Good dinner

Sometimes I really get to enjoy my job - like evenings when I have to prepare and share dinner with an interesting and diverse group of intelligent and likeable people from all walks of life and from all over the world.

Tonight was one such occasion and all thanks to the inability to find a decent restaurant for guests to go to on a Monday night slightly out of season in France - well in Carcassonne anyway, but I suspect it applies to a wider group of similar small provincial towns across the country.

Now that we are into October, all of the restaurants that I recommend for guests who are looking for something slightly better than a basic brasserie, are closed on a Sunday and Monday night - actually some of them are always closed on those days even in the height of the Summer tourist season.

So my Mexican guests who arrived late yesterday were asking me this morning about dinner tonight and I was struggling to advise them. "Can you do dinner for us?, asked Antonieta. I couldn't say no in the same way I couldn't resist her original email asking "I want stay your luxury hotel". I'm not criticizing her English at all, it was sweet. My Spanish is rubbish.

My Australian guests arrived late this afternoon after a long drive across country from Tours. I could tell that they were weary and needed looking after - I offered and they jumped at the chance to have dinner at home so to speak.

When I woke up this morning I was going to be eating on my own tonight - finishing off the coq au vin that I prepared yesterday - by 6pm I was cooking a dinner for five.

They were all young - by which I mean under 40 and probably well under 40 - a corporate lawyer with his own firm employing 30 or so qualified staff, a specialist in pacemaker surgery and defibrillators who recently won a 'clinitian of the year' award, a graphic designer turned art therapist and a architect turned health care worker. Both women had designed their own homes - both men built what they were told to build - that sounds horribly familiar but very successful as a formula.

Naturally with Australians in the house the conversation turned to Skippy the kangaroo!

Naturally with Mexicans in the house the conversation turned to swine flu ( we all agreed that it wasn't their fault) and the new trend for premium grade sipping tequila.

We also discussed at some length why Central America celebrates Columbus Day (it was today by the way) as a national holiday when he bought the misery of European invasion onto the indigineous peoples of the region. Funnily enough, they hadn't really thought of it like that. I guess they focus on the positive benefits - whatever they may be.

Well you get the gist of it all - it was varied and intelligent and serious and light hearted - and the very essence of a good get together around the dinner table.

I just have the washing up to finish off.

Square one

I have been totally rubbish at blog writing this week. I have thought about it often but have found little inspiration - and as the week went on I became busier with guests and consequently more tired and even less inspired - as this thoroughly uninspiring opening paragraph demonstrates.

I have just finished a client dinner which is the fifth night in a row that I have had client duties to attend to - drinks and canapes on Wednesday and Thursday, dinner for seven on Friday, canapes again last night and then another dinner this evening. At the other end of the day there were three breakfasts to be put together each morning. I have had a full house here this week.

The multinational and British regional theme has also continued after the Americans of last weekend. A British couple courtesy of Nigeria at the start of the week, followed by Canadians, some gritty northerners from Cumbria, some posh southerners from East Anglia and finally a Scouse/Yorkshire mix - plus a booking from Mexico and one from Germany - both firsts for 42rvh.

Their backgrounds are also many and varied including diplomats, oil lawyers, builders, art historians and interior designers. So it is always fascinating to throw them all round the dinner table and see how they get on. The result is that people just do get on - they find some common ground (even if it's just that they are visiting Carcassonne or drinking wine or sitting at my table) and the conversation flows - sometimes on and on.

Friday night was a case in point - seven people around the table and they all got on splendidly which, of course, meant that they got on splendidly until the early hours of the following morning. I managed four and a half hours sleep between clearing up and starting breakfasts.

Maybe my exercise regime of the last six months helps me to deal with it all better. Last week I totalled 97kms on my bike which is new high - if only I had stayed out for another three!

I also went to look at a house out in the countryside this week, as Debrah and I continue to wrestle with finding the best solution for our 'living in different countries' scenario. It is a very old watermill in need of total renovation. It feels quite daunting to think about going back to square one again but is equally quite exciting. It's even more exciting because we would be working on it together. We aren't sure if it's right yet and Debrah hasn't seen it in the flesh but you never know. Watch this space.