When Abi changed schools in France from Chalabre to Mirepoix, I found I had more time on my hands and was able to concentrate on the renovation work, particularly researching the “artisans” in France. I use the term artisan loosely, as some of them were no more than odd job men.

The good artisans were hard to come by and there was usually a waiting list. As mentioned in my previous blog, Christian the plumber was very efficient and his work was top class. Danny Le Choc (as he was known – meaning Danny the Shock), was also good but he carried out his work a little differently. He would never turn off the power, but tested by touching!! His hair was a huge mass of straight long strands, sticking up at odd angles and we often wondered if it was because he’d had so many shocks. He lived in a caravan up in the hills above Chalabre with no electricity. The only way we could contact him was at the local cafe around 7am every morning, where he started his working day with a coffee and a cigarette.

Chimney sweeps (ramoneurs) came under another class of artisan in France. We were pestered almost daily with would-be ramoneurs when we first moved in. They would come out with tales such as it was illegal not the have our chimney swept or the chimney police would be calling to check we had a certificate to say it was clean or we could risk the chimney catching fire and so on and so on. We eventually did hire one (not realising that Christian, as a plumber was qualified to sweep chimneys). This guy (let’s call him Elvis)looked like something out of the sixties with a huge quiff of greased back hair, a blue doctors coat and shoes so pointed you could have dug trenches with them.

He took ages to sweep the huge chimney that ran up over five floors. Later we discovered that he had broken the top brickwork on the roof which smashed to the basement and blocked the whole chimney. We only found this out in the winter when we lit the fire and the house filled up with smoke.

We found some good British artisans. One in particular was Ian who is a very talented ébénisterie (furniture maker) and his wife Jo, who is the most incredible tapissière (upholsterer). Jo upholstered our dining chairs in a toile de jouy with matching lampshades and curtains. She could turn her hand to almost anything and at one stage, sanded the wooden floors in Chalabre. Ian did all the carpentry for the new kitchen which was completely transformed. (jiginform@ymail.com)

With the help of these talented artisans we were gradually getting the house renovated. However, we still had a long way to go and many adventures were yet to come.

After the summer break, with Abi at school in Mirepoix, I found I had more time to organise and oversee the work being carried out on our house in Chalabre. Ed was in London every other week, so I was the Project Manager when he was away. We were at the stage where we needed to find a plumber and as ever, Marielle from the Hotel de France, came to the rescue. She introduced us to Christian, Plumber Extraordinaire. He was a large man with huge hands and an appetite to match and his work was highly rated in the local community.

We arranged for him to visit and he duly turned up, checked out the necessary work and gave us a quote. We agreed a price and then arranged a start date. That date came and went and we waited, and waited. Eventually about three weeks after the agreed date, he turned up one Monday morning with his ‘boy’ (Pascal, aged about 50). They drank a coffee, had a cigarette and began working.

The first job was to take out the ugly grey stone sink in the huge room that Madame (the previous owner aged 86) had used as her store room. We wanted to reverse the rooms, so that her old smaller kitchen became the utility and her store room became the main kitchen.

The store room had been used as a place to keep her freezer, vegetables, confitures, fruits, and curing meats. The old stone sink, fixed to the wall in a dark corner, played a big part in meat hanging, where slaughtered pigs were left to dry out over the sink. We decided that we wouldn’t be slaughtering pigs any time soon, so we asked Christian to remove it.

He measured it a dozen times and shook his head. Then he asked us if we were sure. We said of course we were sure.

“It’s very heavy – a huge job to remove it” he said

“Can’t you just break it up?” I asked

“Mon Dieu absolument non! it is a lovely sink” he cried

“Ok, then what can we do?” I was getting fed up by now – I really didn’t like the ugly old thing and it leaked like a sieve.

“I will arrange it” he said and wrote some notes in his little black book

After several days, a lorry with a large crane attached, turned up and parked beside the wall leading down to our garden. Christian, Pascal and the lorry driver came down to the kitchen to survey the scene. They proceeded to carefully remove the old sink from the 2ft thick wall and with the aid of three other volunteers, lifted the sink and placed it on a trolley. They grunted and shoved and pushed it to the garden wall. Then they wrapped a huge belt around the sink and secured it to the hook of the crane. They gradually hauled the thing up the wall and onto the back of the lorry. By now the whole street was full of the locals, all wondering why we would want rid of such a wonderful piece of kitchen ware.

We were delighted – the kitchen was on it’s way.

When we moved to Chalabre in France, we enrolled Abi in the local school. At the end of the summer term, we felt that the school wasn’t working out for her, so we looked elsewhere. I had heard good reports about St. Maurice in Mirepoix and decided to investigate.

As I arrived on that August day, the main gates and the side door were locked, with a notice saying the school would be open at the end of the week. I was just about to leave when I spotted the local baker making a delivery at the side door, so I followed him through before the gate could shut. I walked into reception and was confronted with Caroline, the formidable secretary. When I asked her about the possibility of Abi joining, she picked up the phone and spoke to someone called Helene. After a couple of minutes, she took me through to a large office to meet Helene LeRasle, the school principal.

Madame LeRasle explained that she couldn’t fit Abi in, as this year was full. When she saw how disappointed I was, she asked me if I would like some coffee and whilst we were waiting, she would double check the intake of pupils. As we drank the coffee, Helene said although she couldn’t fit Abi in to her correct age group, she could place her in the year below, starting immediately, adding that Abi would soon catch up. In the French school system, if a child does well, they go up a year. If a child is struggling, they stay down and repeat the year.

I was delighted to accept, so I signed the papers and gave Helene a cheque for the first term. Private school fees in France are incredibly low compared to the UK. A year’s education in France costs about a tenth of the fees at a private school in England.

So, two days later, we arrived at St. Maurice and stood waiting as the names were called out. As Abi stood in line, waiting to go in, Helene LeRasle took her hand and led her into the school. One of the mothers asked me if it was Abigail’s first day and that was Benedicte.

Normally, at lunchtime, the children are taken by bus to a central canteen for lunch but that wasn’t opening for a week, so at midday I returned to collect Abi. She came out beaming and said that the morning had been fine. We decided to eat lunch at Llobets and when we walked in, Benedicte was standing by the bar dressed in Chef’s attire. She and her husband Olivier, owned the place and their two children also attended St. Maurice. We have been friends ever since.

After that first week, Abi settled in well and had lunch in the Mirepoix canteen every day. She sat near the bus driver (Jean) who looked like Prince Charles and made all the children laugh. Also, if you sat near Jean, he was always served first. Meals are generally three courses and that first day’s menu was a salad starter, a big dish of pasta and a chocolate pudding. On the main table was a pile of baguettes to accompany the meal. A great start to a new adventure.

I love this time of year, when the summer heat fades away and the crisp clean air arrives to herald the approach of winter. The holiday season is over, schools return and in France the grape harvest begins. Keats captures this time of year perfectly.

Autumn reminds me of the new school term and in particular, the September when I moved from a small Catholic primary school to a much bigger senior school. I was barely 11 and as I set out from home on that morning with my new leather satchel, I was both excited and very nervous, having never seen the school beforehand. To this day, the smell of new leather takes me back to that day. When I think back to my first day, I think how daunting Abi’s first day must have been as she started school in France (See later blog – St. Maurice)

I can’t imagine what it must be like to go back to school this September with all the new regulations now in place and children having to stand apart not being able to communicate close up. For me it was such an exciting time, meeting new friends (who I’m still in touch with), learning subjects I would grow to love – English, French and Art and subjects I would never like – Maths and Physics. Let’s hope that schools will be able to get back to some sort of normality soon and next year will see kids able to hug, play and sing together.

Normally, at this time of year, we head to France, where autumn is a glorious time in the countryside. The colours, as we drive across the country, are magnificent and when we reach the outskirts of Carcassonne in the Languedoc, the vines in all their varying shades of orange and red are stunning. In the distance are the Pyrénées with their first dusting of snow on the peaks.

Friends of ours live in a small hamlet near Carcassonne (see later blog – Madame et Monsieur). They have a small vineyard and in autumn local wine-growers come to pick the grapes. Many of these small vineyards help each other out during the harvesting season. They arrive around 4am and start work straight away. Around 8am they stop for a hearty meal, consisting of charcuterie, cheese, bread and wine (obviously). By mid afternoon they have cleared the vines and are on their way to the vineyards to process the grapes. By working like this, and helping each other out, the work is done quickly and the costs of production are reduced. The wine is then bottled, labelled and sold with each vineyard having a different label.

We have never had our own wine label, but we did buy half a huge pig one year (see later blog – Olivier’s Pig) and ended up with an enormous amount of pork including 50 tins of pâté with our name on (still eating it!).

During the time we had our restaurant, we had many helpers, both in the kitchen and the dining room. Friends of ours (lets call them David and Claire), had recently split up and Claire phoned me and was rather upset at the break up. Feeling sorry for her, I invited her up for the weekend, making sure she knew we were working in the restaurant. No problem, she said, I can serve. I said that there was no need, she could just come for the weekend and have a rest. I had first hand experience of her cooking when she was with David and it was pretty awful. Anyway, I put that aside and convinced Ed it would be fine.

On the weekend, she arrived late, just before service and walked into the kitchen and asked what there was to do. This is someone who was an accountant and had never waitressed in her life. She was wearing jeans with the highest heels I’d ever seen and a long flowing long black silk top with huge sleeves that looked like something from a graduation ceremony. As quick as I could, I talked her through service and told her to help Simon and follow his lead as he was very good at his job.

The first course was soup. Simon picked up two plates and she followed him with another two, teetering on her heels as she followed him into the dining room. The first thing she did was to plonk the soups down on the table, spilling some on the white linen. As she stepped back from the table, she trailed her sleeve through the soup, spilling it on the diner’s lovely white dress.

Things went from bad to worse. Next course was pate which she took away from the kitchen before I’d finished the dish, leaving the plate with no garnish, dressing or toast. She then delivered it to the wrong table.

Next up was the fish course – I watched as the food slid backwards and forwards across the plate, nearly falling off as she tried to walk in her heels across our stone floor. She just about made it to the table without losing the lot.

By now I was at boiling point and asked Ed to give her something to do behind the bar – anything to get her out of the kitchen. Ed gave her two bottles of red wine to take to two separate tables. She mixed up our most expensive red wine with the house wine (diners were delighted!), and when she served the red wine, she poured it into glasses that had already been used for white wine. Then she opened a bottle of champagne, sending the cork across the room and nearly blinding a woman and spilling it all over the place as she tried to pour it into the glasses.

After an hour or so, she decided she needed a break. She drank two huge glasses of wine and went out to the garden to have a cigarette and came back reeking of smoke. When I mentioned this to her she broke down sobbing saying she wasn’t really over her break up with David. I couldn’t get her out of the kitchen, so I sat her on a stool in the far corner of the kitchen, and gave her a huge cup of coffee. She continued with her tale of woe as I listened and made sympathetic noises. Meantime trying to cook for a restaurant full of people.

We somehow got through the service, cleared up and came through to the sitting room to relax after a very busy night. Claire then talked and drank and drank and talked. Then she threw up. We finally managed to get her to bed around 3am and after we’d cleared up her mess we got to bed around 4am.

She was up at the crack of dawn the next day and crashed around the kitchen waking us up. She made breakfast (burnt toast and eggs and the worst coffee we’ve ever tasted) and hollered up the stairs that it was ready. We politely nibbled at the offerings, swallowed down half a cup of coffee and sat in a stupor. She offered to clear but we told that we would sort it out. She left shortly after and we went back to bed.

We lost touch over the years but we heard that she’s now married to an American who runs a restaurant in Los Angeles. Let’s hope she just looks after the accounts!

When we lived in Jeddah, I worked as a medical secretary to an English doctor. Gitte, my Danish friend was his nurse and Françoise was the dental receptionist. We all had different experiences working at the Clinic, but mainly it was a lot of laughs and great friendships were formed.

One evening, we were invited by Françoise for dinner. Her apartment was very much like herself, elegant, stylish and very Parisian with a tiny kitchen. We arrived at her place and were served drinks with a tray of amuse bouche (bite size assorted canapés). When we finished our apéritifs, we were seated at the table and the feast began.

First course – a delicate chicken broth

Second course – pâté served with cornichons and baby tomatoes

Third course – pan seared scallops topped with crispy bacon

She then served a sorbet to cleanse the palate before the main dish, something I incorporated into my menu when we opened our own restaurant.

Fourth course – a piece of finest filet of beef, served with a wild mushroom jus and parmentier potatoes.

Fifth course was cheese, served with honey, fruit and nuts. In England we usually serve cheese last but in France it is normal to serve the cheese before the dessert. This is because the wine served with the meat course is usually a red wine such as Chateauneuf, or St.Emilion. The French simply continue with the same wine to compliment the cheese. Then they change to a sweeter white wine such as Sauterne or Muscat de Beaume which suits the sweetness of the dessert.

Sixth course – a melt in the mouth chocolate mousse, made with dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids).

This may sound like a lot of food but the portions she served were absolutely perfectly sized, meaning that we enjoyed every course without feeling so full up. I took this point into consideration when producing my own dishes for our restaurant, balancing up the six courses to produce a menu that didn’t overwhelm people. It has always worked well and we’ve never forgotten that inspirational meal produced by Françoise in her tiny kitchen in Jeddah.

On our opening night at Goldingtons, having never run a restaurant before, we were pretty nervous. Our menu consisted of six courses (an idea taken from my Parisian friend Françoise – see later blog). Ed was working in London and arrived home just in time to change into his Maître D’ outfit, ready to greet the first guests. We had a tiny young lad called Simon to help serve (his first job) and a statuesque lady called Mary who took up most of the area around the sink in our (then) small kitchen. With our pals Doug and Carol there for support, there wasn’t a lot of space.

The door bell rang and we disappeared into the kitchen as Ed lead the first party through to our sitting room and took their drinks order. I had some canapés ready to serve and Simon took the tray. I pulled the handle of the kitchen door to open it for him but it wouldn’t budge. I tried again. No luck. I pulled hard and the handle fell off! We were locked in the kitchen. I grabbed my coat from the utility room and gave it to Simon, telling him to go out the back door and come back in the front way as if he was a customer. He duly left and went to the front door and rang the bell. Ed was shocked when he answered the door, seeing Simon dressed in a pink coat, and even more surprised when he walked in, picked up the handle and used it to let us out of the kitchen. Doug quickly found a screwdriver and fitted the handle back on.

Soon the place was full and the kitchen was buzzing. Doug (the man who had never cooked in his life) was grilling trout. I was busy sorting out sauces and pâtés. Mary was washing up, Carol was chopping vegetables and Simon was in the dining room, clearing away the fish course plates, ready to serve the sorbet. I then started to prepare the steaks. I cut the first few slices from the large piece of meat and set them aside. I picked up the remaining meat to put it back in the chiller and as I was trying to manoeuvre around Mary, it slipped out of my hands and flew into the washing up bowl, full of clean soapy water! Mary quickly fished it out and we ran the tap over it to remove the suds. Nothing to see here.

We always served our vegetables in dishes with silver lids. Simon would place the dishes on the table and Ed would take the lids off with a dramatic flourish and present the food. Customers loved it. One evening, some pals of ours had booked a table and I filled the dishes with underwear. Ed was totally unaware as he lifted the lids and slapped them down very quickly when he saw the contents. Our friends thought it was hilarious.

Apart from the shaky start, the evening went really well. A frantically busy night but a great one. We cleared the final table, said goodnight to the last guest and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Ed poured everyone a drink and we finished off with a late night snack – roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, squashed between slices of fresh crusty bread. Delicious – Bon Appetit.

GOOSE FAT SPUD SANDWICH

Par boil some King Edward potatoes in salted water for ten minutes. Remove and drain well. Toss them in a colander to smash them a little.

At the same time, put a tray of goose fat into the oven for 10 minutes on a high heat (220ºC FAN).

As soon as the fat is melted and hot, add the potatoes. Roast for 5 minutes on 220ºC FAN and then turn the heat down to 180ºC FAN. Roast for 30-40 minutes until they are brown and crispy.

Remove the potatoes, put them on kitchen paper to drain for a few minutes. Butter some thick slices of crusty bread, add the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Squash the sandwich slightly and enjoy!

Our motto for our restaurant was Difficult to Find but Impossible to Forget. We were slightly off the beaten track but our customers enjoyed the challenge of finding us and once they visited, they invariably booked again. We only opened on Friday and Saturday and served a six course meal, changing the menu every month. During this period, we kept a visitors book. It was always a good way to collect addresses from customers and then send them a new menu every month. The internet was in it’s infancy in those days so emails were virtually unknown and as for mobile phones – they were the size of a brick! So the visitors book was a useful tool and customers would add comments, which were generally very complimentary, funny and helpful.

It was the era of the YUPPIES (young upwardly-mobile professionals – who had more money than sense and usually spent it as quickly as they earned it) and on one very hot August night, we had a group of these young people – very sure of themselves and making sarcastic comments with each new dish we presented to them. Moaning about the brand of fizzy water we served and so on and so on. Let’s call them the Brentwood 6.

That evening I had called in my brother Paul and his girlfriend Rosie to help with serving. We are all part of a huge Irish family and Rosie fitted in perfectly, coming from another large Irish family.

As the long hot evening wore on, several minor incidents occurred. Paul accidentally spilled a tiny amount of sauce down the jacket of one of the Brentwood 6. He was a snotty young man, very self-opinionated and made a big fuss. I walked through to the dining room, charmed him with my smile and took his jacket away to the kitchen. The spot came out without a trace and I returned it to him, still smiling. I also offered to have it cleaned should there be any residue left. He inspected it closely and begrudgingly accepted there was no damage.

I went back to the kitchen and continued cooking and melting in the heat.

The Brentwood 6 continued their meal and afterwards ordered Irish coffees. Ed came through to the kitchen for the cream and returned to their table. He told them the drinks were on us as an apology for any inconvenience they may have had. Ed poured the cream on the back of a spoon into the coffee, but try as he may, the cream curdled every time. The heat that evening meant the cream had separated and just would not sit on the drink. After several attempts, Ed took the coffees away and offered them something else. They all ordered the most expensive drinks we had.

Things were getting very hot in the kitchen.

Towards the end of the evening, Ed left the visitors book for one of the customers who then passed it on to the next table. Eventually it ended up with the Yuppies. Ed brought the book back to the kitchen and I started to read the comments. When I got to the Brentwood 6 I exploded! They had written “LOVELY MEAL – SHAME ABOUT THE IRISH”. I marched into the dining room and headed to the snotty little creep whose jacket I had just cleaned.

“Excuse me – your comment about the Irish – do you realise that this restaurant is run by Irish people? It’s because we’re Irish that everybody feels so welcome here. This is not only a restaurant – this is our home and just because you got a tiny spot of sauce on your jacket, doesn’t mean you have to be so rude!!”

I was seething.

His jaw dropped and he look extremely uncomfortable

“Actually, I meant shame about the Irish coffees – not anything else, the food and the restaurant is fabulous”

“Right. Right. OK. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you”

I walked back to the kitchen and poured a drink – And in the words of Neil Diamond it really was A HOT AUGUST NIGHT!

She felt something on her shoe. She looked down. It was a long, thin, curly piece of orange peel, stuck to her heel. She stared at him.

“Look at that, a piece of orange peel. I told you not to book this place, the write-ups were awful”.

She placed the orange peel on the table and glared at him as she studied the menu.

“Prawns in Marie Rose sauce – really? That’s prawn cocktail – PRAWN BLOODY COCKTAIL. How old fashioned is that? My father took me to restaurants in the sixties that served prawn cocktail. God, what else is there?”.

She continued glaring at the menu.

“Pâté – hmmm, I bet that’s crap, some factory extruded pink paste. Don’t they have anything fresh? I bet it’s all frozen. There’s no excuse for not having fresh produce in restaurants these days. I mean, if you had picked a decent place, we could have had fresh stuff, not this frozen rubbish. What’s for mains?”.

The waitress arrived to take their order.

“We’re not ready yet. Can you come back, but I’d like a bottle of Prosecco – now. VERY cold. NOT WARM – VERY COLD. Oh and by the way, I found this attached to my heel – can you take it away?”

The waitress picked up a napkin, placed the orange peel carefully in it and walked off.

“Right, let’s see what the main dishes are. Steak. I bet it’s tough as old boots. They never cook it right, it’s always overdone. Home made chips – huh, I can imagine, home made by Aunt Bessie. Lamb? Mutton don’t they mean? It’s the wrong time of year for lamb. Obviously last year’s from the freezer”.

The waitress appeared with the Prosecco.

“Yes it’s cold but can you bring a bucket of ice?”.

The waitress returned with a bucket of ice and took their order.

“I’ll have the mixed salad – at least that will have to be fresh. Then the fillet of pork but NO SAUCE on the pork, just leave it on the side. It’s always too sloppy when it’s poured all over the meat. I’ll have the mousse for pudding”.

She poured herself a glass of fizz and offered him some. He shook his head.

“Why not? Oh, of course, you’ve got to work haven’t you? As usual. It’s the weekend and you’ve got to work. I don’t know why we even bother coming out for a meal if I’m drinking on my own. Mind you – that’s all I do these days – drink alone”.

She gulped down the first glass and poured another one.

“Where’s the bloody food – I’m starving. I hope that salad’s fresh, otherwise it’s going back“.

The starters arrived. They ate in silence and she drank more Prosecco.

“Not bad. Let’s see what the main course is like”.

The waitress cleared their plates and returned with the main dishes.

“I said no sauce on the meat. NO SAUCE ON THE MEAT. Take it away and bring me what I ordered!”.

The waitress removed the plate.

“I should bloody well think so, its not that hard to get right, is it?” She cried in earshot of the waitress.

“Typical, I knew they’d get it wrong. Now it’ll be ages before it comes back. Start, start, don’t sit there staring at it!”. She shouts at him.

The waitress returned shortly with the dish.

“At last”. They ate the meal and she drank two more glasses of fizz.

The waitress cleared the plates and within a few minutes came back with the desserts. She smiled at him when she put the puddings down.

“Hmm, let’s see what this tastes like”.

The mousse was light as a feather, sitting in a wonderful citrus sauce, surrounded by tiny biscuits and on top was a long, thin, curly strip of orange peel. She ate the lot.

He smiled and started to eat.

Maggie Wood

August 2020