Australia, Australian customs, France, French customs, Lifestyle

Washing Machines I Have Known

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I grew up in North Queensland with one of those enormous top loading agitator washing machines that could wash huge loads in record time. We had a drip dry cycle which meant that the machine stopped after the last rinse and you could remove whatever you wanted, such as a drip-dry shirt, drain it on the draining board over the huge aluminium sink next to the machine, put it on a hanger and then hang it up under the house (our house was on stilts), dripping water over the concrete floor and yourself in the process. All of which was of no importance because the water had disappeared within an hour. You didn’t even get your shoes wet because you were bare foot anyway.

This is not my mother! Photo credits : see link below

 

 

When we went on holidays to the Island, we stayed in Kooyang Flats which had a laundry down the back with a wringer machine. My sister and I were coopted into helping Mum with the washing. We loved turning the wringer and it was really quite a game, provided it didn’t last too long. Except for Mum of course. She must have hated it! Back breaking work for the woman who actually had to wash clothes for six people when she was on holiday, knowing that her huge agitator machine was sitting idle at home.

As I told you in a recent post, my experience with washing machines when I moved to France was somewhat different. Initially, I just used a laundromat. Speed Queens are used worldwide I’ve discovered. My first machine was a front loader tumble machine and I’ve never had anything else. It was in the kitchen though. I was horrified the first time I saw a washing machine next to someone’s fridge. There’s no real reason it shouldn’t be there, but it seemed strange. There are three basic reasons for this: practically no one in an apartment has a laundry room, the bathroom’s usually too small and you need a water connection.

I always made sure I washed the clothes when Leonardo was awake because he used to sit mesmerised in front of the machine the whole time. We didn’t have a TV then. He’s always been mechanically minded. I like to think that I was partly responsible for that. If you’ve ever used one of those machines in France, you’ve probably wondered why the cycles are so long. My normal 40° cycle is 1 hour 17 minutes (my current machine has an electronic display) and the 60° cycle is 2 hours 15 minutes. Well, the reason is very simple even though it took me ages to discover it. They are all connected to a cold water supply so they have to  heat up the water which obviously takes time.

When my parents used come to my place on holidays in the winter (I was living in a house in the suburbs of Paris at that time with a sort of back veranda next to the kitchen that had very handy lines that I used during the summer months), they would insist on drip drying their clothes. The only thing they didn’t seem to be able to quite comprehend was that, number one, it was cold outside which meant that it would take days for the clothes to dry, and number two, the dripping water didn’t magically disappear the way it did in North Queensland. I didn’t have any drip-dry clothes myself.

But there are other types of washing machines in France that I have experienced when on holidays in the country. They are top-loading tumble machines. Inside, there is a drum that revolves clockwise from the back to the front of the machine which means that the drum has to be tightly closed or the clothes will fall out. It comes with a unique opening/closing system where you have to match up some catches that are not easy to identify, then press on a not-always-obvious button. Of course few people really know how to manoeuvre the closing system and the opening has to be in the right place for you to do so. When the machine stops, the opening is usually at the bottom of the machine. Then as you take the clothes out, you can be absolutely sure that a baby sock will slip down the side of the drum, unbeknown to you, and cause the mechanism to seize up next time the machine is used. This is not necessarily your baby sock of course. You may just happen to be the next guest. For a long time, these machines were incomprehensibly the most popular in France. They still are to a certain extent because you can get ones that are 40 cm wide instead of the usual 60, a big boon in small bathrooms and kitchens. N’est-ce pas Leonardo?

Kooyang Holiday Units, 13 Hayles Avenue, Arcadia, Qld 4819, 07 4778 5570
Photo credit (not my mother!): http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/10392/Wringer_Washing_Machine/
 

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Food, Lifestyle

How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 2

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In Italy six months after the diet began & 12 kilos lighter

Last week, in Part 1, I told you about the first nutritionist I saw when I decided to go on a diet (after listening to weight-loss hypnosis tapes first, remember),  a guilt-inducing naturally skinny Asian doctor. The second person I saw was much better – a very smiley touchy-feely doctor from Martinique, Marie-Antoinette Séjean, who is the author of two diet and nutrition books, and who, although slim, was obviously not a natural skinny. I told her about my previous experience and she said not to worry, that we’d work something out together. She told me to write down everything I ate during the next two weeks. She also reassured me that I wouldn’t have to give up anything permanently, including red meat, prunes and foie gras.

 

In the meantime, she suggested several things I could do to lose weight:

  1. Chinese bowl with quinoa

    Cut out all wheat-based foods for 3 weeks because wheat has a bloating effect. She suggested rice, quinoa (I’d never heard of it but now really like it), buckwheat and polenta instead. She reassured me that it was only for three weeks.

  2. Cut out raw vegetables for 3 weeks for the same reason.
  3. Divide my plate into four: ¼ protein, ¼ carbs, ½ cooked vegetables.
  4. Don’t worry about actual quantities, except for the carbs, which should correspond to the contents of a Chinese bowl (when cooked) and should be eaten at every meal.
  5.  Make sure I was getting 200 g of protein for breakfast. This is because the protein stops you getting hungry mid-morning and when you lose weight, you lose fat and not muscle. We decided on an egg, a yogurt (they come in individual 90 g pots here) and a 100 g pot of fromage blanc (this is a soft, fresh cheese, vaguely like cottage cheese but not salty, with roughly the same nutritional value and consistency as yogurt), 2 pieces of buttered Swedish bread (even though it contains some wheat, but I’d been eating that for breakfast for years and couldn’t bear the thought of giving it up) and a piece of fresh fruit or small glass of fresh orange juice, eaten AFTER the protein.
1/4 protein 1/4 carbs 1/2 cooked vegetables

It all seemed very reasonable and manageable. I had told her I wasn’t interested in losing weight quickly, but I did want it to be permanent. I asked about exercise (long-forgotten apart from cycling in the summer) but she said not to worry about it for the moment. She weighed me and took all my measurements. She explained that it’s important to look at body measurements as well and not just weight, because you stay the same weight on the scales but lose centimetres around your body. I made an appointment for two weeks’ time, just before Christmas! It was only when I got home that I realised I hadn’t mentioned the wine. So I decided to cut down to one glass at lunch and two at dinner, except for oysters on Sundays when we usually drank a bottle of sancerre between us.

Next installment in two weeks’ time! You can start writing down what you’re eating every day as well. Be honest with yourself and don’t leave anything out. Remember, the aim is not to eliminate anything, just to be really aware of what you’re eating. But you might just find that you’re cutting down anyway …

Dr Marie-Antoinette Séjean, 81 rue des Belles Feuilles, 75116 Paris. 01 44 05 16 15
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Lifestyle, Paris

I am not a real Parisienne

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Le Bon Marché founded in 1838 by the Videau brothers

Today, it was proved, once and for all, that I am not a real Parisienne. Primo (as the French say), I am not a shopper. Secundo, I went into Le Bon Marché department store in the chic 7th arrondissement for the first time and had never heard of 90% of the brand names in the women’s fashion department. Tertio (that’s even more suave), I took the bus home in the wrong direction. And worse, I asked the lady next to me which direction it was going in and STILL got it wrong. I obviously didn’t realise my mistake until I looked up and saw the Montparnasse Tower. I got out, crossed the road and missed the right bus by about 1 minute. Sigh. I cheered myself up by using my Mobiletag iPhone app to see when the next bus was coming.

The elegant escalators inside Le Bon Marché

I’ve thought about the shopping thing quite a lot and have come to the conclusion that it skips a generation. My mother adored shopping and Black Cat thrives on it as well. I get bored after I’ve looked at a couple of racks of clothes and trying on two items is about my maximum for the day. I’m always hot in the shop and to try something on you have to peel off endless layers in tiny cubicles that you can hardly turn around in and that never have enough hooks. I can put up with it if I go with Relationnel because he’s much more patient than me and will bring me things to try on so I don’t have to get dressed again to go outside the cubicle and have another look. The worst are trousers because you have to take your shoes off and lace them back on again.

Sad-looking sales dummies wearing "Soldes" round their necks.

It was OK last year after I’d finally taken off my 20 kilos because I got a kick out of the fact that most of the clothes I tried on fitted me and I didn’t look like a sack of potatoes any more. But, sadly, the novelty has worn off. It’s not that I don’t care about the clothes I wear – I do, and there’s the rub. What I prefer is to see something I immediately like in the window on a dummy, preferably with a head and more or less my shape so that I can immediately imagine what it will look like on me. Then I go in, ask for my size, try it on, see that it looks perfect, pay and leave. That has occasionally happened and when I set off, I’m always convinced it will happen again and sadly disappointed when it doesn’t.

 

Inside garden and café terrace at Le Bon Marché

As far as department stores go – and I am not a fan – Au Bon Marché isn’t bad. They play Mozart concertos over the PA system, all the shop assistants say “hello” to you even when you’re about the bump into them, they have an exhibition called “Lieux d’amour” or Places of Love, a reading room for impatient spouses and a swish-looking Salon de Thé with a garden terrace. I couldn’t believe it when I looked out the first floor windows. It was more like an apartment building than a shop.

But I couldn’t see anything I wanted to buy, especially not the fur jackets.

Places of Love exhibition at Le Bon Marché

When I was little, my mother used to buy things “on appro”. That meant that either she went into the shop, chose a few outfits she liked, got them all packed into bags and took them home with her, or else, she rang up the owner of the shop, told her what sort of occasion she needed the outfit for, and a taxi would arrive a half an hour later at the door with several large bags. I’d then lie on her bed and watch while she tried on everything, in the comfort of her room, with no other shoppers around and no annoying sales people telling her that she looked great even if see didn’t. She could put on the shoes or hat to match and decide in her own good time what she was and wasn’t going to keep.

Now, that’s the way I really want to shop ….

Au Bon Marché, 38 rue de Sèvres, 75007 Paris, 01 45 44 15 48
 
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French customs, Lifestyle

The Book Seat & Other Nifty Inventions

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I love nifty things so was delighted when Thoughtful gave me The Book Seat for my birthday. And he was even more delighted to tell me it’s an Australian invention! Perfect for reading while I’m having breakfast or lunch by myself! I can also use it to hold up a cookbook.

And while we’re in the kitchen, I’ve discovered that no matter how much you pay for a toaster, you still don’t get perfect toast each time – and I am very fussy about my toast! So I always make sure that the toaster has a large “stop” button so that you can make it pop up immediately if you suspect it’s getting too brown. The other day, I suddenly saw smouldering and the next minute little flames were jumping up because I’d overlapped two pieces. Unfortunately my toaster isn’t quite wide enough to take two pieces of my homemade bread side by side. So these toast tongs often come in handy!

I just love this little guy. One of the things that used to disappear and reappear regularly were my glasses. I only wear them to watch TV when I’ve taken out my contacts so you’d wonder why I can’t put them back in the case each time. I guess it’s just my natural messiness. Having such a nifty little guy to look after them is perfect. Now I can always find them. The little guy comes in all sorts of colours and I bought them in La Chaise Longue in rue Croix des Petits Champs.

Now study the spout on this teapot made by Spode in England that I inherited from my mother. It doesn’t drip. Unfortunately it only makes one cuppa and I’m definitely a multi-cuppa tea drinker.

Now take a look at this one from Gien in France.  You can see that the spout doesn’t have a sharp edge and it’s tilted in a different way. My experience with French teapots is that they all drip. I don’t understand why they don’t just copy the spouts on English teapots! One day, I decided I was going to solve the problem so looked up the Internet and found several drip stoppers, but none of them matched my teapot and certainly not the red Ladybug Tea Drip Catcher or the one that looks like a slice of orange with a hole in the middle.

But I was convinced that something suitable must exist somewhere so last Christmas when we went shopping in Rouen, I went into every likely shop. The shop assistants looked at me blankly. Then finally, a woman said, “They’re over here” and there they were, admittedly not the most attractive thing around, but still discreet enough (well, I’ll let you judge for yourself) to make my teapot usable again. We went back this Christmas to get some more and, would you believe it, we couldn’t find the shop again!

If you want to know more about why teapots drip, you can read all about it here.

So what are your favourite nifty inventions?

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France, French customs

No Laundry Rooms in Paris Apartments

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Me on my moped in 1975

One of the first things I discovered when I arrived in France was the very different attitude towards washing clothes. I rented a room in an apartment in Pau, in the south-west of France, with two other students and we shared a bathroom. The landlady lived in a separate part of the apartment and presumably had another bathroom. There was no washing machine and nowhere to hang clothes. So I set off to find a laundromat. There were plenty of laundries and dry cleaners, but it took me a long time to track down the only laundromat. I soon learned that the unmarried teachers at school took their washing home to their mothers every weekend. I had to use my moped to go to the laundromat and lost a favourite pair of trousers off the back one day! Yeah, I can hear you – why weren’t they in a bag?

When I finally had a place of my own in Paris, it actually had an airing cupboard, something I have rarely seen since. The concept of a laundry room as such, which exists in most places in Australia (well, the ones I’ve seen anyway), is unknown here where every square metre counts. Most people in apartments either use  contraptions above their bathtubs that you raise or lower or simply put collapsible clothes horses in their living room or bedroom. Bathrooms are rarely big enough to take them except for one that opens up on top of the bathtub and that you have to remove before your bath. One of my friends dries her clothes on the heated towel rack.

Whenever I go to Black Cat’s place, there is always someone’s washing on the clothes horse in the small area in front of one of the bedrooms and the bathroom that also contains the oven and microwave. Relationnel’s kids, who live in a separate flat down the road from us, hang theirs on a wall contraption in the kitchen ! There is absolutely nowhere else. Must have been a shock for our Australian exchange student  Brainy Pianist.

We actually have a room in our apartment where we can hang our washing out of sight, but only because I divided our large bedroom into two using very high bookshelves to create a dressing room. You have to be careful about ventilation though, because hanging wet washing near clothes containing wool in a heated room can cause havok. The mites had got to Relationnel’s suits before we discovered our error. Now we put them away in plastic covers after they’ve been dry cleaned and he uses a cupboard in another room (my office!) the rest of the time. I have a very high clothes horse that can take three loads of washing and has clever bits on the side that each take 4 shirts.

But that is not a standard installation. When we go to gîtes (holiday houses in the country), I’m always amazed at the laundry facilities (or lack thereof). These are houses in which you could presumably have some kind of system to dry your clothes effectively. Sometimes there are (dirty) outside lines always in your line of vision but never clothes hoists. But you can’t really use them between October and May and then only when you’re absolutely sure it’s not going to rain before you get back from your day’s excursion (provided you remember to put a load on as soon as you get up).

A tancarville*

They usually give you a collapsible clothes horse, often a bit rickety from over-use, but I haven’t worked out yet what sort of clothes you’re supposed to put on them apart from socks, underwear (but not singlets) and children’s T-shirts. You certainly can’t put adults’ shirts on them (and there is rarely a rod in the bathroom to hang them on) and they aren’t wide enough to take a T-shirt properly. If you do resign yourself to bunching it up, you then eliminate all the rungs underneath. Some of the clothes horses have wings so that you can hang up shirts but once they’re up, there’s no way you can get around them.

Then there is the problem of sheets and towels. My solution is to dry the towels in the drier and schedule the sheets so that I can fold the top sheet in half and hang it over the rod in the bathroom (it’s just wide enough) in the morning so it’s dry by evening and put the fitted sheet over the clothes’ horse. When I used to wash the kids’ sheets (and clothes) as well, the schedule was very tight! I was so relieved when they finished school and got their own washing machine (I didn’t feel I could ask high school children to look after their own washing).

And I haven’t told you about the washing machines yet …

* Tancarville is a trademark for a type of clothes horse that came out at the time the Tancarville suspension bridge was built. 
 
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Australian customs, Food, French customs, Lifestyle

An Aussie in France Makes History!

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I believe that I reached a turning point in my history as an Aussie in France today. The butcher gave me exactly what I wanted. An entrecôte, well hung (the best meat is always a dark red colour and not bright red which means it’s too fresh), 600 grammes. It weighed in at 595 grammes and he didn’t even ask where Relationnel was. I would have forgiven him for that, mind you, because after my first attempts to buy meat in Rue Montorgueil , I stopped going by myself and now just mostly tag along with Relationnel because he’s French and the butcher gives him what he asks for.

It’s not that I don’t speak French. But I have just enough accent for people to know I’m not a local. I didn’t have this problem when I lived in the suburbs of Paris. At the market in Nogent sur Marne, I was known as “l’Anglaise” and they liked me and treated me like a normal customer. But after I moved into the centre of Paris, I was suddenly taken for a foreigner. It was most disconcerting particularly since I even have dual citizenship now.

Sometimes people ask me what language I dream in. I’m not sure that I really dream in any language but I guess it depends on what the dream’s about.  I’m a translator by trade and when you’re working with two languages all day, you don’t necessarily know which one you’re speaking, let alone dreaming. I can remember once being asked by the French tax department to come and fix up my VAT (GST)  cheque which contained an error. I went in and looked at the cheque for a few minutes but still couldn’t see what the problem was. They pointed out that the amount was written half in English and half in French!

When I chose to leave Australia and live in France, I didn’t really know what I was going to. I only knew what I was leaving. I’ve never looked back and never been homesick. That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss my family. I do, especially now that I have four nephews in Australia. But I love living in France. One of the things I like best is that you have greater freedom to be yourself when you live in another country and speak another language. You’re not bound by the same traditions and restrictions. To start off with, you don’t necessarily know that you’re doing something different.

I don’t mean that I want to be outrageous. I just want to be able to act spontaneously without having to worry about what other people say. Once I was in Townsville in the summer and was wearing a fuschia-coloured dress that I bought in France. I was told that it was not a summer colour and that I shouldn’t wear it! I was told in France that I could only serve rice or potatoes with fish and that rice was never served with red meat, only with veal.  In a meeting or a class in France, you’re supposed to put your hand up when you want to talk. None of this spontaneous discussion that goes on in Australia. But I’ve noticed in staff meetings now that some of my French colleagues are following my example.

Another thing I like is that when there are differences, you ask yourself why. And that must surely help you gain a better understanding of people and life in general. It certainly makes you more tolerant and open-minded. Some traditions were developed for reasons that are still valid today, while others no longer make any sense. When you have the experience of two different cultures, you can choose the best of both worlds!

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French customs, Paris

Powerwalking in Winter Again

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I couldn’t believe it when I saw this guy. Here we have Brainy Pianist, experiencing his first winter in Paris, which hasn’t even been very cold this year – I even gave him some suitable Canadian headgear for Christmas to keep his ears warm when he takes the bus at 8 o’clock in the morning – and there we have this chap, in 5° and no shirt. But you’ll notice he does have a warm hat! Lots of people don’t like wearing them but they actually help to keep your entire body warm. Unfortunately I would have had to dash round very obviously in front of this guy to take a photo of his tattoos. Maybe they keep him warm too.

Here we have the shadowy Brainy Pianist, who wouldn’t want anyone to recognise him in that gear!

And here are the men in very masculine poses cleaning up my fountain in the Palais Royal Gardens. Now I have to tell you about the word “fountain”. I have this tendency to say “fontaine” in French but every time I say it, Relationnel corrects me. I’m supposed to say “jet d’eau” as in “jet of water”, because a “fontaine” is usually used for water spouting out of something like a fish’s mouth.

The birdman was out today in Tuileries Gardens. We used to have a very ancient bird lady in the Palais Royal but I haven’t seen her for a while. I personally wouldn’t like to have birds jumping on me leaving their souvenirs.

Today I power walked down the centre of the gardens because there weren’t so many people and, as a result, I got an excellent view of Yayoi Kusama’s Flowers that Bloom at Midnight, 2009. You must admit that it brightens up a winter’s day!

And, surprisingly, considering the temperature and the fact that it’s Monday, here’s the man who rents out the boats to the kids. He’s standing on the right because I think he saw me coming. He wasn’t having much success.

 

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Dieting, Lifestyle

How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 1

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A pause from cycling May 2009

Now there is something important you need to know if you want to lose a lot of weight. The more weight you have put on, the more quickly you will continue to put it on. Where, in your slimmer days, you could eat overeat for a couple of days and nothing happened, once you are really overweight, you can be sure that the kilos will just pile on. The aim is to get back to the “point of equilibrium” at which little extras from time to time will make no difference and, if they do, you can quickly get back to your normal weight.

I knew I couldn’t just keep putting on weight indefinitely or I’d end up looking like a whale but I was repeatedly told that after 50, it was pointless even trying. I’d got used to having one or two glasses of wine at lunch time (Relationnel comes home every day) and two or three at night (remember, we’re wine buffs!) and lots of red meat, even though I’ve always been a big vegetable eater. Also, I work at home and a little snack is never far away. Even if I don’t stock up on snack foods, there is always something to eat even if it’s just a yoghurt or a piece of bread. When we went away for a long weekends, we would take foie gras with us to accompany our champagne every night then eat a whole côte de boeuf cooked on the open hearth between us with potatoes and crème fraîche and fresh chives.

Sydney July 2009

I was having more and more sleeping problems so I ended up going to see a sleep doctor. She gave me one those sleep analysis machines to take home because she suspected me of having sleep apnea. Well, I did. I was absolutely furious, particularly when I looked up the Internet and saw that there were three remedies – a noisy ventilating machine to make sure you don’t stop breathing (guaranteed to send your partner into another room), a very sexy apparatus to wear in your mouth (now that won’t keep your partner in the bed either) and losing a large amount of weight (more conducive to keeping your partner in the bed). I rang the doctor and told her, rather belligerently, I must admit, that I would rather die from sleep apnea than go on a machine. She told me to make another appointment.

The first thing I did when I arrived was to tell her I’d eliminated the sexy mouth thing as well. That only left the possibility of weight loss. Looking me very skeptically, she said I would need to lose 7 or 8 kilos and to come back when I’d lost 4. Summer was coming up, she said, and it’d be easier. Yeah, just when I was going off to Australia for five weeks. Definitely easier …

August 2009, my most embarrassing photo!

I went home and mulled it over. I found a sleep hypnonsis tape (well, an mp3) on the Internet and thought I’d give it a try since she hadn’t helped me with my sleep problems. After a few weeks, I went back on the website and saw they had a couple of weight loss ones as well. I listened to them for about 6 months just for relaxation, alternating with the sleep ones and without making any attempt to diet. Meanwhile I put on a couple more kilos in Australia just for good measure.

Finally, in November, I felt I was ready to attack the diet and went to see a nutritionist recommended by a friend. I came out in tears. She was this naturally skinny Asian lady who didn’t smile once the whole time I was there. I was supposed to cut out red meat forever (you gotta be joking), eat ham for breakfast (I hate ham) and take all sorts of expensive supplements. She threw up her hands in horror when I said I ate prunes for breakfast. I didn’t go back but decided to apply the diet anyway (except for the ham, the red meat and the supplements) and look for another nutritionist.

Although I can’t prove it of course, I am absolutely convinced that the hypnosis tapes played a very important role in my successful weight loss. I don’t know what was in them because I always fell asleep after about 10 minutes but they obviously worked on my psyche so that one day I was ready to change my eating habits. So check out the internet – there are plenty of tapes up there (I can’t find the site where I got mine and they were in French anyway) and I’ll tell you about my second nutritionist next week!

The Natural Skinnies and Us
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 2
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 3
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 4
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 5
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 6
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Food, France

Tarte Tatin with Quinces

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Last Christmas (not the one that’s just been), Black Cat and Leonardo gave us a voucher for a cooking class at L’Atelier des Chefs in Paris where we learnt to make foie gras a few years ago. We kept putting it off until it was nearly too late (the deadline was 31st December) but finally chose a class and booked it, only to be told two days beforehand that it was cancelled! We got an extension for a month and chose another class in January: foie gras maki, fillet of duck with butternut pumpkin purée and tarte tatin with quinces (this is a very popular and typical French upside-down cake usually made with apples).

Our class of seven people started off with the tarte tatin, peeling and slice the quinces which is a feat in itself they’re so hard.

 

Then we made the caramel. This is not something I’d ever done though Relationnel is quite an expert. You start with a large quantity of white sugar making a little hole in the middle if you’re using an induction cooker because the heat starts from the middle and radiates outwards.

Using high heat, you start melting the sugar. As soon as it starts to liquefy, you use a heat-proof spatula (called a “maryse” in French – I bought one at their handy shop before we left) to gradually incorporate the surrounding sugar.

When it’s completely liquid and a light caramelly colour, you turn down the heat. If it gets too dark, the caramel will become bitter.

Then you add the butter (this is not a low calorie dish), ginger and cinnamon.

Keep stirring all the time until the butter has melted. Add the slices of quince and leave them sitting in the caramel without mixing until the caramel becomes hot again. If you mix them too early, the caramel will go lumpy. Mix well and cook on low heat until the quinces are cooked.

 

In the meantime, you cut out a disk about a centimetre bigger than the case all round and prick it to stop the flaky pastry blowing up. We were using individual tart cases but you can use a larger one of course.

When the quinces are cooked, you put a layer into the tart case piling it up a bit, then cover with the pastry, turning it under on the sides to seal in the quinces. You can line the cases with greaseproof paper if you think the tart will stick.

Cook in an oven at 210° for about 20 minutes for small tarts, a little longer for a large one.  Remove from the oven. When the tarts are warm, you turn them out. We topped them with a salted butter caramel cream emulsion that I will not tell you how to make because you need a siphon and I’m sure you don’t want all those extra calories anyway! The trick was not to squirt it on the person sitting opposite you. You can just serve it with a bit of crème fraîche the way they usually do.

Quantities for 6 people
 
Castor sugar (fine graulated): 150 g
Quinces : 3
Powdered cinnamon: 10 g
Unsalted butter: 30 g
I sheet of flaky pastry
Fresh chopped ginger: 30 g
 
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from the Tropics to the City of Light