Salad Days

If, over the last thirty years or so, I had worked a little harder and ranted a little less then I might have stood a chance of a visit to the Rockpool restaurant in Sydney, Australia (as opposed to Sydney, anywhere else).

Now I had never heard of the Rockpool restaurant in Sydney before today when strangely a newspaper article caught my attention. “Strangely” because the subject of the article was Salads - not normally something I get excited about. Yet Neil Perry, the enterprising Australian chef, even made a Carrot Salad sound interesting (the main ingredient seemed to be raisins soused in Earl Grey tea - rather than carrots which appeared somewhere half-way down the list). The article also hardened my resolve (as they say) to find out exactly what a remoulade* is and so to add a new word to both my English and French vocabularies.

Thinking about salads must mean that Summer is approaching and true-to-April-form today included some vibrant sunshine and some rather drizzly rain. I’m never quite sure exactly when Spring stops and Summer starts. There doesn’t seem to be a particular day to mark the event (if there was it would undoubtedly snow, freeze over or similar), although our local French farmer and my Mother (bless her) both use exact dates in mid- to late-April to establish events: “Les vaches” will arrive in our kitchen field for their Summer grazing on a particular date determined months before; and the horse chestnut tree by my mother’s flat also has a predictable date in late-April for coming into flower – whatever the weather.

Anyway, back to salads. This Summer I am vowing to do two things: first I shall banish plastic bags of pre-prepared lettuce from the house (only fresh ingredients from now on); and secondly I shall teach myself to make a good mayonnaise – you know, the mustardy type that the French serve with a good Plateau de Fruits de Mer.

* A first cast of the dictionary informs me (uncannily) that a remoulade is a mayonnaise with bits in it (chopped capers, gherkins. hard-boiled egg, etc.). I’m not 100% convinced and so more research will be done. It does sound though that if my mayonnaise-making is unsuccessful then I can pass the offending mixture off as a humble remoulade and possibly vice versa.