Six Degrees of Separation - Like Water for Hot Chocolate

Last weekend, I was clearing out the shed where I store boxes of books acquired nearly 20 years ago. There were a few reading memories there, I can tell you. On the shelves, I found my copy of Like Water for Hot Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. I remember buying it on a lunchtime walk to Paperchain Bookstore in Manuka. In those days, a friend and I often spent our lunch hours walking to the bookshop, browsing the shelves, and inevitably carrying something new back to the office. Like Water for Hot Chocolate is this month's choice for 6 Degrees of Separation. 

You might already know that Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman began the 6 Degrees of Separation meme in 2014 and now it is managed (is that the right word?) by Kate at Books are my favourite and best. The idea is that Kate nominates a book and, on the first Saturday of the month, participants reveal chains of six books that all connect in some way. If you are curious to see where other people's reading leads them, Kate's blog is a good place to begin. But I owe my introduction to Whispering Gums, another very good place to start.

So where will Like Water for Hot Chocolate lead? There are a few paths we could take to begin - Chocolat by Joanne Harris; perhaps to Isabel Allende who I also discovered at Paperchain. But as Like Water for Hot Chocolate is 'a novel in monthly instalments with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies', it has made me think of another book about cooking - Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. Do you remember it? Blogger Julie spends a year recreating the 524 recipes Julia Child included in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Still on the cooking in fiction theme, my next book is a novel, The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. It also includes recipes but these were secondary to the story of a widowed American food writer who travels to Beijing to unravel her husband's past and her own present. 

The Taste of Memory leaps to mind. Marion Halligan's memoir about food and families and life is one of the few books with recipes I've read where I did attempt one of her recipes. For a little while there, I made her pizza dough - until Jim broke a tooth biting into it. Let's blame the cook, not the recipe. It's still one of my favourite books about life in Canberra and also in France.

Food is very much on my mind because now I'm thinking about the series of archaeological detective fiction created by LJM Owens, another Canberra writer. In the first book in the series, Olmec Obitutary, librarian and super sleuth Dr Elizabeth Pimms is adjusting to life in Canberra, only to be distracted by the mystery of a royal Olmec cemetery. 

Suddenly I'm not thinking about food at all. Now I'm onto graveyards. Specifically Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, which is set in London's Highgate Cemetery. I wanted to love this book as much as I loved her first novel, The Time Traveller's Wife. I didn't, but Highgate Cemetery was a very impressive character.

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, on the other hand, will stay with me forever. I discovered Gaiman relatively recently (I know, the rest of the world fell in love with him years ago). I adore that moment of discovery. The Graveyard Book tells the story of Bod Owens, who is adopted by the supernatural inhabitants of a graveyard after his parents are murdered. I seem to recall food playing an important part in the story too. Bod's adopted family have no need of food - unlike Bod himself.

We haven't travelled very far today, have we? We began with recipes and magic in Mexico and we've ended with food and fantasy in England, with short visits to New York, France, China, Canberra, France, Canberra, and Mexico in between. 

Next month, it's back to the 80s with Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero. 

PS Thank you to those who have commented on previous posts. Being a 'comments novice', I've only just discovered them lurking, waiting to be published! Will try to get myself organised so it doesn't happen again. It was great to hear from you.

Dinner at Jamie’s or How I Missed the Cheltenham Literary Festival

Sunday evening. Our attempts to find accommodation at Gloucester (after first humming the Harry Potter theme in the Cathedral cloisters) had failed. In some English towns, finding even the town centre is like working your way through a maze. So we drove onwards, ever onwards, looking for the next town.

A winding country road, hedgerows, failing light, and then the sign ‘Cheltenham 6 miles’. I knew the Literary Festival was closing that night. I’d deliberately avoided Cheltenham for that reason. Too crowded and what would Jim and Miles do while I queued to listen to Ian McEwan, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall-Smith, Nigella Lawson, David Walliams … who wasn’t going to be at the festival? But we were tired, it was getting dark, so we took the turn in the road and found ourselves at the Queens Hotel.

Across the road, the festival tents glowed white in the twilight. The festival bookshop, run by Waterstones, was in full swing and a queue was starting to form for one of the final sessions. And I didn’t have a ticket!

Instead, we went looking for dinner. A long walk through a dark town centre - always a pedestrian mall. A man in his sleeping bag in the Debenhams doorway. A Pizza Hut with teenagers queuing. Miles and I both tired, hungry and a little dispirited. And then, around a corner … Jamie’s Italian. Suddenly, the evening took a turn for the better.

We were lead up a winding staircase to the court room of the old County Courthouse. We were ushered into the Press Box, seated in a row, looking across at other diners seated at the Judge’s table. A children’s menu for Miles - with pencils. Menus for Jim and I. Drinks order taken. 

Our Albanian waiter ran through the menu -  no lamb, no bream, no fritto misto, and no pork belly advertised on the chalkboard on the street. But they still had pasta and the other special of the day, pumpkin risotto.

Jim was thinking of leaving. Thinking very loudly of  leaving. We'd eaten a lot of Italian lately - how much pasta can a man take? I was in no mood to leave - too tired, too hungry, and determined to have a ‘Jamie’ experience. Miles was just happy to have spag bol (again). So we stayed. Jim ordered ‘Funky Chips’ - here’s what he got.

The waiter was embarrassed - embarrassed that so many things were off the menu. He sent the manager to have a chat with us. He wasn’t at all embarrassed and couldn’t rustle up a single serve of lamb, pork belly or fish. He was grumpy and probably a little fed up - it was, after all, the end of the festival. What did we expect?

We soldiered on. We laughed (slightly hysterically). The chips were ‘funky’(doused in garlic) - and definitely a ‘side’. The risotto, though, was delicious and Miles begged for a second helping of the spag bol.

And our Albanian waiter proved to be an angel - he was so embarrassed, he convinced the manager to charge us for our drinks only, turning a potentially awful evening into a highlight of the trip.

As for the Literary Festival, this is what I saw on Monday morning.

But I did buy a signed copy of Alexander McCall Smith’s new Isabel Dalhousie novel from Waterstone’s, a momento of the festival I missed.

Galloping Around the South

It's Monday evening UK time and today we drove from York to Edinburgh. Many adventures, many miles covered (over 1200 now), many erratic internet connections. Both Miles and I are way behind with our posts. But we'll catch up. In the meantime, here's a post I prepared earlier.

 

We are now heading north, to York and Scotland. But we have already managed 600 miles or so around the south of England. Here are a few highlights.

Colchester

We got off the boat and caught a train to Colchester, England’s oldest recorded city and the closest place to Harwich to hire a car. The taxi driver who picked us up from the station was adamant that there was nothing to see in Colchester. Except for … the castle … and the Seige House still full of holes from shot … and maybe the new arts centre that nobody wanted … oh, and the old hotel, the oldest in Colchester, he took us to.

 

Banbary Cross

 

‘Ride a cock horse to Banbary cross …‘

We stayed two nights at Banbary Cross. It’s a lovely town on the edge of a canal. The canal boats had been gathered the previous weekend for a festival and a few were still docked, waiting for their turn to move off. We didn’t see a lady on a white horse and the cross turns out to be the Banbary crossroads. But we stayed in a wonderful hotel which had been visited by James II, Shakespeare, and Swift, who wrote at least some of Gulliver’s Travels in Room 52. We were in Room 41.

 

 

 

Stratford-upon-Avon

 

I just love this town! But it’s changed a lot since I was last here, driving into the little carpark in front of the theatre to see Ralph Fiennes (before he was famous) in King Lear. The carpark has gone and the town has expanded but the heart of the town is as gorgeous as it ever was and a stroll along the Avon, past the canal boats, the theatre, and to the church to view Shakespeare’s grave is still my idea of bliss.

 

Hay-on-Wye

We seemed to drive miles to Hay-on-Wye, which has one foot in England and one in Wales. Its claim to fame is having over 30 secondhand and antiquarian bookshops … but it’s a long way to go for a bookshop and on a Sunday, a number are closed. In the 1960s, creating a town of bookshops was a deliberate strategy to revitalise a failing market town living in the shadow of a crumbling castle. The castle is still crumbling and now, Hay-on-Wye seems to be marketing itself as a Kindle-free-zone. I kept my Kindle locked in the car.

 

Bath

 

It was pouring as we drove into Bath (on the second attempt) so the only thing to do was spend the afternoon in the Roman Baths. It is an even more incredible experience that it was 20-odd years ago, with much more of the site excavated and available to view. Miles was completely into it, with a kid’s audio tour to listen to (I was the one who got tired of listening to the very nice voice on the audio).

Stongehenge

 

‘Henge’ is an old, old word for ‘hanging’ so Stonehenge really means ‘hanging stones’. I took far too many photos of the stones, as you do, but didn’t take a photo of the woman dressed as a druid - who wasn’t there as one of the custodians of the stones. She was, I think, a druid or perhaps just thought she was a druid?

Hardy's 'Temple of the Winds' lived up to its reputation. The sun was shining but the wind was blowing a gale - as you can see by the photo below. Do I have any hair?