A Touch of France : Crème Brûlée and the Child Within.

For most people, a secure childhood is crucial for well-being and success as one pupates into adulthood. Our entrenched behaviours often mimic that of our parents. Keeping with this observation I should be “looking good”, but sadly I have inherited a disproportionate number of my parents rogue genes which have overridden much of my environmental influences. One could say that I’m the “black sheep of the family” - definitely a product of nature and not nurture

My childhood was simple, rhythmic, and comfortably predictable; full of laughter and crammed with low cost, high return activities (CFO* heaven) – mud pies, biking adventures, catching yabbies, fishing, reading, being read to, camping, bush walking, playing cards in front of an open fire, endless concerts (for which I was the producer, director, choreographer and "star"), cooking with mother and eating at our expansive dining table, usually with an additional guest or two............Idyllic.

Of course there were challenges, emotional and physical, but they made us stronger and fade into the past, tempered by a “balanced life”.

The smell and taste of specific foods evoke strong memories of childhood and a feeling of security, despite my age. Just a waft of cooking toffee or true vanilla custard carries me back in time.

Still catching yabbies
.......with my nephew

Cooking family meals was an expression of my mother’s love for her brood. Our food was often a multicultural affair - accompanied by an appropriate wine on Saturday evenings. Special occasions called for mother’s revered Tante Marie, her kitchen bible, to be opened. Thus crème brûlée has become one of my favourite adult “comfort foods” in which I take refuge in times of stress and delight in time of repose. Savouring it is a sensual experience - a glistening toffee hat on rich creamy custard with a hint of vanilla…..soft and smooth against brittle toffee that emits cranial echoes on shattering in the mouth. Bliss in a bowl! 

A trail of empty crème brûlée dishes chronicled my last journey around France.............Delish. 

So for a touch of France, here is my crème brûlée recipe adapted from The Food of France, a Journey for Food Lovers. The orange flower water adds a subtle layer to the much revered recipe from mother’s beloved Tante Marie.                                                                    

Crème Brûlée Recipe 

Ingredients (metric measures)

2 cups double cream

¾ cup full cream milk

½ cup of castor sugar (superfine sugar)

1 good vanilla pod

5 egg yolks (from large eggs)

1 egg white (from a large egg)

I tablespoon of orange flower water

½ cup Demerara sugar

Collect 8 ½ cup ramekins and a roasting dish in which they may sit.

Mixing

Preheat the oven to 120⁰ C

Mix together the egg yolks, egg white and ¼ cup of castor sugar.

Put the cream, milk, ¼ cup of castor sugar and vanilla pod into a saucepan and bring just to boiling point, but do not boil.

Strain the boiling milk mixture into the egg mixture while whisking and continue to whisk well, then add the orange flower mixture and stir. The custard mixture is now complete.

Cooking and Storing

Divide the custard mixture evenly amongst the 8 ramekins.

Place the ramekins into the roasting pan.

Carefully pour hot water into the pan until it comes half way up the sides of the ramekins.

Cook the custards in the oven for 1 ½ hours or until they are cooked in the centre.

When cooked, cool the ramekins and refrigerate them until needed.  Before eating allow time for then to come to room temperature.

Completing prior to serving

Sprinkle the top of the custards with the Demerara sugar and caramelise until very hot. This can be done by placing the pots under the griller (broiler) or with a blowtorch. Watch carefully to avoid burning the sugar............Bon appétit! 

And my first dessert to be cooked and savoured in My French Folly?  Crème Brûlée!

*CFO – chief financial officer

The Land of the Rising Sun.........in our thoughts

The land of the rising sun is indeed a land of contradictions. For all of its technological wizardry and sophistication, Japanese people lead relatively simple lives compared to their western counterparts - of this,  I have personal experience.

Ancient traditions are intertwined with contemporary living.

Complexity is juxtaposed to minimalism.

Despite the recent devastation in Japan and the horrific ongoing threat of nuclear contamination - social order, dignity and respect persist– qualities that were sadly lacking in many parts of New Orleans post Cyclone Katrina. Is this civilised response by the Japanese to the current catastrophic events an inheritant outcome of a collectivist, Buddhist society? Are the rights and increasing self-indulgence of individuals in Western societies impinging on the rights of others and the wellbeing of society as a whole?

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.” Oscar Wilde.

Australian medical scientists who have been monitoring radioactivity levels since the 1950’s found that nuclear explosions anywhere in the world are accompanied by an increase in the level of radioactivity in sheep fat – in Australia! Yes the world is indeed a global village. Horrifically, its food web continues to be contaminated by nuclear waste with a half-life of thousands of years. What is our biological “tolerance level” to radioactive waste?

May the world learn from the unfolding tragedy in Japan. It’s time for the political opportunists and spin-doctors to check, and if necessary, realign their moral compasses.

Our thoughts and prayers are with friends, “family” and strangers in Japan.

“In all things it is better to hope than despair” Goethe

Quotes: Meditation......Kindness......Love

A personal place with happy memories for Loving Kindness meditation

"We meditate for various reasons. Peace of mind we all badly need. Therefore, when we meditate, either consciously or unconsciously we aim at peace of mind. Meditation give us peace of mind without a tranquilliser. And unlike a tranquilliser, the peace of mind that we get from meditation does not fade away. It lasts for good in some corner of the inmost recesses of our aspiring heart."

- Sri Chinmoy 

 Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not. 

~Samuel Johnson

Each Wednesday evening during summer, the residents of this French village eat together - young and old. Kindness and love are evident at every table.

Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.

~Lao Tzu

Continued....Instructions for Loving Kindness Meditation

Loving Kindness meditation is a form of guided emotional imagery which explicitly targets the development of positive emotions. 

1. Sit comfortably in a quiet place with your feet on the ground and your hands resting comfortably in your lap. (I usually have my eyes gently closed)

2. Visualize an experience when you had tender, warm feelings towards someone you love (picture the situation, feel your positive emotions.)

3. While visualizing this positive experience say to yourself

• May I be safe
• May I be happy as I am
• May I be healthy
• May I live with ease (peace)
• Keep repeating this – start for about 7 minutes a day for one week.

4. Meditate for 10 minutes a day for the next week and gradually work up to about half an hour per day.  

5. Then extend your visualization and chant to include someone whom you love and are very close to.

• May I be safe
• May I be happy as I am
• May I be healthy
• May I live with ease (peace)

• May  “so and so” be safe
• May “so and so”  be happy as I am
• May “so and so” be healthy
• May “so and so” live with ease (peace)  

6. Then extend your visualization and chant to include someone you know.

7. Then extend it to include someone whom you don’t know.

8. Finally extend the whole chant to include someone you dislike! (I am ashamed to admit that I have never reached this point!)

FOR THE MEDITATION TO BE EFFECTIVE, YOU MUST VISUALIZE A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE WHILE CHANTING.

Best wishes for your journey of discovery. Carpe diem......

Meditation

I have a tendency to be anxious. Those who know me well would claim that this is an understatement.  In order to slow the unravelling of my telomeres I meditate regularly – more or less . Being an early riser, I tend to meditate first thing in the morning when the house is still. I find chanting, or focusing on my breathing, very effective ways of entering and maintaining a meditative state.

Loving Kindness meditation is another form of meditation - its powerful effects of on one’s state of "happiness" and focus have been scientifically quantified and documented. Whenever I practice Loving Kindness meditation, I am aware that I “return to earth” with a smile on my face.
Another favoured form of meditation is green meditation – gardening. It definitely stills my mind but I can’t vouch for its effects on those magical telomeres.

For those who are interested ……………..

Love and Kindness (Happiness) Meditation is:

• a form of guided emotional imagery
• explicitly targets positive emotions – you must experience positive emotions while mediating to get any benefit.
• needs to be practised daily for approximately 3 months  to become effective.

To be continued .............. Instructions for Loving Kindness Meditation. 

Punch - clearly not gorgeous

When being gorgeous is not enough

A Word to Husbands 

To keep your marriage brimming

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;

Whenever you’re right, shut up.

by Ogden Nash

When Being Gorgeous Is Not Enough

My husband is gorgeous, wonderful and a whole host of other superlatives, but it is not enough: he can be infuriating. Although highly intelligent and mentally well organised, he is happy to live in physical chaos.

The 2 car garage, minus the cars, is his official Shed in which he works, or at least spends a few hours per week when he wants to lie low.

The roller door to his secret world is opened at one’s own peril, as it is more than likely that some object, often large and heavy, will lunge at you from an unsuspected angle. This door is the only entrance to the Husband’s sanctuary as the other thresholds can no longer be crossed due to the machinery and clutter which abut them. To enter this chamber of confusion, one has to shuffle in sideways along planks of wood which lie on the floor. At the far end of The Shed there is a cleared space, about 1 m square, in which sits a stool in front of a pile of tools that hide the work bench: husband’s bliss, wife’s nightmare.

Being an engineer, the Husband is a great problem-solver: he is a “hard worker”, enjoys physically challenges and can do anything around the house - with direction. And this is where we become “unstuck”.

Dust and clutter don’t appear on his “radar” and his tendency to put his belongings down anywhere in the house adds to our domestic mayhem. Batteries are recharged on our bedroom floor; accounts and important papers are dumped in the bottom of his wardrobe, squirreled under his side of the bed or mounded on our dressing table. There are computer parts and tool boxes in the family room machinery parts and hoses in the hallway and the pile of man things at the bottom of the stairs is now becoming a “death trap”.

In our domestic environment The Husband is “practical” whereas aesthetics and order - as well as the protection of my beloved Persian carpets and antique furniture - are my priority.

His generosity and adherence to his Queen’s Scout oath can also be a source of contention. He is always there for others, frequently downing tools, while working on one of my many mandated domestic projects, leaving them in situ, to run to the aid of family or friends.

I am no angel when it comes to tidiness; however, tidiness and order are mandatory for me to function effectively. As an employed professional, I feel exhausted shouldering the responsibility of organising this adult family, and the domestic chaos poignantly indicates that I am not really effective in carrying out my duties.

Why do the rest of my tribe need directions? Where’s their initiative? Part of my problem is I tolerate the status quo until I am at breaking point then I snap.  Result – mass migration – husband to his Shed and adult children to their sacred no go zone upstairs. So I am abandoned – left wallowing in a sea of frustration and inaction which saps me mentally and physically of the situation that appears impossible to rectify.  

Status and money are not the Husband’s priorities in his life – he wants for little. A happy, well adjusted individual, about whom I would have little to criticise, if it weren’t for my burning desire to “see the world”, and dabble in photography, both of which necessitate more zeros than we have in our bank account.

I want a man to complement my shortcomings; not enhance them.

Frank discussion is no solution to our domestic disharmony. Unlike the metro men of the Y generation, my baby boomer husband is not willing to workshop our issues. At the slightest hint of such an occurrence, he disappears to his shed.

Clearly, living with a gorgeous husband is not enough when I am not perfect myself and, despite the passage of time, we haven’t quite mastered our communication skills.  

Would I cast him off or trade him in? Never. 

When being gorgeous is not enough

Judy - obviously frustrated

Quatrain Number 20............A Favourite Since Childhood

 Edward Fitzgerald: “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” (1905)

Quatrain Number 20

Ah, my Belov'ed fill the Cup that clears 

To-day Past Regrets and Future Fears: 

To-morrow!--Why, To-morrow I may be 

Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years. 

By Omar Khayyam

This quote has helped to buoy me through difficult times. Introduced to The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám at a tender young age, by my Great Uncle who could quote a relevant quatrain for almost any situation, I learned to recite my favourite verse, quatrain 20, before the age of 10. As I grew in years so too did my appreciation of this eloquently expressed piece of wisdom. It is a pity that many 21st century children are deprived of the richness of an extended family............ 

Pretty Halcyon Days

The smell of the sea breeze evokes strong memories of childhood. Familiar. Secure. Sadly, the sense of adventure and fun gave way to studiousness and sensibility as I grew into adulthood. ......Why?

With the passing of time, I have come to realize the importance of retaining and nurturing our “inner child” – the spring that feeds creativity and forges balance in our lives.

As a pre-teen, two of  my much loved books were penned by Ogden Nash and Omar Khayyam. Their verse now induces similar responses to a whiff of ocean air -  they are my cognitive “sea breeze”.......... Winter nights in front of an open fire with siblings jostling for “the best spot”. Mother's cooking. Family meals around our expansive kitchen table. Laughter. Father reciting A Sentimental Bloke. Being curled up in bed, protected from the cold by layers of heavy, grey, woollen blankets. Reading by torch light.  Long, repetitive concerts performed for our parents. Hand knitted bed-socks. Flannel pyjamas. Nighties made of feather-light Swiss cotton, bought from the local haberdashery and lovingly sewn into night attire by Great Aunt Isabel. .............Precious times.

Pretty Halcyon Days
How pleasant to sit on the beach,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun,
With ocean galore within reach,
And nothing at all to be done!
       No letters to answer,
       No bills to be burned,
       No work to be shirked,
       No cash to be earned,
It is pleasant to sit on the beach
With nothing at all to be done!

How pleasant to look at the ocean,
Democratic and damp; indiscriminate;
It fills me with noble emotion
To think I am able to swim in it.
       To lave in the wave,
       Majestic and chilly,
       Tomorrow I crave;
       But today it is silly.
It is pleasant to look at the ocean;
Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall swim in it.

How pleasant to gaze at the sailors
As their sailboats they manfully sail
With the vigor of vikings and whalers
In the days of the vikings and whale.
       They sport on the brink
       Of the shad and the shark;
       If it’s windy, they sink;
       If it isn’t, they park.
It is pleasant to gaze at the sailors,
To gaze without having to sail.

How pleasant the salt anesthetic
Of the air and the sand and the sun;
Leave the earth to the strong and athletic,
And the sea to adventure upon.
       But the sun and the sand
       No contractor can copy;
       We lie in the land
       Of the lotus and poppy;
We vegetate, calm and aesthetic,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun. 

Ogden Nash 

Heat, Humidity and Head in the Sand

The heat and humidity are sapping my energy. I have an uncomfortable sticky feeling all over my skin – reminiscent of tacky fairy floss. This malaise is further aggravated by the lack of appropriate garments in my wardrobe – the result of an over zealous appetite and a recent purging of clothes which I have sadly outgrown. I long for new summer attire, fashionably designed to allow a breeze to ventilate my glowing skin. Clothes made of natural fibres that “breathe”.  But it is not to be…. I’m too frightened by the prospect of seeing my newly acquired fuller figure, (cleverly illuminated by revealing lights), in the change-room mirrors . Dimples aren’t so appealing en masse.  Yes, I’m ashamed to admit that I whole-heartedly subscribe to the Ostrich Principle. Must revive that vision………..

G & T ............a C.L.M

Not gin.....but "any port in a storm"

Summer…………..the sauna continues. The persistent throbbing in my head lowers my will power – pathetic justification for scoffing a whole bag of white chocolate-covered raspberry bullets. ……….Satisfaction gives way to loathing……….Another bout of hot flushes adds to my already damp skin. Right now a  gin and tonic with 2 aspros would be the perfect medication -  if I didn’t have to dash back to “ The Office” for an evening meeting. With a nickname of Cadbury’s (a glass and a half and I’m confused) a cool, long G&T with a twist of lemon, albeit tempting, would definitely be a C.L.M. (career limiting move)

"Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work."

                                                                                              Gustave Flaubert