I was visiting my friend Robyn and her hubby Charles in their lovely home in East London recently, when over a feast, lovingly prepared, she chastised me for not updating my blog. “I still check it regularly, but am about to give up hope of seeing a new posting” she scolded.A year of work and study frenzy has left little time for ponderings about life’s more indulgent pleasures, but as I sat enjoying five fabulous courses, drinking wonderful wine and relaxing with old friends, I realised the old adage about too much work and not enough play making Jacqui a dull girl was resonating pretty keenly.
Well, if anything was going to propel me out of a stupor of stoic austerity, it was going to be Robyn’s hospitality. After all, here is someone who when she is not cooking up five course Sunday lunches and making beautiful homemade gifts for friends, helps people become parents and brings babies into the world at all hours of the night. If Robs, this domestic goddess who knows her way around a speculum, manages some form of work/life balance, there is hope for us all. And if, in between concocting buerre blanc sauces and snipping umbilical cords, she hopes to find a new blog entry by her mate in the Cape, well, then, by Nigella, she should! So, the feast of San Robinho (yes, Brazil won the Confed Cup that evening) shall be the inspiration behind my reentry into the world of blogdom.
Besides the sheer splendour of the meal, I was dazzled by the amount of time and effort that was represented by the myriad courses. Where I would happily serve up mushroom risotto as a meal, this was the starch of the feast’s main course. Before I could come to grips with the time implications of risotto as a side dish, we’d already enjoyed a soup and a starter!
We sat down to homemade broccoli and gorgonzola soup at a table blinking with silverware and crystal. Chicken parmesan followed and then the fillet, which had been sauce-soaked for hours, was served pink and perfect on top of a creamy blob of risotto. All the while, Kleine Zalze Cabernet Sauvignon had our cheeks glowing and kept flowing well past the impossibly decadent chocolate pot garnished with a mini vanilla crème pavlova. Gorgonzola dominated the cheese plate and I dominated the gorgonzola and then espresso cups replaced wine glasses and we battled greedily to fit in a litany of truffles.
Indulgent, over the top, decadent, delightful. The feast of San Robinho was all these things. It was also an act of love and a charmed space in the midst of life’s busyness. Long may you wave your sparkly wand, Robs!
