Les Caves denizens on parole
Ever wondered what a pedibus was? Ever heard of a pedibus? Nor me, either. The Caves Gang pedipeople assembled near the London Eye, clambered aboard two vehicles that resembled glorified, elongated supermarket trolleys and started to pedal like whirling dervishes (do dervishes pedal?) through the tourist-thronged London streets en route to L’Atelier des Chefs, the cookery school, where we would be taught how to cook a meal and eat our creations.
The aforementioned pedibus has four bods on each side of the “vehicle” pumping like pistons and a couple hanging off the end giving it the ra-ra and a driver, whose job is to change gears, navigate the route and prevent us from pranging into and being pranged by the relentless traffic, especially gimlet-eyed cab drivers. These machines don’t exactly hurtle along; I was reminded of the Red Queen when she says to Alice: “A slow sort of country” said the Red Queen. “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” To say that we did not sneak through the backstreets is an understatement: sallying across Westminster Bridge, a graceful grinding circuit of Parliament Square, careening along Victoria Street, a cute manoeuvre by Buck-House, lumbering and wheezing up Artillery Row (an Eiger for pedibuses), zagging around the hair-raising Hyde Park Corner (I wouldn’t go round there in a virtual car), up and across Park Lane racing circuit, view-hullooing through the slumbering backwaters of Mayfair, a shimmy along Oxford Street scattering pedestrians as if they were feral pigeons…
Stopping for refreshment fuelled the spirits as did the upcranking of some thumping music. Playing Wishbone Ash’s Number the Brave and Muse’s MK Ultra at full volume outside the gates of B-House must have been a treat for Her Majester (cf The BFG – Roald Dahl). The Houses of Parliament, meanwhile, received a healthy waft of some rocking jigs from Capercaillie, but the palace of varieties looked too deserted to appreciate the free entertainment.
The reaction of the tourists and onlookers was amazing. Little children ran after the pedibikes as if we were royalty or rock stars; the ubiquitous bemused Japanese turned their zoom lenses from the postcard chestnuts of impassive bearskin-capped guards doing their palatial thang towards us whooping, eccentric, semi-clothed English. Mad dogs and English men, women and few assorted Frenchies go out in the midday traffic. Car windows were wound down, horns honked encouragement, cheers rang out, people appeared as if by magic on balconies as our ramshackle convoy of music-thumping, leg-pumping, purple-faced trolley-dollys (and geezas) crawled northwards towards “destination-gasping-for-a-drink”.
Cocktail Lessons
A couple of shandies fresher we repaired to L’Atelier to be taught the ways and means of cooking and cocktail-mixing. After a prepandial snorter of the delightful aged Mercier (the Jean-Paul Deville Carte Noir of marque champagnes) and toasting Nini and Will for catching the Les Caves baby bug (it is either something in the water or something not in the wine, we surmise) we split into two groups; one would make and consume cocktails, whilst the other would earn their spurs in the kitchen and then the roles would be reversed. We started at the end making the panna cottas (shuck dem vanilla pods, guys) and then returned to the work benches to splice, dice and chop garlic, shallots, herbs and suchlike for a Moroccan chicken marinade. Cooking doesn’t get any harder than this, someone giggled. In the privacy of your own kitchen you are quite happy to butcher things, but when basilisk, cheffy eyes are upon ye and things have to be done with precision, self-consciousness dictates that you work much more slowly. I was chopping the mint so ponderously that it practically had time to grow back. In the end all the ingredients were hacked and duly apportioned, wonderfully aromatic marinades rubbed into chicken breasts (me volunteered for that sensuous activity) and we were home free, ready and salivating for some groovy cocktail making and shaking. First off was a mojito, a refreshing combo of lime, mint, Bacardi and apple juice, followed by a virtually non-alcoholic Slap ‘n’ Tickle with fresh lime, fresh orange, angostura bitters, chilli, sugar, apple juice and orange juice and some mint. They hit the spot and then some.
Prep Work
Who is the greater epitome of cool – the chef (sharp knife, sharper tongue whipping the whippersnappers into shape) or the laid-back mixologist mixing banter and cocktails with insouciance? Both bring their craft to the table but the latter has a patter that is a trick of the trade. It is not just smiles and prestidigitation but wit and general knowledge served with a slice of lime. As we poured our Bacardi shots we were told the derivation of run. The most probable origin, apparently, is as a truncated version of rumbullion or rumbustion. Both words surfaced in English about the same time as rum did, and were slang terms for “tumult” or “uproar.” This is a far more convincing explanation, and brings the image of fractious men fighting in entanglements at island tippling houses, which are early versions of the bar.
The kitchen became a hive of energy as we plated our respective courses, exaggeratedly polishing the edges of the plates. Real power is wiping the smear off the fine china, not being elected by thirty million votes. Oui, or hail to the chef, indeed. And it was decent grub. The goat’s cheese parcels were tasty and elegantly stacked, whilst the tender chicken displayed bold sweet and spicy flavours and its accompanying couscous soaked up the aromatic juices and salsa. The panna cotta was pleasant enough, the fact that I don’t remember it is partly because desserts don’t rock my particular culinary boat. We sat around a long refectory table and chowed down with an assortment of magnums for company and then one thing struck me. I never have three course meals any more. Yes, I’ve been truly terroirised.