Fillet of pork

OUR LAST-Monday-of-the-month dinner goes well last night, with much good fellowship and conviviality.

My meal, unfortunately, wasn’t quite up to expectations, though: a fried fillet of pork served on a bed of sweet potato.

Part of the trouble is that I’m not that keen on sweet potato, but mainly it’s to do with the fact that my mother used to do fillet of pork – and so good was it, I once told her that this dish alone could have got her a job in any restaurant in Europe! And I still believe that to be true.

It was simply enough done; medallions of pork coated in seasoned breadcrumbs and then partly fried and partly baked until nicely browned. She had the knack of cooking it just right – they were tender, moist and utterly delicious, with just a nice touch of crispness from their coating.

The trouble was, we’d have them regularly, every week, and in those pre-freezer days, we’d have to eat them until they were all gone. So for two or maybe three days we’d be chewing through tenderloin of pork and complaining about it! Can you imagine? Complaining about this caviar of meat cuts because we had too much of it?

But it was the same with a lot of things in those days. Mum’s pea and ham soup, for example – so good, it was to die for. A main course soup with great chunks of vegetables and mouth-filling lumps of ham. But each day my brother and I would come home from school and guess what was for tea! That’s right, still more soup!

So I learned early that you can have too much of a good thing.

Looking back, though, I suppose I know that for some things I was spoiled forever. Soups of one sort or another, roasts – and above all, fillet of pork.

Language barrier

WE’VE DONE it! We’ve booked our holiday at last! Two weeks in Pompei (no, I’ve not misspelt it – the modern town has a single “i”, the ancient ruins double “ii”).

The only thing that concerns me about this holiday is that I speak no Italian at all and I need to be able to communicate that My Good Lady is disabled and that she might be in need of assistance.

(It would also be useful to understand an Italian menu, too!)

Of course, I’ve still got a couple of months to learn a few words – just hope that’s enough.

I’ve talked about language courses before in these blogs, especially my trusty old Linguaphone French course – quaintly dated and obsolete in vocabulary, it nevertheless actually works!

There’s another possibility though: maybe I’m just getting too old and lazy to learn languages.

Now, there’s a depressing thought!

One thing I am sure of is that having some words of a language is the best way of getting to know local people – and the world over, I’ve found people to be friendly and helpful and generous, if you can communicate with them.

Being an English speaker, of course, spoils you, makes you complacent. Australia, Canada, the West Indies – all speak English after a fashion.

It’s only here, in Europe, that there as many languages as there are countries.

Anyhow, I’ll just have to knuckle down and learn a few phrases.

Yummy!

OVER THE weekend, I did one of my experimental cook sessions, and I can’t resist boasting of a modest triumph.

I made us a sautéed chicken with a carrot and leek mustard cream sauce.

Even My Good Lady had to acknowledge that it was yummy!

Actually, I got the recipe out of Saga Magazine – not always the most successful sources of ideas. I sometimes think they concoct these offerings without having tried them out first.

This one, however, really did work well.

I browned off some chicken thighs before frying up the carrots and leeks and a finely sliced clove of garlic. I then put in a good splash of dry white wine and simmered the lot for about 20 minutes.

The cream and Dijon mustard went in just before the end with a good handful of chopped parsley from MGL’s herb garden.

Served simply with new potatoes and green beans – excellent!

Withdrawal

WE’VE lately been trying to avoid going to the Pub quite as often – it was all getting a little out of hand.

Even now, some of our friends say “See you tomorrow,” as if automatically assuming our presence there.

We’ve tried to be tactful about it, it’s nothing personal we tell them; it’s just that an eight-mile round trip is rather a long way to go for us.

What’s more, the Pub isn’t the cheapest of places in which to have a drink – our village local, here, charges nearly forty pence less for the same round of drinks.

And what’s more, our local here is within a comfortable walking distance for me, and an easy ride for My Good Lady on her electric scooter.

This process of withdrawal has been going on, gradually, for some time – indeed since last year, when we abandoned our membership of the gym (one of the principal reasons we ended up going there quite so often – after the strain of exercise the need for a recuperative drink being strong upon us!).

I know some of our friends and acquaintances miss our company, but we still see most of them at least once a week. Like I say, it’s not personal. Indeed, the only reason we still make the trip is to meet up with them and have an enjoyable crack together.

Just a little less often, that’s all.

Haircut

THESE DAYS, I like to keep my hair fairly short – gone the days when I could wear it down to my shoulders; shortish hair looks reasonable even when it’s untidy.

Trouble is, I’ve had difficulty in locating a good barber.

I’ve tried several, but none of them have proved to be wholly satisfactory.

That is until now. The moment I stepped into his shop I knew I’d found my man.

In the waiting area, you are greeted by green leather chesterfields, worn perhaps, but wonderfully comfortable.

On the walls are framed photographs of the likes Humphrey Bogart, Louis Armstrong and Clark Gable, as well as an original poster of the film Casablanca.

“Nothing to do with hairdressing,” Terry tells me, “I just love the film!”

I agree with him, in my book Casablanca is one of the greatest movies ever made.

And then there’s Terry himself, a gentle man, well-travelled and deeply cultured and with an appetite for life that belies his sixty-five years.

“I’ve no intentions of retiring, I enjoy my work too much!” he says.

We talk about our interests in film, in jazz music, in travel; and it’s as if we’ve know each other for years!

By the time my hair’s done, we seem to be firm friends.

He escorts me to the door and there we shake hands.

“See you soon,” I tell him.

“I hope so,” he says.

And as I walk away, I’m struck by the fact that for the first time having my hair cut hasn’t been a chore, it’s been a pleasure.

A beautiful evening

WE ENJOY one of our favourite wines this evening: a Gavi di Gavi, a beautiful, fully rounded, deeply satisfying white, often called Italy’s Chablis – although I feel that’s doing both wines an injustice; the two are poles apart in every way.

And we enjoy the vino to the sounds of one of our favourite singers: Ella Fitzgerald doing the Harold Arlen Song Book.

Who’s Harold Arlen? You might well ask. Until I got us this two CD set I’m not sure I could have answered this question.

If you haven’t heard of this composer, you’ll surely know some of his songs. “Stormy Weather”, “That Old Black Magic”, “I’ve Got the World on a String”, “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive” among many others – all done with Ella’s inimitable style and integrity.

And as if my cup doesn’t already runneth over, I have My Good Lady’s company for good measure.

Sometimes life just doesn’t get any better.

"Who's NOT going on a summer holiday!"

THERE’S BEEN SOMETHING of an end-of-term feel to the Geriatrics’ Corner lately.

Maybe because it is end-of-term time, with the kids all looking forward to their summer hols.

Not just the kids, either, but the grown-ups as well.

Mr P the music teacher, for example, is off shortly to his favourite holiday spot – Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. “There’s absolutely nothing to do there,” he says. “It’s wonderful!”

Little B is off to Aysgarth in Yorkshire tomorrow for a couple of days, while PD is flying away with his family to his usual destination, in Crete.

Indeed, it seems everybody is going away somewhere – except us!

We’re still undecided about where we’re off to, if indeed anywhere.

“Are you still thinking of going to Lake Garda?” PD asks. We admit we have been considering it. “It’s just that I saw an advert in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday. A ten day holiday in Lake Garda for £580, flights and a couple of excursions included.”

My Good Lady though points out the problem with this though: “It has to be wheelchair accessible. And one thing I do know is that I can’t manage to get onto coaches.”

And it must be said, this is a major obstacle for us. And it’s strange how some parts of the world are better than others from the point of view of disabled access.

We had no problem at all with getting aboard the Rocky Mountaineer train in Canada last year – they just rolled her onto this lift contraption and up she went – easy as pie.

In other places – especially in Europe for some reason – facilities for disabled people can be almost wholly ignored, indeed almost to the point of resentment.

The one thing we have learned on our various travels is to plan ahead and to check everything – hence our careful study of potential destinations.

No doubt we will eventually get away, just nothing fixed up at the moment. We can only look at our friends’ comings and goings with a degree of amicable envy!

Al fresco dining

IT'S OVER 100 degrees F in the garden this evening - 102 to be exact.

That's warm!

We're almost reluctant to start in on the hot, homemade crab soup; instead, we enjoy a second apéritif (a g. & t. for me, an extra-dry martini with lemonade for My Good Lady). We're not great nibblers as a rule, but we do succumb to the fresh anchovies we got as a treat at the fishmonger's the other day.

We watch the temperature slowly falling on the thermometer on the side of the shed - down to about 85 before we finally decide we can face the soup; we stir in a dollop of cream as it warms up,and we pop the jacket spuds into the mircowave.

By now, the sun has gone behind a cloud and the temperature has dropped to 70 - just about right for dining.

As we tuck into MGL's excellent crab and vegetable soup we reflect just how holiday-like this dining al fresco is: it's what we always do in France, when we're self-catering there. It's one of the pleasures of being abroad, and now it's a pleasure we can enjoy right here, at home, this summer, with our birds twittering around us, and our garden stretching out into the distance.

All very agreeable.