And why does it hurt, you ask ? Because it is suffering from champagne damage. This is a very familiar sensation which I have not had for a very long time. It is, however, accompanied by an unusual and strange exhilaration, which I hope is genuine and not pre manic. Yesterday I spent ALL DAY cleaning. It is true that the house was very dirty but that doesn’t usually bother me too much. In the few moments that I was not sneezing in clouds of dust and dog hairs, I was jostling my sweet H for position around the cooking surfaces, as curry after curry, with various subtle and unsubtle spice combinations was being prepared in a complex production line. Since our guests were all French, and French people like to taste wine, the chilli hand had to be under strict control, but authenticity was still important, so at least one dish was pig bitingly hot, and Mr PATAK with his ready made formulas was not in evidence, except to supply lime pickle to rival my sweet H’s homemade variety.
We had
Deep fried mung beans
Fried sunflower seeds
Raita and chutneys
Onion Bajhis
Vegetable pakoras
Tandoori chicken
Dahl
Sag bahji with mutta panir (made by boiling milk separating the curds and a lot of messy dripping from muslin over the sink)
Mushroom and coconut korma
Parathas
Kulfi.
Our guests, perhaps a little unnerved by the prospect of not only making a culinary visit to such a distant land, but also being cooked for by ‘les ros beefs’ (the English have a less than glowing reputation as chefs in France) decided to fortify us all by bringing champagne, not a usual accompaniment to Indian food, and they forced me to drink lots of it by not having very much themselves…
They did distinguish themselves about the food and the red wine however and politely enjoyed 20 minutes of my sweet H’s photo display of India, with discourse. (He has 4000 photographs but has mercifully seen the virtue of editing)
But even better, one of them, our close neighbour, has recently lost his male cat, which had eaten poison. He is looking for a female cat to replace it, since they don’t wander so far, and are less likely to eat nasty things. A deal was struck in the post onion bahji and champagne euphoria at the table. He will take Tiddles if we promise to look after Tiddles and his four chickens while he is in Canada for 3 weeks this summer…and we keep the eggs.
I hope he remembers this morning. Maybe we should have got him to sign something.
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