And now I’m the receptionist!

Pretty much since the beginning, we’ve had an absolutely adorable old lady who lives here in the village as a regular customer. She has quite a large and far-flung family who also come regularly when they’re in the area. She has a son who lives in Collioure, and another son who is a retired chef and who lives in California with his kids and grandkids and they all come over in the summer. She is tiny and white haired and I cannot help myself but run out of the kitchen to give her a big hug whenshe comes. She probably finds this quite alarming, but I just can’t help myself.

Well today she came with her daughter and was even more tiny and bundled up in a fur (fake, I hope-but I doubt!) Having made it to her table downstairs having been hugged to death by me, she commented to Dave that the receptionist is so charming……

Well, good job I’m not precious about job titles! However, chuffed at being thought charming, natch.

And now I’m the receptionist!

Pretty much since the beginning, we’ve had an absolutely adorable old lady who lives here in the village as a regular customer. She has quite a large and far-flung family who also come regularly when they’re in the area. She has a son who lives in Collioure, and another son who is a retired chef and who lives in California with his kids and grandkids and they all come over in the summer. She is tiny and white haired and I cannot help myself but run out of the kitchen to give her a big hug whenshe comes. She probably finds this quite alarming, but I just can’t help myself.

Well today she came with her daughter and was even more tiny and bundled up in a fur (fake, I hope-but I doubt!) Having made it to her table downstairs having been hugged to death by me, she commented to Dave that the receptionist is so charming……

Well, good job I’m not precious about job titles! However, chuffed at being thought charming, natch.

A tad nippy! ( And a gammy arm)

It’s probably nothing compared to other parts of Europe, but it’s -6.5° as we came home, and falling. We’ve split the dining room into two to make it easier to heat and the outer part is at 0°! Obviously we heat the inner part, in case you think we don’t heat any of it!! A solitary couple of guys ventured out into the nippiness tonight to give us something to do, so we are home quite early, hence a blogortunity.

Also, been suffering with a really sore left elbow and related muscular pain down to my wrist since just just after Christmas (mysteriously coincides with having a go at a new dance-ercise dvd that I got from Santa, but shh, don’t tell anyone!) So finally went to the Docs today for a diagnosis. Of-course I was convinced that it was bone cancer and Dave bet me €1 I’d get anti-inflammatories. Of-course he was right and I rightly paid up. He reckons he could go into business as a Doc and just oscillate between prescribing anti-inflamms, and anti-biotics. The other point here, really, is the oddity of knowing your Doc on a social level as well, it’s just more interesting to talk about skiing! It’s kind-of odd, but also a bit comforting. I know he finds it a bit wierd too – he socialises with loads of his patients!

So anyway, no bone cancer, thank heavens, just tennis elbow, torn tendons that join the muscle of my forearm to my knobbly elbow bone. So it has a name and I can plead weak and feeble! However rest is one of the treatments……I’ll have to teach Dave to cook…..on second thoughts…

Well, there’s only one thing you can do in these circs, and that is to go off and meet some good mates in a fab apartment in a new resort (to us)a 5 hr drive away for a couple of days and completely skive off for an extra couple of days. So we’re off on Sunday after the lunch service and back on Weds. Can’t wait!!

Curry Night

Curry Night for Feb!!

OOTD – (one of those days)

You know those days when you amaze even your own self with your stupidity and/or clumsiness? Well that was my day today. I have 2x8L deep fat fryers – pretty dinky by most pro kitchen standards- but even so they need rigorous oil changing, and today was the day! The procedure is that I grab some empty plastic 5L containers ( which the new oil comes in), insert a sort of removable tap in the bottom of the fryer and open the tap and it starts pouring into the container. Now, if you have been paying attention, you will notice that the fryers are 8 l and the containers are 5. So I have to survey closely the progress of drainage and nimbly change containers when the first one becomes full. Well, I started making bread …..lost my concentration ..and next thing, about 1 l of oil running across the floor… Arghhhhh and then the midday bells struck and we were open. Damn.

My commis chef!

Starting preps for curry night on Friday and getting a hand from my commis chef!!

A lovely set of beets!!

They had this tray of lovely heirloom beets at our cashncarry so I snapped them up. I wrapped them up in little foil parcels and roasted them with butter, lemon and thyme. There are orange, white and pink ones. The pink ones are particularly pretty. I have to say, though that they are really time consuming to prepare, I couldn’t consider using them in summer. Although they peel quite easily once cooked, it takes time.