Friday I spoke to Lana which made me happy beyond anything and then topped it off by consuming this week's crêpe of the week: the mysterious Cocagne; and not, as I dyslexically initially tried pronouncing to the amused waiter, Cognac (- he replied "No, no, that comes after!")
Anyway, what a Cocagne (cok-an-yur) contains is: hot goat's cheese, nuts and mint all wrapped up in a pancake, drizzled with honey and resting on a bed of salad, garnished with slices of tomato:
I had never tasted anything like it, when it arrived I'd already forgotten the details of what I'd ordered and so was surprised to see the honey and it tasted so good with the goat's cheese when I got to it and then a few mouthfuls later I discovered the mint leaves which .. ah I can't describe it but it was incredible and just lots of very exciting flavours!
I had in fact been absolutely ravenous when I began but I was struggling by the end, so it was definitely filling! I'm not sure how I felt about the nuts - unevenly distributed I missed them at the beginning, loved them in the middle and was left with a big clump at the end which I didn't really fancy (but of course still ate!) The waiter told me this is a VERY popular dish and lots of customers order it!
Wednesday night, in a desperate state of pmt I FINALLY got round to doing some baking and having searched high and low round my quarter, found the (almost) right ingredients to make a rather spectacular brownie:
I shared this with the girls in the kitchen at the time (some deeply appreciative moans emanating from Amel) and then, setting some aside for Mathilde and the prayer group girls, I took the rest in to work the next day. This went down very well indeed.
Friday I made a bit of a mistake: Chris asked me the address of one of our publishers. I sent it to him in an email entitled "I ate a big red candle", following on from a series of favourite Anchorman quotes. Five minutes I heard a big laugh from across the room and Chris looked up and asked me why I'd put the same publisher in cc - he had just emailed back with a row of question marks!
I was just glad I hadn't put something more inappropriate like "Why don't you go back to your home on whore island" as the subject!
Saturday morning I did lots of boring little jobs (ooh but excitingly found cupcake tins - I can finally bake with Amel!) but Saturday afternoon was heaven: I went and found this huge park in north-west Paris which I've seen on the map for ages but it's always been too much of an effort to go and find, but I found it and it was vast and I wandered for an hour, (only seeing a tiny part) before settling down in the sunshine in my big skirt against a tree by a lake to read, stopping only to get an ice-cream and then staying until evening! I finished by book by the lovely Guillaume Musso who writes so beautifully clearly - now onto my second library book by Marc Levy, whom, without the help of a dictionary, I cannot understand at all!)
Saturday evening Anne Laure called up to my window and asked me if I wanted to go to a concert and so we went to this beautiful little church in central Paris which though narrow was very tall and as it was packed we sat at the very top with someone else from church and looked down through the arches on this 5-man gospel choir from the Congo and they were fantastic, but my favourite was a man stood at the end who was considerably older than the others and just SO UNBELIEVABLY cool! The others were really throwing themselves into it and moving about all over the place but this guy was just stood there, making the tiniest movements and was just amazing - made me think of Brian and how much he would have appreciated him! And then, as we came out I was INTERVIEWED by a man with a camera, asking me what I'd thought! I'm such a celebrity.
Finally, I had the room to myself this weekend as Mathilde was away so it all got deliciously messy and then I tidied it today and found this message in my paper-pad:
No comments:
Post a Comment