Valerie King

Displacement Activity

I don't have to explain displacement activity, I'm certain. The telephone bill arrives delivered, as usual, by Parcel Force. I suddenly find I cannot open the package and look bemusedly at the figure we owe British Telecom - surely this is the bill for the whole of Gloucestershire - because as luck would have it I have just noticed a grubby mark on the light-switch and it is going to lead to a full night's work, since experience has shown that Woman with a Damp Cloth in her Hand will clean a whole house if left unchecked.

Similarly, whilst nothing would give me greater pleasure than to telephone the dental surgery and beg them to cause me extreme pain, charge me lots of money for the privilege and cause me to smile through my forehead for the rest of the day, I must reluctantly pass up this unrivalled opportunity because I have just spotted a 1971 Fanny Cradock part-work in the bookcase and I absolutely have to go through it again thoroughly, just to make entirely sure she wasn't as completely and utterly harry hatstand as only fifteen previous readings would suggest.

And so it is with e-mail. Or at least with the e-mail I have just received from probably our maddest friend, even more bonkers than Fanny, but dangerous with it.

I have now to write back to him and say how thrilled I am that he had a lovely meal at Paul Bocuse's restaurant on the shores of Lake Annecy, hope he enjoyed the eleven course off-menu luncheon this living embodiment of Aunt Dahlia's peerless chef Anatole prepared especially for him and laugh with girlish glee at the thought of several bottles of 1973 Krug being employed to wash down the scoff.

As it so happens, although I freely admit to having almost fainted with envy when this chirpy missive was delivered by the pixies I am convinced actually operate the to-ings and fro-ings of mail to my computer ("It isn't pixies, you daft bint, it's data transfer down a telephone line, now pay the sodding bill – BT"), I genuinely couldn't be more delighted that someone I know and love has had the opportunity to knuckle down to a feast cooked by one of the world's greatest chefs.

As luck would have it, however, I cannot respond immediately, because I have been cast back in time to the occasion when I was given a book called Great Chefs of France which, naturally, included a chapter devoted to the unrivalled Mr Bocuse.

It all seemed very simple to me, in my early twenties and unimpressed with the enraptured tone of the writer. This signature dish of truffled soup en croute - you put some soup in a bowl, cover it with pastry and cook it, right?

The only word to insert here is 'ahem' and I'll pay Molesworth later.

Fresh truffles were not readily available at that time and the bottled variety cost about four times what they do now. So off I plodded to the Knightsbridge corner store, paid the National Debt for a small bottle of what appeared to be pickled gallstones and prepared to make soup.

The thinly-sliced gallstones were placed in the bowls, the consommé was poured over them, the pastry top was neatly egged in place and I left the kitchen as Valerie the Extremely Hot and Well-Floured Cook returning moments later to see how things were doing, thinly disguised as Valerie The Hastily Made Up Dinner Hostess.

It's a damn shame mascara manufacturers don't put a warning on their stupid products: "Do not open a hot oven before making sure your mascara is completely dry or you will weld your eyes shut."

On the plus side, if your eyes are welded together, you are less likely to notice that you haven't put the pastry far enough down the side of the soup bowls to prevent it sliding into the truffled consommé, whereupon you must instantly decide whether to ditch the most expensive first course in the history of cuisine, or present your guests with warm, lumpy putty and hope they don't notice.

I opted for fishing out the pastry and re-distributing the soup so that everyone had some (except me, who had to mime having a first course, but at least those two years at drama school weren't entirely wasted).

Oh well, I can't put it off any longer. I must return to the here and now, fire up the goblins and reply to Mathias' paean of praise to the Kitchen God Bocuse.

"Darling – just got your lovely e-mail. Sod off."

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