My first (proper) kiss
My first kiss
Not the best. Not the worst. Is anyone’s? A bit like the first time one has sex, but I am definitely not going down that road on the narrative side of things.
So the first kiss I ever had. I was 15 and he was 22. Now even at the time, or at least shortly after, I did pause to wonder what kind of sicko would want to have some sort of relationship (? Ok I think he really did) with someone who was a mid-teenager. I don’t think he was a pervert though. Just a bit… well thick. Ok this is cruel, but it’s true. He was much less bright, much less knowledgeable than I was. I don’t say this because he was a train driver (you have to have your wits about you for that job) or because he lived at home (economical) or because of his penchant for nylon-heavy v-necked school uniform-like pullovers (which smelt nicely of fresh washing.) And the Bette Davies film thing might have given him brownie points had I been older.
No it was none of these things. He was evidently, lamentably just not that bright.
And I wasn’t remotely attracted to him, although I did quite fancy his
much, much younger brother who ogled me through the tea that his mum served up the one time I went over. My initial snogging session was the result of a kind of setting up by my sister, who, incidentally, later agreed with me that he was a sloppy kisser. And the whole incident only happened, on my part, as an act of revenge/self proving after a couple of friends buggered off to and allegedly did get off with guys, leaving me in the lurch, in a restaurant on my own for over an hour.
On my birthday. (All is forgiven by the way. It was a long time ago, but relevant to the narrative.)
As a consequence, I was fed up, self-esteem bereft (not that I had any self-esteem anyway) and my sister thought that she would cheer me up by taking me to the number one heavy metal nightclub that mid-1980s Sheffield had to offer - Rebels.
Or was it Revels? Always easy to confuse nightclub name with a chocolate one.
It was a classy place. Pictures of naked page three style bimbos on the walls, broken glass on the floor (not a style statement, just a consequence of drunken clientele, and presumably complacent staff) and lots of girls and guys (sorry lads and lasses) in pre-lycra days skin tight white jeans giving their brains a bashing as they banged their heads up and down to the likes of Meatloaf. It was sad, I knew then, but I suppose I was quite excited, doubtless cigarette in hand and Sally’s borrowed clothes on. I really don’t remember. Anyway ‘it’ (the ‘relationship’) lasted a week. There was only so much Bette Davies… or was it Joan Crawford? and fragrant navy nylon jumper that I could stand. (Actually one afternoon’s worth.) So I got my mother to break us up. She rang him and told him that I was too young for him, only being 15 etc. The next year he sent me a huge ludicrously tacky birthday card and rang me to see if I would go out with him now that I was 16.
I suppose it was sort of sweet, but I am not sure how innocent. I always thought it was the latter as well as the former, because I thought he was a bit dim, especially as I got a card the next year not to mention the big valentine cards with bears and hearts on them in the intermediate time, but perhaps given the turning-16 watershed and the ramifications of that in the eyes of the law, maybe not. I’ll never know.
I suppose that while I am on this train of thought, I might as well mention my best worst, chat up line. Not my chat up line, exactly, I hasten to add – I don’t chat people up - but the best bad one anyone ever tried on me…
I’d gone to a night club on a trip up north to visit my parents. Sunny Sheffield. I don’t do night clubs, and never really have (apart from erm Revels, I mean Rebels.) I mean what’s the point. Unless you really like dancing, there’s only one thing they are for, and that’s not having a nice chat and getting to know people. It’s getting off with people. Which I never did, not that I am sure that I wanted to really, but either way, standing with your arms folded tightly and watching your friends (were they really friends?) doing exactly that was the emotional equivalent of a stiletto heal grinding out the cigarette butt of the last bit of your soul or self-esteem. Wrong metaphor, perhaps. There was no way that guys would be wearing stilletos in Sheffield and I wasn’t into girls.
Anyway this time I was 25, so old enough to get into ‘Grab a Grannie night.” Yep. Passed the 20 mark, so a grannie. There were actually a couple on the dance floor that looked really old. Must have been in their 40s, and god so sad, strutting their stuff (how cruel we are when young), but apart from that no one over 28.
It was a strange evening. I had been dragged there by a friend, who’s friend we met up with promptly offered me poppers. Now I never get offered drugs, apart from pot – and who doesn’t get offered that – and I wasn’t sure what poppers did, so there was no way that I was going to accept any without doing research, and in the virtually pre-internet days that wasn’t going to happen even after the event. So for me, a bizarre start to the evening.
And then this guy came and sat down next to me, sidling up against me, and uttered the immortal words “You smell nice. What shampoo do you use?”
I was literally speechless for a moment.
I don’t remember what shampoo I was using. Why would I, and the inanity of the chat-up line would doubtless have obliterated any memory of my usual morning hair product anyway. But it was probably whatever Mr Sainsbury’s had on special offer at the time, being an impoverished post-grad student.
I think I danced with him, although I can’t be sure. It’s a long time ago.
Needless to say no snogging.
Monday, 28 June 2010
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Inappropriate behaviour
Inappropriate behaviour
OK I am not exactly innocent when it comes to inappropriate behaviour. Far from it, although I am not prepared to go into details. Well maybe I could admit to licking a plate to relish the last morsels of a truffle cream sauce… swigging juice from its carton (but everyone does that… don’t they?) and there was that time I fell asleep at my own party. I was just going to have a nap, but didn't wake up until the next morning. Good thing I had a flat mate (mostly her friends at the party anyway) to hold the fort. And it ended ok. A 7am walk in Port Meadow, working off the embarrassment, and some arty photos taken of dew-filled spider webs and the like. (Although I am still slightly disturbed and curious about the identity of the person who was caught stroking the ceramic sheep on the outside of my bedroom door whilst I was sleeping.) But anyway. All of this has been in the privacy (well sort of) of my own home.
Not in public.
But some people seem to have no sense of what is appropriate. To some extent my reactions reflect on my own upbringing/obsessions/phobias. I mean hey, what’s intrinsically inappropriate about cutting your nails on the tube. (God, the sound of the clippers still haunts me.) And there’s certainly nothing wrong with putting your make-up on on the train. In fact, these women should be given a medal for having the tenacity to apply eyeliner while the train speeds from Loughborough Junction to Elephant and Castle. (We are talking serious swerving here. I am told that it’s to do with crossing points on the line.)
And the woman on the train who licks her fingers every time she turns a page of her free gutter press newspaper. Nothing wrong with that. (I wonder if you can get ink poisoning. I rather hope so. Then I might not have to witness it again. Very Name of the Rose.)
But as I said this is all small fry.
Compared to the guy I was sitting opposite on the train the other day. He was sipping from a large carton of double Elmlea ‘cream’, cradling it like it was some elicit after-work can of beer- on-public-transport kind of thing. And I thought I was weird.
Someone I mentioned this to suggested that perhaps the carton actually did contain beer. If so, I hope he washed the carton out thoroughly. Cream/beer mix. It doesn’t bear thinking about. But then there are people out there who like Baileys. (Erm I have been known to drink it – but only in private. And that’s not official.)
There’s perhaps a slight blurring on the border between inappropriateness and the slightly strange. Or, as I like to think of it, the surreal. Generally one can only keep a grip on the surreality of things if one refuses to look for an explanation. This is something I have always thought of as appropriate. Ignorance may not be bliss, but it can be amusing. Breast pumps, for example. As soon as my ignorance was relieved, so to speak, an amusing aspect of life was also removed. But there are things in my life which will never be explained, thank goodness. The time, for example, I was in a phone box (poor student, no phone) when the booth was suddenly surrounded by 5 burly firemen, shouting ‘it’s in here.” I assume they weren’t referring to me, but who knows. I didn’t, and don’t want to.
The guy who used to walk down the main drag in Shepherd’s bush wearing black plastic sacks wrapped around his legs, who inexplicably turned up in Oxford several years later. (Maybe it wasn’t the same guy. Just a plastic bag man ‘meme’ sort of thing.) Finding a big big beetle on my curtain after watching a TV production of Metamorphosis.
Ok I am straying into the realms of my list of bizarre experiences now. But only bizarre if you don’t try to understand them or half think that there is a meaning that goes beyond the obvious.
OK I am not exactly innocent when it comes to inappropriate behaviour. Far from it, although I am not prepared to go into details. Well maybe I could admit to licking a plate to relish the last morsels of a truffle cream sauce… swigging juice from its carton (but everyone does that… don’t they?) and there was that time I fell asleep at my own party. I was just going to have a nap, but didn't wake up until the next morning. Good thing I had a flat mate (mostly her friends at the party anyway) to hold the fort. And it ended ok. A 7am walk in Port Meadow, working off the embarrassment, and some arty photos taken of dew-filled spider webs and the like. (Although I am still slightly disturbed and curious about the identity of the person who was caught stroking the ceramic sheep on the outside of my bedroom door whilst I was sleeping.) But anyway. All of this has been in the privacy (well sort of) of my own home.
Not in public.
But some people seem to have no sense of what is appropriate. To some extent my reactions reflect on my own upbringing/obsessions/phobias. I mean hey, what’s intrinsically inappropriate about cutting your nails on the tube. (God, the sound of the clippers still haunts me.) And there’s certainly nothing wrong with putting your make-up on on the train. In fact, these women should be given a medal for having the tenacity to apply eyeliner while the train speeds from Loughborough Junction to Elephant and Castle. (We are talking serious swerving here. I am told that it’s to do with crossing points on the line.)
And the woman on the train who licks her fingers every time she turns a page of her free gutter press newspaper. Nothing wrong with that. (I wonder if you can get ink poisoning. I rather hope so. Then I might not have to witness it again. Very Name of the Rose.)
But as I said this is all small fry.
Compared to the guy I was sitting opposite on the train the other day. He was sipping from a large carton of double Elmlea ‘cream’, cradling it like it was some elicit after-work can of beer- on-public-transport kind of thing. And I thought I was weird.
Someone I mentioned this to suggested that perhaps the carton actually did contain beer. If so, I hope he washed the carton out thoroughly. Cream/beer mix. It doesn’t bear thinking about. But then there are people out there who like Baileys. (Erm I have been known to drink it – but only in private. And that’s not official.)
There’s perhaps a slight blurring on the border between inappropriateness and the slightly strange. Or, as I like to think of it, the surreal. Generally one can only keep a grip on the surreality of things if one refuses to look for an explanation. This is something I have always thought of as appropriate. Ignorance may not be bliss, but it can be amusing. Breast pumps, for example. As soon as my ignorance was relieved, so to speak, an amusing aspect of life was also removed. But there are things in my life which will never be explained, thank goodness. The time, for example, I was in a phone box (poor student, no phone) when the booth was suddenly surrounded by 5 burly firemen, shouting ‘it’s in here.” I assume they weren’t referring to me, but who knows. I didn’t, and don’t want to.
The guy who used to walk down the main drag in Shepherd’s bush wearing black plastic sacks wrapped around his legs, who inexplicably turned up in Oxford several years later. (Maybe it wasn’t the same guy. Just a plastic bag man ‘meme’ sort of thing.) Finding a big big beetle on my curtain after watching a TV production of Metamorphosis.
Ok I am straying into the realms of my list of bizarre experiences now. But only bizarre if you don’t try to understand them or half think that there is a meaning that goes beyond the obvious.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
something different - a dream
It was dusk, and the pale sun was sinking below the tree-ragged horizon. But somehow I knew that in the valley ahead, there was another sunset. A fantastic blaze of fiery light which, if only I could run fast enough, I might just see before darkness extinguished everything. And so I ran. I ran across the brown landscape, through the scrub and the leafless silhouetted trees, until I reached the brink of the hill – the lip of the valley. And there it was. As if somehow the sun had been captured here – as if some ancient myth were true, and daylight was held ransom whilst moonlight ruled the world. But this was no ordinary daylight. For as I said, it was fiery – a deep and dangerous orange. But then it changed, and in front of me was an abyss of intense blue, with wisps of white. And without warning – surprising even myself – I stepped off the edge.
I fell gently and I realised that I was not alone. Many others were falling too.
I fell gently and I realised that I was not alone. Many others were falling too.
Rent to the ideal/Polish interlude
There was something familiar about the man, but I couldn’t quite work out what it was. It was about ten past six, and I was on my way home from the station after another excruciatingly boring day at work. The man was standing at the junction of York Hill and Knolley’s Road, looking lost, slightly agitated. I knew I shouldn’t have let us make eye contact, but I couldn’t help it, couldn’t ignore him.
“Polskie?” he asked hopefully. He seemed almost tearful.
“No, I’m English, I replied.”
“English. I try to get to friend.” He held out an Oyster card. “Sutton, but no…”
Ok, he wanted money, Fine. I wasn’t going to brush him off, but I wanted this to be over as quickly as possible. I had already begun to dig into my pockets as he tried to explain further in one word sentences.
“I don’t have much money on me,” I said. I couldn’t actually see exactly what I had extracted from my pocket. A couple of quid I imagined. I put it in his outstretched hand. Suddenly, he grasped me pulling me into a firm embrace, weeping onto my shoulder. I tried to pull away, but his grip was strong.
“Er, I think I ought to go now, I said.” I could see people on the street staring, looking concerned, I liked to think. “I need to go. Good luck.” Eventually, he let me go, and I hurried up the rest of the hill smiling, feeling embarrassed. Telling myself that if I had been fooled, then fair enough. Rent to the ideal, as E.M. Forster put it in Howard’s End.
“Polskie?” he asked hopefully. He seemed almost tearful.
“No, I’m English, I replied.”
“English. I try to get to friend.” He held out an Oyster card. “Sutton, but no…”
Ok, he wanted money, Fine. I wasn’t going to brush him off, but I wanted this to be over as quickly as possible. I had already begun to dig into my pockets as he tried to explain further in one word sentences.
“I don’t have much money on me,” I said. I couldn’t actually see exactly what I had extracted from my pocket. A couple of quid I imagined. I put it in his outstretched hand. Suddenly, he grasped me pulling me into a firm embrace, weeping onto my shoulder. I tried to pull away, but his grip was strong.
“Er, I think I ought to go now, I said.” I could see people on the street staring, looking concerned, I liked to think. “I need to go. Good luck.” Eventually, he let me go, and I hurried up the rest of the hill smiling, feeling embarrassed. Telling myself that if I had been fooled, then fair enough. Rent to the ideal, as E.M. Forster put it in Howard’s End.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Muscle man
A lean young man, nicely, not overly, tanned, with well developed chest, abdominal and arm muscles – I didn’t know the technical names for them – smiled brightly out of the poster. His expression bordered on manic, a touch over the brink of enthusiastic and happy, but just about clinging onto something that could pass for normal. Apart from his muscle-induced triangular torso, he would have been attractive. But as it was, he’d have to be wearing more than a pair of white boxer shorts to appeal. Which was ironic, as it would seem that it was his body (apparently just the upper half) that was the cause of his almost-crazed expression of sheer joy. Its appearance and the new-found energy that he had, so he claimed, gained in the process of attaining it.
To the left of him, on the poster, was a – his, allegedly – testimony about how some personal training, consumption of protein drinks, and presumably, although put in an understated manner, taking of a ‘food supplement’ – the one he was endorsing in the advert – had changed his life. He’d lost two and a half stone, become fitter and even given up his boring job and started his own business because of the amazing results that this ‘no gimmick, completely healthy’ product had had in so short a time. It didn’t say what this new business was, but he had been an engineer. Wow! Brains as well as beauty. One suspected that he might have gained a new partner out of this too, but none was mentioned. It seemed like an oversight. Surely part of the point of getting a body like this was the thought that one might attract others, potential partners. But I imagined that they were trying to avoid alienating gay men, by giving him a girlfriend, and straight men by giving him boyfriend. The advert was, of course, aimed at men.
He was clutching a large framed photograph of his former sorry self. In the photo, he looked sallow, bordering on grey. He was slightly slouched in posture emanating dissatisfaction if not misery. His hair was non-descript - none of the gel-teased spikes that his new perky self had. He wasn’t thin, but he was by no means fat either. His stomach perhaps a touch puffy, a little too much flesh on the ‘love handle’ area, but really not that bad at all. At worst, he was the man on the verge of becoming a little too fat, and he looked dejected. But thanks to a certain product, he had brought himself back from the brink. I found it bizarre that he had ‘always dreamed of having a six pack’ – but then I am not a man… And almost more so that he owned a large, framed photograph of himself wearing nothing but (presumably) blue boxer shorts.
To the left of him, on the poster, was a – his, allegedly – testimony about how some personal training, consumption of protein drinks, and presumably, although put in an understated manner, taking of a ‘food supplement’ – the one he was endorsing in the advert – had changed his life. He’d lost two and a half stone, become fitter and even given up his boring job and started his own business because of the amazing results that this ‘no gimmick, completely healthy’ product had had in so short a time. It didn’t say what this new business was, but he had been an engineer. Wow! Brains as well as beauty. One suspected that he might have gained a new partner out of this too, but none was mentioned. It seemed like an oversight. Surely part of the point of getting a body like this was the thought that one might attract others, potential partners. But I imagined that they were trying to avoid alienating gay men, by giving him a girlfriend, and straight men by giving him boyfriend. The advert was, of course, aimed at men.
He was clutching a large framed photograph of his former sorry self. In the photo, he looked sallow, bordering on grey. He was slightly slouched in posture emanating dissatisfaction if not misery. His hair was non-descript - none of the gel-teased spikes that his new perky self had. He wasn’t thin, but he was by no means fat either. His stomach perhaps a touch puffy, a little too much flesh on the ‘love handle’ area, but really not that bad at all. At worst, he was the man on the verge of becoming a little too fat, and he looked dejected. But thanks to a certain product, he had brought himself back from the brink. I found it bizarre that he had ‘always dreamed of having a six pack’ – but then I am not a man… And almost more so that he owned a large, framed photograph of himself wearing nothing but (presumably) blue boxer shorts.
weak
I’m not very good at asking for things, asserting myself. For example, this morning I bought a cappuccino, just so that I could have the chocolate powder on the top. I don’t really like cappuccinos. I find them too strong, and they make me feel edgy, but it just doesn’t seem to be done to have a latte with chocolate on it. The complete antithesis of a friend of mine, whom I recently took to a trendy bar/restaurant near my work. Before I proceed, I have to say that I admire her for having the guts that I clearly lack. And there is a bit (a lot) of embrodiering here.
But... she must have tasted half the white wine menu before settling on the first one she tried, only to drink it by the glass. Later, she proceeded to order five small dishes, interrogating the impressively patient waitress (especially given that this was London) about the ingredients of each dish, asking for variations – could she have the skate without the cream sauce, and no dressing on the salad that accompanied it, the mozzarella and parma ham salad without the parma ham, the brandy snap basket of ice cream without the brandy snap biscuit. Oh, she really wasn’t holding back. It might have been the copious quantities of wine we had drunk by this point that made her so brazen, but, somehow, I think not. I’d have been sinking through the floor into the toilets below, if I hadn’t had the booze to muffle my embarrassment.
No real rason to be embarrassed.
I am just
weak.
Of course, one does not need to take it to such extremes. There’s a difference between being demanding and asking for what one wants. Something I really ought to learn, given my problem with eating out in France, and indeed elsewhere. I think I’ve only twice ever asked for a dish minus a piece of meat in France, and, on both occasions, the request was met without a hint of reluctance, incredulity, or even surprise. Something that rarely seems to happen to us in the UK. All too often, asking for something that’s not exactly as it is on the menu is met with a ‘we can’t do that’ or simply a blank ‘does not compute’ expression.
Perhaps we need to eat out in more upmarket establishments.
Anyway, in spite of my two positive experiences in France, I am still reluctant to ask for something ‘sans lardons’ (as everything invariably is ‘avec’ in Normandy.) It’s enough effort to get some French out, without asking for something different. Without seeming to be an awkward person.
My being reluctant to asking for changes to an item on a menu also extends to trying to find out if I can eat a particular thing unaltered, when I am in a non-English speaking country. This is more often than not true, even when I have sufficient language skills. My temerity, on occasions, has become too much for Tom, and, he has taken the matter into his own hands and said ‘my wife is a vegetarian. Is there anything she can eat?’ Although this really pisses me off, I can’t blame him. Many’s the time we have wasted an hour or so, trying to find a restaurant where we can eat, my blood sugar levels getting ever lower, my mood ever more foul. In a café Paris, Tom’s question was met with a disdainful snort, and a vague hand gesture towards a green salad on the menu. (If it had been Normandy, it would have had lardons in it, and maybe some andouille too.) On this particular occasion, I was especially angry with him for doing this. Partly, because I felt humiliated by the waiter’s rude, dismissive response, but also because I had really wanted to try the soupe à l’oignon gratinée, or ‘French onion soup’, as the English speaking world calls it. I knew that it wouldn’t be strictly vegetarian, and now that my vegetarianism had been brought to the fore, how could I possibly order it without looking like a hypocrite? Not that the waiter would care. But that wasn’t the point. And I suppose that, if I am truthful, that wasn’t really why I was angry. It was more that I had now had to admit to my hypocrisy to myself. I couldn’t adopt the ‘what I don’t know about doesn’t really matter’ stance.
I ordered the soup in the end anyway. It was dreadful. Greasy broth with a slice of overly toasted bread and a bit of cheese. Had much better in England.
In Tokyo, the outcome of Tom’s statement was equally embarrassing and, in the end, extremely uncomfortable, for very different reasons. Although it did make for an unforgettable meal.
The Tofu Meal.
We’d been finding it difficult to eat Japanese food in Tokyo, partly because it didn’t seem to exist in a vegetarian guise, and partly because I was loath to walk into a restaurant that had no English menu and ask if they had anything vegetarian. This was not entirely because I am a wimp about asking, in these circumstances. I just didn’t relish the thought of maybe having to walk straight out again, having been told that they didn’t have anything. This would feel rude in England, and I was very much aware of how much easier it could be to offend in Japan.
So I told myself.
So, one night, having hovered outside a tofu restaurant near Tokyo station for a while, speculating on whether it would be ok for me, Tom, once again, took the situation into his own hands, doubtless fed up with Japanese pizza and pasta dishes. “My wife is a vegetarian, do you have anything she can eat?” Or words to that effect. Tom’s request certainly seemed to send the entire staff into a fluster, as a waitress rushed off to the kitchen to consult in hurried Japanese with the chef. She soon came back nodding and beckoning us to a table. The meal that followed was to be punctuated by such overheard discussions, as they worried about each course of the meal, clearly taking my food requirements very seriously indeed. In fact, their concern to get it just right was embarrassing. They were clearly going to so much trouble. The antithesis of our Parisien waiter. There was going to be no fish or meat stock in this meal. No clam lurking at the bottom of my bowl of miso soup. The result was a meal that consisted of tofu, salad, vegetables, and broth, in various disguises, none of them too difficult to see through.
To start with, a big tofu salad, accompanied a platter of tofu, of three different textures, with a small side salad, with pretty much the same constituent ingredients as the big one. We were rather full by the time we had got through this, and not at all sure that we even really liked tofu.
Next, cubes of tofu (some of it was blue) cooked in three different ways on skewers, presented in a little 3-tiered wooden crate. By the time we had got through this, it would have been true to say that we were totally tofued out, and feeling relieved to think that that was it. We could just get our bill and get out of there. And not think about tofu again for some time to come.
But, oh, how wrong we were.
The pièce de résistance was yet to come.
Our waitress brought out a clam shell-shaped brass cauldron, with it’s own gas cooker, and placed it in the middle of our table. First, using chopsticks, she delicately placed some vegetables into the boiling stock – Japanese mushrooms, and a few others - I can’t remember what. Then came the tofu. Great big wobbling, flabby slabs of it. I really don’t know how the Japanese can eat so much in one meal full stop, let alone this much tofu. We were almost gagging on the stuff by now. The blobby blue stuff was particularly difficult, and we were running out of condiments to dip it into to make it edible. We were afraid it might be rude not to eat all of it, but in the end had to admit defeat. There came a point where even one tiny mouthful more would have been close to impossible.
Tofu desserts were on offer, but Tom settled for soya bean coffee. I swear the ‘wine’ was made of soya too.
We knew we wouldn’t be eating tofu again for some time to come. Which was a shame, as we knew that tofu was a Buddhist delicacy in Kyoto, where we were heading later in the week
Ok, well maybe this meal wouldn’t have gone any better if Tom hadn’t mentioned my vegetarianism, but at least he might not have had to suffer so much too. And I could have just not eaten the fishy bits.
He did it to me again in Kyoto, but this time the only suffering involved was me being hungry all afternoon, as I was presented with 5 small pieces of vegetable tempura, whilst he feasted on huge quantities of fish.
Perhaps the thing I really hate about Tom asking for vegetarian food for me, is that it takes away my ability to compromise a little.
But... she must have tasted half the white wine menu before settling on the first one she tried, only to drink it by the glass. Later, she proceeded to order five small dishes, interrogating the impressively patient waitress (especially given that this was London) about the ingredients of each dish, asking for variations – could she have the skate without the cream sauce, and no dressing on the salad that accompanied it, the mozzarella and parma ham salad without the parma ham, the brandy snap basket of ice cream without the brandy snap biscuit. Oh, she really wasn’t holding back. It might have been the copious quantities of wine we had drunk by this point that made her so brazen, but, somehow, I think not. I’d have been sinking through the floor into the toilets below, if I hadn’t had the booze to muffle my embarrassment.
No real rason to be embarrassed.
I am just
weak.
Of course, one does not need to take it to such extremes. There’s a difference between being demanding and asking for what one wants. Something I really ought to learn, given my problem with eating out in France, and indeed elsewhere. I think I’ve only twice ever asked for a dish minus a piece of meat in France, and, on both occasions, the request was met without a hint of reluctance, incredulity, or even surprise. Something that rarely seems to happen to us in the UK. All too often, asking for something that’s not exactly as it is on the menu is met with a ‘we can’t do that’ or simply a blank ‘does not compute’ expression.
Perhaps we need to eat out in more upmarket establishments.
Anyway, in spite of my two positive experiences in France, I am still reluctant to ask for something ‘sans lardons’ (as everything invariably is ‘avec’ in Normandy.) It’s enough effort to get some French out, without asking for something different. Without seeming to be an awkward person.
My being reluctant to asking for changes to an item on a menu also extends to trying to find out if I can eat a particular thing unaltered, when I am in a non-English speaking country. This is more often than not true, even when I have sufficient language skills. My temerity, on occasions, has become too much for Tom, and, he has taken the matter into his own hands and said ‘my wife is a vegetarian. Is there anything she can eat?’ Although this really pisses me off, I can’t blame him. Many’s the time we have wasted an hour or so, trying to find a restaurant where we can eat, my blood sugar levels getting ever lower, my mood ever more foul. In a café Paris, Tom’s question was met with a disdainful snort, and a vague hand gesture towards a green salad on the menu. (If it had been Normandy, it would have had lardons in it, and maybe some andouille too.) On this particular occasion, I was especially angry with him for doing this. Partly, because I felt humiliated by the waiter’s rude, dismissive response, but also because I had really wanted to try the soupe à l’oignon gratinée, or ‘French onion soup’, as the English speaking world calls it. I knew that it wouldn’t be strictly vegetarian, and now that my vegetarianism had been brought to the fore, how could I possibly order it without looking like a hypocrite? Not that the waiter would care. But that wasn’t the point. And I suppose that, if I am truthful, that wasn’t really why I was angry. It was more that I had now had to admit to my hypocrisy to myself. I couldn’t adopt the ‘what I don’t know about doesn’t really matter’ stance.
I ordered the soup in the end anyway. It was dreadful. Greasy broth with a slice of overly toasted bread and a bit of cheese. Had much better in England.
In Tokyo, the outcome of Tom’s statement was equally embarrassing and, in the end, extremely uncomfortable, for very different reasons. Although it did make for an unforgettable meal.
The Tofu Meal.
We’d been finding it difficult to eat Japanese food in Tokyo, partly because it didn’t seem to exist in a vegetarian guise, and partly because I was loath to walk into a restaurant that had no English menu and ask if they had anything vegetarian. This was not entirely because I am a wimp about asking, in these circumstances. I just didn’t relish the thought of maybe having to walk straight out again, having been told that they didn’t have anything. This would feel rude in England, and I was very much aware of how much easier it could be to offend in Japan.
So I told myself.
So, one night, having hovered outside a tofu restaurant near Tokyo station for a while, speculating on whether it would be ok for me, Tom, once again, took the situation into his own hands, doubtless fed up with Japanese pizza and pasta dishes. “My wife is a vegetarian, do you have anything she can eat?” Or words to that effect. Tom’s request certainly seemed to send the entire staff into a fluster, as a waitress rushed off to the kitchen to consult in hurried Japanese with the chef. She soon came back nodding and beckoning us to a table. The meal that followed was to be punctuated by such overheard discussions, as they worried about each course of the meal, clearly taking my food requirements very seriously indeed. In fact, their concern to get it just right was embarrassing. They were clearly going to so much trouble. The antithesis of our Parisien waiter. There was going to be no fish or meat stock in this meal. No clam lurking at the bottom of my bowl of miso soup. The result was a meal that consisted of tofu, salad, vegetables, and broth, in various disguises, none of them too difficult to see through.
To start with, a big tofu salad, accompanied a platter of tofu, of three different textures, with a small side salad, with pretty much the same constituent ingredients as the big one. We were rather full by the time we had got through this, and not at all sure that we even really liked tofu.
Next, cubes of tofu (some of it was blue) cooked in three different ways on skewers, presented in a little 3-tiered wooden crate. By the time we had got through this, it would have been true to say that we were totally tofued out, and feeling relieved to think that that was it. We could just get our bill and get out of there. And not think about tofu again for some time to come.
But, oh, how wrong we were.
The pièce de résistance was yet to come.
Our waitress brought out a clam shell-shaped brass cauldron, with it’s own gas cooker, and placed it in the middle of our table. First, using chopsticks, she delicately placed some vegetables into the boiling stock – Japanese mushrooms, and a few others - I can’t remember what. Then came the tofu. Great big wobbling, flabby slabs of it. I really don’t know how the Japanese can eat so much in one meal full stop, let alone this much tofu. We were almost gagging on the stuff by now. The blobby blue stuff was particularly difficult, and we were running out of condiments to dip it into to make it edible. We were afraid it might be rude not to eat all of it, but in the end had to admit defeat. There came a point where even one tiny mouthful more would have been close to impossible.
Tofu desserts were on offer, but Tom settled for soya bean coffee. I swear the ‘wine’ was made of soya too.
We knew we wouldn’t be eating tofu again for some time to come. Which was a shame, as we knew that tofu was a Buddhist delicacy in Kyoto, where we were heading later in the week
Ok, well maybe this meal wouldn’t have gone any better if Tom hadn’t mentioned my vegetarianism, but at least he might not have had to suffer so much too. And I could have just not eaten the fishy bits.
He did it to me again in Kyoto, but this time the only suffering involved was me being hungry all afternoon, as I was presented with 5 small pieces of vegetable tempura, whilst he feasted on huge quantities of fish.
Perhaps the thing I really hate about Tom asking for vegetarian food for me, is that it takes away my ability to compromise a little.
wartime meanness
I bet they told them that these were just as nice as lollies. The boy isn't buying it.
Nor would I. Raw carrot. The one uncooked vegetable I still can't stand, apart from obvious ones such as aubergine. Although clearly some of the cooks in places I have eaten in in London wouldn't agree with that.
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