring from the open windows of the performance space. |
