THE GOOD LIFE Pamela Vandyke Price
Dear friends with a house in the country—
You've asked me down for the day "to get some fresh air into my lungs." Despite the fact that, in the course of getting to your particular atmospheric reserve, I'll inhale more exhaust and diesel fumes than if I spent the weekend in a nightwatchman's tent on a ring road, I'd like to come But in view of what you tend to subject me to — do your really want me to enjoy myself? If so, read on. Be definite about the time I'm to arrive and the meal you're asking me to Like most people whose earnings depend on their work, my meals are taken at my convenience or that of those who are paying me. But if you've simply got to feed your small fry or your long-since retired selves at midday or 7 pm (when I'm usually still working and my tastebuds not even twitching), then I'll gladly come in for coffee. Unless you programme me, I may well turn up for lunch between 1.30 and 2 and for dinner well after 8 — people do, in a working world — and my digestion isn't young enough for me to run the two meals into one. Please give me a drink when I reach you I'll appreciate the new herb garden, the latest flower print and whatever gadget makes washing the car, changing the water in the pool or scouring the kebab skewers easier so much more sincerely if, for a few moments, I've been able to sit down with a glass of something in my hand. By which I do not mean a choice of grapefruit or orange juice. I know you say — with your two cars, golf and tennis club subscriptions and Mrs Thing to wash up and her husband to help with the lawn — that you "can't afford to keep a bar." Buy a bottle of any reasonably dry white wine, and let me have a fair-sized glassful as you greet me. Do offer me something to drink with whatever we are going to eat You often say it will do me good just to eat simple food and do without anything alcoholic. Certainly. But I happen to live the sort of life where alcohol, in moderate amounts, is accepted for what it is — a food which helps digestion and oils the wheels of social boredom. If I bring a bottle or two with me, please don't put it away (in a cupboard with hotwater pipes passing through) saying "How kind — we'll keep this for a special occasion." Draw the cork and pour.
Don't invite me to take potluck' and then give me somebody else's 'gourmet' recipes
You live in the country and have a garden. There's no greater treat for me than straightforward Sunday lunch food, with as many ingredients as possible within an hour of their source of supply. I can, in the metropolis, sample everybody's version of cuisine, de haute en bas (and sometimes it's bas fonds). Do your own thing — roast with two veg and a pudding to follow. Apart from anything else, if I've brought you a good bottle or two, there's nothing better to partner fine wine than simple food.
Please don't talk to me about gastFonomic writing and how you think I ought to do my job.
If you were, chers amis, as good at my job as you are at making suggestions about it, you'd be me. And you may not thought of it, but — I write what editors think I ought to write, not entirely to please myself. As for telling me about that fascinating little bourgeois vin du pays you found in the outskirts of Jupon-surl'Herbe — leave it there until you can go back. The wine trade, who are no slouches when it comes to nosing out a possible seller, wouldn't have left it lying about without good reason — commercially.
If I've eaten a reasonable lunch, I can't eat an old fashioned type of tea So don't reproach me for not doing a progressive tasting of sandwiches, savoury toasts, scones with home-made preserve, sponge and fruit cakes and even 'pastries.' This is an archaism to me unless I've been taking strenuous outdoor exercise (associated with some animal other then the human race) for hours beforehand.. I can't help it if your mother or great-aunt is offended Your friends come in to meet me before I gr.
They may be able to slurp back umpteen doubles of spirit-based drinks. Whether I'm to drive or even get off at the right stop, I can't — and in fact I never can. Say you know I must go, give me a single glass of not too strong drink, with something to blot it if I feel inclined — and don't detain me. Leave me longing to have more of your company — next time — because you've given me such well-chosen and judiciously portioned food and drink on this occasion. Of course if you ask me to go twenty-five miles out of my way to drop an old, pseudo-amorous and vaguely tipsy friend whom you invited " because he's been longing to get to know you," the chances are I won't come back at all.
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