I have sworn off foie gras for the foreseeable future.

During yesterday’s afternoon walk through the muddy horse-pooped paths of the Geneva countryside, a vision came to me. Enough of the spaghetti bolognaise, the raclette, the Indonesian stir-fries, the pork chops and apple sauce. We were going to eat something unique and special; something I’d never tasted before; something of opulence and splendour.

We were going to sample that all-time French classic, Tournedos Rossini.

In my defence, I think the hallucination came from a touch of “cabin fever”–that well known Canadian wintertime medical event when prolonged isolation creates a feeling of claustrophobia, restlessness and paranoia. Anyway, the idea was not my fault.

To create a Tournedos Rossini, you first need a big fat chunk (800 grams) of beef fillet. The original recipe (created almost exactly 200 years ago by the famous French chef, Casmir Moissons, big friend of the foodie and opera-writer, Gioachino Rossini) called for a 8cm thick piece of tenderloin. Well, we had two rather thin slices of beef bought that morning from the supermarket over the French border. They would have to do.

Next ingredient was bread. No problem as there was a Grand Boule Campagnard resting in the breadbox. Then there was the 150 gm of foie gras. Also (Noël oblige) there was a perfect pack of two skinny rounds of duck liver only slightly out-of-date in the fridge.

Butter was required for all cooking stages (fortunately, there was an “action” at the Migros last week and I had four bricks.)  And to top it all off, 70 grams of thinly sliced Périgord black truffles were needed.  This final addition would have to wait until next time, as digging in the cold, dark, muddy garden was simply not an option. And it was agreed that the corner store probably didn’t carry them.

Unfortunately, there was the last-minute surprise discovery that a sauce espagnole demi-glace was required, as otherwise the whole concoction would be too “dry”. I don’t know how Casmir made his Madeira sauce, but I made mine with brandy and beef bouillon powder. (Tip: any good poutine gravy would work just fine.)

We started dinner with a simply boiled artichoke. This was to clean our livers and prepare them for what was going to happen to them next.

The cook retired to the kitchen and closed the door. Skillets and butter were distributed across the stove top, and the air turned blue.

As everything has to be warm and assembled at the last moment, there were a couple of glitches. One of the chunks of duck liver just disappeared, melting into mushy nothingness. The meat was a little tough (being only half a centimetre thick, rather than the recommended four.) But the bread and gravy were perfect.

For supper tonight I have a plastic box of vintage spaghetti sauce thawing out on the kitchen counter. It is a pre-cabin-fever creation dated October 30, 2020. There will be cheese on top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because of Covid19 many golden opportunities will be lost forever. For example, I will never be able to show Valéry Giscard d’Estaing the way to the downstairs men’s toilet of the Uni II building ever again. This was a few decades back, and he was lost—wandering desperately in the concrete halls. Whimpering. I came to his rescue and I am sure he has thought of me fondly every day since then.

Well, until December 2^nd, when he died of complications from the virus.

This is the problem: selfish desires and greedy minds. Not only have we lost those serendipitous encounters, but also simple pleasures:  missing lunches with colleagues and friends; not seeing the family both here and in Canada. Instead, we are immersed in a world of face masks and hand-spray, repetitive meal planning, furtive shopping, and a general Sleeping Beauty/Rip Van Winkle desire to sleep until it’s all over.

Determined to come up with some positive aspects for the new corona virus world, we’ve all been thinking hard. The New York Times, for example, has introduced a full page of recipes every week. They are often ethnic, complicated and esoteric. Strangely, what they all have in common is kosher salt.

Learning Chinese, taking up the clarinet, or finally reading War and Peace are all noble projects. Somehow, there’s not enough time, and certainly not an aerosol of morale or a droplet of concentration. We are scattered.

Computers help, of course. I have learned how to produce a bar-code for the post office for every single package I send out of Switzerland. That is the extent of my new skills. Rather, it is what I have done away with that I consider to be my most precious accomplishments.

For example, I reached an ironing epiphany a week or two back. Back in the old days, shirts and skirts got ironed. In a blinding flash it came to me that this is a total waste of time.  Who sees? Who judges? Who cares? I have since been casting a critical eye on the actual laundry pile. Perhaps it, too, is extraneous to purpose.

Cleaning and tidying the house also used to serve a social function: i.e., that your invited guests neither saw nor suspected your inner pig. I have found that if you have no guests, then your inner pig grows to wild boar proportions. The other day the postman cast a judgmental eye on my door mat which was covered with big, flat, dried mud flakes. I vacuumed it this morning.

And then there is hair. The colours! The highlights! The cuts! The styling! The expense! I last saw William back in January, between trips to Aqaba and Sri Lanka. He phoned me up the other day to ask if I had died of Covid.  I was ashamed I hadn’t, and promised to present myself to him in January.

I’m going back to lie on the couch. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Back in the day, a person would head out purposefully to go Christmas shopping.  Sometime at the beginning of December, either alone or with a friend, you would fill up your purse with real paper money and take the bus into town.

A pen-and-paper list would have been prepared, solid items envisaged, and the Geneva department stores, toy shops, and stationers would have been visited.  A corncob pipe from Davidoff’s. A Swiss art calendar from Brachard. A box of chocolate pavés from the Bonbonnière. And you would return home foot-sore and arm-weary with bags and boxes, and a true sense of possible future poverty and solid accomplishment.

For exotic items, you could visit the second hand book stores and the Saturday flea market and come up with almost-first editions, ancient engravings, or strange Japanese prints. Music stores had racks of song books and mountains of CD’s. People would help. You would buy piano-key socks.

If you had the stamina to make it all the way to Carouge, there were even more outlandish stores selling Indian ware, and small African sculptures. You could buy a wooden parrot or a bronze cow or hand-made jewelry–articles of great beauty and assured rarity.

Lacquered Chinese cabinets and old rattan baskets and Bohemian glass and Nepalese rabbit-fur shawls have all made their way into my house from the stalls of Geneva merchants.

One of my first adult Christmas-shopping days that I clearly remember was December 9, 1980. John Lennon had been assassinated the day before, and a buzz was in the air.

Since those days, trips away have usually replaced, and then delayed or advanced Christmas festivities. In some far-away corner of the earth you would buy a horse-hair Burmese bowl or a clay Colombian statue or a Chinese paint-brush. These would be gifts for others, and gifts for yourself. Things to take up space, gather dust, and sit still and silent around you. Things that you don’t even see anymore. Things that have become old invisible friends.

And today I’ve been at it again. Sadly no frivolous-frippery shops are open here in Geneva due to partial confinement, so I have had to resort to on-line services. It has been a solitary day of frustration and failure and mediocracy.

My favourite shop in England cannot deliver until mid-January due to having been moved to Tier 3 of covid19 lockdown. They explained that only 3 people can work in their warehouse due to new rules.

I contacted my bookstore in Paris, but it is closed as an international appeal has resulted in a tsunami of orders and they are drowning in success.

And I didn’t even bother seeing what has become of my Florentine art supplies shop. The man there has probably gone home and is hiding under his duvet.

However, I have managed local sourcing of many quite ordinary things and am moderately satisfied. Sadly, there have been no eureka moments.

Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can.

The ghost of last week’s electrical inspection lady is still lingering, and I feel guilty every time I want to turn on my set of plastic pink flamingo dining room lights to give a certain cheerful ambiance in these dark and dreary days.

She came to help us save energy, as we are now proud suppliers to the cantonal hydro and water company – the SIG.  We produce energy from the sun using our new solar panels–for example, the device you’re reading this on might be partially powered by me—and anything we don’t use is bought by them (very cheap). Whenever we need energy (flamingo lights) and the sun is not shining (today) we buy some energy back (very expensive).  She came to help us in this process.

She changed tap filters with flair, adding “brise jet” bubbles to the water so we use less. Frequent toilet flushing is a no-no. All electronic household machines should be immediately changed to the new AAAA++++ category. She suggested gluing insulating panels to the ceiling of the basement. She didn’t say anything about the bomb shelter and flabbergasted silence met the dirt-floored wine cellar. She suggested hanging an anti-cold curtain going down the basement steps. She suggested buying an electric car to be able to charge its battery. She suggested replacing all doors and windows and blinds, and mentioned that adding an extra layer of insulation to the walls of the entire house would also help.

She finally suggested changing the whole front north-east wall and sent a 22-page report.

She also really didn’t like the reading light in the living room, and so this problem is what we have focused on. A new lightbulb has been ordered from Amazon which does not deliver most of its items to Switzerland. This sort of purchase involves going to ”tabac” kiosk in a French village north of the Swiss border to send back mistaken-goods packages, and going to a post office in a French town south of the border to retrieve possibly correct-goods packages. As you can only do this if you have a French return address, an unsuspecting ex-colleague is also involved in all the to-ing and fro-ing.

Yesterday was a return parcel day (chain saw blades to be exact) and tomorrow is pick-up day (new bulb) and so small touristic side-excursions are sometimes involved.

Yesterday there was a visit to the source of the Allondon River which comes out of a hole at the foot of the Jura and runs down into the Rhone River in the Geneva countryside. There were picnic tables in delightful clearings, and picturesque moss-covered ruins of old mills that used to produce hemp rope. Disused water channels and stone walls all attested to the use of water energy centuries ago.

The inspection lady gave us presents as she left – some dubious light bulbs and two thermometers. They are all safely stored in the kitchen drawer.

 

The mistake most people make is thinking that the house needs you there to look after it. This is not the case. A normally-constituted house or apartment can more or less look after itself–except for those rare events such as being hit by lightning,  the pipes freezing and bursting, or having a tree go through it or fall on top of it. For these extreme, dramatic events, it is important that you are there. Or not.

As weather and seismic activity are entirely beyond your control, you must never ever worry about them. Burglaries are also an ever-present mental danger and occasionally come true. They can be reduced by normal precautions such as locking all doors and windows.

Leaving is always hard to do, but there are a few simple, subtle tricks that can help to sooth your anguish, reduce your anxiety, and fool the burglar.

1. To clean or not to clean. I personally feel that a house feels better if it is not too clean. If you are to be away for a while, you will be surprised at all the help that spiders can bring. They kill a huge assortment of flies, bugs and other spiders, so there is no point in vacuuming for at least 3 weeks before your intended trip.
2. Never wash your windows just before leaving. This can lead to unpleasant surprises upon return which include smelly dead birds lying around that have flown into the sudden emptiness, or even broken panes of glass where someone has seen something inside worth stealing. Nor should windows be too filthy as this makes the place look abandoned and derelict. I would suggest washing windows about 6 months before your planned departure.
3. A kitchen, especially, should look lived-in. Remember to take out the garbage, and to get rid of all potatoes, but leave dishes on the draining board, and a couple of coffee cups on the counter. Put the kitchen light and the radio on and place half a bottle of wine on the table.
4. Leave certain things lying around outside. Along with a parked car (with licence plates) I find old plastic children’s’ toys lying around on the driveway give an impression of un-Swiss un-tidiness and possible household impoverishment. Muddy old boots in front of the door and a collection of animal skulls found in the woods also provide a superstitious, lugubrious air. Top this up with a half-filled dog bowl and leash and collar chains hanging beside the front door and the illusion of red-necked squalor is quite complete and utterly unappealing to any self-respecting Swiss burglar.

Yes, I know. There is the mail and the thousands of fliers that get pushed through the letter box, and to keep this mess to a minimum, you need a trustworthy and accommodating neighbour.

So grab your masks and your hand sanitizer and take a little trip to Away. Try not to worry, and Bon Voyage!