Roger Collis

Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m’attends.
J’irai par la forêt, j’irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l’or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j’arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

Victor Hugo

‘No thanks, I’ve just grazed,’ an impromptu visitor said the other day when I asked if I could offer him something to eat. ‘But I could use a glass of wine.’ No problem.

I couldn’t bear to think what he’d been grazing upon.

‘Sheep do it/cows do it/lonely gourmets on their own do it…/let’s do it/let’s all graze on…’   

Grazing: eating on the wing; a kind of peripatetic smorgasbord, is one way to define it. A piece of cheese; a hard-boiled egg; a few grapes; a cold chicken leg; a handful of peanuts left over from last night; a spoonful of cold ratatouille; a lonely chipolata in a saucer; a couple of slices of cold pork – back and forth you go between the laptop and the fridge.

Premeditated grazing is anticipating and preparing purpose-made fodder for tomorrow or the day after.  

I was once standing in the kitchen of a luxury flat in Mayfair with the bodyguard/chef of a financial entrepreneur called Javier Benedi-Garcia, I was interviewing for a story.  ‘Joe,’ a fascinating, but dangerous guy, ex-army para sergeant, returned from a spot of mercenary service in what was then Rhodesia, was making me a tomato sandwich that would have graced the table of a vicarage tea party. I marveled when he delicately cut off the crusts; and primped the sandwich with a sprig of watercress..

‘Yea, I trained as a cordon bleu chef, Joe said.  Then, taking a perfectly roast chicken out of the oven said. ‘Something for the boss if he gets hungry in the night.’

Grazing can be joyful, it can be sad. Forget guilt and self-loathing; think positive. But don’t make too much of a habit of grazing… Like booze it can be addictive.

And don’t forget to shut the fridge door!

Loneliness is not about being alone; it is about not having someone to come back to; whether you are working alone at your job, in your office, or away on a trip. Couples need their own space, their own time to be by themselves, to work, or to refresh themselves, to find their own inner peace… Rilke wrote that ‘marriage should be the nurturing and guarding of two solitudes.’   

But always in the knowledge, the anticipation and joy, that they would be together again.  

I would spend the morning in the Workhouse at the end of the garden, fighting a deadline; and at twelve or thereabouts, D would appear, often with a ‘whisky mac’ in her hand… Or else, I would appear prematurely at the Pigsty; D would see me through the kitchen window where she had been sitting, looking at her garden, the birds, with a drink in her hand – and a cigarette, and open the door for me. Or I would pour her a drink and climb the stairs to find her at her computer in her little bedroom/office. And maybe she already had a guilty glass by her side.

‘I’m so glad you’ve filed,’ she might say. She was more concerned than me about my deadlines…    And we would go downstairs to the dining room table and talk and talk. There was always so much to talk about, so much time to retrieve from times before we had known each other and yet had vicariously shared.

I’m fond of recalling a Len Deighton character who asked: ‘Do you like garlic?’ to get the reply, ‘Yes, but not secondhand!’

It figures, doesn’t it? The smell of frying onions is marvelous – but only if they are your onions!   Gratuitous cooking smells are invariably noxious – an invasion of privacy; an assault on our senses, not to mention our clothes… no matter what the culinary outcome.   Can you imagine anything worse than living above the kitchen vent of a three-star restaurant?  I once knew a Spanish millionaire who had a duplex apartment off Berkeley Square in London’s Mayfair. But the public entrance was a Cape Horn of pungent Middle Eastern cooking smells – welcome perhaps in another context.

I guess for most of us, other people’s cooking smells (OPCS) can be an occupational hazard, pretty well wherever one lives – and especially in Summer when burger fumes from the neighbor’s barbecue waft over the garden fence.

Summer was a hazardous season for OPCS when I lived on the Cote d’Azur. Our fifth floor apartment had a long wide balcony with a fabulous view of the sea and two light houses; great for entertaining, especially as the kitchen opened on to the balcony.  The bad news is that the whole side of the building came alive with chatter and conflicting cooking smells.

Imagine the scene.

‘Mmmmm,’ the lady says as you emerge with your guests on the balcony for aperitifs. ‘I can smell wonderful roast lamb; I’ll never forget the gigot you cooked when we last came round, when was it?’  She takes a kir royale (royally made with crème de mur as you know she likes it) and raises a smiling glass…

Actually, you had planned a cold lunch – a choice of terrines – terrine de campagne, terrine d’oie; terrine de canard, with garniture (sliced tomatoes; cornichons; those cocktail onions… Crusty pain de campagne. Dressed poached salmon with cucumber scales and mayonnaise, to follow; a nice brie, if anyone wants it; a mixture of fraises des bois (wild strawberries) and raspberries, and cream. And all washed down with a nicely chilled Sancerre. Then black coffee and a petit Calvados. Perfect; you’ve won your brownie points.

You’ll have guessed, of course, that the ‘roast lamb’ was gratuitously wrought by the demon cook on the third floor. Or was it the concierge?

As Shakespeare might have said: ‘On your olfactory senses work, and make imaginary puissance…’

Well, garlic takes a lot of beating – I have diabolical thoughts of a custom-made urn which wafts authentic garlic smoke in the way of recalcitrant neighbors. Or sardines delicately fried…

You get the drift?

Cooking is fraught with olfactory problems – and opportunities

Royal Alexandra and Albert School: Founders’ Day May 9, 2010

Headmaster, madam chairman, distinguished guests, members of the school, ladies & gentlemen

Deirdre Lane-Cooper was my beloved wife; she died at home here in Gatton in July last year.

Universally known and loved as ‘D’ she was a devoted member of St. Andrew’s – and is buried in the churchyard just across the way.

She was also a good friend of the school; and we enjoyed attending Founders’ Days together since I arrived in Gatton.

D trained in classical ballet and performed professionally for several years. She was first taught by her mother – a ballet teacher – and she used to say that she learned to dance before she could walk.  In fact, when she entered the Central School of Speech and Drama they had to teach her how to walk like a normal person and not like a dancer – in a sort of splayfoot, puddle-duck fashion… as she put it.

They obviously did a good job, because when I met D she didn’t so much walk as glide…

D was also a talented choreographer.

So it is in D’s memory that I am presenting for the first time this year the ‘D Lane-Cooper Prizes’ for Dance and for Choreography.

I congratulate the prizewinners and wish them every future success in following their talents – and their dreams.