I’ve only been to three Michelin-starred restaurants in my life, and I didn’t pay for any of them.

The first one was in the south of France some 40 years ago. After having eaten one of everything, we placed the (possibly already full) credit card in a tastefully hollowed-out ancient book. To this day, the amount has never apeared on our credit card statement. The second one doesn’t really count, as I had booked the wrong restaurant and I don’t want to talk about it. And then there was last night in Geneva.

It was a gift, and in many ways it truly was. I saw and encountered several things that were entirely without precedent. It was sort of Cirque de Soleil on the table cloth.

The lights were dim, the pillows were plumped, the Christmas wooden soldier theme tastefully arranged and the spectacle was about to begin.

We popped in the chou pastry tickle-your-mouths. We delved under the foam of the oceanic pre-starter to find fishy bits and chestnuts. I think.

The butter girl passed with three different flavours (regular, vanilla, and pepper) and then my main starter arrived. It was an artfully-created miniature village built with bits of fig on a round slice of foie gras. In the middle there was a fig-jam pond. The little houses had real golden roofs. There was a wall of paper-thin pink wafer that stood up, ineffectually protecting the little hamlet from the wicked fork and knife that were about to descend.

The nice young man came to brush up the crumbs from my freshly-baked brioche, and then the second starter arrived. It featured porcini mushrooms in all their possible forms. There are, perhaps, reasons why Mövenpick does not produce industrial mushroom ice-cream.

Before the main course the knife girl came around with a set of six knives. You had to choose your handle colour. I chose shocking pink to delicately cut my venison. But the real treat was the chef’s speciality—a hallucination-in-a-glass called cappuccino. It was a mixture of potatoes and white truffles with black truffle crumbs sprinkled on top.

The nice young man gently prised the empty cup out of my fist and promised more…

The first dessert (called “a moment of sweetness”) was rather a shock, as there was a slice of raw fruit involved. This was more than made up for, however, by the decomposed miniature lemon tarts. And the main dessert was a magnificent jellied puddle of orange tastefully holding together a slice of apple on a biscuit.

After the chocolates and the fruit jellies, we finally ended the evening back at home watching the Japanese sumo championships on TV—which seemed especially fascinating and relevant after having eaten an entire village on my plate.

The gargantuan worlds of ritual and magic are now behind us and we have landed softly back into our Geneva-countryside world of bread and jam, baked squash, and grilled cheese sandwiches.

I have, though, put gold foil on my shopping list.

In these depressing days of Aleppo and Mosul and Donald, there is help at hand: the distraction of the fall fair.

Living in the Geneva countryside, you can choose your fair. There is, for example, the big Geneva Fall Fair (Les Automnales) coming up next month. Hundreds of stands will be set up inside Palexpo and you will be able to buy a house, a car, a dog, furniture and a swimming pool. You will be able to sign up for a kick-boxing and/or dancing classes and get a massage.

I have bought many lovely and useful things at this fair—an inlaid cow with a secret drawer, a camel blanket from Morocco, and a bracelet and headscarf from Palestine. It is an ideal place to do your Christmas shopping.

For the more rustic, there are the fall fairs over the border in France. The entry is free and after the danger and excitement of parallel parking on the mountainside main road you join the cider-drinking crowds. You buy roasted chestnuts and listen to the brass band playing on the town hall steps. They are dressed as clowns and one is proud to note that political humour is alive and well in France.

You closely examine the exhibitors’ stands. There are a couple of vans up from Aosta, Italy, selling copper pans and dried meat, but otherwise it is the local people selling what looks like their well-used personal belongings.

This year, among the wheel hubs, old clothes and shoes, piles of cheeses, and the priceless candy man, we particularly admired some mounted deer heads and a green frog water pitcher. We bought a house-full of porcelain plates for next to nothing as there seems to be a glut of old china on the market as it is not suitable for modern times as it loses its gold trim in the dishwasher.

Complete strangers brag of their extraordinary bargains. There is an overwhelming atmosphere of correct (cheap) consumerism. The collective mind harks back to the excitement of being a little kid with a couple of bucks in your pocket and endless potential purchasing possibilities.

And, of course, this is the beauty of the fall fair. It takes you back to the old days: the carnies putting up their rickety rides on the old fairgrounds; maple sugar candy, toffee apples, and bags of fudge; the prize-winning pies and butter tarts looking a bit worse for wear after a few days in the sun.

My sister tells me that nowadays in Canada most of this has been replaced with the spare-rib trucks, the skewered deep-fried potato slices, the lottery tickets, and the acrobatic girls dressed as bees showing off the vintage cars.

We agreed, though, that there is still that occasional whiff of cotton candy and cigar smoke in the crisp autumn air that shoots you, straight as an arrow, back to a gold-trimmed past.

I should have immediately realized that all Geneva shops running out of canned pumpkin was a sign. And then there was my sister’s message proclaiming that not even SHE (the festive queen) roasts turkeys anymore due to the last one being raw, overcooked, and inedible all at the same time. She clearly mentioned a turkey jinx, and I should have dropped all turkey plans immediately and firmly turned my mind towards salmon mousse and osso bucco.

But no. Once a girl gets a turkey dancing in her head, there is a fowl imperative.

(Historical Note:  Yesterday was the second Monday in October and, thus, the real (Canadian) Thanksgiving. The one that the freezing British explorer, John Frobisher, celebrated with his men in 1578, followed by the French settlers of Quebec in 1604 forming the Order of Good Cheer and having a jolly good pot-luck supper with their native neighbours.)

So, on Saturday evening, a distinguished group of French and Japanese friends were invited to our house for supper. The menu was not announced as the surprise factor and the photo opportunities were a brilliant foil for any culinary disasters.

A 6-kg fresh French turkey had been ordered. When it was picked up, it weighed a startling 10 kg – the reason being “they only had big ones”.

I consulted my 1960s cookbook, and was informed that, when stuffed, it would need 9 hours in a slow oven. In the old days, this would have been sufficient information. But having squeezed the huge naked thing with shaking wrists onto a baking sheet and into the lukewarm oven, I started checking.

I now have serious issues with the World Wide Web. The amount of information there was entirely mesmerizing and contradictory. By the time I had read through it all and realized that (probably) the turkey needed to be started in a hot oven, it had already been in a cold over for over an hour.

Covered in aluminium foil (due to lack of a turkey pan) it sat there doing NOTHING for half the day. As the sun tipped over the mountaintops I began to panic. I had found my turkey baster, but there was nothing to baste. There were emergency consultations. The upshot was that the stuffing should, perhaps, be outside, not inside, the bird. My American friend recommended one hour per pound (i.e., 22 hours) and added the fact that in her family home they had a rocket that shot out of the turkey when it was done. (She might have been making this up.)

It was a long and anxious afternoon as I slowly increased the oven temperature. Emotionally exhausted, at the end of the nine hours I gave up and removed the turkey. Wrists (and all the rest of me) were shaky.

It was perfect, but this was just dumb luck.  Next year, I swear, I’m going to forget all about this feast, and celebrate the Geneva Fast (Jeune Genevois which observes the St. Barthomomew’s Day Massacre, 1572).

All you need to cook is a dead-simple plum pie.

Well, it seems just like yesterday when I had my last colonoscopy. I remember all the gory details oh-so-well: the shoe-box-sized package of product wittily named “Moviprep”, spending a cold lonely evening stuck on the commode, and apprehensively waiting in the murky bowels of the clinic where technicians stroll around with what look like rolled-up black garden hoses.

And now, five short years later, I’ve been nailed again.

I tried, as usual, to talk my way out of it. There must be a mathematical error. She had promised only every 10 years. No history of colon cancer in my family. My favourite food is muesli. She was having none of it, and retaliated with her own stories concerning family members fainting because of the needle in the back of the hand.

When asked point-blank whether she had actually had one herself, the reply was negative of course.

Intensive international research (a phone call to my sister) has revealed serious cultural discrepancies in the prevention of colon cancer. In Canada you just have to avoid Vitamin C and aspirins and send three-days-worth-of-poo samples off in the mail from the comfort of your own home. After that, no news is good news. Scurvy is a possible side-effect if one procrastinates too long.

If some medical emergency rudely requires a real “colo” then you go on a delicious popsicle, jelly, liquid diet for three days. Here, on the other hand, you are not allowed to eat any fibre food (fruit and vegetables strictly forbidden) for five whole days.

Then there is the trauma of the evening before your procedure. You fix your first litre of Moviprep (“colo-cola” in local flash medical parlance), drink (with a straw), and wait. Canadian instructions focus on creating a calming environment with soothing music, scented candles, feather-soft toilet paper, and humorous and diverting reading material. My instructions from the Swiss clinic were to avoid social entertaining on that particular evening as I would be otherwise engaged; and to call an ambulance if nothing happened within two hours.

Anyway, I have a few months in front of me to prepare as the colo doctor has not bought her 2017 agenda yet. I will find the softest eiderdown toilet paper, the loudest Wagnerian thunder-box music, and the most beautiful candles.

Colo-cola cocktails will be served with small paper parasols and black straws. But what I’m really looking forward to is the day after when I will be basking in the sure and certain knowledge of a lovely, healthy, Swiss-clean colo.