The week after and before

22 May 2013

Our little ceremony last Friday went well, I did not freeze to death as I had thought I might, and we were able to pull off something personal, small but sweet, under just about two weeks since we got a date set for the city hall.

A special thank you to my friend C who whipped up our professional looking wedding cake, covered with pretty fondant flowers with little red centres. We love you!

Now, on to warmer pastures, though not sunnier, since there are thunderstorms and the occasional typhoon in the part of the world that my husband (!!!) and I will be moving to next week.

Other than my friends, and the town with its pretty lakeside landscape, I will be missing some of the food, most certainly, as I do wherever I go. What are a few of the places I would like to visit before leaving? What do I think I will not be able to find there as easily as here? Well, I had no shame in sharing a cheese fondue last week though we are in the middle of the month of May, but even that we’ll be certainly enjoying in the Philippines, as you can just about find everything there now, especially in the big cities (okay, maybe not the meringues with double cream from Gruyères which we indulged in post-fondue, pictured below).

The filets de perches, we are planning on having this week end by the lake with my in-laws. I wanted to take my daughter for delicious roësti at the Café du Bourg de Four in the old town, where I have had some of the yummiest specimens in Geneva. Other than that, maybe a couple pastries at Ladurée and some hot chocolate at one of the numerous artisanal chocolatiers in town. Also I can’t help but want to return to Brasserie Lipp, though it is French and a branch of the Paris restaurant, because for me it epitomizes the food and ambiance which cannot be recreated in South East Asia (except maybe at that small restaurant near Patpong on a good night) and the food is always exceptionally tasty.

Tonight, I treated myself to a plate of chanterelles (something I might not eat as often there), simply sautéed in butter and olive oil, and remembered why I didn’t want to run a fine-dining, or restaurant gastronomique, where the product needs to be travaillé, literally “worked at” before it is presentable. I remember when I was asked to produce an amuse-bouche at a famous restaurant here in Geneva, I showed my chef de partie my idea and she said “ce n’est pas assez travaillé”, meaning to say the taste was secondary to the time the staff spent on working with the product which is what the clients pay for in the end, as well as the product… in this case I couldn’t imagine how adding even one ingredient could improve the taste I just experienced, and for all the entertainment I get from watching shows like Top Chef, I know what I like and what I want to share, and it can be complicated (that is fun too) and it can be as simple as wild mushrooms glistening a little butter and oil.

And for those of you in Geneva next Tuesday 28 May, see you at the bar du Nord (rue Ancienne 66) for a last drink goodbye at 7:00 pm onwards! 

Marriage 2.0

Today a girlfriend asked me the question perhaps others have thought of but not dared to ask – what does it feel like getting married the second time round?  First thing that came to my mind is that I have a much greater knowledge of who I am, what my core needs and beliefs are, than I did fifteen years ago. I know how difficult marriage can be (which I didn’t at the time), and yet I am willing to give it a shot again. I was convinced, armed with this knowledge, that I was ahead of the game, and I also thought that most people in my situation must feel the same way. After all why would you want to engage into something that didn’t work out the first time if you weren’t convinced it could work this time round?

So I went to the Net to check out some stats and lo and behold, the divorce rate is higher for second marriages than it is for firsts (and it gets higher on the third, so good job to my mom and her hubby). This made no sense to me what so ever. Even the reasons mentioned – greater independence, less of a desire to “hold the family together,” and step-families among other factors, were not convincing for me.

Basically I discovered that not only am I about to engage into one high-failure venture (opening a restaurant), but unbeknownst to me, two! And how does this make me feel? Very, very pumped. Fuck the stats: as the French saying goes, “Qui ne tente rien n’a rien.”

Oh and by the way I have an amazing fiancé… which also helps.

The children’s cabaret

My daughter goes to public school in Geneva, and every year they have a school party with food and drinks and performances. This year her teacher had selected a song for the whole class to perform, which my daughter didn’t seem too happy about, as it was not by a contemporary artist or someone she or her friends were familiar with. Still, they were busy rehearsing, and about two weeks ago we went about looking for a dress for the show. When my daughter told me it the style should "cabaret," a huge red flag popped up in my head. Cabaret? Isn’t that a bit… adult? Still, I didn’t more of it, and we settled on a pretty cream colored dress with a ruffled skirt.

Last Friday I showed up at the performance in the school yard and the girls were in dresses with a boa or scarf and a chair as accessories. The boys wore striped clothes; they were inmates. Now I don’t remember exactly all the lyrics of the song, but I do know that my daughter danced seductively on that chair, swaying her long hair and playing with her scarf. At one point, the boys all took out a cigarette and pretended to smoke it. I was in shock. First thing I thought was, “if the WHO knew about this….” But seriously I could not believe the teacher would pick this song and choreograph a dance like this.

Before I could react, the next group came on stage and started singing another French song, this time about a man so handsome that all the women in town cheated on their husband. I looked over at my daughter’s father and said: “Is it me? Am I being puritanical and stuck-up?” He agreed with me that it was inappropriate and suggested I write to the school principal. All I could think of by now was, thank god we are going to the Philippines. It is true that I allow her to surf the net and watch videos on youtube, so was this really any worse or was I being hypocritical and naïve? Anyway, the whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable, but all I managed to say to my daughter was that I thought it was a bit of an adult choice for a children’s show. She didn’t really seem to think much of it.