Julia Child and French Cooking

Watched a film called, 'Julie, Julia' or was it 'Julia and Julie?' It was the story of two chefs. Both amateurs. Both loved food. In the 1940s, an American living in Paris for a few years, Julia Child co-wrote a book on french cooking for the Americans while studying french cooking.
In modern day New York, Julie Powell, who worships Julia Child, spends a year working through the recipe book and keeping a blog on it. This becomes the basis for the book and then this film.
Meryl Streep as Julia Child is funny and brilliant. Amy Adams is perfectly stroppy and charming as Julie.
I've been downstairs to fetch the DVD box. It's 'Julie and Julia.'

Stanley Tucci is excellent too. All the cast are.
It's a Nora Ephron film (Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry met Sally) and it has her touches and slants but less so than her other films. Just glimpses probably because the Julia Child character is so strong. Meryl Streep is so strong playing her. Her voice fills the air.
And the food. The food. It's made me want to go and buy the book, 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' even though I know I will never make half the dishes, like dressed lamb and lobsters. That scene....I won't spoil it.
But there are other dishes I will definitely make. I know the first. Beef Bourginon. Done in her way. And butter, butter, butter. I love butter anyway, definitely Anchor Butter, but I'm going to use it more. The flavour is described in the film when used in sauces and to cover a chicken and to, oh, do so much. And closing your eyes you taste it.
Isn't it wonderful when your senses kick in? Like smelling coffee and fresh bread and the first cut grass of the year and the last? Like the aroma of delicate roses or jasmine? Fresh paint?
And the taste of fresh bread. And buttery cake.
I want to clear out the freezer of anything I haven't made. Only fresh food cooked well. And sitting round a table sharing it with friends and family. Isn't that what life is about? I've often wished I was that type of person, I think you have to be a genuine giving, loving, sharing person to cook like this. I'm going to try. Will it be like the chicken and the egg? Which will come first? Will they blend as I pulverise vegetables into a soup?! Or as I beat eggs for a cake?
Will this help find what is important?

Mmm. Thinking about what to cook tonight. I know it's soup (home made) and mushroom omelette and crispy roast potatos. Got to be light, Miranda has capoeira and I have Writers' group. Not sure why that figures, but it does. Sitting down you don't want to be full just as doing exercise you don't.
The windows are open because it's a sunny spring day. Lovely fresh smelling green shooted, bud riddled air.
Bon Appetit. Can hear Meryl Streep shouting that now.

Knowing ourselves

Was listening to the radio this morning and the presenter was commenting on a talk by the writer, A.S. Byatt. I'll summarise:
The rise of social networking, tweeting etc is to give us credence that we exist. In a world generally where God is not acknowledged we need something else to tell us our place and who we are.

The more we're noticed (from hits etc from tweeting and the friends we have and comments from social networking) the more we exist. Or feel we do.

However, the way we really find out who we are and our place in the cosmos is by being alone; exploring our thoughts, looking around us at our world, reading something that makes us take a stand, learning to know ourselves not through others' eyes, but through our own.

Who said, 'It is in solitude we find ourselves....?'

And where am I writing this?

Ash Wednesday

We had the best pancakes I've ever made last night. Small fantastic non-stick pan and a Delia Smith recipe. I think it was the added couple of spoonfuls of melted butter that made the difference to the mixture. Lemon dashed on top and then rolled. Delicious.

And then today is Ash Wednesday. A Christian man was talking on the radio about it. I love it when I learn something new as I did from what he said. Ash Wednesday is to remind us that when we die we turn to ash. Not that we go on to something else, but that we die. Only God is immortal. We are not.
When dying, people were often surrounded by family. Last wishes said. Nowadays in most circumstances everything is done to keep people alive. So often people die in hospital hooked up to a machine. Death is not considered part of the natural cycle by many but a challenge we must put off. Don't let it happen.

But we are not immortal. Death is part of the cycle. We die and we turn to ash.
Death is a reminder that we must make the best of being alive. Not waste it. Life isn't just a series of 'do this, do that, do the next thing.' It is about making the most of every minute, everything we do, how we do what we do. And the people we spend all these minutes living amongst.
Death gives an urgency to life. It gives life meaning. Today is a reminder of that.

So what wonderful thing am I going to do today to celebrate this? Sit here and write! Because I have to get it down. Tomorrow I may forget.
But I'm going to try harder this year to remember what Ash Wednesday is about and not merely about the first day I'll have a go at giving up something I like.

There's a Yeats' poem that sums this up. I can't find it at the moment, but I'll keep looking.

Coastal Erosion

The three part serialisation of "South Riding" concluded last night on BBC1.
Robert Cairn died when the cliff collapsed from under him and he and his horse fell onto the beach below.
This was in Yorkshire in the 1930s.

'Erosion,' set in 2011 and the cliff is still collapsing. A chalet falls. A couple are still inside. It crashes onto the shingle.

People still live on the edge. Has so much changed?

But the people living in the shacks in Erosion have had enough. What can they do?

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be re-organised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganisation; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation."
CAIUS PETRONIUS. AD66
(Ordered to commit suicide by NERO for being a trouble maker.)

WORLD BOOK DAY

It's WORLD BOOK DAY.

Read something that will inspire, affect, enhance, educate....and carry that with you.

Motivation

At the writers' group I attend, one of the members commented that he didn't get how the people in the chalet park could kill each other or themselves when killing yourself is so difficult.
The residents of the chalet park that is collapsing into the North Sea don't want to leave the place they have lived in for over thirty years. They have nowhere else to go. They have no savings, no money, no family, or family that would take care of them in their old age. They don't want to move from their homes that look over the North Sea.
They aren't young. They don't have commitments to others. They will not be missed if they die.
And for them some things are worse than dying. Rock bottom. When you're absolutely at rock bottom, it's a relief to lie down rather than stand up.

The only problem is Lizzie, a stranger is suddenly living amongst them. They must put on a brave face; she mustn't know.

I haven't got to the end of the story yet. They don't want to die without purpose. They have a further motivation. The test will be if this motivation is enough to satisfy the reader.