Nadine Williams

Simple French Cuisine for Australians

It’s Easter Saturday and I plans to make a tasty lunch for Olivier, whom I expect will be allowed day leave from hospital today.

However, this delightful April Indian summer means I must water our new garden plantings first before the heat of another day wilts them. I have planted pansies around the garden borders because I find their happy colourful faces lift my spirits and I have plant my mother’s favourite rose – a pretty rosebud pink Cecil Brunner – outside my study.

However, the important morning task is to cook a tasty lunch to be ready when we arrive home at lunchtime.

Many years ago I heard French  chef  Gabriel Gate speak on French cuisine and I remember he said one sure way to gain confidence in the kitchen is to choose a recipe and then make it three or four times and experiment with it before claiming it as a favourite.

I never did, of course, but in our move into our new Belair home, I found the long-forgotten recipe book I bought at the time – Gabriel Gate’s French Cuisine for Australians – and although it is dated compared with the grand cookbook genre of today, I chose one of his recipes, Chicken Casserole cote d’Azur. I am delighted to find I have all the ingredients. It was a special cookbook because it was the first written by a French chef specially for Australians.

While the casserole simmers, I shower and prepare myself and by the time I am  ready, the dish is cooked, filling the kitchen with a delicious Mediterranean aroma.

After all these preparations, I am disappointed when the doctor says Oli must remain in hospital today, but can have leave pass for tomorrow, Easter Sunday.

CHICKEN CASSEROLE COTE D’AZUR: (Casserole de Poulet Cote d’Azur)

INGREDIENTS:

1 chicken weighing about 1.6 kgs, cut into pieces.

1 Zucchini,

½ of a Brown onion, a capsicum and small eggplant,

200 g. tomatoes,

2 cloves garlic and bouquet garni,

1 tbsp olive oil,

100g black olives, stoned.

Salt, freshly ground black pepper.

METHOD:  Brown chicken pieces in a hot, well oiled saucepan.

Cut all the washed vegetables into small squares, remembering to remove seeds from capsicum.

When chicken pieces are browned, add the sliced onion pieces and sauté for a minute. Add choppedgarlic, sauté a few seconds and add all the other vegetables. Season with salt and pepper, add the bouquet garni and cover the saucepan to cook gently for 20 minutes.

Add the olives for the final 10 minutes and taste beforfe adding more seasoning.

So simple, I am sure this is one recipe of Gabriel’s the  I will try again and again.

 

 

 

A Taste of the High Life on the High Seas

It is an idyllic April evening cruising in the Gulf St Vincent and I am enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime experience “steering” for a nonasecond, the multi-million dollar boat owned by renowned housing developer Gordon Pickard of Fairmont Homes fame.

I am one of 13 women invited aboard for a special fund-raising think-tank for the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.  Our host is dynamic Christina Angus, the new events and partnerships manager for the WCH Foundation – the official charity of the hospital.

Our captain of the triple-level cruiser named Triple 888 is retired businessman Colin McLeod, a close friend of Gordon Picard. He has the enviable task of cruising around the gulf for three hours while we 13 women sip wonderful French champagne and nibble on morsels prepared by Chris Jarmer of Air Restaurant.

Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, nor as it turns out a free cruise and the inimitible Christina picks our brains for ideas to raise funds for “freshening the ward for adolescents” at the hospital. She proudly adds the WCH isthe only hospital in Australia with a ward for teenagers.

“About 250,000 kids and mums come to the hospital each year and 5000 babies are born,” says Christina, who was formerly the fund-raising guru for Guide Dogs forthe Blind for a decade.

She presents a list of needs including maisoneettes for the palliative care section of the hospital and  research for new treatments.

“Children with cystic fibrosis did not live beyond their teens not so long ago, but now they can live into their 30’s,” she adds.

Eminent women, of a wide age range, include accountant Julianne Parkinson, who heads up the philanthropic activities of Ernst and Young, Mary-Anne O’Leary, Adelaide Festival Centre’s marketing and corporate relations manager, Kelly Baker-Jamieson, Edible Blooms managing director and social media whiz, Kelly Noble of GlamDigital.

Many years have passed since I headed up the Mrs South Australia quest, raising funds for the Crippled Children’s Association, but I remember the big successes we had in raising funds for disabled children. Cassandra Young of Foster Hill PR and Marketing has a far more recent success to impart. She spear-headed a big telephone campaign last year to raise $200,000 for the Queensland Flood Appeal in two weeks.

There is a saying if you want something done, ask a busy person which is clearly why self-employed movers and shakers such as Tanya Cole, managing director of NannySA,  Melanie Flintoft, the design director of Australian Fashion Labels Pty Ltd and renowned artist Marie Jonsson-Harrison were aboard.

Christina thoughtfully stops our meeting to allow us to wonder at the brilliant sunset lighting up the horizon in brilliant crimsons and golds, and as the light leached from the sky,  Adelaide’s shoreline shines in lights right along to the Hallett Cove oil refinery.

It is a heavenly evening giving us all a taste of the high life of Monte Carlo, Nice or St Tropez in France, where such craft are cheek-by-jowl in kilometre-long harbours.  However, as we glide into Holdfast Shores marina once more, put on our shoes and  step off we take with us an inspiring perspective of our beautiful city, set on St Vincent’s Gulf with the Mt Lofty Ranges behind, neatly containing its sprawl of suburbs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey presto! Petit chien is now a poodle!

Our petit chien, cute puppy Oscar has metamorphised. We thought we bought a Shi Tsu Maltese X with a shaggy, long-haired coat just like his mother. And, sure we saw the daddy dog, a handsome grey poodle, but our little bundle of joy was surely mainly Maltese, he wasusuch an adorable puffball.   How wrong can you be?  I take our shaggy four-month-old doggie, who had the appearance of a champagne-coloured powder puff to have his first clip and when I returned a few hours later, I find he has become  ashorn  poodle. Oscar, underneath the fluff, had the tight curly coat of the poodle – and gone was the champagne color, except for his handsome ears.

This is all the more amusing because throughout my history as a dog-owner – and this is most of my life – I have never taken to poodles – and even though my hairdresser Brigitte, raved about the breed for 20 years, I remained unmoved.  We had had two collies, (Lady Jane and
Codger) a beloved labrador (Tyler) and for the past 13 years, our exquisite Shi Tsu Maltese X Jackson.  A poodle?Quelle horreur! Luckily for Oscar, he still had his playful nature and wicked ways which were so endearing and I am happy to report we are still in love with our very different dog.  Here are some new pix of our tiny toy Poodle, Shi Tsu Maltese X.

 

Once Were School Days to Holiday Stays

Denise and Frank Kuss had a yearning for a different life from the typical suburban  cycle of work and busy city living.  Here is their  story  becoming  B&B owners of the old  Stanley Grammar School, now their Stanley Grammar Country House, Watervale, Clare Valley.

“I had worked for The Advertiser as a secretary for many years and my husband was a supervisor in the crane industry, but we each yearned for a tree change, to find a total change of lifestyle like the sitcoms on television.

We had no idea how we were goingto do it, so for years  we tried  to feel the vibrations of certain places.   We would pull into a small town and ask ourselves “is this the town? Or we would see a “for sale’ sign and ask ourselves  “is this the house? is this the building ?’’  We looked at old banks, caravan parks, retreats, old pubs and so on, but nothing sparked desire for us.

“One Saturday evening browsing through the newspaper real estate section I saw an historic Grammar School in the country advertised.   So without any real intent I looked  up the property on the internet.  From that moment, I couldn’t get the place out of my mind. There was an open inspection the next day and when I suggested we drive to see it, my husband, Frank, was not at all enthralled at the idea of driving 118 kms to see a property  we couldn’t afford. I said ‘I know we can’t buy it, I just want a little look’. He retorted  ‘woman you’re nuts and your “looks” can be dangerous’. However, I had an inkling and persisted until Frank agreed.

The next morning, Frank tried every trick to stall things. He shamelessly time-wasted – taking the long way to the petrol station, and then slowly cleaning every car window.  I was fuming, but jammed my lips shut to avoid an “argument” which could have stopped the trip.

My stomach was all knotted as we raced against the open inspection closing time and after 90 minutes on the road, we arrived at Watervale 15 minutes late.   As we turned into the street, there in the distance was this beautiful, old  two-storey Colonial building.  It had “history’’ written all over its 19^th century stone walls.  Above the arched doorway was etched “Stanley Grammar School Established 1857”.  Our jaws dropped.  The grounds were over-run with sightseers and people  like ourselves, who were contemplating a dream. We were mesmerised with its structural beauty and the enormous opportunities it presented. It was for sale by tender.

Eagerly we walked into the entry foyer and my first thought was “I like this”, and with each step into the billiard room and then the grand classroom,  I knew I was in love.  “I want it!”.   In reality the empty building was very grand and we both knew in our hearts we could not afford it.  We were just Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs living in Adelaide, in a typical suburban house with regular jobs and here we were contemplating grand dreams to match the structure before us. Some miracle would have to occur to buy this place.   When tenders closed , the agent telephoned and said we had not put in a tender, but we said we couldn’t afford it. He suggesting we make an offer.    So we offered what we could afford – almost 100,000 less than the price the owner, a renowned heart surgeon, wanted.  He dropped the price and we edged up our offer.  It was nerve-wracking, but soon the property was ours.

We wanted the old Grammar School so much, and although the price we paid was unbelievable for the beautiful building, we would need to run it as a B&B to afford it.  And Frank had to keep his day job.  We had no B&B or hospitality experience,  just a background in lots of home  entertainment, accommodating friends on overnight stays.  We reasoned that home was rather like a hotel, a café or a restaurant anyway, feeding many people.  Now we would need to be paid for our accommodation.

Luckily, our Adelaide house sold within a week.   WE had renovated the whole house and had lived with dust, dirt, mess and countless renovating disputes with Frank for a long time. I only enjoyed living in the finished, renovated home for three months before we loaded up the cat Spidsey, Lucy our Kelpie dog, and all our belongings to start a new life as B&B hosts – inexperienced and filled with trepidation.

It took us one agonising year to obtain approval to operate a B&B from the local council and the State Government’s Heritage Department.

After four years, we still take such pleasure receiving guests staying  in any of  our five bedrooms, which are all decorated in my own elegant “shabby chic’’ style – a mix of antique, retro and contemporary furniture, furnishings and  special objets d’art.

For further information telephone  08 88430224 or www,oldstanleygrammar.com.au.

 

 

 

Lashings of Frenchness at Film Festival

The Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, opening in Adelaide on March 20, promises yet again that alluring mix of emotion, passion love, and drama – as well as a new genre – “A French Touch Around the World’’.

It will present four films of the 45 in the festival this year, which will celebrate co-productions  – encounters between French and foreign cinema. As an added twist, the festival links into the International Day for Francophonie, on March 20, which falls during the Festival.

As expected from French film,   the largest genre “It must be Love’’ features a smorgasbord of eight romantic films, which capture French society’s obsession with love, including Romantics Anonymous,  The Art of Love and the Silence of Love.

Then there is a sprinkling of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, stories of happy families (?) and yet another cluster of films categorised into It Happened in your Neighbourhood category.

The festival, sponsored by Peugeot, grows from strength to strength with a record number of 130,000 Australians attending across Australia last year.

France’s official submission for the 2012 Academy Awards, Declaration of War (La Guerre est declaree)  will be the powerful movie to launch the 2012 festival.

It wouldn’t be a French film festival without at least one film featuring France’s much-loved ageless actor Catherine Deneuve  and this year does not disappoint when she teams with a slim, handsome Gerard Depardieu (circa 1980) in Francois Truffault’s 1980 classic The Last Metro.

More details from www.affrenchfilmfestival.org.

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Speaking of Paris’s Underground  Metro, it reminds me of a plaintive cry from a rejected French lover. And the wonders of Internet brings this story of Love on the Paris Line 12 from a fellow blogger, who wrote:

Chéri called me last week one day, early morning, from Paris. “I miss you and I just quickly want to tell you how much I love you.’’ Later, during  the weekend I found out what stirred his emotions on that early morning. He found a letter on his seat on the metro, line 12, the one he takes to work every day. It is a love letter from Julien to his lost love Leyin. It is written with passion and sadness and a hope that she’ll take line 12 again, find his words of love dedicated to her and be so touched by it that she returns to him. He ends his letter with a poem and a request that the letter not be destroyed, but left on the seat where you found it, as it is more than just a letter…it is a symbol of love. Here it is:

“Her name is Leyin. I am Julien. For 6 years we were together until she left me 7 weeks ago. If you will allow me, I will share this story of love and passion with you, a piece a day, for as long as my faith keeps up or  until she comes back to this line 12, which she takes regularly. My wish? To touch her, move her and at the same time, bring some beauty to this world of the Paris metro.“

(Back to my French blogger froemd’s Post-script:) So…I know many will immediately think this is a hoax, scam…or a joke…or anything else, except honest and real. Maybe it isn’t real. Maybe it is a joke. Or a scam. But then, in my opinion, it is a positive one. One that leaves you with a smile and a twinkle in the eye…a dream…. and one that has your husband of 30 years  call you early morning to quickly tell you that he loves you. THAT is honest and real.

 

 

 

Time for a Miracle

Those words of wisdom by Regina Brent when she turned 90, currently on the Internet are  comforting as I mull over the worsening situation with husband Olivier’s cancer.

He is in hospital once again, this time with abdominal pain and we wait with trepidation for the results of more blood tests and xrays taken today to find a cause.

Her Number 1 adage, for instance, is that “life is not fair, but it’s still good’’.  Yes, it’s horrible that cancer should strike him down and with such aggression – but we have shared such a fabulous eight years together and I try hard to warm my fearful heart with his funny anecotes and touching moments.

There are many, and two stand out right now. On Saturday night at the 50^th birthday of his son, Xavier, even though he was ill, we shuffled in the one spot on the dance floor at the Sheoak Deli to loud rock music. And he smiled and touched my cheek as if we were the only ones in a solitary world and we seemed like shameless teenage lovers. I reminded him of our wedding day when we managed to dance together for, oh, about 10 minutes and neither of us stepped on the other.  It was a miracle given my history of clumsiness and lack of dancing lessons. Of course, I was high on bliss and floating on a pink cloud of plenty of champagne. I never wanted that moment to end.

“You’re not treading on my toes tonight, darling,’’ he said on Saturday.

“That’s because we aren’t really moving our feet, just swaying our bodies in rhythm,’’ I replied.

It was so nice and I smiled and licked away the silent stream of tears trickling down into my mouth.

Regina also wrote “Everything can change in the blink of an eye’’.  Such straightforward words which we all know to be reality, but don’t truly understand  until life delivers a body blow. This happened 13 months ago when Olivier’s niggling back pain was diagnosed as extensive secondary cancer, the primary being advanced prostate cancer. The scourge of older manhood. Unlike most men, whose PC is so slow they die with the disease, rather than from it, Olivier’s cancer is an aggressive No. 8 on the Gleeson scale. It is deadly.

We have lived with the Big C ever since and now that lovely, illusionary notion of Happy Ever After which we assumed would be ours for a few decades on our wedding day four years ago has shrivelled.

Which brings me to Regina’s most powerful words right now “Believe in miracles’’. I would so love to be able to believe in a miracle, but his oncologist is a realist.

I must admit, much of the bravado which fired me to write that web article nine months ago “The Art of Living Fearlessly’’  has evaporated and now I simply pray for a miracle of healing, or at least more time to enjoy life together.  Time is suddenly so precious.

Whatever fate delivers us, Regina’s final poignant wisdom from her list of 45 is “However good or bad a situation, it will change.’’ C’est la vie.