Hadouk Trio Hi Jazz Hijaz

Yaron Herman performs at CosmoJazz Festival Chamonix, 28 July 2010

Back in July, I felt like I needed a day off... shoulders were hurting from strimming steep slopes and holding hedge cutters higher than I should have. It had been quite hot and I hadn't been down to the lake for a swim and I was becoming frustrated...

Mrs, P said to me as she walked out the door at 6am to catch the 6.15 train to work... "go on, go, enjoy it...sod it...take the day off"

And so an hour later I was speeding along the autoroute A40 towards Chamonix with the mountain top of Mont Blanc shining in the summer sunshine down the valley. Once I had arrived and parked up by the téléphérique for the Aiguille du Midi, slung my pack over my arm and walked towards the lift station ticket desk, I saw an enormous snaking queue around the forecourt and tail back towards the tunnel I had just walked through. A couple of people clothed in T-shirts proclaiming CosmoJazz Festival Chamonix told me I might just make the concert en haut, but it was as likely as not that I wouldn't. However, across the valley on the other side, other concerts were about to take place and I could easily get there in time; besides, the Brévent lift was under far less pressure of people wanting to ride up and so thanking them I walked across town, buying a couple of croissants on the way and soon found myself, lift ticket in hand, at the head of the line for the télécabine to Belvédère Planpraz.

At about 2000m altitude, that's 6000 feet in proper money, I settled down to watch and listen to an excellent solo piano concert by Yaron Herman who had only walked off a Marseille stage at midnight the previous night and been driven directly north to Chamonix for this free concert. After only a few hours sleep Herman climbed on stage, settled over the keys of what lloked to me like a baby grand piano and seemed lost in his solo. He played like that for over an hour and a half.

As he left the stage at the end of his concert I climbed higher above the seated audience, and found a space to picnic and lean back against a rock and wait to discover the wonderful sound of the Hadouk Trio...

This is part of what I heard...

Working Class Hero by John Lennon

If ever there was a working class hero to me, it would have to be Lennon.

As a kid growing up in Britain in the 1960's there were not many heroes who were not musicians, singers; 'pop stars'. The youths that made up these groups were seen as rebels, they acted for some part like rebels, but unlike Lennon, they did not all know how to take on the authorities and start to assert their own authority on the next generation yet to rise.

I remember arriving at school one day with a copy of Lennon's "A Spaniard In The Works". Most of it I didn't understand at first, but with assistance from an interested and enlightened teacher, who made me stand in front of class and read some of Lennon's poems, I began to see more in what he wrote, where he was poking fun but at the same time being critical and forthright.

At the time it was probably my first exposure to satire.

So for that John Lennon, thanks. And I wish I could say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Venetian steps...

High pitched stiletto click clack heels across
high pitched mosaic steps of Basilica floor...

Low pitch rumble of deep whispers of the hard of hearing
breaks the sound of the hurrying nuns
requesting;
hats off,
back packs lodged,
ice cream exited,
flash prego?

The inner sanctum turnstile grinds and
greets the oohs and the aahs of the those;
without guides who know it all.

Venetian Panamas

Jack Daniel's... when was 'e a Scot?

Maybe I'm a perfekshunist... I dunno... but I do expect major supermarkets to get it right...

It ain't Scotch, and it is a whiskEy - wiv a Eeeee.........

PhotoShop - eat yer heart out !!

Driving home on Wednesday I turned up towards the mountains and as I got closer to home I saw the most magnificent pink coloured clouds lit by the sun setting behind the Jura... I grabbed my camera, went out onto the balcony and shot off a few pictures... here they are...





A few seconds later, and just altering the light meter reading,





Then, I ran out of the house and leaving my wife and son to wait for me to return and cook dinner, I drove further up the road to an empty chalet I know, and from their garden I took the following two...

Looking westward towards the Jura and




another a few seconds later...


None of these have been altered by using a darkroom software... what you see, is what I saw... just read the light meter reading and worked accordingly...

Let me know what you think...

Saturday lunch... Black Noodles with Shrimp and Saffron.

Tagliolini neri con Scampi e Zafferano

Despite the influence of the French on my taste buds after living here for 15 years, I simply adore Italian food; the way they think about it, they way they cook and the way they eat it and how they do so. Living in France I am constantly reminded of how they consider themselves to be superior in matters culinary. This is no bad thing because different people around the world think themselves superior over others in a great many ways and for the French, food, cooking and eating and as importantly, drinking wine to accompany it is as good a way as any to express one's superiority.

The Italians of course are no different. They are merely convinced.

Despite living so close to Italy I do not get the chance to travel there as much as I would like, and so in many ways the only opportunity for me to eat real Italian is to make an occasional forage into nearby Geneva, in Switzerland, and find a restaurant owned, run and staffed by Italians; although strictly they may have only been so two or three generations ago who also cook and not only know about Italian wines but import and serve them along with some memorable Swiss wines. Memorable for all the right reasons.

The other alternative is to cook it. But then I ain't Italian.

This is where Elisabeth David's books come in handy as do those of Antonio Carluccio and Jamie Oliver's jamies' italy which I have used often and I am getting flavour and sense enough of the recipes to recognise them in Italian restaurants although admittedly, I have to allow for regional variations...

France has now started to import and sell in it's supermarkets, produce from around the world. This is limited and has to be and needs to be. I bought some Coco Rose the other day imported not from Italy, its nearest E.U. member but from Morocco, a former French colony.

It is not unreasonable. Friends from Britain have often complained they cannot find the Italian or Spanish wines they know so well in French supermarkets, but on the other hand I have not seen French wines in supermarkets in either Spain or Italy. All three countries produce enough of their own wine so why bother transporting them by polluting truckloads to neighbouring states?

An example which springs to mind of recent supermarket finds is that of black pasta, or pasta made using ink from cuttlefish. More a tagliatelle than a tagliolini I have found it mixes beautifully with seared scallops, some small tomatoes, some garlic & chopped parsley and little white wine...

Or, just go to Murano, a small glass making island in the lagoon a short boat ride from Venice and seek out a little restaurant by the canal side called A Pianta Leoni, and there they will serve you the best black pasta dish you ever tasted... that is the photo above... Tagliolini Neri con Scampi e Zafferano... it was simply the best pasta dish I have ever eaten...