Use your loaf

"If you don't give a Frenchman his bread 'e is not very 'appy" so concluded Raymond Blanc during one episode of the recent series of BBC2's The Restaurant.  In this particular episode one of the hapless couples had decided (or more likely forgotten) not to have bread available for their customers and this was on the very same day that Monsieur Blanc visited.  When he searched his table in vain for his pain he was not impressed with the would-be restaurateurs having committed one of the gravest of hospitality errors.  Nil point!

In France bread is so, so important that even in the smallest of villages there's usually at least one boulangerie selling a delicious array of breads and cakes.  Back across the Channel and all but a handful of independent bread shops, selling their own produce, have disappeared as we as a nation turned away from local shopping, preferring to spend half our leisure time in the all-consuming hypermarkets.  

And in these shopping monoliths whilst 'real' bread has made a come-back, by far the most popular variety is plasticised, sliced carbohydrate masquerading as bread; it may contain flour, yeast and salt (along with a multitude of preservatives and raising agents) but bread it ain't. In fact it's so bad we ought to come up with a new noun so that we don't confuse the pre-packaged pap with the genuine article.

So, imagine the delight when I recently walked into The Loaf, a recently opened bakery, deli and cafe in Crich, in rural Derbyshire (made famous as the fictional village of Cardale in the TV series Peak Practice).  Before I had tasted the coffee or sampled their pains aux chocolates I had been by seduced by the bright, fresh red and cream interior, resplendent with beech furniture, complemented with dark brown leather banquette seating -- a welcome departure from frilly tablecloths, doilies and Victoriana, which works in only a minority of coffee shops.

I ordered black coffee and a pain au chocolate, and then went to a table and sat down.  If this cafe had only one selling point that aced the high street coffee chains, it was that I didn't have to wait like Oliver in the queue for his gruel.  

My personal bug-bear of the Caffe Costabucks is that you must stand in line and wait for your drink, having been cross-examined about your need for "any pastries with that?" (No!, I would ask if I wanted anything else) and then you have to carry your order over to a table (if you can find one available) having fought over 6 square inches of work surface in order to dispense sugar and milk.  A relaxing experience it isn't.

Back in The Loaf I sat and took in my surroundings; the multitude of fresh loaves that were on display behind the counter -- all having been baked on the premises in the early hours.  On another wall was shelving filled with a wide range of pre-packed teas and coffees, and finally the mouthwatering deli counter.

My coffee was a delicious aromatic blend, enjoyed black and unadulterated and my pastry was divine; fresh and flakey as you would expect.  The experience was over all too quickly.

As I paid for my breakfast I bought a baguette and a small round loaf, both were wrapped in paper; as I walked back into the cold nothing could wipe that smile off my face.

My only regret is that I don't live in Crich.

C'est la vie!

   

 

You can't shoot builders

Along with any form of homicide it is not advisable to shoot builders, although the builder that we have been working with recently I could have quite happily throttled the S.O.B. ( as our American cousins often to refer to such low-lifes).

The reason for this out-of-character reaction was receiving the invoice for work done, such a fantastic work of fiction I don't know why he doesn't go in for the Booker Prize.  Smart-arse comments aside, the invoice was about £2-3,000 more than we had been led to believe, although let us remember that Chamberlain had been "led to believe" that Herr Hitler was a man of peace, so perhaps being "led to believe" things always ends in tears.

If, er, if (heh, heh, heh), if I'm being absolutely honest... (dropping into my mock-Ronnie Corbett mode, and yes written impressions based on famous funny men don't really work... but stay with me); if I'm being absolutely honest (heh, heh, heh) then we (well I say "we"), I am partly to blame for our, or rather my, current travails.

Getting any sort of quote from Bob (obviously not he real name and "yes we can" isn't his catch-phrase... no, I think my builder's catch-phrase is more along the lines of: "because I'm worth it").  Back to my little escapade... I didn't pin him down to an exact price for any given job, although a figure of £2,000 (ex-VAT as we now also find out) for "misc" building work, to which we had attributed a number of jobs.

For a conservatory base and dwarf wall we had been quoted £3,800 (including VAT).  When we asked if "Bob" could do the job the exact response was: "well, there'll be something wrong if we can't do it for that..." and yes, of course there is something wrong.  Because on top of the £3,800 we had to find an extra £1,000 or so to hire a man and a digger, who also needed a 5-tonne industrial size dump truck to take away the spoil from the excavations needed for aforementioned conservatory base and dwarf wall (which I am not so sure isn't a phrase that dwarves might find dwarfist in these politically correct times).

To my way of thinking, the £3,800 should really be minus the extra £1,000 that we had to find, because otherwise we would have appointed the conservatory company with their all-in-one, guaranteed price.  But we didn't.  We stayed local (this man lives about 5o paces from our front door) and put our trust in him.

We should have perhaps been warned about "Bob" because in his opinion, when we first discussed with him what needed to be done to refurbish the property (our tentative first steps into development), he advised that it would be quicker to remove all the plaster from the walls and ceilings in order to put in a damp-proof course that (as a builder of 30 years) had failed to observe (until all the plaster has been removed), than it would be to chop out the standard 1-metre of plaster removal normally required for damp-proof courses.

I know that damp can rise, but I've never heard of damp ceilings, unless someone runs a bath and forgets about it.

Having bare walls and no ceiling made it easier for the electrician and the plumber but at what price?  200 bags of rubble and two skips later... no "Bob", that was poor advice.

So, back to the matter of the invoice.  Rather than itemising each job and putting in a price, we get just four lines of data: number of hours for labour, materials, VAT and total.

We asked for a break-down of the figures, which we expected to discuss in a professional and adult manner and all we get is that he has never, in all his years ever been asked to provide a break-down, and then he simply walked away from the conversation.

So, we end this entry with a Shakespearian dilemma: to pay or not to pay, that is the question.

French Farce

Having just returned from celebrating New Year in France it was interesting to see the attitudes of Brits living over there. We were in the Haute-Vienne department of Limousin in south-west France in a small village. Little English is spoken by the locals and the area has had an influx of English people since we last visited in 2005.

We spent New Year's day in a restaurant that was taken over by a couple from Kent at the end of 2005. The food wasn't bad, but neither was it genuine French cuisine; apart from a group of three French locals dning it was just our group of 8 and that was it. In the bar you could hear English conversation and it was obvious that the place was becoming popular with the local English community.

The attitude of the owners was that the French are suspicious of non-French restaurateurs and that they have found it slow to attract the locals. With a fantastic restaurant established in the village, which offers plats du jours for around 8 euros (2 courses for around 12 euros) there is no reason for the French to visit a non-French venue, especially when the prices are significantly higher and the food quality significantly lower.

If the owners are trying to attract local French custom then they must stop using A-boards written in English. One day the sign read: "Roast Pork", which I am sure sent out completely the wrong signals to the locals. Imagine how many customers there would be if a Thai restaurant in the UK was written in Thai? Exactly, very few.

The other option to attract local custom would be to ensure that they are offering what the locals enjoy; in so many of Gordon Ramsay's solutions in his "Nightmare" shows is to simplify, simplify, simplify. The fact that this restaurant does fish and chips once a month is hardly going to endear the locals to English gastronomy. Instead they could be clever and offer fantastic fish dishes with frites, which the locals would enjoy without the dish having to be labelled "fish & chips".

The owners were somewhat dismissive of the locals not visiting their restaurant, but with the view that it is the French people's unwillingness to try something new misses the point and if they continue to service the English-speaking locals and UK tourists then I can't see them surviving for too long. That would be a shame, because the restaurant has potential and there is definitely a need for more good eateries, especially as tourism in this region is growing.

Getting a French chef, or at least advice from a French chef, would start to stop the rot and in my opinion they must really engage with and become part of the local community, otherwise they will be seen in the same light as those immigrants in the UK that are seen as not integrating. They must never forget that they are foreigners with its own unique set of values and customs, and that they must accommodate them or they may as well be back in Kent.

The French can and do welcome the English if you are prepared to get involved and this was brought into sharp relief during our stay in the village for 9 days. In that time we had our French neighbours round for drinks and then we were invited back to their home 2 days later. The family that we 1st met 2 years ago speak no English and with my improving French we were able to hold court for an hour or so each time. Interestingly, the English family living in the gite adjacent to our accommodation had not really mixed and Catherine, the French neighbour, was very dismissive of their lack of integration and especially the wife's lack of French (after living in the country for 3 years).

The French don't have a problem with anyone that tries and after several years of holidays in the country and having a go at speaking French has always been appreciated.

The French, rightly, have a problem with Captain Mainwarings who think that shouting in English is the way to communicate and with those that live in English enclaves, cut off from French life. If you've bothered to move to such a delightful country and want to enjoy that all that life there has to offer then you need to be prepared to give a little back, and I would say that the more you give you the more you will receive.