Food for thought

Memories of my mother came back with burnt paella.

My mother was an excellent cook, but she did like things ‘well done.’ For years, certainly well into my adolescence, I thought that uncooked mushrooms were poisonous and that onions had to be cooked almost to a crisp blackness before they were suitable for the discriminating palette!

In the same childhood I was presented with cauliflower cooked to that degree of marshmallow softness that a fork gently rested on the vegetable would sink with its own weight. And sprouts, cooked to that fuzzy point of fluffiness where they looked like emeralds seen with myopia – the bright green colour ensured by the addition of bicarbonate of soda, which also ensured the complete absence of vitamins! Ah! Happy days!

Appropriate vegetables were eventually served al dente but mushrooms and onions were always well cooked. My mother always maintained that it was the ‘burnt bits’ that gave the real flavour to the gravy – and my mother’s gravy was legendary.

The truth of her assertion exploded in the mouth with the fork full of paella with the crisp bottom. Our chef had bewailed the inefficiency of the electric hob (with entire justice) which meant that the spread of heat in the paella pan was uneven and she constantly had to move the pan to try and achieve the sort of consistency of which she is justly proud. Her failure to achieve this gave the sort of success which competent cooks always manage to present on plates: even mistakes are delicious!

Sunday was a generally lazy day and prepared us for the excursion to the jagged mountains.

Although I now seem to be visiting Montserrat on an almost weekly basis I never tire of experiencing (the word ‘seeing’ gives no indication of the visual excitement the rocks evince) the panorama of extraordinary shapes that the weathering of the landscape has produced.

The buildings of the Abbey complex are mundane at best and unsightly at worst and bring to mind Charles Saxe-Coburg and Gotha’s misplaced comments on the extension to the National Gallery about the construction looking like a “monstrous carbuncle.” The buildings do, indeed, have all the sympathy with their surroundings of Russell Brand on the Samaritans phone help line.

However, the buildings are not the reason to be in Montserrat and for the first time we were in time to catch the famous boys’ choir singing the Montserrat hymn. Our arrival in the basilica was a close run thing with me hobbling along aided by my inexpert use of my recently acquired walking stick.

The basilica was crammed with people – I hesitate to say worshippers because of the amazingly poor behaviour of the individuals who pushed and shoved their way past those already at the back of the church.

One ‘lady’ writhed her sinuous way through the crowds to gain a better vantage point. The fact that she was built like a bulky and ungainly Sherman tank meant that her progress was marked by bodies lurching out of her way as various prominences of her deadly body made contact and brushed aside the human obstacles.

At one point I raised my stick in what can only be called a threatening manner and for one delirious moment I actually considered using it, giving Paul the opportunity to say that I reminded him of the worst excesses of Margaret Rutherford!

Alan and Hadyn will be delighted to hear that the Pauls behaved with due decorum (with allowances) and filed past the idol and reverently placed their hand on the exposed orb.

I, however, as a hardened idol visitor placed a kiss on the upper part of the curved surface using the full advantage of my height. The two ancient ladies who preceded us only managed to kiss the knuckles of the idol leaving the upper expanse clear for me!

Our lunch in the restaurant was, from my point of view, excellent – though the boys looked askance at my choice of rabbit with snails!

By the time we got to the sweet course many of the items on the fixed menu had gone so we were given a free choice. My confection, the creation of a named chef whose name I have now forgotten, was the sort of small and unprepossessing looking dessert which packed a punch beyond its appearance. Its concentrated sweetness reminded me of a parallel experience with a meal which was so fatty that it drew in the sides of my mouth with its excess.

The coffee with ice to end the meal was not so much a drink as an act of self defence!

Our choice of film for the evening was ‘The Chumscrubber’ (2005) Director: Arie Posin.

An amazingly high profile cast, headed by Jamie Bell present a self indulgent parable directed against the soft target of comfortable middle class middle America.

The title refers to a typically vicious computer game which utilizes the Sim environment to produce the sort of housing development satirised much more effectively in ‘Edward Scissorhands’ which is then destroyed by nuclear explosion leaving the living dead and a headless hero. The usual sort of thing! The action of the ‘real life’ story takes a dysfunctional group of kids trying to gain the drugs stash of another kid who has committed suicide. The film is funnier than it sounds and there moments of hard hitting cynical political and social comment.

The full effect of the film is greatly lessened by the ending. The first ending is when the mother of the suicide comes to a realization that she is as much to blame as the people she has pointedly (and unconvincingly) excused from any part in the death.

The film however adds a sort of epilogue which ties up all the loose ends, giving what is presented as a taut narrative satisfaction, but actually lessens the whole effect.

This was an enjoyable film – if only for the astonishingly good American accent of Jamie Bell. He promises much for the future.

And the immediate future promises Cava.