March 2024 Newsletter
French musicals, a pub quiz from hell, and a hot cross bun treacle tart
Mommy (2014) directed by Xavier Dolan
Xavier Dolan may be what we consider to be a prodigy. The young Mozart mastered the piano keys, and the French-Canadian Dolan, by the age of 27, had already made six extremely successful films, some of which starred Dolan himself (because of course he can act too), and won a César award. He has now retired because he has a full repertoire of French-language classics - all of which are equally gloomy and heart-wrenching - under his belt at only 34, the most memorable of which being Mommy.
At the beginning of the film, Diane regains custody of her teenage son Steve, who is violent and hyperactive, and she is hardly any better. Their tempestuous relationship has a moment of respite when they befriend their stuttering neighbour, and somehow this unlikely trio find comfort and healing in their friendship. Filmed in a square ratio, the characters are literally boxed into their surroundings, trapped by their personal and legal limitations, something that is paralleled by Steve’s possible fate. Despite their dysfunctionality, we are swept up on a ride to the soundtrack of Celine Dion which does nothing to abate the emotional rollercoaster.
Le Caprin (blue goat’s cheese)
Ok, I know blue cheese isn’t everyone’s first choice on the cheese board, and I’m very self-conscious that this is my second tribute to the stuff, but please hear me out - if you tried Le Caprin (aka The Goat), you would be fangirling over it too.
Often on Taste of Toulouse tours, blue cheese is faced with the most scepticism, which is fair enough - a strong blue can burn a hole through your tongue. But the other day, at the local fromagerie Xavier, the tour group was offered Le Caprin, a mild, creamy, buttery blue, only partially marbled with cornflower blue veins, and most excitingly, it is a goat’s cheese. Blue is more often than not cow or sheep’s cheese; especially here near Roquefort region, sheep rule the land. So, stumbling across Le Caprin was like tripping over a rainbow’s pot of gold. And as for the cheese itself - crumbly, salty with a mild mushroom funk, I mmmmmmed my way through it (my tour guests even commenting on how much I was enjoying it).
Why hello there! Here’s to March - to my favourite treat of all the seasons, to a patriotically French musical, and how to use up your leftover hot cross buns.
To close out March, the clocks propelled us into the start of summer with the daylight hours lengthening, the promise of sun (hopefully) and mosquitoes (without question). But until then, we are in the midst of Pâques (Easter), with the Marché Victor Hugo positively bursting at the seams this weekend with queues for lamb legs stretching down the aisles and merry drinkers getting ever merrier.
Chocolate shops have been displaying their Easter creations all month, not limiting themselves to the typical chocolate eggs or bunnies, but including whole menageries of animals from elephants to ladybirds. Before I flew back to the UK for a mid-month sojourn with my family, I went to Criollo to stock up on chocolatey souvenirs for them - praline-filled chocolate bunnies and chickens and mini eggs infused with passion fruit or peanut or even eye-watering five spice. We can always trust Criollo’s owner, ex-chef Jean Pierre Dujon Lombard, to think up something a bit mental (I highly recommend the chocolate filled with passion fruit, lavender and a touch of coriander).
The Easter foods of the UK can be condensed into one special yet stocky treat - the hot cross bun. I managed to squeeze two packets of them into my alarmingly full suitcase for my return to France, along with the ever-present pot of clotted cream, because alas, the French don’t eat them. Instead, there is the aggressive displaying of Kinder and Milka in the supermarket and a conspicuous space indicating where hot cross buns should be.
The French just don’t really get the whole spiced-bread-stuffed-with-currants thing. They have pain d’épices which appears every Christmas, and while it’s a delicious take on gingerbread, it’s certainly more (if you’ll excuse my lack of descriptive words) bready than cakey or doughy. In the UK though, and I’m sure in other parts of the world where they’re sold, there’s this collective lustful longing for the buns that are hot and cross. So, hot cross buns crossed the Channel with me, because honestly what is spring without them, and I have since got through all eight of them and have been back for less than a week. Admittedly, three went into today’s recipe as stale hot cross buns need all the love they can get. And in this case that love is covered in syrup and piled inside a pastry-lined tart tin.
My other adventures in the UK involved all the essential life admin I couldn’t do in France - my French is not at a high enough standard to get my hair dyed for instance. And lord, I know I would just nod enthusiastically at anything they said, just to be polite, not understanding a word of it. So, I was much safer in a country where miscommunication can still happen but we’re all apologetic about it.
There was also a trip to London with its requisite highs and lows: a high being seeing my friends, going to the theatre with my sister, and of course, one morning when I woke to my sister laying out an entire pancake station of banana pancakes, yoghurt, compote, peanut butter, you name it, and we stacked those pancakes into skyscrapers of indulgence.
The low in question was a pub quiz. Pub quizzes don’t usually come with a warning, but this one in Camden should. Luckily I had comrades with me, my friends Suzie and Tony, and our hearts collectively sunk as the perky emcee, who seemingly took vindictive pleasure in our misery, announced the first round was that each table had to share a sordid confession.