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Three words I always hope to hear in February…

Posted in Diabetes, other sides to this life, Robin Ellis, tagged , , on February 11, 2015| 61 Comments »

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This week marks the end of the testing season–feet, heart, liver, kidneys, prostate, skin–you name it!

On Monday it was the annual love fest with Dr Nguyen Ngoc Luong, my opthamologist.

A man of few words, Dr Luong sits on a swivel chair with an alarming revolving table to his right.

At the push of a button this table goes in to action, swinging round to position a new chin rest at eye level between me and the good Doctor. This happens three times in the course of the test.

Then comes the checking of my long sight.

Reading off the numbers or letters projected on the wall opposite, as Dr Luong slips different lenses in and out of the “pince-nez” he fastens onto my nose.

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I feel like a schoolboy keen to answer teacher’s questions correctly.

Now it’s time for the most intimate moment of the session.

We both shift nervously on our chairs preparing to stare into one another’s eyes for a few breathless moments.

My freshly shaved chin juts towards his as he points a penetrating light at my pupils–shining  it into every corner of my cornea and beyond.

Breaking the spell, he leans back and utters three precious words. To my relief–a few days short of Valentine’s Day–not “I Love You” but…

“Pas de diabétes!”

I uncross my fingers–and feel foolish again for indulging in the Superstition Game.

Another year CLEAR!

 

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A little of what you fancy may do you no harm…

Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Robin Ellis, tagged , , on February 9, 2015| 18 Comments »

Meredith shows me a Breugel 16th century winter scene reminiscent of the world outside our windows at the moment–except for the skating.

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It leads her into thinking of other artists’ depiction of winter.

“Who was that painter we liked at the Metropolitan after we saw that Matisse exhibit a few years back? Industrial landscapes and the boxers. Remember?”

Club Night by George Bellows

“B-B-B-Be…”

I use my hands to mime the thing that fans a fire into life.

“Be-Be-Bel-Bello-BELLOWS!”

“George Bellows–brilliant realist painter–died too young–42, he was. Painted winter–town and country.”

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“Wow!” says Meredith. “Nothing wrong with your memory!”

Next day this article appeared in the newspaper–explaining why…!

Apparently the antioxidant, resveratrol, found in the skin of red grapes, some berries and peanuts, has a positive effect on the hippocampus–the part of the brain vital to memory, learning and mood.

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Cheers! Santé! Good health! Chin chin! Salud! Prost!

Now what did I say was for supper…?!

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Walking…

Posted in Diabetes, other sides to this life, Robin Ellis, tagged , on February 2, 2015| 51 Comments »

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I used to think walking was pedestrian!

I ran or jogged, or bicycled–walking took so long.

But then we moved here to rural France, where it’s a bit hilly. As I was getting older, I started walking.

Six times a week–usually for about 40 minutes–usually the same route, which never felt the same two days running (so to speak)!

Then one day I OVERDID it–and my left knee “went”.

I stopped for a while and tried the exercise bike– but it wasn’t the same.

Gradually my knee healed and I started walking again, but less–three or four times a week.

I settled into a routine of roughly 40 minutes every other day.

Three times 40 equals 120--so some weeks I was 30 minutes shy of the 150 minutes recommended aerobic exercise per week.

Recently I changed my routine again: Now I walk every day but for less time–a little over 20 minutes.

So that ring ups the magic 150.

And I feel good on it. “Ah, that’s done!”

Exercising each day–but not TOO long–lifts my spirits without becoming a burden.

One is less likely to throw in the towel.

(Also I’m thinking of my knees.)

I’m in good company…

 

If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.

~Charles Dickens

 The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise and of all the exercises, walking is the best.

~Thomas Jefferson

 I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.

~Abraham Lincoln

 To find new things, take the path you took yesterday.  

~John Burroughs (American naturalist)

Thoughts come clearly while one walks.

~Thomas Mann

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.

~Jacqueline Schiff  (poet)

 

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Sucrine (baby gem lettuce), goat’s cheese and anchovy salad

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , , on January 22, 2015| 12 Comments »

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Sucrine they are called here in France, I guess because they have a sweetness to them.

These tightly packed little tornadoes are known as baby gem lettuce in the UK.

They have an agreeable crunchiness that lends itself to strong contrasts–hence the addition of anchovy.

Anchovies are usually a background sound in cooking but here they solo occasionally. I love ’em–but they are not to everyone’s taste.

I ordered this a couple of days ago in our new favorite restaurant–Chez Germaine in Gaillac.

A pre-movie (Whiplash) lunch with Donald Douglas (aka Cap’n McNeil in Poldark!) and Emma Temple, his partner.

This place is the French version of a tapas bar–warm and convivial–and the food comes in small quantities on individual plates. I ordered a plate of baby squid persillade (in parsley and garlic oil) and this salad. Perfect with a glass of the local red wine (Gaillac).

The combination of the crispness of the lettuce and creaminess of the goat’s cheese with the occasional bite of anchovy had everyone dipping in!

Meredith–not too sure about anchovies showing up so brazenly–suggested substituting roasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds–good idea.

You could add them anyway–but I like the salad’s simplicity.

for two

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ingredients

2 sucrine (baby gem) lettuces–deconstructed and sliced up

half a goat’s cheese “log”–or other shapes–pulled apart to spread its creaminess

3 or 4 anchovy fillets–sliced into smaller pieces

dressing

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

4 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic–pulped in a mortar with a pinch of salt

salt and pepper

—————–

Add the lettuce to a favorite bowl.

Add the cheese and the anchovy pieces.

Make the vinaigrette

Add the wine vinegar to the garlic in the mortar and whisk.

Add the olive oil and whisk it in to make the vinaigrette.

Pour it over the contents of the bowl.

Turn everything over carefully until the little lettuce gleams with pride.

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Hiver est arrivé–(Winter’s here) and we have a fight on our hands…

Posted in other sides to this life, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , on December 28, 2014| 35 Comments »

Hiver est arrivé!

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Crisp and even!

Just as it should be but isn’t always these days as the seasons come unstuck.
They are planting the garlic and our birds are back on the bird table–tits, nuthatches and a robin.
Surprising how good it makes one feel–seasonal balance.

It helps this morning as we wait with our builders for someone from the La Mairie of Lautrec to arrive with the key to the church–the future of which has been an on-going concern, or to put it more crudely–has been bugging us for the past three months.

An unwelcome distraction from the food and everyday life blog.

The mayor (maire) announced at a meeting of the parishioners at the beginning of October (the first night of my cooking workshop, so Meredith had to go alone) that he is wants to sell the church.

He claimed that it is in a dangerous state and about to fall down.

Lautrec is in debt he said and short of money.

He claimed there was someone interested in buying the church and converting it into a living space.

Oh my goodness!

It’s no more than ten yards from the présbytere-the priest’s residence–our residence now.

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So IOBY (in our back yard)–literally.

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Ben on the lookout!

EEK!

Meredith suggested there were other solutions.

OK says the Mayor, you have three months.

Right…

The church is no oil painting but we have grown to love it and its reassuring presence.

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It was built about 1870–a hundred and fifty years after the presbytere (priest’s house) to replace the original chapel that was destroyed at the time of the French Revolution (1789-1794…).

In 1905 Church and State were separated by law in France and the churches became the property of local government.

SO–the church belongs to the commune.

In March at the local elections the Mairie changed hands and the new Maire decided that the church had to be sold.

(It was deconsecrated as a church sometime ago.)

A local woman had shown interest a couple of years ago but the then mayor assured us it was not for sale.

Phew!

After the election, however, the same woman approached the new mayor….

We have been busy these three months.

We’ve consulted notaries, lawyers, the citizens advice bureau in our local town and all agree, after studying the documents that there is NO ACCESS to the church from our side and our neighbors, the farmers who own the land surrounding the church say they will not grant access from their side.

NO ACCESS!

There is also NO WATER on the site and NO SANITATION--ie septic tank.

The only land is the narrow path that circles the building–NO TERRAIN.

As to the state of the building today two builders examined it inside and out and their shared opinion is that it is NOT ABOUT TO FALL DOWN.

There is structural work to be done to secure the chapel on the north side–but tis would not be “grande choses”.

One of them suggested that two exterior buttresses would render that chapel safe.

At the meeting in October the mayor assured the parishioners of St Martin, many of whom have family tombs in the adjacent cemetery and for whom the ongoing presence of the church building is significant, that it would retain it’s outward footprint—ie look the same.

The lawyers in Albi and Castres told us this assurance does not conform to French law in the case of rural churches.

Indeed the prospective buyer has told us that, if successful in her bid, she intends to knock down the two side chapels to provide window views on the north and south sides of the building.

SO MUCH FOR THE FOOTPRINT!

We heard last week that the town council has voted to sell the church.

Though many people we have talked to say “BE PATIENT!” this is MAD and will not happen, it is a distraction.

We have set up a worldwide petition in favor of preserving the church as a significant presence and with the possibility of using it as a cultural centre and exhibition space. Please sign it:

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/save-the-church-of-st

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The interior of St Martin showing some of the murals depicting the life of St Martin.

 

 

 

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Bubble and squeak!

Posted in Diabetes, Food, Recipes, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , on December 27, 2014| 21 Comments »

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The name came into my head when I took the leftover Brussels sprouts out of the fridge with a view to frying them up for lunch today.

Bubble and Squeak--named for the noise they make in the pan while cooking.

Ho-hum–I didn’t hear a thing!

Wasn’t this quaintly-named concoction part of my mother’s post Christmas leftover strategy?

Dishes to go with cold turkey that only needed heating up?

Then a memory of added bacon floated into my mind.

Didn’t bacon get mixed into the brussels?

Well, bacon bits were already part of the feast on Christmas day–no harm in adding even more oven-crisped smoked bacon to the fried-up sprouts….

They’ll go nicely with a slice of the chickpea (socca) bread cooked in the oven as well.

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Add a poached/fried egg and “Bob’s your uncle”–to revive another phrase from my childhood.

 

1 small onion–chopped

1 clove of garlic–chopped

leftover cooked Brussels sprouts–chopped

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leftover Swiss chard–chopped (or you might have some OTHER leftover to try out in this recipe!)

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a few very thin rashers of bacon–smoked or green to taste

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a sauté pan and add the onion and garlic.

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Let them color a little before adding the brussels and the swiss chard (or other leftovers).

Mix together and cook gently for about 10 minutes–just long enough to heat them through.

Cook the bacon separately to a crisp state and scatter broken up bit over the sprouts.

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Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

We enjoyed it on a slice of the homemade socca–chickpea flour–bread.

And the only sound was “umm”!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A simple chicken curry

Posted in Food, Recipes, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , on November 30, 2014| 18 Comments »

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I spotted this recipe in the November edition of the excellent Suffolk Magazine (which had a feature on me!)

It’s by Mena Boughey – who runs cooking classes in Lavenham (Suffolk) and runs a catering company–lucky Lavenham!

She emphasizes the importance of introducing spices in small batches–giving each spice time to settle in and release its aroma.

Taking time under the big Suffolk skies–the zen of curry!

She includes a tablespoon of fenugreek–a regular spice in the Indian kitchen with links, as the name implies, to the Mediterranean and like many spices, claims interesting health benefits (good for digestion, good for diabetes).

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp–ground fenugreek

1 tsp each ground cumin and ground coriander

1 medium onion–sliced

1 garlic clove–mashed with a little salt

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

1 tsp chili or cayenne powder–less or more according to taste

3 to 4 tinned [canned] tomatoes with their juice–chopped

1 tsp turmeric

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300 gms chicken breast (about 2 medium breasts)–excess fat removed and sliced into medium sized pieces

2 medium fennel bulbs–outer leaves removed and cut into medium size pieces (I’ve substituted fennel for the potato in Mena’s recipe.)

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2 tsp garam masala

2 or 3 tbsp yogurt–whisked smooth

salt and pepper

for 2/3 (add an additional breast to serve four)

Heat the oil in a medium pan and add the fenugreek, cumin and coriander.

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Cook for a couple of minutes on a low heat until they release their aroma.

Add the onion and turn it over in the spices and continue to cook until it starts to soften.

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Add the cayenne/chili and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the garlic and ginger and cook on for 5 minutes–being careful not to let the spices burn.

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Add the tomatoes to the mix and let them meld in and the liquid reduce–about five minutes.

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Add the turmeric and stir it in.

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Add  the chicken and fennel pieces and enough hot water to cover them.

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Bring slowly to the boil then turn the heat down low.

Cook at a light bubble until the chicken is cooked through and the fennel is tender.

Turn off the heat and leave the flavors to take meld.

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Before reheating it fold in the yogurt.

Meredith went to the larder in search of chutney the first time I made this.

No luck.

So I made a quick sauce with yogurt and cumin.

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Learning the lines: Sound advice from a fellow actor–and your wife!

Posted in other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , , , on August 31, 2014| 25 Comments »

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Ask any actor who has done time in repertory theatre what is the most frequently asked question by keen theatre-goers and I’d wager the answer would be:

“How do you learn the lines?”

I might have answered “with difficulty“, after drying on my first line (saying “Grace”) as the Vicar in Murder at the Vicarage on opening night at Salisbury Playhouse in the mid-60s .

It’s the nuts and bolts of the job–but never gets any easier.

Telly Savalas as Kojak had his lines taped all over the set and even–hard to believe–to the other actors’ foreheads!

Even if I’d been able to read them without my glasses, I couldn’t be shamed into that!

Samuel West‘s contribution to this article in The Guardian recently–actors’ advice to fellow actors–reminded me of the run-up to filming my two short scenes in the new adaptation of POLDARK*.

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To anyone learning lines for a day’s filming where there is NO rehearsal, he says:

Learn your lines with a friend the night before filming. Say them looking into your friend’s eyes. Your friend will be distracting you. You will think you know the scene because you can do it looking at the floor, but human contact is distracting – and you want there to be human contact when you film the scene.

Learning the night before? I’ve always needed time for lines to settle and stick (slow study it’s called in the trade)–but I know what he means.

Meredith volunteered  to hear my lines weeks before my first day’s shoot for POLDARK and eventually I took up her offer.

I’d been pounding them into my reluctant brain on my daily walk for weeks.

She suggested, like Samuel West, that I aimed them directly at her.

But for a while I was unwilling to engage with her spirited rendition of Captain Poldark–and continued doing exactly what Samuel West warns against–saying the lines, very convincingly, to nowhere in particular–sometimes to the floor.

In the end, I did engage. It was, as Sam says, usefully distracting–good preparation for when I had to project them across the chasm of the crowded, noisy courtroom.

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Meredith watched the shooting of the trial of Jim Carter [Me-lud presiding!] on a monitor in a freezing anti-room of the medieval hall where we were filming.

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In a pause while they were re-setting the lights she popped outside for a coffee to warm herself up.

There was Aidan Turner (aka Ross Poldark)…

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…pacing up and down, going through his lines.

They hadn’t formally met at this point.

So as not distract him, she discreetly tucked herself into a corner with her coffee.

Suddenly, becoming aware that there was just the two of them, he confided:

“This scene is important and I want to get it right!”

“I know it well,”  she said.  “I rehearsed the lines over and over with Robin–playing YOU!”

Aidan roared with laughter.

Meredith sensibly didn’t offer to hear his lines….

 

*The new adaptation of Winston Graham’s  POLDARK saga is being produced by Mammoth Screen for the BBC and PBS’ Masterpiece in the USA, to be broadcast next year.

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Angels falling from the sky…

Posted in other sides to this life, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2014| 17 Comments »

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We were on top of the world Saturday afternoon in the high hills of les Monts de Lacaune to the east of Lautrec–waiting with an expectant crowd…

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…for four French paratroopers to fall from the sky.

Both the crowd on the ground and the “angels” about to descend, were–perhaps unknowingly–re-enacting events that happened here, in an occupied wartime France, 70 years ago.

In early August 1944 the Allies organized several parachute missions to deliver weapons, supplies and soldiers to the resistance fighters in the Tarn. The German occupation forces got wind of one of these midnight drops and on the night of August 8th, they attacked the drop zone killing seven young maquis fighters. Their sacrifice was being remembered and honored at Saturday’s event.

In 1944 Guy de Rouville (below) was commander of the Maquis of Vabre–the Resistance group in charge of the secret drop zone. He was 29 years old.

At 99 his memory of these events is remarkable and his enthusiasm to communicate it, undiminished.

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Guy de Rouville laying  flowers in honor of the slain young men whom he had once commanded.

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Guy, in full flood, telling his story.

Guy and his wife, Odile (96), still live in the hill village of Vabre, where they once welcomed a young English major and two French officers from the Jedburgh mission who had parachuted onto this hillside on the night of the 8th August 1944.

The previous night they had taken in an American soldier who had broken his leg landing in the same drop zone with 14 comrades. They were an OSS commando unit sent from a base in North Africa to support local partisans and disrupt the German supply lines before the still little-known southern D-Day landings near St. Tropez on 15th August 1944.

All the parachute drops, made under cover of darkness and in a remote place, put the local population in peril on a day to day basis from the Nazi occupation forces.

The drop zone is on the opposite side of the valley from Vabre near the village of Viane.

Viane is en fete this weekend and murmurs were heard about the commemoration stealing its thunder.

Small murmerings–most of the crowd, like us, were looking forward to the parachute jump by the 8th RPIM (8e régiment de parachutistes d’infanterie de marine) based in nearby Castres.

We were not disappointed.

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Despite an unpredictable wind making it more difficult…

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…three hit the orange target…

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…and the fourth was within twenty feet or so.

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Meredith and “an angel that fell from the sky”!

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Guy stands with today’s “angels”, 70 years after he welcomed the war-time flights.

Meredith is an American porte drapeau, carrying the American flag at ceremonies of remembrance in the region.

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It was at one of these ceremonies where she heard the story of the American OSS team’s landing and their vital contribution to the liberation of the south Tarn two weeks after their arrival.

She received a Fulbright grant to document the history of that mission, interviewing most of the surviving members of the maquis group involved with the OSS mission. Two of the OSS men were killed in action in the Tarn. Their sacrifice and the memory of their deeds are honored by French veterans every year here–sometimes in the presence of American family members who come to see where their loved ones served.

Unlike the French paratroopers we watched Saturday, the OSS and the Jedburgh teams parachuted at night, laden with heavy equipment, into occupied France–with little idea what awaited them.

Their courage has never been forgotten here.

 

 

 

 

 

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Bye, Bye, Dr Halse!

Posted in other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , on August 7, 2014| 44 Comments »

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A week today at roughly 5.05 pm the Reverend Dr Halse walked out of the card room on the ground floor of George Warleggan’s impressive mansion and disappeared.

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It had been a bruising encounter.

That pest, Poldark–more than a pest–a ruffian and a rogue–had challenged him and indeed any of his esteemed colleagues on the bench to “meet” him at any convenient time.

An outrage.

As he headed for the door he was heard muttering:

He is a traitor to his class and he WILL get his come-uppance–such men are dangerous and must not be tolerated!

Next meeting of the justices…!

If it were up to me alone, he’d be following Jim Carter to Bodmin Gaol or better still–the Antipodes.

And then he was gone–in a puff of self-righteous, sulfurous smoke.

*          *          *

In truth, he popped in a unit car and with Meredith by his side was driven the short distance to the unit camp.

There he was relieved of the wig and the costume and–Jekyll and Hyde-like–resumed his everyday guise as Robin.

In a trice the car was off again, speeding towards Bath and the London train.

All that was left of the Reverend Dr. Halse was a name on the dressing room door–

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a pile of sombre 18th century clerical clothes, a beautifully woven wig and a faint smell of sulfur in the air….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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