It all kicks off (The Summer of Food, that is)

The Thursday before last, the first official event of The Summer of food ^{(tm reg)} started, so it was only fitting that the weather was about 19C, cloudy and showering for the vast majority of it. Damien, Paul and I met at London’s Waterloo International (soon to be replaced by St Pancras International) to catch the 20:15 Eurosta to Paris. In ‘leisure select’ class, no less. Having travelling by business class recently, the only differences between the two iare the name, the dulcet tones of American tourists (’Hey! Where are you from? We’re from Missouri!!’) and a much higher proportion of manmade fibre.

I love the Eurostar. It eliminates the long trip to the airport, the waiting around and the buying of aftershave you don’t particularly need. The trip itself is so much more civilised, and you don't get off at the other end feeling everything you’ve drunk in the last week is being sucked out of your pores by the airconditioning.

By the time we had finished out complimentary champagne(!), we were speeding towards Paris. The section of track from Waterloo to somewhere in the middle of Kent is so embarrassingly slow though. It’s the European rail equivalent of training wheels. That will all change when the high speed line is finished in a few months. (And it’s only taken 13 years to build). Call me a socialist if you like, but I’m a great believer in government investment in infrastructure, and don’t see why lower taxes for for high-income earners or for private equity funds in the city (5% they pay!!) should be a priority, while a worthwhile project like this takes years to complete.

So we were in Paris by 11pm, and in our rented Marais apartment by 11:30. And out for a drink by 12:30. (Someone wanted to unpack). What’s not to like about that?



Friday morning I went on the croissant and pain au chocolate run while the two sleeping beauties lay in bed. After the coffee, orange juice and pastries, we were off to the Hotel Balzac. For a very long lunch at the 3 Michelin-starred Pierre Gagniare. I am not quite sure what makes a 3-star restaurant, but the service was exemplary and the food was excellent. We had (amongst other things) the most gorgeous bottle of burgundy. Burgundy is the new Jacob’s Creek. You read it here first. We were slightly worried about the fate of the waitress who poured some red into Damien’s white wine glass. We didn’t lay eyes on her after that and we think she may have been guillotined.



The rest of our time was spent wandering around the Marais. Most of my time was spent watching Paul and Damien shop. I also spent a great deal of my time making coffee and buying pastries for breakfast. But I’m not bitter at all. I quite enjoyed going out and trying to find a better boulangerie every day. Paris is so beautiful that just walking around is pleasure enough.



Our apartment was a little 'Moulin Rougue'-esque garret in the the Marais - it was up six flights of stairs (125 of them!). And did we know it a couple of times. But it did have a lovely terrace with views over to Montmatre in one direction and the Pompidou Centre in the other. It also had quite detailed instructions on everything, even down to expected toilet etiquette. I kid you not. And I thought my boyfriend was anal.



Saturday we met up with some French boys we know for dinner and then a bit of a dance – as you do. It was fun. So much fun that we met them again on Sunday night for something to eat and a walk around Pigalle, where we were abused in French for being gay. Nice.



Monday morning there was just enought time to fit in another lunch, this time of fillet steaka nd sauteed potatoes for us all, washed down witha 7-y-o bottle of St Emilion. The Bordeaux cost what we'd normally pay for a bottle of plonk in London. So unfair!

Beautifully Provincial.

I am currently in Strasbourg for work. Again. I really like Strasbourg. Work not so much. This time I had to fly into Frankfurt. I don’t have much to say about Frankfurt. The plane was half empty on the way over, which perhaps is an indication of why I don’t have much to say about Frankfurt.

Instead of getting the plane back and spending all that time waiting around in airports, I've decided to get the train back. Carbon footprint and all that. I’m catching the TGV from Strasbourg to Paris, not just any TGV, but the fastest train on the planet (cue argument about which train is fastest). I am excited. I think that officially makes me a nerd. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make me a train spotter unless I write down the number of the train. I am also going business on Eurostar (cheaper to London than the airfare), so my boss is sortof happy too.

This is the first time I’ve been here in the summer and it’s very beautiful – lots of forests, and motorways. The motorways aren’t beautiful, but they are through the forest and the forests certainly are. I saw a deer gambolling through the fields on the way from Frankfurt to Strasbourg, too. I was hoping to eat venison for dinner, but had to make do with a healthy salad of foie gras, smoked cured duck, and ham.

I saw one of those brown tourist route signs for the Maginot Line on the way here. I wasn’t sure if it was part of a larger tourist route for great defence failures of the past 100 years or not, but I suppose it’s certainly one way of taking a negative and turning it into a positive.

Saturday I had to rise at the ungodly hour or 4:50am (that was 3:50 by my poor UK body clock) and be at work by 6:00am. I was back in Strasbourg by 15:00, but absolutely knackered. I even had a nap to compensate. I went out to have a good look around and do some shopping, but my heart wasn’t really in it. Today was a lot better, but the whole conversion process was running late, so our project lunch was cancelled. The upside of that wasn’t all that bad, was I didn’t have to spend an afternoon with techies with no personality. It's about as appealling as having your teeth pulled without anesthetic.

Last night I got to eat with a colleague form our client company. He’s quite good fun, but I feel I have to be a bit guarded around him, so it wasn’t a lot of fun for me. And we hadn’t booked anywhere, so we had to settle for an ok restaurant, which just about killed me. My steak was fine, but the frites and vegetables weren’t great. Sigh. And there is great food here, it seemed like such a missed opportunity.

Anyway, today I got to lie in the sun, which was pleasant. I had a conversation in pidgin French with the nice baguette lady at lunchtime (‘Tu American?’ ‘Je suis Australien’ ‘ D’accord. Much better’ – ouch!), it turned out she was from the town where our factory is, so she was on for a chat. Somehow she spotted my weak spot and got me to buy an éclair as well, but I wouldn’t buy a Tarte au fruit rouge.

I was turned away from the Cathedral today too, as they were ordaining priests, and I think they thought the boys might reconsider their vows or something if I went in. (Actually they had bouncers and no-one who wasn’t wearing a suit wasn’t getting in).

I called into what I thought was the new Gare (railway station) for the TGV. In fact it’s just a new façade for the old staion, but underneath the station has been redone as well. It’s quite beautiful and a lovely piece of contemporary architecture.


Of course Strasbourg is all about Europe as well, and I was glad to see there was some room left for expansion here, all that's required is to remove the European flags, and add the new members.



Strasbourg is all very nice, but I have been a bit bored. Friday night at the restaurant I ate at, the guy on the next table was Australian. He was phoning a friend and telling them he had had enough of Strasbourg. I though he was crazy, but after 3 day here, I feel a bit the same, it’s very beautiful, but it’s quite small and provincial, nothing seems to be going on. Maybe I just expect too much?

The Cathedral is amazing though. It absolutely dominates the city and you can see why medieveal peasants would have been astounded by it. I think sometimes we've lost the ability to be astounded.

Catalunya is not Spain, but I love it anyway......

Medieval Streets!




Cute boys! ;-)




BBQs in May!




Michelin-starred restaurants!!




Beaches! (yes, Madrid has a river....)




Religion!

And so began the summer of food....

Been a bit busy with work lately, which is good, but I am also having to do a bit of commuting to Winnersh, which takes up 3 hours of my day - ouch. So not a lot of time to blog. Spring has arrived again – which is great for people like me – not so good if you are a hay fever sufferer. But I’m not, and this blog is all about me, so we're not talking about hay fever.

What have we done lately? Paul, Damien and I went here, the second last night before it closed. It was good fun, and the food was excellent, if a little overpriced. When Damien first arrived in London, he used to deliver mushrooms there, so the night peppered with comments like ‘People say you can’t make it in this town, but I beg to differ’ etc.etc. We tried to engage the waitress in some banter, but she was having none of it. She was eastern-european, didn’t know who Gennaro was, and was rather severe. She reminded me of the Nanny(?) in Lead Balloon in fact. Jack Dee is a comic genius.

There was a surprisingly good Chilean wine tasting Damien dragged us along to last week as well. I say surprisingly good, because I associate Chile with sub-£5 quaffers and not so much with the quality end of the wine market. We tasted our way through some pretty good stuff – especially Pinot, (my wine of choice at the moment). I found there were still some pretty crappy ‘dirty’ wines, but the overall standard was very good.

Afterwards we went here, for a nice big dose of attitude from the Maitre’d. I suppose it was our privilege to wait for 40 mins for a table though. In the end, we declined our table, as we’d done it in true Spanish style and eaten (standing) at the bar. I then had a bit of a rant (to no-one in particular) about how there were two ways they could have dealt with us waiting – and we got treated the in the crappy, what-do-you-mean-you-want-to-eat-here way. But that service for you in London, I suppose. And by God they have good food.

Saturday we did some jobs and shopping in London’s overcrowded West End. But we found a haven of gastronomic excellence to eat at, and it’s cheapish! How did I not know about this! And we got to eavesdrop on someone’s wedding/hen’s weekend plans – double bonus.
Afterwards we were stopped by two chic French women, asking us where the new Abercrombie and Fitch store. I didn’t realise I looked so obviously American buff gay. I told them the wrong address. C’est la vie.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken

So, earlier this week I was in Strasbourg for work. It seemed a pretty town, although I didn't get to see much of it as my new boss is a bit of a workaholic. But I like her anyway, because she doesn't pull any punches. And she seems to think I'm doing a good job, so it's all good.

Strasbourg is where the European Parliament sits when it's not in Brussels, and so work was a model of European harmony and I felt no guilt whatsoever about only using 10 words of French whilst I was there. ( I was not as bad as an American at breakfast who, after looking at the waiter's badge, said 'M-a-r-c. How do you pronounce that? Oh, Mark?'. What do they feed them??!!)

I did draw the line at telling a colleague I was having difficulty understanding him because of his heavily accented French though. I'm not that insensitive. I also love a French accent, so tried not to stare dreamily at him too much. It was quite ironic to be working with some Russians, a Pole, some Germans, a Japanese and some French, especially considering just over 60 years ago we would have been tearing each other limb from limb.

One of the differences I did notice was absolutely no-one was in the office before 9:00 and everyone left at 17:00. (except for me and my boss of course - I had to drag her out at 18:30, after a 10.5 hour day) And everyone had lunch in the (delicious and heavily-subsidised) canteen for an hour. Which is a million miles away from the eat-lunch-at-your-desk and maybe take 30 minutes for it culture here. And don't start me on the coffee breaks.....

My self-control went out the window, it was all french pastries for breakfast and wine (Pinot! Shiraz! Syrah!) and steak at dinner. I even ate at a cheese restaurant one night (La Cloche à Fromages), where, as you'd expect, cheese featured heavily on the menu and I could feel myself piling on the weight with every mouthful.

I had to fly into and out of Stuttgart airport (look at this - why can't Heathrow be like this?). The taxi to Strasbourg sped down the autobahn at 180kmh in driving rain. Even though I was safely ensconced in the back of a big Mercedes, it didn't stop me praying all the way to St Diana of Windsor.

My train to Heathrow took 50 minutes instead of 15, because someone had jumped at Southall... people nowadays are so inconsiderate. I blame Tony Blair.

I had a little time to spare at Stuttgart Airport, so took the opportunity to have a nice cold German lager in the cockpit bar. It was nice.

They discovered sea-routes to India and West Africa, you know

So after the whirlwind that was Mark and Robert’s visit to London (more on that to follow) Paul and I set off for Lisbon last Tuesday lunchtime. And what a good time to travel – no hassle on the train to Heathrow, quiet enough in the BA lounge, and Heathrow wasn’t too manic either. The flight was a little late, but Marta (our landlady for 5 days) was patient at the apartment and she greeted us in whirl of flawless olive skin, white teeth and hesitant english. And what a great apartment it was – high 15ft ceilings, shuttered windows onto the street, all-white, cute little euro-kitchen and bathroom, polished floorboards, chic gentrified working-class location - ticking almost every clichéd European stereotype you can muster.

The apartment was at the bottom of Bairro Alto, just above Bica, which led straight down to the river. Apparently, a lot of Bica was washed away in a landslide. There was a funicular to get the old and infirm (and by the smell of them, the drunk, but maybe that was just my breath) up and down the hill and trams ran outside too (almost a w-class, but smaller!).

It’s pretty amazing how a short flight you can transport you from safe, (relatively) clean London, to fearing for your life in a speeding taxi and dodging dog turds as you walk the streets of some 400-y-o neighbourhood full of decaying houses. So last Tuesday night, Paul and I found ourselves dodging dog-turds and dealers, as we hit Bairro Alto for some great tasting seafood, then a quick tour of the bars of Principe Real. Bairro Alto was busyish (for a school-night), but Principe Real was very quiet. So quiet, we went back to Barrio Alto and drank at some coolly distressed bar – it was so very Fitzroy, it almost made me homesick.

Our next few days consisted of pretty much the same pattern, sleeping in, late breakfast, sightseeing and then dinner (either in the apartment or out). Lisbon had some great inexpensive restaurants and I ate possibly the finest piece of tuna I’ve ever eaten on Saturday night. And that’s before I start on the Pasteis de Nata. I tried (successfully, for the most part) to limit myself to one a day, which was difficult for someone with a sweet-tooth like mine (See? It’s easy – all you need to say is ‘I like dessert’. You know who you are.)

Lisbon was hosting an Herbalife conference while we were there, I have never seen ‘Lose weight now, ask me how’ badges in French, Spanish, German and Dutch before. I can now die happy. We struck up a conversation with a Spanish woman on the tram from Barcelona, who gave us her card ‘in case we had any questions’. I am now on a diet.

Saturday we went out to Belem, which was formerly a different town to Lisbon, but now is a suburb. We caught the tram, not the rattley ding-ding w-class impersonator, but the smooth honk-honk Citadis and Combino type. More Melbourne flashbacks. Belem was beautiful, the Torre de Belem enchantingly so, and the San Jeronimos Cathedral too. I was busting so we called in the Centro Cultural de Belem (CCB), and it was pretty cool too. All pink-sandstone and lovely open spaces. Sort of like Federation Square, but not trying as hard. Which is not to say I don't like Fed Sq., or prefer the CCB, the CCB was not as architecturally challenging.

Unfortunately the CCB were in the middle of changing the signs for the toilets, so it took about 20 mins to find one. I think urine-stained jeans were a small price to pay for hanging around architectural magnificence. I finally found relief in one of the cafés there, where some impeccably dressed dark-haired, olive-skinned Mediterranean type was there gazing out over the perfectly landscaped terrace with it’s vista over the river, smoking himself to an early death, while poring over his architectural drawings. It was all so achingly hip and European, that I couldn’t help but put my sunglasses on my head and my jumper over my shoulders.




The tower at Belem was pretty amazing too, they don’t build fortresses like they used to. It’s UNESCO world heritage registered and Paul and I were undecided about going in (what does the UN know about culture, anyway?), but once we were in we were hooked and spent over an hour looking round. It must have been the dungeons that got us. I’m not sure if it was the sunglasses on my head or the jumper over the shoulders, but a couple of times I was asked in Portuguese to take photos. (note to self: must buy deodorant). From there we dashed to San Jeronimos, where I was outraged by the level of noise in a cathedral, and the inanity of the conversation (‘Oh, and do you get someone in?’ ‘Yeah, I have a cleaner come once a week’ – Go to a café to chat you idiots!!). We missed the cloisters, because it’s always good to have a reason to return. I didn’t miss calling into the Pasteis de Belem manufacturer where there was literally a rugby scrum to grab half a dozen tarts.



Saturday night we skipped the bars of Principe Real, and went for dinner in Bairro Alto, then to Setimo Ceu for a drink – I kept Paul out until 2am and the street was still full of crazy Lisboetas drinking – they are almost as clinically insane as the Spanish. Summer must be great.

While the weather wasn’t fantastic it was pretty good – 17C at least and Saturday and Sunday were around 21C. The cleaner in our building was tsking over the weather this morning when I chatted to her (she’s Portuguese), she thought it was cold for this time of year. I suppose it’s all relative. We were out most nights in a tshirt and jacket.

And cheap? We couldn’t believe it – 1.30 euro for two coffees and two pastries. That’s less than 90p. Meals were inexpensive as well, and wine was dirt cheap too. At a We went to this wine bar we had two glasses of excellent vedelho (keeping my promise to drink more vedelho this year), and an antipasto plate for under a tenner – and we thought that was pricy. If only it was Spain, we’d be there like shot. But I must admit Lisbon has rocketed from nowhere into my top 10 cities list (ooh- that sounds like a good idea for a blog post!).

And the people were so nice – the wine bloke in the supermarket was happy to spend 15 minutes with us tasting wines and telling us the differences between them, and Marta (our olive-skinned landlady/goddess) even offered to look for big houses to rent next year for us……. How nice is that? How can you not like a city that produces people like that? More photos here.

Nothing to see here

Today was such a lovely day that Paul and I decided to go for a walk on Hampstead Heath, and even though it felt like we spent the best part of the afternoon waiting for the bus over, it was beautiful once we got there. Euan McGregor plays a gay man in a new film shot on Hampstead Heath - 'Scenes of A Sexual Nature', but we didn't see him anywhere. :(




I had had a force 10 hangover, but running to the gym and back had reduced that to a force 8 - too much beer and red wine last night with Louise, Jo, Clayton, Jari, Lucy, Brock and Jason. We had been at Islington's cool-ish 'The Green', then had tapas and some lovely tempranillo from Ribera Del Duero. I had planned to have a quiet weekend on the alcohol front, but fortunately events conspired against me.

Paul arrived home Friday night with champagne to celebrate my new job. It looks like I've landed another job with our main client, but at this point in time I'm not really sure what it is. I was rung the other day to ask if I would put myself forward for it. The job was with a few agencies as well, but as it was so great it seems I was the only applicant. Hmmm. I'm not too sure what that means at this point in time. I think it's more a of project management role, and the project runs until June next year, so I'm hoping it will all work out and it's a permanent way out of my current role. I'm pretty excited by it, but a bit nervous too.

Anyway, my lovely boyfriend bought champagne for that, and then we had steak with garlic and rosemary potatoes, so some Yarra Valley red was consumed with that....add last night's drinks in and the plans for a light weekend went out the window......there's always next weekend I suppose.