Candy's wedding

So, Candy's wedding was fantastic - a short ceremony in an exceptional venue, a beautiful and charismatic couple, and spectacular food and wine at the reception. No offence Australian wedding caterers, but you are PUT TO SHAME by the French. Escargot, multitudes of fish arranged in nautical shapes (e.g. ship anchors), prawns, langoustines, terrine and that was just the first bit. Then veal that gave new meaning to the word, and cake as far as the eye could see. Plus palate cleansers in between each course (including Calvados over apple sorbet which sounded like a bad idea but was in fact, amazing). And all those cutlery implements which stump me time and time again. Fish fork? And the wine - oh, the wine.

(I should just say here that we were fed beautifully at Julien's wedding reception. But that was at a swanky resort. This reception was at a soulless room-for-hire in the middle of an industrial estate.)

I really wish I'd taken a photo of the langoustines actually, because they were hung from a wooden rack, bent backwards with their heads stuck to their tails so that initially we thought they were large, funny-lookin' mutant prawns that had somehow grown lobster parts.

The Australian contingent, or at least some of us... OK, me and The Boyfriend, and one other couple; were also put to shame in another way. We left at 2am, totally exhausted, while the great-grandparents were still partying on. Even the toddlers were still running around, tantrum-free and all. Meanwhile the twenty-somethings from Oz are barely able to keep their eyes open. I blame the overnight ferry we took to get there.

Candy looked excellent in her dress (from Paris, of course) although there was that small, seemingly inevitable strapless dress issue:
(I've got about 300 photos which are a variation on this theme.)

The rest of the photos of the wedding and also our wanderings around Caen here.

Cooking shows... mmmm

There's an article in The Guardian today which purports to pit Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall against Gordon Ramsey. The piece sort of half-heartedly argues that Gordon is casting his new zero tolerance stance on non-seasonal produce as original thought, when it's been Hugh's policy for years. I can only assume this article is the product of some unspoken but widespread UK newspaper rule which dictates that each edition must contain at least one article mentioning the following persons:

- Gordon Ramsey (describing him as foul-mouthed);
- Amy Winehouse (preferably photographed at her least flattering angle); and
- Kate Middleton (that's a tough one because she rarely seems to do anything at all interesting).

Maybe this rule is actually dictated by the advertisers. Who knows. Anyway, the reason I noticed it was because we actually watched the first episode of Hugh's new TV show River Cottage Spring last night, and I was shocked - shocked! - to see Hugh openly have a go at Celebrity Cooking's former first lady, Delia Smith. Not because I think Delia is awesome and un-challengeable (on the contrary), but just because usually, cooking shows are all about the soothing sizzle of the frying pan and the encouraging, confident voice of the chef making you think YOU TOO could whip up foie gras-stuffed quail with fennel and licorice using ingredients from your own garden!

So Hugh made two Shepherd's Pies - his mum's old Shepherd's Pie recipe, dutifully using the leftover Sunday roast lamb and home-grown potatoes, and Delia's version from her controversial new book, which happens to be based on canned minced lamb (fortified with glucose and preservatives!!) and frozen mash. He then planned to serve both of them to the same diners without first explaining the origins of each recipe. I was totally rooting for Hugh's, in case it wasn't obvious.

The only problem was, he cooked them for a rabble whose favourite foods seem to range from chicken nuggets to chips and no further. And he burnt them, because he cooked them outdoors in dutch ovens. So the ending was sort of anti-climactic... the final score was Hugh's mum - 7 votes, Delia - 5.

Oh well. I might have to continue to count on Gordon for my culinary controversy from now on.

St Petersburg the Great

Photos of St Petersburg up on flickr here.

This morning The Boyfriend called me into the kitchen to see the squirrel sitting right outside the (closed) window, looking expectantly from me to The Boyfriend and back. I don't know what he expected - that we would open the window and give him our coins this time? The Boyfriend suggested Mr Squirrel might have a message for us from the Fairy Queen.

I actually felt a bit sorry for him - he stood there for ages, trenbling slightly - and for a minute I was tempted to give him some food, but that would kick off a whole new set of squirrel-feeding obligations and seriously, they eat pretty well out of the garbage bins anyway. I saw one of them flip the heavy metal lid off a bin yesterday and make off with avocado remnants and some kiwi fruit we'd thrown out.