The Chateau Diaries #305 2 containers full of junk and off to the brocante to buy more. Weeee!

[Lady Avonlea]

Finally forced to watch the vid itself.
Another all beige meal. Beige carrot potato soup. Beige pork belly with beige potato, beige sweet potato, and beige radishes. Beige passionfruit pavlova.
Versus what's in season in France: New potatoes, watercress, fabulous special strawberries.

What’s in season in France: May | Taste of France

Each and every month, the French Department for Agriculture releases its list of what’s in season in L’Hexagone. Here is what is around in May.

tasteoffrancemag.com

It would be so much more interesting to see FRK using her car to visit local food markets and befriending local vendors to source ingredients, instead of relying on a large weekly grocery store shop, supplemented by a walled-garden that doesn’t provide a very broad range of seasonal items and seems to have an over abundance of the few veggies Fanny and Snorty will eat.

 

[Hedda Hopper]

Such a good question, @T Rex.
Still thinking about Marie and her pastry bag, and what story she thinks she's telling with her food.
I lived in an aspirational neighborhood, lucky me, for decades. One of the tiny chic storefronts was rented by a woman of a certain age who was going to sell pre-cooked upscale take-home meals for the many upscale non-cooks who lived in the hood, a really good idea for that space, and a good idea for a business at any time.
The problem was her idea of upscale.
There's a certain kind of blue collar small town woman who grew up in the 50s -- I have encountered her a bunch of times -- who abandoned the delicious cooking of her small town grandma, or strange uncle (hear me, Lee Bailey, Scott Peacock, James Beard, Ernest Matthew Mickler!). And she went the corporate cooking way, via the women's magazines corporate advertiser agenda. That is, canned soup sauce, Jello salad, insta-pudding cake, the mind-boggling chow mein noodle Christmas cookies made by my dear friend from Fargo, N.D. (She may have qualified as one of the strange uncles, too.)
Along with all the packaged additions to food, came the notion that adding Velveeta cheese spread (not officially cheese) to everything made it classy. Velveeta even became a sign of prosperity to the wonderful Mexican Tex-Mex cooks who could charge the gringos moar for Velveeta chili con queso than they could selling real cheese.
And so this hard-working lady in the aspirational neighborhood covered everything she made for the yuppies with Velveeta. Because it was classy and she just knew they'd buy classy home-cooking covered with cheese product.
They wouldn't touch it with a forty-foot pole, as anyone could have told her.
She was out of business in six months and seriously in debt.
I think that's where Marie is stuck.
Pavlovas are classy food to her. She seems to be stuck in a department store ladies' lunch dessert world of individual servings of lightish diet desserts, whereas what restaurant customers shell out for big time is liqueur-drenched, buttercreamed, jammed-out cake. Cake. Caketty caketty cake. With chocolate dipped strawberries AND nuts on top.
I think she has rigid and completely delusional ideas about classy food.
One is, it's classy if it comes out of a pastry bag. Please note all the incredibly skilled cake decorating ladies who decorate cakes you'd rather die than be photographed next to. She's working another one, the perfection salad one, that if you can form, say potatoes, into perfect blocks, it's classy. There's a whole book about the puritannical home ec origins of attempting to tame unruly, delinquent ingredients into Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century.
She thinks Stephanie Jarvis is classy, and Jarvis' eating and cooking is completely dysmorphic. There's serious disorder in Jarvis' eating, as well as cruelty and grossness in her cooking. That cowpat she made for Marie's birthday is exhibit A at the mo, but I will never forget the gross slop she dished up for their Come Dine With Me contest at the shitoo.
I'm really not qualified to assess much of Jarvis' depravity except on food, narcissism, and fascist rhetoric. So I can go on and on. But there's something really wrong here. News flash.
---

I think a lot of Marie's issues with food stem from the fact that she hasn't been exposed to good cooking, whether that's from home or a restaurant. To be a good cook, like anything else in life, you must be exposed to a variety of ideas and you MUST practice BEFORE serving a new dish to paying customers! Her standing there trying to defend the mess was so awkward. That dessert was a disaster for two reasons: she didn't practice and it looked very unappetizing - the filling looked like snot! Also, the juxtaposition of the slimy filing with the dry meringue is too wide, she needed an in between texture such as whipped cream or custard, maybe she did that, IDK. We eat with our eyes first - another thing she doesn't seem to understand. Greenish yellowish desserts are not a good idea. Fanny doesn't care because she herself has no experience with food and doesn't care what she eats. As long as something comes out of the kitchen for the guests that's good enough.

 

[Pencil Pine Principessa]

Fanny and FRK are trying to present a 9 course experimental tasting menu with small portions instead of a tasteful, nicely presented, satisfying 3 course home cooked dinner. You aren’t a Michelin star chef, and the HMM is definitely not an 5-star establishment, so you need to learn what your lane is, perfect it and stay in it.

delusions of grandeur at every turn

 

[NotAChatelaine]

Of course they use environmentally wasteful capsules! So how may damn capsules did it take to fill the porcelain coffee pot? And did they have to reheat it waiting for it to fill up? So stupid! I can understand using the capsules in the guest rooms, but not in the kitchen - no excuse not to have a proper way to make coffee for your guests.

I’d suggest an insulated cafetière (insulated because the coffee gets traipsed from kitchen to the winter salon, either via the demolition site that was once the grand salon or across the courtyard and through the door into the Wedgwood lay-by (where you hang a left to get to the w/s).

(The sight of tea cups for after dinner coffee actually causes me more angst than the tepid, dishwater guests might be given!)

 

[Hedda Hopper]

Finally forced to watch the vid itself.
Another all beige meal. Beige carrot potato soup. Beige pork belly with beige potato, beige sweet potato, and beige radishes. Beige passionfruit pavlova.
Versus what's in season in France: New potatoes, watercress, fabulous special strawberries.

What’s in season in France: May | Taste of France

Each and every month, the French Department for Agriculture releases its list of what’s in season in L’Hexagone. Here is what is around in May.

tasteoffrancemag.com

Yes! Strawberries! I would be serving them with every dessert! I would present a big bowl of them served alongside softly whipped cream and superfine sugar for those guests that would prefer them just a little bit sweeter. I can't think of anything more delightful.

 

[Imperious Me]

When does Stephanie get to drive the Porsche?

Never... the boy with the empty bank account claims he gets car sick if he doesn't drive... yet in Africa he was in the back

 

[Hedda Hopper]

Never... the boy with the empty bank account claims he gets car sick if he doesn't drive... yet in Africa he was in the back

Poor boy, such a delicate constitution.

 

[Lochness Monster]

I’d suggest an insulated cafetière (insulated because the coffee gets traipsed from kitchen to the winter salon, either via the demolition site that was once the grand salon or across the courtyard and through the door into the Wedgwood lay-by (where you hang a left to get to the w/s).

(The sight of tea cups for after dinner coffee actually causes me more angst than the tepid, dishwater guests might be given!)

They have not socialised with anyone ever. What dinner parties has Snortss ever been to?
Fanny just goes to tourist restaurants or fish and chip shops.
Between them they have not observed polite behaviour or correct behaviour, Snorts gulping from his over filled purple glass and started drinking his wine during Fanny spouting forth.
They do not recognise vegetables and fruit , and out of preference would go without.
How can Fanny not have known about cardoon in France?

No one wants a teacup or similar size at 10 pm of coffee to drown the supper.
I have noticed previously that the cups are often left half full of coffee indicating that they don’t want that quantity, it’s cold or they do not like it.
Fanny justifies her ignorance of etiquette by saying they like to do things their own way.
As a host she is dreadful.
Shall I call the guests in, she says. I think she spends maximum of two hours with breaks to dash to the kitchen or terrace to film something and then excuses herself to edit in bed.

I would like to count how many dinnner services they do have. I think it is more than anyine , probably more than Marei Antoinette,
They don’t value anything, they get their shopping hit and then BAM it is on to the next trophy.
---
Amy has not been to charm school,
she really is not cut out for flogging, with the stress of filming and costs of videography and also having her help with the children to enable her to create projects to flog seems very hard work.

 

[Imperious Me]

Well it won't be her delicate boyfriend Snort or her!!!
Its disgusting Rory !!

Grunt has basically accepted he's doing the carrying... Grifters...

 

[billybudd]

Yes! Strawberries! I would be serving them with every dessert! I would present a big bowl of them served alongside softly whipped cream and superfine sugar for those guests that would prefer them just a little bit sweeter. I can't think of anything more delightful.

Exactly. Nothing Carême or Escoffier themselves could cook would be better, more delicious, more luxe and volupté to eat.

 

[C'est moi]

Ol’ Ronnie Boy strikes me as the desperate type of self loathing gay whose relationships are all transactional. Bought friends, bought lovers and a bought personal life. It used to be more common from mid century gays but he smells like a throwback to me. Ron will fit right in with Fanny and PhiPhi. He also seems like one of those live beyond his means people. Smokey Joe might want to pay heed. We could see a catfight between Johnny Rotten and Ron the Brownnose over PhiPhi’s affections. Or should that be affectations?

I'll get popcorn . Should be fun.

 

[Imperious Me]

The grey, short-haired lady with black glasses looks the same.
Not sure about the bald fellow - maybe if he was wearing glasses.
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FRK needs to learn to shut up. I don't want to know that this is an emergency soup. Why do the main course and the dessert appear to be the same size? Snorty bought a new coffee service at auction - another one of his hidden shopaholic purchases,
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Gosh that's a scant meal. Soup is the cheapest thing you can make to feed a crowd. ONE scallop?? with two small pieces of pork belly... smh. If there were 5-6 courses you could get away with that... but this is NOT acceptable.

 

[mrsp67]

Derail: attention 15 hags, smart creative intuitive & multi cultural people who I find intellectually stimulating. I’ve found myself in a conundrum. And I know so many of you have many health and family issues, that I do pray for. But i need advice as many of you are in long time marriages and partnerships. I’m embarrassed to talk to my people. I’ve been married for 34 years and have been working with my husband 6 days a week for 25 years, lately he has become so disgruntled, dismissive and angry. Going as fas as embarrassing me in front of the staff. I try walking away and he hates it. Besides medicating myself to numbness I’ve no idea how to handle it!! Please advise!!!

 

[Bleu Lala]

They don't hang straight, a big give away that they are not quality.

Neither does Phillip!!!!

 

[Imperious Me]

My daughter has told me so many kids are away from school with the flu and I heard covid numbers in the hospital are going up too.
Fanny with all her "bad colds" must be covid or the flu and she is spreading it around and she does not care ......... UNTIL her Mother comes to visit then its another thing !!!
So selfish.

It's the same with the old mans TB.. they don't care about others.

 

[C'est moi]

Ooo now I need to ask, what brand of tea and where from? This is for Mr Spratt as his bags are getting low and we don't go back to buy more plus he said it doesn't taste the same........so fussy.

It's not easy finding decent tea in France. For bags easy cuppa I get Aldi own brand Westminster tea. For loose leaf tea Twinnings do a Russian Earl Grey which is very close to Russian Caravan Tea. Twinnings thé de Celyan (allegedly Scottish!) in bags is a good strong cuppa. Twinnings orange pekoe and Assam loose leaf. Pre Brexit I used to order from Whittards of Chelsea. Post Brexit, God bless the internet, Amazon. Sadly, British Corner Shop has gone into administration. Our local Intermarché in their brit section now have Tetley and Yorkshire Tea.

Never, ever Lipton tea...

 

[Jules100]

Derail: attention 15 hags, smart creative intuitive & multi cultural people who I find intellectually stimulating. I’ve found myself in a conundrum. And I know so many of you have many health and family issues, that I do pray for. But i need advice as many of you are in long time marriages and partnerships. I’m embarrassed to talk to my people. I’ve been married for 34 years and have been working with my husband 6 days a week for 25 years, lately he has become so disgruntled, dismissive and angry. Going as fas as embarrassing me in front of the staff. I try walking away and he hates it. Besides medicating myself to numbness I’ve no idea how to handle it!! Please advise!!!

I'm sorry you’re going through this. Try having a heart to heart conversation with him about how his recent behavior hurts you and it needs to stop. Maybe it’s time for some sort of switch up at the business? Working & living together must be occasionally stressful under the best situations. Maybe a nice vacation for the two of you or individually? If you’re able to put your foot down in your relationship, do it.

 

[Pekey]

I have to add, the containers are literally incinerators for what Jarvis claims as among her proudest possessions.

I note Billy that Fanny is not storing her Wonderful Daddy's Paintings ( and so Many of them she has too - sadly) in those containers!!!
So I think she really wants everything to rot and if they have been insured - one way to get her stupidly spent $$$ back.

 

[TorontoGWM]

Cute couple!

 

[LittleMore Cottage]

Yes! Strawberries! I would be serving them with every dessert! I would present a big bowl of them served alongside softly whipped cream and superfine sugar for those guests that would prefer them just a little bit sweeter. I can't think of anything more delightful.

I make a strawberry and cream biscuit, yum and yum. Not much that Marie makes looks.yum to.me. i also harvest fresh spinach and salad greens. Rarely do.we.see.a.nice fresh salad with a light wine vinergarette dressing or balsamic .