As writers, actors, cooks and creatives, we all share the same fear: what other people think, what the critics have to say. That is the subject of the latest chapter from The Guerre & Shalom Publishing House. Richard and I hope that you show your appreciation for our latest release with a like, comment and hopefully a paid subscription. The power, as ever, is in your hands. - Daniel Clarke-Serret (editor)
Introduction:
Chapter 1: Ambition
Chapter 2: Faith
Chapter 3: Loyalty
Chapter 4: Struggle
Chapter 5: Sovereignty
Chapter 6: Creativity
OBSERVATIONS FROM THE KITCHEN by Richard Neat
Chapter 7: SHAME
Duck Breast with Cannelloni of Confit Leg and Red Wine Chocolate Sauce
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.” — Shakespeare.
The Cook was finally alone. He sat back into his favourite chair and closed his eyes, allowing the calming and melodic waves of Barber’s Adagio to roll over him. It was a fine autumnal Sunday afternoon, and most people would be at the nearby beaches, conducting one last heliolatrous mass before the winter arrived. So much the better, thought The Cook, who was determined to enjoy such a rare moment of inactivity. He let out an almost audible purr as the Azorean sun massaged his troubled shoulders, while the jasmine plants that bordered the terrace concocted wondrous potions to amuse his sensitive nose.
His eponymous restaurant in the glorious South of France was beside a pretty garden at the end of Cannes’ illustrious La Croisette. The Old Port was visible from where he sat, and when he mustered sufficient strength to open his eyes, the masts of the boats could be seen jabbing and thrusting skywards as their hulks bobbed up and down in the water.
The Cook had considered Cannes his spiritual home ever since he had visited the town more than a decade earlier, and he had kept a precious image of the place in his mind throughout the intermittent years, in the sure knowledge that he would one day settle there. He appreciated the generous climate, the closeness to the sea, and the beauty of the Provençal countryside that lay enticingly behind the town.
He loved the smell of lavender, bright sunflowers, the obligatory pastis at sundown; even the venality of the local business people and municipality had a certain charm. Since he had lived in Paris, The Cook had considered himself an honorary Frenchman and had embraced and imitated his compatriots’ mannerisms, proclivities, and even their condescension towards all things that had the misfortune to be other than French.
On this particular afternoon, The Cook wallowed insalubriously in the rhythm of life that was probably incomprehensible to the serious Anglo-Saxon. He might have toasted the good fortune that had carried him to this earthly paradise if he didn’t believe that somehow he deserved to be here. He was home.
C8xD8
Sometimes there is a stream of events that, once set in motion, take on an apparent inevitability that we can thereafter only look upon as passive spectators.
Without warning, as though a solitary cloud had passed in front of the sun on a hot summer’s day—or one had discovered a rat hair in your consommé—The Cook’s paradisiacal state was violated by the unexpected arrival of unwanted company. Worse, it was the loathsome character known as Lander. The man had written a spiteful, horribly personalized, and wounding article a few years previously about one of The Cook’s restaurants and now, without summoning, had reappeared in his life.
Also from the Guerre and Shalom Publishing House:
Lander was so accommodatingly dislikeable, not merely because of his bilious writing and sense of righteousness, but even in his deportment. He desperately sought to cultivate an eccentric appearance with his countrified attire and unkempt hair, but instead came across as comically artificial—a dilettante.
