So here we are: the best of 2008!

Here is a brief & hurried best of 2008, in no particular order.

Kanye West with Olivia
Such a cool cool birthday present! Olivia and I went to see The Roots and Kanye West at Bercy in November. Highlights include the Roots playing "sweet child o' mine" by G 'n R and doing an epic, orgasmic 20 minute long bluesy, electro multi-vocal hysteria song. KW was just sexy and awesome : a massive one man show; especially loved Gold Digger ("but i ain't seen a woman in yeears" - Here I am Kanye!! scream two thousand women), Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Jesus walks and, of course, the Faster, better, stronger at the end when Bercy became a huge nightclub floor. Delighted to have converted Olivia a little bit more ;)
Brussels with Chook
And Lucyna of course. Great weather, a lovely city; the sites, the beer, the royal gardens, the walks and of course Europe Day, where we, Belgian, French, Polish and English drank and got stoned together outside the EU commission.
The drunken walk with the guys at Ampus
Epic standards of drunkeness in the countryside with my buddies. Never too old to be a careless teenager.
The travaux in the building
Our block of flats is now up to 21st century standards : repainted, no lead, with electric wires in the wall rather than swinging around, varnished staircase and repaired windows.
The beach in Bulgaria
Getting slapped by huge waves on a sandy beach in very hot sun with the Chook, does not get better...
Seeing my parents sing in the South
I should add very, very drunkenly, swaying and laughing wit their old friends. Nice, though cringeingly embarrassing at the time.
Runaway 1&2
The best point and click games around. Funny, tropical and insane. Hoping number 3 will come out in 2009...
Faites rentrer l'accusé
A cult programme for nerds in France. You follow the story of a murderer, serial killer, rapist or other. The programme starts with the crime and follows all the police investigations (and cock ups), the media reports, the interrogations, the arrests and of course the whole legal kaboodle, from trial to verdict. Great stuff and am firmly addicted.
Finding a job I enjoy
Teaching rocks, despite my contract not getting renewed. The rumour has it that I am too "revolutionary" and that my employers feared I might join the Union to complain about salary and other aspects. They're mad. This is probably due to the fact I mentioned it was illegal not to pay us for training and made sure everyone read and understood their contract before signing.
Seeing James and Pak in the summer
I don't see these guys often enough, bit it was great to meet Pak and be able to have a long drunken conversation by the canal in summer with my fave Dude.
Diminishing coffee intake.
Incredible. No longer feel nauseous, depressed, sick. No more diarrhoea and can sleep at night! A revelation.
Barack Obama
Nuff said about that.
My fave books of 2008.
Salmon fishing in the Yemen, A thousand splendid suns, Pillars of the earth, What Einstein told his cook, Waiter rant.
Oysters in Bordeaux
Chook and I are sitting on the banks of the Gironde in Bordeaux, on a terrace by the food market and close to an oyster stall. We slurp oysters and eat brown bread bought at a bread stall, drinking a cold white tavernier wine from the Gers (6 oysters and a glass of plonk is 6 euros). The december sun is blazing and we eat, read and drink in a crisp, warm, drunken stupour.

and the worst: my Samsung phone(why didn't I buy Nokia??), regularly getting up before dawn for work, coming down with flu for the first time in three years, swiss chard in the veggie box, putting on about 4 kilos, getting "fired' for the first time in my life.

So here we are in the dead heart of Oz

The Dead Heart by Douglas Kennedy

In a nutshell : an American journalist in need of adventure flies to Darwin, Australia and decides to drive across the "Dead Heart" of the country. En route he meets Angie, and it all starts to go wrong.

The blurb: this is Kennedy's first book, and very different from his latest (The Woman in the fifth, see review here). This is basically a two part book : the first part is a road trip with witty and usually rude descriptions of the Australians in the Bush and the ghastly "roo steak, whores and beer" life they live. Part two I shall not say much about (don't want to give the plot away now, do we) but it is an even ruder description of Australian village life in the middle of nowhere. It is also incredibly funny as our hero realises that life in the Australian outback does not suit him, at all and tries to get away. Rude, adrenaline-charged and very, very funny.

IMHO this short book is a great read. A little too short maybe - I read it in a day- but nicely paced as you are cunningly transferred from the "road trip" part of the book to the "god, help, get me out of here" part. Despite its shortness there is a great build up and it is quite difficult to let go. An entertaining way to spend a Sunday afternoon when it is cold outside.

So here we are with the december veggies

As we approach winter, the vegetables are becoming increasingly, er, well, boring.

Saturday December 6th

Half a celeriac root
500g carrots
A leafy bunch of chard
500g of lovely red Roseval potatoes
4 of the lovely apples
250 g of onions
250g beetroot
250g spinach (left it- too wet, slimy, earth and impossible to sort the fresh young leaves from the tough old dark ones)

So here we are in an awkward lesson

Not really. A really awkward lesson would be one where you ask a woman to repeat what you say, get curt when she doesn't and then learn she has throat cancer. Thank god that didn't happen to me. This is more gentle, but funny, and a little awkward.

Student : What does it mean, to finger?
Teacher: I beg your pardon, Jean François?
Student : To finger, F-E-N-J-A-R.
Teacher: Yes, yes, well, what do you think it means?
Jean François waves enthusiastically.
Teacher: Right Jean François, no, that 's to wave, WAVE...

and a couple more :

the student who said that at the bank, he "made out" (as in make out a check), and the one who said that at her company she liked to have the "fre massage on backside", she meant, of course, "back"...

So here we are at the Chateaubriand

Dad was 65 in August but we only got round to celebrating with a nice meal out last week, in fact just a few days before Chook's birthday (at this rate, we will probably celebrate that in August...). The nice meal out was eaten at the Chateaubriand, a restaurant near us on the avenue Parmentier (11th). It's a very interesting place, and that's before you even eat. They've kept the slighlty old fashioned, nicotine-stained and dark wood decor that dates from the 30s : there is a shiny zinc bar and old menu boards from that time, and classic bistrot wooden tables and chairs. The food however is on the futuristic side of modern. They don't claim any link to El Bulli or Hestor Blumenthal, but certainly admit the chef is in to taking flavours apart and finding those perfect, and sometimes unusual combinations.

5 courses. 43 euros. The same for everyone (though they had no problem with vegetarian mum).

Amuse-bouche/starter : Firm, perfect dices of sardine with slivers of fresh green olives, grapefruit, a pesto "cream" and beautiful green grilled gindilla pepper (not hot, but with wonderful crunch and 'green taste') with sel de guérande.

Fish course : 2 perfectly cooked scallops (sealed and caramelised brown outside, raw and melt in the mouth inside), sitting on a stripe of helianti mash/cream (a root vegetable, cross between jerusalem artichoke and celeriac flavor), trail of vanilla foam (not sweet) and, get this, orange salt. Coarse salt that tastes of oranges. My personal favorite.

More fish course : flaky opaque seabass with light and crispy skin, over which have been negligently flung chanterelle mushrooms, hazelnuts, mustard leaves (bit of earthy tang), small dark muscat grapes. A small heap of onion compote.

Meat course : a neat little lump of veal, pink in the midlle, surmounted by slices of pinf radish and sitting on a purple potato mash, drizzled with a sauce made with ultra-fresh (only just dead?) cockles which may have been raw. the vegetarian was exactly the same only the veal replaced by fish. The whole dish had a ring of infanticide to it.

Cheese or dessert? I went for the cheese : a fully mature brie, golden and and creamy with a crust that looked like the parched, cracked earth you see in drought lands (a bit whiter, admittedly); a vintage comté, smooth and strong with a crunch of salt; and a fresh little goats' cheese. Yum.

The others went for dessert, which they all liked but i thought bordered on the nasty : an avacado mousse and thin slices of pineapple topped with an acerola (south american fruit, very sour, tastes a little of passion fruit) foam, stabbed with a nut and caramel snap. Too sour, too sweet, too avacado.

All in all absolutely amazing and lovely. As they change their menu gradually but constantly (they replace a course or so every day), the food evolves with the seasons and the whims of the chef. Will return as soon as can afford. Highly recommended.

So here we are with the november veggies

Interesting developments on the veggie box front! here are the last couple of weeks.

Saturday November 22nd

500 g carrots, i.e. 2 (they are getting huger and huger)
half a cauliflower
500g potatoes
a huge (child's football) beetroot
half a celeriac
large bunch of celery
3 lovely apples (belle fille de salins variety?)
250 g of hideous, tough, yellowing, slug-chewed spinach (went straight to bin)

Ham and celery soup (serves 2)
This turned out to be a great little recipe : soothing to make, warming to eat, cheap and healthy. One important ingredient was the ham bone I got very cheap (1€50) from my local butcher/deli. It was about 20 cm long and still had plenty of ham on it.
First, take bone and remove nice bits of ham, i.e the pink moist bits, not the fatty/gristly or fast-stuck-to-the-bone bits. Try not to eat them all. In a dish, arrange the bone with a quartered onion and a roughly chopped carrot (tomatoes, shallots, herbs could also be added) and put in oven to bake for about 20 minutes until lovely juices have appeared and the bone has coloured a bit. When done, throw all this into a pot. Add half a dozen peppercorns, bay leaf/ves, and around three big handfuls of celery leaves. cover with cold water and leave on low heat for at least an hour. Make sure it is bubbling but not boiling.
When ready, skim of scum and remove celery leaves and all other solids (strain). Boil vigourously to reduce to correct quantity (you want about a pint per person for main course). Add half a very finely chopped carrot, ditto shallot, ditto celery stalk and some light pasta (I used alphabet, but vermicelli would be great). These should take about 5 minutes to soften. Salt, pepper. At last minute add ham.

Saturday November 29th

We were at the AMAP all morning as it was our turn to do the "permanence". We opened up shop (actually it's a restaurant*), set up the tables and so on, arranged the veg, and ticked off people's names as they picked up their stuff. At the end,we swept and tidied and washed away the mud, and took all the remaining veggies :)

500g potatoes
250 g lovely, small, shiny yellow little onions
500g carrots (one!! can they get any bigger?)
500g of the lovely apples
250 g spinach (I waded through the boxes looking for the nice fresh baby leaves)
250 g beetroot
half a celeriac
1/2 a "broccoflower" (see here for a picture as it is possibly the most beautiful thing in the veg world!). Called Romanesco cabbage in French.

* a associative restaurant that runs according to a really cool concept, maybe subject of next post.

So here we are with the lyre bird

Just absolutely amazing! Make sure you watch to the end.