Catch your train!

I often hear foreign friends saying the French spend so much time eating. In some sense, I guess they are right.

Last Sunday I was hosting the soon-to-be-married Hannah and Tim who had come over from England. Their train home was leaving from Gare du Nord at 15.15. I thought if we started early, there would be enough time to enjoy a real traditional home-cooked gastronomic French lunch.

Everything was ready in the kitchen for lunch when Hannah and Tim finally awoke at noon.

They had their apéritif straight out of bed and shower! We only started on the food around 12.30: radish leaf clear soup, green salad with pan-fried duck breast slices, roast pork and assorted vegetables, asparaguses, cheese platter, Bordeaux red and Burgundy white wines. It was already 14.15 when I brought the îles flottantes dessert onto the table and Hannah just noticed that her train ticket needed to be changed if she wanted to leave on the 15.15 service to London. So Tim and Hannah left in a hurry without finishing their dessert; no coffee, tea or digestif...

The lesson I have learned: don't start a gastronomic French meal if you have a train to catch, even with three hours to spare.

Catch your train
Scorpions, Original album classics, Sony BMG

Photo: Ben Kreunen

Lisboa cidade

The past week end I travelled to Lisbon in Portugal with the Choeur Varenne. We call it our "tour": every year we choose a city somewhere in France or in Europe; we find a church or concert hall in which to sing one of our programmes for a local audience; but it is a really good excuse to spend a week end among friends while visiting interesting places and tasting the local food.

What I enjoy most in Portugal is the pastries. There is one, if not two or three local specialty recipes in each village. When one moves around the country, one gets to taste a great variety of delicious pastries, for breakfast, mid-morning break, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. Sweet tooth heaven!

In this country even the carved stones in churches can be eaten.

Minha Lisboa de mim
Katia Guerreiro, Fado maior, Ocarina

Swimmin' in the creek, way down South

Before heading for Bangkok, I spent three days doing nothing in the Southern Thai Province of Krabi. Just to rest.

I stayed at the Islanda Eco Village Resort on Koh Klang Island, just across from Krabi town. There's only a fishers' village and the resort on the island. The resort has around 30 bungalows but only around four were occupied when I was there: peace and quiet.

I chartered a boat to get to the resort. Twice in the middle of the sea, the boat stopped moving after a thud and to my surprise the boatman just stepped out of the boat! He was turning the boat around and the water only reached his thighs: it was still low tide... For the same reason, the boat couldn't reach the beach in front of the resort. I would have had to wait a long time for high tide so I reached the hotel wading through the sea, the boatman carrying my suitcase on his shoulders. Not the grandest of arrivals, but quite exotic.

The staff in the kitchen and restaurant were particularly friendly. I tried all the local Southern Thai specialties, which reminded me of the rich Malay curries. I was even allowed to buy my own chili-and-dried-fish dip from the nearby village and enjoy it with fresh vegetables and rice at the hotel. I was even given a complimentary dish from the chef at three out of the five meals I took in the hotel restaurant. First a coconut syrup dessert; another time a fruit platter; at my last lunch I was given a plate of five king prawns, grilled with sweet and sour topping, compliments from the chef! After all this, the least I can do is make some free advertisement for this great resort.


Way down South
Josh Turner, Your man, MCA Nashville

The sounds of the city sifting through trees

I just came back from a holiday in Asia, passing through Thailand and Hong Kong. I spent three days in Bangkok during the Thai new year holiday. Timing was not ideal to see friends as everybody would have been on holiday. FAO was closed so I did not try to meet former colleagues. I did manage to meet a few friends, around drinks and food, of course.

I stayed with Lien Heikens and her two delightful daughters. One night we sat silently overviewing the city from the Hilton Millenium rooftop bar, just above where I used to live.

Just as pleasant as seeing friends again, I particularly enjoyed wandering around town through familiar places. It was like meeting a very old friend again, some subtle changes here and there but still the same overall.

Old friends
Simon and Garfunkel, Best of Simon and Garfunkel: Old friends
Sony Music Catalogue

Lift up your heads!

I have been having a kind of singing marathon last week.
Wednesday: recording session with the choral ensemble Les Métaboles
Thursday: dress rehearsal for Messiah with Choeur Varenne
Friday: première of Messiah
Saturday: voice tuition.

Luckily, I now get to rest until next Thursday and Friday when Choeur Varenne will give Messiah at Saint Germain des Prés Church in the centre of Paris.

The lesson I have learned is in the title of this post.

Lift up your heads to look at the conductor during the recording: it looks better on video.

Lift up your heads to look at the conductor during the dress rehearsal and concert: the church accoustics at Maisons Laffite where we first gave Messiah were very good for the choir as we could hear all the voices. However, the conductor said she could not hear us tenors because we were all at the back. We had to look at her and anticipate all her moves rather than just follow her: tricky.

Lift up the head of the palate inside the mouth to get a clear "o" sound; mine always tends to go off compared with other vowels and I have to pay particular attention to my Os.

I look forward to the concerts this coming week.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates
Messiah, G.F. Haendel.
The English Concert and Choir, Trevor Pinnock, Archiv Produktion

I'm on the top of the world

I was most fortunate to be invited by my friend and fellow singer Eric Cogniat in his chalet in the French Alps for a few days of skiing. In the village of Puy Saint Vincent, to be exact.

Big hearty breakfasts in the morning. Skiing all day with a midday break at the altitude restaurant to try out the local specialties (rabbit in mustard sauce or cabbage sausage). Home-cooked dinner by Eric's partner Emmanuel, me or whoever else felt like using the kitchen: cheese fondue, nouvelle cuisine, traditional French five-course meal, leftover smorgasbord, chocolate mousse, banana cake, carrot cake...

It was grand, including the view from the summit.


Top of the world
The Carpenters, Carpenters Gold, Universal

Now we've had our fruit salad today

Producers of red wines are always advertising the wonderful fruity flavours one can discover by drinking their wares. I have had a complete fruit salad experience over the course of two meals with just one wine.

First, I was delighted to host my old friend from agronomics school Bastien and his girlfriend Oz last Sunday night. I had prepared pears poached in wine for pudding. Because I knew I was going to use the wine for cooking, I did not purchase the most expensive wine I could find in the supermarket. I selected a bottle of red Cheverny from the Loire region; a blend of Gamay, Cabernet and Pinot noir grapes. "Very fruity", said the label. The wine had been poached with the pears, sugar, half a vanilla pod and cinnamon powder. Left over in our bowls was a deliciously sweet and light wine syrup, which in the mouth gave out pear and vanilla aromas slowly replaced by lingering cinnamon. However, these flavours were obviously those of the other ingredients cooked in the wine.

On the following Wednesday, I finished the leftover wine with my simple dinner of soup, salad, cheese platter and lemon tart but I was quite astonished to discover completely new and diverse flavours from this rather inexpensive wine.

Drunk alone, it was not particularly memorable, suitably fruity as advertized.
Along with fresh goat's cheese, the berry side came out while accentuating the "goaty" flavour of the cheese. Together with a more mature creamy goat's cheese, the mix reminded me of ripe apples. The real surprise came with the very creamy Camembert. I was expecting the wine to highlight the pungent cheese but instead it mellowed the taste of the Camembert into a cherry-flavoured cream! Finally, with the lemon tart, the wine gave hints of almond paste.

What a fruit salad! All that from just one bottle. Or perhaps I had just been rather too generous with the rhum for my piña colada before the meal...

Fruit salad
The Wiggles, Wiggles tribute - The greatest hits, BSA Media