Grandma's cooking capers

Grandma’s cooking capers

I am on grandma duty in my daughter Serena’s London home, while she celebrates a late birthday high tea with husband, Jon, at Claridges.
My three grandkids – two boys aged 8 and 6 and a three year old grand-daughter – are poised to do what they love – play endless computer games or watch television, but their mother forbids any such activities.
“Grandma is here from Australia and you must spend time with her,’’ she announces flouncing out the door looking like a fashion model.
Yikes! I am thrown on my limited grandma skills. Reading? Won’t work with the three of them. Games? Ditto. Ah cooking sounds the ideal solution. ”We will make dinner,’’ I announce. “French pancakes and boeuf bourgignon!”
“Wow!” the boys exclaim. “What if we film you for Youtube, grandma?’’
How could I refuse such enthusiasm, especially with three hours to fill before their mum returns. And so Samuel sits a fancy small video camera on the lounge armchair and six-year-old Angus becomes cook’s assistant. Josephine is the audience.
Making the crepe mix is a breeze – flour, eggs, milk, a dash of oil and some sugar – and Angus weigh and line up the ingredients.
“Action!” cries Samuel and I begin to speak to him, teaching him to make crepes. And I do what I say, I whisk the mixture until it changes colour, and I discover I am enjoying myself. I am feeling pretty smug until a little voice caught on film cries out…
“I don’t want crepes, grandma’’, says Josephine.
But we are unperturbed…and continue on with the main course – Boeuf Bourgignon. We gather plates from cupboards and once more line up all our ingredients.
There is a very shaky start when I become tongue-tied trying to say “Boeuf Bourgignon’’ in proper French accent as my French teacher would expect. My third attempt sounded about right, and luckily, the whole process of making this tasty authentic French recipe went much more smoothly.
800 grams of chopped braising steak, two onions, three big mushrooms, 1 chopped carrot, bay leaf, one cup of beef stock (made the day before from marrow bones) and a bottle of Cote du Rhone fullbodied red wine – all chopped, sliced and lined up.
And there before the camera I toss steak in a plastic bag with two tablesppoons of plain flour, herbs, spices of choice salt and pepper and I turn around and sauté the meat in a frypan on a hot hotplate. I put it into a large saucepan – and I tell the camera a casserole will be fun if cooking in oven. I sauté onions, like I have done for 30 years of my life, until they are transparent, but not brown and add carrots. I add beef stock to pan and add it all to meat, returning the saucepan to the stove. The best bit, though, for the camera is sploshing ¾ litre of red wine into the saucepan. Soon it is boiling and I turn it back to simmer for 1 hour. Then I test the meat and add the mushrooms. I explain all of this to the camera and as a dash of originality and because I am in London, I make packeted Yorkshire pudding and plop them in blobs on the top of the dish. Another 15 minutes later, it looks superb.
My cameraman zooms in to take an aerial shot of our masterpiece.
We make ourselves pancakes in the interim with lemon and sugar and congratulate ourselves on how great they taste. “They’re as good as the ones I have tasted in Brittany,,’’ I tell them. And it’s true. The pity of it is that the parents, returning from their posh afternoon tea are too full to really enjoy our food.
However, when we gather to see Samuel’s You tube on the telly, it is a gem even if I do cut an unhip, unglamorous figure of a granny cook – without makeup and without an apron. Yet, for all its amateurness, it is a charming piece of film which captures the joy of grand-parenting and bonding with grand-children – as well as the joy of cooking.

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