Poets, painters and puddings. These three things make the world as it ought to be.

My family and other darlings

Time rushes by, and I have a paint brush and a palette full of paint waiting for me in the studio.

Yesterday we all went out on Chips the old speed boat that I don't like all the much, we had such a great time. Sadley what we did and what we ate will just have to wait because yet again I have no time.

My neice Rebecca eating and ice cream, and David in his boat.

I have a feeling

that I am not doing this blog thing quite as ethusiastically as I need to, to get readers and links and people interested in my pages. It is all quite a lot of hard work, so for me I have to keep it simple, as I do not have the time, my long hours are spent cooking and painting. I was speaking to another blogger the other day whose site already looks quite splendid, and she told me that she spends hours at the computor getting it right. So the question is. Am I a blogger or not? I don't know, what I do know is that I enjoy very much writing these pages and sharing a little of my adventures with you and talking of adventures, shall we go back there, back to Shark Island? I think so.

The dinghy was in the clear blue water, one of us had to stay on the boat on watch, Scottie stayed on board for the first trip, we jumped from the side of the boat into the dinghy, Eric had a perverse sense of humour and expected us all to be athletic, well we all were, except for me, jumping off was ok, but trying to heave myself back onto the boat was an ungainly sight, a sack of lead trying to defy gravity. Shore was not far and we landed on a sandy and shady beach, explorer's everyone of us. Ha ha what had we found. JAWS and jaws and jaws, shark jaws set out into the sun to bleach, flesh in various stages of decay, some of them did not smell too good, no one around, and old fire and a few rags. We decided that a local must come here to kill sharks to sell their jaws to tourists, the Island was a tropical jungle, full of hidden springs and waterfalls, quite magical. We decided that we should go diving, swimming with the sharks, we had read that the sharks in this area were completlely disinterested in humans, the sea was so abundant, no water creatures took any notice of us. I was brave enough to put on the diving gear, but when it came to rolling backward off the dinghy into shark infested waters, I chickened out. The rest of them went in though, they met up with about 50 hammerheads, apparantly harmless, I hoped that they had a nice conversation with them, and felt very happy that I had not taken the plunge. However beautiful the Island we could not stay there for long we had to reach our destination Santa Cruz, the main Island of the Galapagos. Early the following morning we pulled up anchor and went on our way.

The picture is of grilled fillet of beef with Montpellier Butter, Crisped Beetroot, Sweet Potato leaves and a compote of onions.

I hope that you all have a great sunday.

A beautiful Day In New York

I love New York, I am very luckey, I am staying very close to the Park, just two blocks away, I can walk down 64th Street and go in via the Zoo, or my preferred entrance on 66th Street. Everything was twinkling in the morning sunlight. I feel priveleged that my life is so full. Tomorrow is a big black tie dinner for 26 people, and after 33 years in Catering I still get nervous, I want to produce a fabulous meal, but the sheer quantity of people will make it hard to be really special as I am in the kitchen on my own. So what can I do? There is a very light and delicate salad that I love which is as fresh as spring itself. Melon, cucumber, mint, prawns, chives, good olive oil, lemon and or lime juice, salt and pepper to taste. I sometimes add Nicoise Olives and sundried tomatoes, according to how I feel. It is so simple, you can serve it in cocktail glasses, chilled. Then the main course, this has to be a buffet, as I do not have enough room to plate up 26 plates, or enough hands. There is a scrumptious Morrocan Lamb Casserole that I have altered over the years, people love it, it needs a whole page to itself.
The head of the Culinary Institute of America, the CIA! is coming to dinner, he has eaten my food before and I had a standing ovation, he is coming tomorrow night, I have to make a special dessert, maybe I should make two. My boss loves Tarte Tatin seved warm with Vanilla Ice cream, so I will do that, and let you know what else I come up with.

Now I want to take your minds away from today, and imagine a humid misty morning off the coast of south America and a group of people on a small boat preparing to go through the Panama Canal. We had to get up at 4 am to meet our legal guide, to take us through the canal, and literally the ropes. We were to go through the canal in between two giant Tankers, it was as if we had drunk Alice's potion and were now in Wonderland, ant like squashed by two monsters. Four of us had the monkey ropes, to either throw or catch, and take on or off the winches, I was terrified we could not get it wrong, the whole movement of the boat through the canal locks depended on us, and I am useless at catching and throwing. It all went well, so much so I even had the courage to ask the orange tanker behind us if they had any cream I could buy, the supermarket in Cristobel, did not sell anything quite so luxurious. The chef on the giant said yes, and we had cream lowered to us on a rope in the middle of the canal. Amazing. I have some good pictures at home, I shall make a photo album of my travels on the boat for you all to see.

The begining of the Boat

I know I am jumping around a bit, that is partly my character, leaping from France to New York to Bernardsville to the Galapagos and leaving out great chunks in between. I was still living in Gassin just outside St Tropez, we lived next door to chateau Minuty, very nice litttle wine. A job interview had come through, I was to meet the captain Eric for lunch in St Tropez. I put my best green dress on and drove there in Annie's citroen. I walked to the boat, and wobbled up the gang plank nervously and called out that I was there, oh my handsome men, my heart started to flutter. Eric, Ralph and Mick, I thought Eric was especially handsome, I hoped that I would get the job. Eric said there were two prerequisites for the job, knowing how to work hard and to play hard, I said I had a great deal of experience in both categories, I was to find out later, that I had never played that hard but I was a good student. We all got along very well, and Eric asked if I could spend a week on the boat and cook some test lunches and dinners and meet the boss. Why not? That is how I got to know Menton and buy my house in St Agnes. The boat was based in Menton during the summer season. I will never forget the dinner I cooked and quite frankly I would not want you to cook it either. Eric was the menu man, I found his choice very suprising and told him so, but he was determined, I think I did the best of a bad job, and still I got the job.
Thats how it all began on the boats, we were on our way to Palma were we would prepare the boat and ourselves for the atalantic crossing.
Tomorrow is recipe day and I shall give you the recipe for the Roasted Vegetable Terrine.

The photograph is of the lettuce wrapped Thai Prawn roll

On the way to the Bisque

Still by way of odd pictures from Bernardsville. I shall try and fish out some old photo's from the trip to the Galapagos when I get home.  The relief of saving Angelika was huge, she made that day her second birthday for years. Still we were pushing on for our destination, we had to stop in Saint Cristobel before our trip through the Panama Canal, for provisions and to make an estimate of the damage to the sails. Oh my word, what a place that was.  But perhaps I should give you the recipe for the Bisque before I carry on with the story.

You can use prawns, lobster or crab for this recipe. I have altered the recipe to suit my taste buds.

You will need for four

Half a bottle dry white wine. Some serious sploshes of good brandy. Heavy Cream. Two firm onions, 1 head of garlic, paprika, 4 very ripe plump vine tomatoes, 1 lemon, 2 teaspoons of curry, a spoonful of chili sauce or a tiny pinch of freshly chopped hot chili pepper. 2 sticks of lemon grass.  1 bunch of freash dill.1 good sized lobster. You can use frozen if you don't like killing them, I have even found fresh lobster tails uncooked in the shops here, which suits me just fine. 1 handfull of prawns shells on.  Firstly I make the stock, with the white wine water, one chopped onion two of the tomatoes, the prawns, the shell of the lobster, some chili, and several cloves of garlic and some salt and pepper to taste at the end of cooking. Bring to boil, skim of any nasty gunge, then cook on low heat until the stock has reduced to half the amount. In another pan, sweat the other onion, finely chopped, add the tomatoes finely chopped and chili and  three cloves of garlic finley chopped and the meat from the lobster also finely chopped and the currypowder or paste, cook gently and not for too long just long enough to cook the ingredients, pour the seived stock over it and cook for a few minutes. Then ha ha you are in the final stages, get your whizzer out, and pulverise the soup. I then pass the soup through three differant sized sieves. Course, meduim and then fine, you have to work hard at this and it is fairly long and ardous, so some good dancing music comes in handy, boogie while you work. The end result is wonderful. Put soup into clean saucepan, simmer gently and add a squeeze of lemon, a splosh of brandy and season to taste. After all has married, add some cream and sprinkle in a a tablespoon of finely chopped dill, Yummy and ready to serve.

For a peak at my paintings please click here

Lobster Bisque from Bernardsville to the Galalpagos

Photo of a pond on Post Lane. Nothing to do with Lobster Bisque, but pretty all the same.  I was making a creamy Lobster soup for the family on Easter sunday, and whilst I was pressing it through the third and finest sieve, I started to think of the Crab Bisque I made in the Galapagos, seals were honking and turtles were awkwardly making love on the sea's surface, the sun was going down, and I was making a bisque out of the land crabs Frederico had caught us the previous day. Frederico Inglesias was our own personal guide.

From London to the Galapagos, not bad. We set sail from Palma Mallorca mid november 1987 and arrived in Antigua just in time for christmas. Our cast of characters, The captain Eric, first mate Mickey, deckhand Scottie, Angelika friend and fellow sailor and me chief cook and bottle washer. ' Mystere' a 27 meter two masted schooner with a big round belly was our home and our work place. On this trip we were sailing down Island towards the Panama Canal, the Pacific Ocean and the Galapagos.

Speeding ahead down wind surfing the waves in fabulous weather the trip was exhilerating, we felt intrepid we were to be the first privately owned boat to sail around the Galapagos Islands, it had taken Eric two years to get permission from the Ecuadorian government. Since then many private yachts have been granted permission. We stopped in Bonaire for some deep sea diving and to see the coral reef there. But danger was ahead, overcome with excitement at the amazing speeds we were reaching as we zoomed down the waves to reach speeds as high as 18 knots. We had all the sails out. The Genoa, the main and all the other ones I cannot remember the names of. We were meant to trim the sails if the wind went higher than 30 knots. What with the excitemant and the adrenalin  working over time the guys on watch, did not notice the marked increase in the wind. Sound asleep, I suddenly found myself being thrown out of my bunk over the saftey board through the door and into the next cabin. We all rushed on deck to find out what the matter was, the wind was now at 55 knots, we rushed forward, Mickey, Scottie and myself to bring in the Genny, it was a fight with the wind the sail was coming down. Angelika was coming up the deck to help us, we were screaming at her 'go back go back' A huge gust of wind blew the sail out and knocked Angelika over the side, we saw her hand and knuckles go white as she tried to hold onto the thin wire live lines, we had let go of the sail. Mickey was trying to hold onto her hand, but she slipped away. The wind was so strong the sails were full, we could not bring them down. We threw a flare and a life bouy into the sea. Eric yelled at me to get a Galley knife and to slash all the rope on the sails, they had become jammed on the winches. I slashed the ropes, the sails flew into a rage with the wind and howled and screamed angrily about us as we tried to turn the boat around to save Angelika. Every moment seemed internable, we were living a nightmare, Angelika was fighting for survival in huge seas, thank goodness she was strong, I don't think she would have made it otherwise. We all had this absolute determination that we would find her and save her, and talking with her recently, she said that there was never a moments doubt in her mind that we would not find her. It was a miracle, quite simply a miracle. We did find her. Scottie lassoed her to safety. We had lost thousands of dollars worth of sail but we had saved Angelika and that was all that mattered.

So my journey towards the Bisque in the Galapagos started out in an amazing way. Tommorow I shall give you the recipe and continue with the story.