Memory rambles over lunch

"Nostalgia - the vice of the aged." Angela Carter

Same old, same old. Another ramble about memory and nostalgia. I know, so apologies, but I couldn't really let our wonderful Friday lunch with our regular lunch friends go unacknowledged. I mean look at it - in spite of my awful photography. Not my cooking this time.

In the last few years we have fallen into a pattern with two old friends, of entertaining each other - turn and turn about - with an invitation to lunch. Both I and Monika love cooking - I think she may have a larger collection of cookbooks than I, and the men love to talk about their various ailments, Neanderthals and Romans. Much like men of their age I believe. I'm sure we all four fall into a stereotype that can easily be mocked and scorned but also probably envied. We are the lucky generation. We may have mostly started poor but look at us now.

On Friday it was their turn and from midday until late afternoon, as dusk was falling, we sat outside in the warm sunshine. T-shirt weather. The last gasp of summer perhaps - you never know in Melbourne - for this is today - a photo taken just now from my window. It rains and it is cool - and yet - Melbourne again, my weather widget tells me that from 4.00pm on the sun will shine again. (No - it's shining now - sort of - at 12.30.) But enough of the weather, however much as it may affect our mood and our outlook on life.

Although that said, as soon as we sat at the table, adorned with that gorgeous Provençal tablecloth on a gorgeous sunny day, memories came flooding back of similar lunches - but this time in France, specific moments from those holidays, and then the regrets that we had not bought some of those glorious Provençal textiles, pottery and baskets - not because of the cost - but because of the weight.

We exchanged stories of the ones that got away and the small purchases - Monika's tablecloth and our smaller plasticised one - of the blue and sunflower type - were what we talked about and how we foolishly decided not to spend the money on posting them home. Oh the lasting effect of frugal habits when young. But I also remembered the two teacloths we did buy and that we actually framed, and which I should retrieve after David removed them from the wall in favour of our grandchildren's childhood paintings. Maybe they could hang in the kitchen. Or the earthenware pot - a rustic brown - that I bought in a hypermarket, not a romantic market, on one of our last days on one of our last trips.

Why did I not buy one before we left England, on our camping trip to France? I found this photograph relatively recently of myself and friend Sue looking at them. We must have been considering a purchase, although our available funds would have been extremely low. But we were travelling in a car so weight was not a problem. Embarrassing now - a bikini at a market? I hope it was beside the beach. Silly how a tablecloth can bring back so many memories.

"Keep some souvenirs of your past, or how will you ever prove it wasn't all a dream?" Ashleigh Brilliant

It's the same with all souvenirs is it not? When you are there and those souvenirs are everywhere, part of you thinks of them as commercial rubbish, so you don't buy and regret for ever more. For even the cheapest tat - like those Hawaiian shell necklaces can evoke memories of happy times, of youth. I found this quote from Anita Pallenberg (Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones' girlfriend/wife? I think), when looking for memory quotes:

"Before you know it it's 3 am and you're 80 years old and you can't remember what it was like to have 20 year old thoughts or a 10 year old heart."

Which to me is very sad, and wrong, wrong, wrong, because those things, and old photographs take you back to your 20 year old self or your childhood heart. The difference between a thing and a photograph is that the thing is 'active' in the sense that you acquired it and so you can therefore probably remember that moment - at least vaguely. A photograph may be a complete surprise - a moment in time - like me in a bikini looking at pots I do not remember that moment at all - but I do remember the holiday and other moments. Besides surely we are all much younger in our heads than we are in our bodies, even though our bodies remind us every now and then how old we truly are.

But back to our much more recent lunch. You have probably realised by now our meal was French in spirit. I am pretty sure that Monika would have cooked from recipes for this lunch - it's what she and I do. An opportunity to flex our culinary muscles as it were. So we began with quiche.

So silkily delicious. My custards are not nearly as silky although it might be the fault of overloading the quiche with the filling. This one was smoked salmon - a perfect choice for a quiche - and there was not much left as you can see. My memories here were not of occasions or holidays, or even moments in time - but more a case of knowing that I have now made so many quiches, that how to make one is so part of my brain that I do not need to think about it at all. It's a quick and regular meal - pastry made in bulk, and frozen in quiche-like quantities and the filling made from whatever needs using up in the fridge. Occasionally this has been unconventional - tandoori chicken? Try it - it works. Smoked trout and grated beetroot? Well I thought it was an original and unconventional thought until I discovered that it was actually a pretty standard combination. There is indeed nothing new under the sun. Well at least for us ordinary folk.

The main dish was a tarragon chicken - a classic French dish - served with carrots which were buttery and tender and a green salad with vinaigrette with salad leaves from their bounteous garden. Monika bemoaned the fact that there was so much butter in the chicken dish but I have to say the chicken was perfectly cooked, and - well - I love butter and even melted butter flavoured with herbs is a sauce in itself. Certainly the French love butter too but they do also love sauces, and perhaps a tarragon chicken with a creamy sauce might be some people's preference. Me - I like them both. I almost forgot the potato gratin - I think I was influenced by the photograph below that didn't show it. Needless to say it was perfect. Although I am tempted to say that you almost can't ruin a potato gratin. And believe me I have tried - well not tried - but definitely overcooked and undercooked, and both were still pretty good. Undercooked maybe not so much - but, if you have the time, easily rescued.

What is interesting memory wise here is that although this is a classic French meal, I do not remember eating tarragon chicken in France - well not in a home anyway, nor those carrots. I learnt about them from Elizabeth David, Robert Carrier and Jane Grigson. The salad however is just so much a must have for a French meal - in France served after the main dish as a palate cleanser before the cheese. Every day.

We have access to reasonable, indeed quite good baguettes here in Australia, but no - it's not like a real French baguette. Cheese from everywhere, as well as beautifully made here in Australia is however. And that quince paste had been made by a friend. The corella pear is a gourmet touch acquired over the years of fine dining in posh restaurants I suspect. Cheese before dessert? Another acquired habit from the French over the years. A personal one for David and I from past experience, and one I suspect that we have passed on to others.

So we come to the end with dessert - chocolate cake with ice cream and raspberries, served with a glass of De Bortoli Noble One from long ago. I am somewhat lost for words.

A word on the wine - I did not drink the red wine which was a Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra, but the white which I did drink with great pleasure as did everybody else was a local one - Shaws Road Premium Reserve Chardonnay - gorgeous and made from grapes from two local vineyards, one of which is in Eltham itself. A beautiful bottle too, and it's a beautiful vineyard/wine cellar a few kilometres from here in the Nillumbik hills - the last gasp of the Great Dividing Range, and just above the Yarra Valley itself. A vineyard we all four visit when we do the Nillumbik vineyard cruise. So memories of happy times doing that, and also of dining there - when they did the dining. Alas no more.

Past good times remembered - and new ones created. Next time you go somewhere memorable collect a souvenir.

"As long as there are memories, yesterday remains. As long as there is hope, tomorrow awaits. As long as there is friendship, today is beautiful." Billy Joel - of all people.

POSTSCRIPT - A true postscript this. As we were leaving I was gifted a bag of cumquats from their very productive garden, and yesterday I made 4 smallish jars of marmalade which used up a half bag of raw sugar that I had not been able to squeeze into it's jar. Very satisfying, and David tells me very tasty. thank you Monika - I will gift you one if that's not carrying coals to Newcastle, and if, indeed you like marmalade.

YEARS GONE BY

May 3

2025 - Gennaro's Verdure

2024 - Nothing

2023 - The dream of Tuscany

2022 - Morsels and dainties

2021 - Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Dill

2018 - Despair - why I'm a food fraud

2017 - Banksia honey