Dolmas Season ...

Despite appearances, I am a happy man (although I has sads 'cos Martini sec seems to be unavailable in these here southern parts) for I have a good butcher, and there are once more feijoas on sale (admittedly at an eye-watering price - I mean, 10€ the kilo?) at the market. Which means, I guess, that at some point I will dive into the pile of yellowing clippings from The Listener* (ca 1985), and hopefully come back up with that recipe for feijoa and apple bretonne.

(Incidentally, meeting Bob! later that day for a few vitamins, as is our wont on a Saturday moaning, I tried to explain the feijoa, and its flavour, to him. The closest I've come across is the anone - the custard apple, as you'll recall - and so of course the bugger wilfully misheard. "Le gout", he said, "de la nonne? Je vais certainement l'essayer alors.")

A "good butcher" is one who, should his client request 400gm of minced lamb for instance, will take a thick slab of meat from the leg of the beast, remove the bone and any unnecessary skin, then grind it and only then weigh it. And sell it to you at the price of the gigot. Such honest shopkeepers are rare birds indeed, and should ever you come across one I suggest you do as I do, and clasp him firmly to your bosom (firmly enough that he may not escape, but not so firmly that he suffocates).

Having had the occasion to go up to Chambéry for a bit the other week, I thought I might as well profit from the trip by bringing back a few regional specialities. (Also, two bottles of Ancona Jamaican Ouch! Burny Hot Pepper Sauce, due to there being very little left in the cupboard as a person or persons who shall remain nameless were using the stuff like ketchup on their burgers a while back. Because Mad Karen goes through harissa like anything, and Martin felt obliged to emulate her - the look on his face as the afterburners kicked in was ... interesting.)

So there was a kilo of Beaufort d'alpage for Margo, a kilo of vieux Comté for me, and I thought I might as well bring back a bottle of génepi for Martin, whose tastes run to undrinkable alcohols. (Génepi, should you not have had the misfortune to come across the stuff, is one of those "herbal" liqueurs - all of which tend, in my opinion, to resemble Chartreuse in that they smell, and taste, of sticky sweet detergent. The distillers of the up-market varieties tend to stick some sort of stem with a rather sad flower or two on it in the bottles, to add an air of verisimilitude to the story.)

So I took it off to the bar on Friday night and presented him with it, and I'm sad to say that when we left some while later there was precious little left in the bottle. I have since been requested to bring back rather more the next time. I guess I owe him, for the Tanqueray.

It is once again That Time Of Year, and as we are no longer Upside-Down Landers who heat their houses in winter with a single 500W electric radiator in the living room, grudgingly turned on for an hour or so after 19:00, we went into the utility room on the top floor and did the Propitiation of the Beast. Which goes - in our case - something like this:

"Hey, where's the bloody candle?"

"What?"

"Well, I've got the little tinkly thing from last year's Christmas cracker, and the 1934 Boy's Own Digest, so that's bell and book: you're supposed to have the damn candle!"

"I think the dog ate it."

"Right, well we'll just do our best with a pocket torch shall we, and hope it all works?"

Then we turnèd the knob, and with a rush and a gurgle hot water surged through the pipes and I ran about the house opening the purge valves on the ancient cast-iron radiators and wrapping lagging around the pipes where super-heated steam was venting, and now it is toasty-warm and we is happy, and having a shower is no longer an exercise in Nordic masochism.

(Be under no illusions. The Languedoc is hot and dry in summer - and, in all fairness, mostly so in spring and autumn too - but in winter, especially on a dismal damp grey Sunday with a spiteful crachin Breton, it can get bloody miserable and cold. This is why a number of the British ex-pats go back to England for the winter: not for the weather, but for the central heating. When every room in your three-storey maison de maitre has about 4m² of French doors made with 1mm-thick glass, you rapidly learn that trying to heat it is a losing proposition.)

Other reasons to be happy: M. Bourrel sent one of his doubtless numerous minions around this moaning with a small tanker truck, and there are now 2000l of diesel in the garage along with 300kg or so of wood pellets, so we can now sneer in the face of winter.

(Also, Cash and Terry headed off the other day to the ginormous strip mall that is the frontier town between France and Spain, and very kindly brought back two bottles of Tanqueray and four litres of Martini Extra Dry. So that's me set up for a couple of weeks, anyway.)

Our neighbour Johann, the good Saarlander, would rather like a dog but can't have one; because of cats, and Sylvia. So he has adopted Widdling Emma. Being a keen jogger he trots off on a 6 - 12 km run every other day, and one fine day he shyly asked if she could go for a run with him. We did not pose too many objections.

I'm not sure which of the pair is the keenest to go: at least Johann doesn't jump vertically in the air with his forepaws straight up, which is what Emma does when she spots him coming up the steps to the gate. He seems to think that the exercise does not tire her out enough, because the other night oop't bar he suggested that he could perhaps take her for a walk on those days when he doesn't go for a run - "and I will train her, with the throwing of the ball, or of a wooden branch".

Karma + Blofeld

Something which did not, apparently, go too well when he tried it on Friday - not that Emma ran away or anything, just that she is maybe short-sighted and, as he said, "I took a ball that was green, and a ball that was red, and I threw them in the grass for her, and she could not see them. I could not see the green ball either, in the green grass, and I had forgotten that I am red-green colour-blind, so we went home with no balls, but with a stick of wood."

Let no-one say that a self-deprecating sense of humour is the exclusive preserve of the English.

(In unrelated news, a Kindle Fire can apparently survive a fall from about 80cm onto carpet, and the depredations of sharp puppy teeth: although the cover is looking a little the worse for wear. I do not get paid for these unsolicited testimonials, just saying.)

* Note for younger readers: this was an actual paper magazine which in fact listed the TV programmes for the week. I guess The Watcher or The Couch Potato Tuner Guide were not snappy enough.