Two of our good friends from the Isle of Man came to visit us a few days go. This is not Penny or Steve’s first trip to Paris by a long way, so Marie-Danielle and I scratched our heads as to what we could find that would amuse them. Then it came to us… Steve and Penny both like boats and have enjoyed several barge holidays on British canals so what better than to discover a different aspect of Paris in an unusual way, idling down the Canal St Martin through a series of nine locks, two swing bridges, and a 2 mile long tunnel that passes under the Bastille. Problem solved. For 2½ hours, we lazed our way through an almost unknown Paris without a care in the world.
We’ve wined and dined with Steve and Penny on many occasions, so wanted to come up with something a little different. On their arrival on the Sunday, we did a simple Parmentier de Canard (a shepherd’s pie using duck instead of lamb). In fact, this is a bit of a cheat because we use Confit de Canard which we can obtain easily here in France. All I needed to do was drain the fat from the duck, remove the skin, and pull the flesh with a fork. I peeled and chopped some shallots, browned them gently in some of the duck fat, added some chopped parsley and a little seasoning, then covered with mashed potatoes. A bit of oven time and we ate like kings and queens!
Steve is a big fan of red wine (so are we!) and duck demands a decent full-bodied red. A few weeks ago, we celebrated some family birthdays and discovered half-a-dozen bottles of dusty but interesting-looking 2002 Chateau Martet. The wine was truly wonderful and, since there remained a few more bottles, we grabbed hold of some to go with the Parmentier de Canard. An excellent choice. A marriage made in heaven even!
On the Monday, when we had our day out on the Canal St. Martin, we ate in a little restaurant in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Tuesday, we dined at home and I prepared Monk Fish Steaks with Saffron, a delightful feast of colour, taste and smell. In addition to creamed potatoes, I braised some fennel which complemented the fish. And to help the meal down, we pulled some bottles of Pouilly Fumé from the cellar.
A great few days with some great friends.
Jasmine Guichard didn’t want Father Barbier touching her. She’s a plucky eight-year-old and she makes a run for it, but finds herself deep under the streets of Paris and lost in a maze of dark tunnels. But for a chance glimpse of her whilst visiting the catacombs, Harry and Tristan would have been none the wiser. Yet what can they do about it? They are eventually helped in their efforts by a young nun who is not at all what she seems. There’s more going on behind the closed doors of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Isabelle of France than meets the eye – a lot more.
Normally, it is me who does the cooking, both on a daily basis and for special events. This time, because I was getting even older, Muriel had prepeared a 
However, I must be getting some sort of reputation for boozing (or have I had that for a while?) because my birthday gifts included three bottles of excellent ‘liquid refreshment’. My son, Ian, brought an exquisite bottle of mixed spirits from English Whisky Co Ltd – the only English distillery of whisky. And what a great distillery it is. It’s situated at Harling Road, Roudham, about 7 or 8 miles north-east of Thetford in Norfolk. If you get a chance to visit – don’t hesitate (they’ve recently opened a café/restaurant which has already gained an enviable reputation for quality.) The ‘Mixed Spirits’ bottle is a combination of Perdo Ximenez sherry and their own single malt whisky. They use sherry casks to mature some of their whiskys, so I guess they ship the casks over full!
Continuing with the alcohol theme, My other son, Justin, sent over a Magnum (1.5 litres) of 1982 Chateau Cardinal Villemaurine, a rather splendid Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. I suspect I shall end up taking it over the the Isle of Man when we go in May. I know just the neighbours who would help me dispose of that!
So, after I did a spell of work in Kuwait, we got together and discovered that we were both stubborn as hell, butted heads frequently, but that there was an undoubted connection. (25 years later, we are still both stubborn as hell and butt heads frequently – nothing’s changed. But that connection is still there, strong as ever.)
And what’s all this got to do with a foodie blog? you may ask. The answer is nothing, it’s just that today is the 10th anniversary of that wedding, and Marie-Danielle even has a certificate to prove it! Since M-D is French, we had to have the ‘permission’ of the French consulate (situated in Edinburgh) to get married. It didn’t arrive in time (very French) but we went ahead anyway. Can’t let some idle civil servant slow down international relations.
Since we had both been married before, we decided on a quiet wedding. We had two witnesses (two very good long-time friends) the photographer, and the lady in charge of the ceremony at the registry office in Douglas, on the Isle of Man.
But that was twenty years ago. Now, a wonderful butterfly has emerged from that ball of humankind, and her name is Clémence. This weekend, we met up with Clémence at her home in Cléry-Saint-André in the Loiret department of north-central France, near Orleans. Her parents were away and her sister was in Corsica with her grandparents, so Clémence was on her own. We thought it would be a good idea to take her out for a meal somewhere, so that’s what we did. (We don’t usually drive 100 miles for a meal!)
Tommy Gee’s decision to spend a long weekend visiting his mother in King’s Lynn, on England’s east coast, leaves behind eight dead bodies and a suicide. Not that they were all Tommy’s fault, but he seems to be a magnet for chaos and the unpredictable. Add to the mix, Tommy’s sultry pickpocket sister and his gangly deranged half-brother, and you have the recipe for a frenzied few days. When two Romanian mafia bosses are stirred into the melting pot, along with a sexy bank employee with a cunning plan, things are likely to move from complicated to dangerous before you can turn the page.
A couple of days ago, we came to Gourdon in the Périgord region of south-west France because my wife had some business to attend to regarding her parents’ estate. We booked into a little hotel called La Promenade where we have stayed many times before. Imagine our surprise when, through the door of the reception should walk Dom and Mia (who lived in USA at the time). Who would have thought that, by sheer coincidence, we should bump into each other in an isolated small town in SW France… in the same hotel, on the same date.
Now La Promenade is not renowned for its cuisine. It’s okay and it provides what it says on the can. You can get an inexpensive lunch or dinner and the quality is consistent. But we couldn’t resist sitting outside in the evening sun and exchanging a happy conversation while chowing down on whatever took our fancy washed down with a local beer. Dom was a naughty boy because he settled the bill while we weren’t looking. In revenge, I got the waitress to take a photo of the four of us. Dom’s the tall handsome one with the wicked smile, and Mia is sat in front of him looking gorgeous. Marie-Danielle’s looking pretty and I’m wearing a shirt you could play chess on.
In Cenotaph for the Living, Tristan disappears on his 20th birthday. His family receive a ransom note demanding one million euros. The trouble is, they can’t report it to the police because it’s the police who sent the ransom note. Matters go from bad to worse until an old friend of Ken’s arrives on the scene. He’s been brought in to track down the corruption in the police and gendarme services. But it’s two against dozens. How is that going to pan out? Meanwhile Camille Laurent finds herself talking to a ghost who doesn’t know who he is.
Picasso’s Secret begins with the search for a stolen painting, but leads Penny Chakyar and her new partner in the police, Josh Walker, down various paths that eventually expose the island’s biggest drugs dealer. But what of the painting? And who is really the top man when it comes to drugs on the Isle of Man? Could it be that Boris knows more than he is saying? Meanwhile, Maddi Gathercole’s life is getting more complicated by the minute. She’s on a roundabout and can’t get off. But what of Picasso’s Secret? Where is it and who’s got it?