The Importance of Cake

I have some wonderful memories, and if I am honest, a lot of them involve cake. Let’s face it; cakes play a role in many of the pivotal events in our lives. From the cake at our Christening or naming ceremony, to our birthday cakes, to the cake that is served at our wedding, they are a part of most celebrations. Having said all that, cakes are also something that can be very every day – making the ordinary memorable, a creative expression that brings pleasure to all concerned. A slice of simple loaf cake with a cup of tea after a hard day brings new meaning to the words “comfort food” – and a slice of coffee cake with a cup of the matching beverage is a decadent treat that makes any ordinary morning decidedly special.

The first cake I really remember properly was a train cake my Mom made for my third birthday in Canada. There was a decoration that wrapped round the cake, with cute pictures of trains on it and candles and decorations on top of the cake that echoed that. I vividly remember looking at it sitting on the table in front of me with its three candles lit. I was so tiny my chin was virtually at table height, so my three year old eye line was just at cake level, and the cake filled my whole field of vision. The multicoloured train carriages fascinated me. The next cake I remember was one with a set of plastic Cinderella decorations on top of it. In the froth of the icing were nestled an elaborate horse drawn coach, a beautiful Cinderella wearing pretend glass slippers, a few mice and even a handsome Prince. I loved that cake too – in fact I played with the decorations for months afterwards. From there we moved on to store bought cakes, decorated with beautiful icing roses. Remember those icing roses that decorated most of the cakes in the seventies? They looked so beautiful and delicious, and all the kids always wanted one. This led to quite a lot of arguments at the table, despite the fact that the roses really did not taste very good at all, and were often so hard that they posed a real danger to the teeth!

Another cake that brings back memories for me is the Almond Cake that was made by The Knotty Pine Restaurant in Cambridge, Ontario. Composed of thin layers and iced with a creamy almond icing, this was my favourite cake for years. I remember it was often served at my paternal grandfather’s birthday parties. It’s teeth aching sweetness was a perfect foil to the flaked almonds that were scattered over the top. Apparently I was not the only one who loved this cake, as some years after the Knotty Pine closed, a local paper managed to find their chef who thankfully was willing to part with the recipe. Not surprisingly, the recipe reveals a cake that requires a great deal of effort and a huge number of ingredients. I have yet to actually make it, but I often take the clipping out of my recipe file and stare at it wistfully!

Later on, there was my wedding cake, a four-tier extravaganza decorated with fresh roses. I saw it in a bridal magazine and was delighted to find that the company that created it were located in London, England where I lived by then. I was able to have the exact cake I had seen in print. I remember I wanted four tiers because we needed two to serve our wedding guests and two to save. It is traditional in England to save the top tier of your wedding cake for your first child's Christening but as I envisaged having two children it seemed only fair to have two extra tiers. In the event, only one of the tiers got used – and the same bakery stripped off the icing and re-iced it, decorating it with a cute blue teddy bear. Much to my amazement it did taste really lovely, although by that time it was almost two years old. The cake that tasted even better than that though was one made and decorated by my cousin to serve at a party to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. She made it as a gift to us and frankly, I was not the only one who preferred it to our wedding cake!

But some of the nicest cakes can be cakes that are not made for any occasion in particular. They are the loaf cakes we serve in the afternoon with a cup of tea, or the layer cake we make up one afternoon for no reason in particular. In fact, it is often the simplest of cakes that bring the most pleasure. A plain Madeira cake is one of the most delicious recipes I know, and an easily made walnut cake is a real joy to taste. Squares of carrot cake with cream cheese icing are a cure for almost any ailment of the soul and the iconic “Busy Day Cake” with it’s broiled coconut topping has been the saviour of many a harassed housewife needing a quick dessert.

Cake makes an ordinary day extraordinary. One of my favourite traditions is the “birthday cake for breakfast” tradition following on from any birthday celebration and guaranteed to salve any post-birthday let down. Imagine my chagrin when, after my first birthday in England I discovered that this tradition had not yet caught on there. The morning after my birthday, my husband to be looked on open mouthed as I cut a slice of cake. He could not understand the logic of eating cake for breakfast. As far as he, and most of the population of England was concerned, cake was for tea time. Being always on a diet, tea time was a dietary luxury I could not really afford, so I braved his disapproval and enjoyed my breakfast. Even twenty years later, my husband will only watch my son and I eat birthday cake for breakfast, shuddering slightly as he does so, and still will not partake of it himself. At least he now does concede that the calorie saving of eliminating a meal to enjoy the cake – while not nutritionally sound – is unarguably true.

Actually, the British have many different traditions when it comes to cake. Up until recently cake was rarely served as a dessert – in fact when I served a home-made cake at a dinner party some years ago I got some very funny looks. One guest even took pains to tell me that it was “not the done thing”. Ouch. Thankfully in recent years, some of the more progressive celebrity chefs have encouraged the serving of cake – or even cupcakes – as desserts at dinner parties, much to my intense relief and joy.

I have also made it a personal mission during my years in Merry Old England to convert the population to the serving of ice cream with cake. You see, the British are partial to pouring cream over their slices of cake – a practice which makes me shudder in a way not dissimilar to my husband’s shudders when I eat cake for breakfast. Why pour something over a beautiful cake that will make it soggy? Yuk. Still, the idea of cake served a la mode is something that puzzles many Brits. The first few times I served ice cream instead of cream I was met with confusion and disappointment. However, on tasting the delicious creaminess of the frozen dessert alongside the cake my guests were quickly reassured, and it has become not only a tradition in our house, but indeed an oft requested one.

One of my favourite varieties of cake to make is cupcakes. These mini mouthfuls of gorgeousness are so easy to make and decorating them is such fun. You see, I’ve never got the hang of elaborate cake decorations, and cupcakes allow me to be really creative without the pressure of decorating a whole cake. Although my cakes are famous amongst family and friends, I have never been known for my decorating skills and to this day if someone request a birthday cake made by me they will find it creamily iced and decorated with sweets or candies. I don’t do writing or paste decorations – I know my limits! Having said that, I will never forget the faces of the children (and adults) for whom I have made these cakes – being confronted with that many sweeties pressed into the icing of a cake is never a disappointment!

But finally, and above all, cakes are for me an antidote to the stresses of modern living. Although like all great things, it is necessary to enjoy them in moderation, cakes are a big part of my life. Cake baking is therapy, one that has brought me huge comfort during some very difficult times. The pleasure a homemade cake brings to other people is so rewarding, it makes you feel like all is well with the world, even when it isn’t. Cake baking is also great fun, and something to enjoy during times of celebration as well. Then of course, there is the very best bit – the eating. How an alchemy of eggs, butter, flour and a few other ingredients can create something that gives such pleasure will always be a mystery to me. But it is a mystery I am very happy to continue to try to solve!

The Ethics of Eating in the 21st Century

This might be a bit of a personal question, but do you buy free range or organic meat? Your answer is more important than you might think. I know it all seems like a bit much to be asked this sort of question during a time of economic meltdown. Not only that, but it seems like every week there is a new scandal around some sort of food, particularly meat. I mean, aside from luxury meats, like foie gras and veal, there really is no reason to be concerned about animal welfare is there? It can’t be that bad.

Wrong. While we were busy focusing on veal calves, ducks and geese, many other animals destined for our plates continue to be raised using intensive farming methods that are quite shocking.

This next bit is not pretty – in fact if you are of a sensitive disposition you might want to skip this paragraph entirely. But I hope you don’t, because it is something you really need to know. Here goes. Intensively farmed chickens spend their short lives in windowless sheds confined to a space about eight inches square. They can hardly move, and the bedding they are placed on often becomes so saturated with their own urine that the ammonia burns their legs. There are 850 million chickens destined for the plate produced in the United Kingdom a year and of these over ninety-five percent are intensively farmed. The statistics are even worse in North America. Turkeys have been intensively farmed for years, and spend much of their short lives in long windowless barns, crammed in so tightly that they barely have room to move. Pigs are also farmed intensively all over the world. In many cases, sows spend the majority of their lives in gestation crates which are only seven feet long and two feet wide, being bred intensively, one litter after the other until they are slaughtered two or three years later. Piglets, taken from their mothers at as little as ten days old, are often raised in crates until they are similarly slaughtered.

At this point, you might mistake me for a newly converted animal rights activist or at the very least, a vegetarian, but I am neither of these. However, I am becoming more and more concerned about where the meat I eat comes from and how it gets to my plate because the sad fact is, unless you are buying free range or organic meat, it’s almost certain that the meat you are eating has come from an animal that has not had a very nice life at all.

In the UK, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver and others have attempted to highlight the plight of many of our farm animals and awareness is slowly growing. The refusal of some American chefs (including Wolfgang Puck) to serve veal and pork from animals reared in crates has helped raise public awareness in North America. But we still have a long way to go. Most of us buy intensively reared meat and poultry on a regular basis, especially in these days of economic woe. Many of us choose to turn a blind eye to how the meat we buy gets from the farm to the supermarket shelves, not necessarily out of ignorance, but out of what appears to be necessity. And the more demand we create for cheap meat, the more animals will have really horrible lives. I mean, it’s bad enough we kill them in the end, shouldn’t we make sure they at least have a nice life?

But what can we do? We are all on tight budgets, and frankly don’t we have enough to worry about? How can we make a difference if the organic and free-range choices on offer are simply too expensive for us?

The answer is an easy one, but it is one many people find hard to swallow. The last thing we need right now is someone telling us we have to choose the more expensive option. It’s just not practical when times are tight. Plus it’s hard for a generation raised to believe in the wisdom of 16 ounce steaks and endless buckets of chicken wings to embrace the idea that less is more – in difficult times, it is easy to believe that quantity equals abundance and abundance equals security. However the plain truth is most of us eat far too much meat anyway - more than we need, indeed more than is good for us. I put it to you that it is better to only eat meat three or four times a week, using your meat budget to buy humanely raised meat, than to eat meat every day and claim you cannot afford to buy the humanely raised stuff.

Before you panic, please be reassured. I regularly cook delicious and nutritious meat free meals without any need for meat or meat substitutes. I simply cook with vegetables, rice, pasta and beans and we just don’t miss the meat. I entertain a lot and my guests don’t miss the meat either. There are lots of recipes out there for delicious vegetarian meals. When we do eat meat, we really enjoy it, safe in the knowledge that it has been ethically produced. On average, my family eats four main meals containing meat a week, and three that don’t. We are happier and healthier for it and I stay within my budget.

If this argument has had no effect on you, let me appeal to your taste buds. Free-range meat really does taste better – not just a little bit better, but a lot better. In fact, once you taste free-range meat, the difference between it and the intensively reared stuff is glaringly obvious. Free range chicken is more tender and has more flavour because the chickens eat what chickens are supposed to eat, not pelletised food that contains goodness knows what. Pork from free-range pigs is leaner and more delicious as the pigs actually use their muscles instead of being cooped up, and as for free-range turkey – well it is utterly different from the almost flavourless intensively reared stuff. Seriously, try it and see.

Free range and organic meat is also better for you. For the most part the animals are fed a vegetarian diet, and live in cleaner conditions. Do you really want to eat an intensive raised chicken whose legs were burned by its own urine?

If consumers begin to demand ethically raised meat from supermarkets, the lives of animals and humans will be improved no end. The animals will live happier lives and we humans will be better off as well eating healthy amounts of meat that has been raised carefully without cruelty. If demand decreases for cheap meats, then hopefully farmers that are using intensive methods will be encouraged to change.

It’s a challenge, but as a society, we need to change our whole attitude towards meat in order to allow us to start using our power as consumers to end the cruel practices that exist in parts of the farming industry today. Intensive farming is affecting not just the animals, but also our own health and our environment. It’s time to encourage the industry to begin to move towards raising all the animals destined for our plates ethically and without cruelty by using our purchasing power to demand more free range, ethically produced meat. And the best way to do that is by buying it.

Being Flexible with Tradition

Tuesday this week was Shrove Tuesday, the last day before the beginning of Lent. Historically Christians gave up meat, fish, eggs and milk for the forty days of Lent, to remember the time Jesus spent fasting and praying in the wilderness before he was crucified. (Not many Christians eschew all those foods during Lent now, although many still choose to give up something in the hopes it will help them to focus more on God.) The tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday arose out of the fact that wasting is a sin, and all those foods being given up for Lent would need to be eaten before it began. Well, one of the best ways to use up eggs and milk is pancakes, hence the development of Pancake Tuesday - something that is now celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike.

When I was a little girl, the local church would have a pancake supper on Shrove Tuesday and my parents and I would go there every year. It’s one of my earliest memories. But as I grew older, life got busier and often Shrove Tuesday passed without pancakes. So I re-instituted the tradition when my son was born. I got pretty stuck on the idea that pancakes were for breakfast though, which made it very hard to keep the tradition on busy mornings. We get up very early during the week, and I don’t know about you, but making pancakes at six am is not my idea of fun! So once again, the tradition got sidelined.

Finally this year I realised that there was no reason we could not have a pancake supper like the ones I remembered from my childhood. Pancakes are really not difficult to make even if, as I was on Tuesday, you are catering for different people at different times. The pancake mixture is easily made up and stored in the fridge for an hour or so. As it was our main meal of the day, I also served bacon.

Even though I live in England, it is the North American style pancakes I remember from my childhood that I like to make for Shrove Tuesday. (In fact, it is this sort of pancakes I make nearly all the time.) English pancakes are more like crêpes in my opinion and whilst I love them as a dessert (particularly the 21st Century Husband’s Crêpes Suzette), I don’t think of them as proper Shrove Tuesday pancakes.

Last year when we were visiting my cousin Esther, she gave me a marvelous pancake recipe. I always used Bisquick or pancake mix in the past, but not anymore! Esther’s recipe is the most delicious I have ever tasted. It also works very well if you want to make the pancakes in batches to serve all at once, keeping them warm in the oven. Some pancakes wilt under these conditions, but not Esther’s.

Just in case you fancy a belated Shrove Tuesday celebration - or perhaps a long lazy brunch this weekend - I’ve included Esther’s recipe below. Happy Belated Pancake Day!

Esther’s Pancakes

1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt (I use about half a teaspoon)
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt (I use half fat créme fraîche)
1 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, sour cream, milk, and melted butter. Add all at once to the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. Cook on a hot, lightly greased griddle or in a frying pan.

Serve with maple syrup.

An Upside to the Downturn

Something funny happened when we visited Paris last week. For the first time, every waiter in every restaurant was in a good mood. This did not always use to be the case in Paris, where waiters can be quite grumpy on occasion and even rude. But no, they were all jovial and friendly, more so than I ever remember. More and more, the same thing is happening to me wherever I go in the world these days.

Please don’t get me wrong – I have had fabulous dining experiences in France in years gone by – and I have experienced rude restaurant staff the world over. From the chef in England who refused to cook my steak to my version of medium – despite the fact that his version of medium was quite blue – to the maitre d' who attempts to make their customers feel inferior – bad service exists everywhere. But it exists less and less these days.

I suppose it is not that surprising really. The economic slowdown means that for many of us “staying in is definitely the new going out” and we are thinking twice before we eat in restaurants. My family and I are notorious for our love of dining in fine restaurants, and even we are eating out less often – only when we are travelling or for special occasions. Suddenly restaurant prices seem extortionately high – and they are continuing to rise. The price of food is not just going up in the supermarkets, restaurants have to pay their suppliers more too, and they are passing this increase on to their customers.

In France, restaurateurs began to feel the pinch back in 2008, when profits reportedly dropped twenty percent. Three thousand restaurants and cafes closed their doors in the first half of 2008 alone. Things are not improving either as the strength of the Euro against the dollar is making North Americans hesitate to travel to the Eurozone. So not only are French restaurants losing local clientele as the recession bites, they are losing the tourist dollar, something that has always been hugely important to them.

Those tourists who do venture abroad are expecting better value for money than they have been used to getting, and many rent small apartments with kitchens instead of eating out all the time. I can understand this as during a recent visit to Paris I never managed to pay less than fifty dollars a head for lunch – and as we never drink alcohol at lunchtime that does not include wine. Dinner rang in at between ninety and a hundred dollars per head – and that is before we added wine to the bill.

It is not just happening in Europe either. Restaurants all over the United States are reportedly feeling the pinch as customers either cut back on the amount they dine out or cut out dining out all together. Canadian restaurants are having the same experience, particularly in Ontario where the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association forecasts that foodservice sales will fall up to 6.3% in real sales.

Interestingly enough, in London this does not seem to be the case. According to commercial property group Shaftesbury, restaurants in the West End of London are still doing a brisk trade, with the weakness of the pound attracting larger numbers of overseas visitors. I wonder how long this will last though, as prices in West End restaurants seem to be skyrocketing, and there is only so much that the market will bear.

Some of those feeling the credit crunch are simply moving downmarket in terms of eating out. Although McDonald’s sales fell in early 2008, now they are rising. In fact, McDonald’s has said it plans to open 1,000 new restaurants this year alone. Fourth quarter pre-tax profits rose nine percent as the company profited from consumers trading down during this economic crisis.

But for those of us who continue to enjoy quality over quantity, it is the dining experience that is taking on new importance. As I found in Paris last week, restaurateurs and their staff world-wide are realising that they must be friendly and welcoming at all costs in order to ensure repeat visits from an ever shrinking clientele. In order to encourage those of us with money to spend to return, our experience has to be extra special, not just in terms of the quality of the food, but also in terms of our experience and how important we are made to feel.

I think this is a long overdue adjustment, particularly so in markets like New York, where tips of twenty percent are regularly added to the bill as a mandatory charge. When people treat themselves less often, they want that experience to be outstanding – and while they may be expecting to pay the price, they want to see value for money in what they spend. Whether it is listed as a separate item your bill or not, part of what you are paying for is service. And gone are the days when menus sans prix can be presented to guests at expensive restaurants – as are the days of “if you have to ask you can’t afford it”. Frankly if you don’t ask today you won’t be able to afford it tomorrow.

As much as I deplore this economic crisis, I think it may finally usher in a long overdue era in fine dining world wide, where the customer is finally looked on as someone very special indeed and value for money takes precedence over snobbery. Without the customer there is no market – and without the market all that is left are empty restaurants and unemployed staff.

Vive la difference. Finally - an upside to the downturn!

No More Cakes and Tea?

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Malvolio in Twelfth Night

Whenever I read or hear this quotation from William Shakespeare's Twelfth NIght, I always think tea should replace the word ale. Shakespeare was reputedly a great tea drinker and of course there are few institutions so British as that of afternoon tea. Originally 'afternoon tea' was an entire elaborate meal - course after course of sandwiches, scones and cakes. Nowadays, most British hotels both in England and abroad offer some form of afternoon tea, from the incredible multi-course afternoon tea at the Ritz and other top London hotels to simple tea and cake. But sadly, for most of us these days, afternoon tea is simply a rushed cup of tea. This is why we Brits take any opportunity we can to enjoy a proper afternoon tea when life slows down enough to let us.

One of the times I can do this is when I am traveling. There is nothing like a bit of work or sightseeing to sharpen the appetite, and a cup of tea and a cake can be a great way to bridge the gap between lunch and dinner. And I have to confess, after years of traveling, that England is not the only place where you can enjoy a fantastic afternoon tea.

I am in Paris at the moment and I have to admit the French don’t officially take tea in the afternoon the way the English do, but I can promise you that if you visit a French cafe or restaurant around four o’clock, you will often see people requesting a table for “un petit dessert” which they have with a cup of tea or coffee- in other words, afternoon tea.

One of the best places in Paris to take afternoon tea but still stay true to French ambiance is the wonderful Le Fouquet’s on the Champs Elysées. The 21st Century Husband introduced me to it some time ago, and we try to make at least one visit there every time we are in Paris.

Le Fouquets has been an institution since 1899 and its iconic red awning has welcomed everyone from Churchill and Chaplin to Jackie Onassis and Theodore Roosevelt. Of course, Le Fouquets serves wonderful full meals, but if you arrive at the right time in the afternoon, they will happily serve you coffee or tea and “un petit dessert”.

The selection of “petit desserts” is quite staggering and they are anything but petit in most cases. The most famous of these is their Fouquet’s Millefeuille, a chunky tower of crisp pastry layers sandwiched together with thick layers of creme patisserie and served with a raspberry coulis. As well as tea or coffee, Le Fouquets makes wicked hot chocolate that is really almost like liquid chocolate melted in a cup. As if this were not sinful enough, the Viennese version of this treat even comes with cream! Okay, so it is not strictly tea, but I think with temptation like this you would be allowed this variation on the traditional.

Le Fouquet’s is beautiful, with luxurious red decor and plush red and gold curtains. Photographs of the celebrities and statesmen who have visited line the walls and the atmosphere is one of relaxed and cheerful elegance. Comfortable booths are available, and some of the tables even have sofas for seats. There is a formal dining room on the second floor. Le Fouquet’s is so famous that this thriving restaurant has been designated an official Monument Historique, and it is still popular with celebrities. However, the staff are so discreet and the seating arrangements so intimate you would be hard pressed to spot one of them. Furthermore, in my experience you are treated politely and made to feel special whether your photograph would be welcomed on Le Fouquet’s wall or not. In the fine weather, if you don’t mind being seen, you can even sit at one of their highly coveted tables outside on the Champs Elysées watching the world go by.

Another wonderful place for afternoon tea in Paris is yet another French institution - Ladurée. Where Le Fouquet's is known for its red awnings and decor, Ladurée is noted for its pastels, particularly its iconic pastel green entrance on the Champs Elysées. Even the china they use is in pastel colours. Like Le Fouquet, Ladurée is beautiful. There are several rooms; the tea room facing out on to the Champs Elysées, the amazing new cocktail bar at the back, and several dining rooms upstairs. These are all elegantly and tastefully decorated - and unlike Le Fouquets, even the restrooms at Ladurée are gorgeous.

Ladurée is most famous for its amazing macarons - which come in virtually every flavour imaginable. And no, I have not mis-spelled macaron - these delicacies are as different as they could possibly be from macaroons. Although macaron themselves were brought to France by Catherine de Medici from Italy in the sixteenth century, it was not until 1930 that Ladurée's famous double decker macaron held together with a creamy ganache filling was devised by the grandson of the founder of the restaurant. Ladurées' macaron have a light, crusty exterior which belies their soft, melting middle - they are nothing short of ambrosia. Of course, you can have anything you like at this famous restaurant, from un petite dessert to a three course meal, but it is their macarons - and amongst British tourists and ex-pats living in France- desserts and afternoon tea - they are remembered for.

Ladurée's dessert menu is over three pages long. The choices seem endless - choux pastry is stuffed with cream flavoured with rose water and topped with almonds, extra large macarons are sandwiched together with a fresh apple filling and cakes that in any other restaurant would be known as "death by chocolate" are on offer. This is before mentioning their ice cream dessert menu which also fills a page, and the choice is made even more difficult by the fact that their iconic macaron are available for purchase by the boxful downstairs in their shop so you need not feel you have to eat them in the restaurant. At this point I almost hate to mention that their menu of teas is almost a page long as well - Ladurée is a difficult place for the indecisive! But if you can finally choose, afternoon tea at Ladurée is an experience you will not soon forget.

So yes, even if you are in France, perhaps the least English of any country, there will still be cakes and tea, whether you are virtuous or not!

Here I Am Once Again

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a sixteen year old girl who dreamed of becoming a translator. She was studying four languages in high school and her favourite was French. When the opportunity arose for her to travel to Paris on a school trip, she leapt at it. At first, her parents said no, but then they relented, and she found herself traveling to the City of Light with a group of other students one rainy Saturday morning in the early 1980’s.

In the week she spent there, the girl fell in love with Paris. From the Eiffel Tower rising up above the Champs de Mars, to the Tuilleries with their fountains and gardens, to the Arc de Triomph sitting resplendent at the top of the Champs Elysees, everything seemed magical to her. The cobbled streets entranced her, the people - especially the fashionable ladies along the Avenue Montaigne - fascinated her, and the food dazzled her taste buds. It was such a city of contrasts - the beautiful and the ugly, the rich and the poor, the old and the new juxtaposed everywhere. She was besotted.

This was the girl’s first trip outside of North America, and at the time foreign travel seemed such an expensive luxury that she worried she might never return to the City of Light. The thought made her incredibly sad. And so, as she sat on the bus the morning the left the city on the way to the airport, she prayed fervently that God might let her return just once more to this amazing place - this Paris she had fallen in love with.

No, I never became a translator but yes, the girl was me. Life took me in a different direction but I am very happy that it did. The way the prayer was answered never fails to make me stop and be thankful every time I arrive in this magical place. You see, I cannot even be sure now how many times I have returned to Paris. I remember the first time was in the late 1980’s but since then I have come here at least once a year. So that would make this roughly my twenty-first visit here. God is amazing.

I'm here with the 21st Century Husband and Teenager, and over the next few days we plan to enjoy the hospitality of this wonderful city. As usual we will be visiting lots of the famous and not-so-famous places to eat - so watch this space for a Taste of Paris.

The Carnivore's Quandary

Recently there has been a lot of buzz in the food world about something very controversial. Both professionals and environmentalists alike are recommending we seriously cut back on the amount of meat we eat.

For a credit crunched, previously hedonistic society, this has come as quite a shock . Not only is food becoming a minefield of political correctness, with the posing of awkward questions ranging from “can you maintain your ethics and eat foie gras?” to “did you use free range eggs in that cake?” but now we are being asked to change the whole way we eat. And the even more worrying thing is, the people who are asking us to do this are anything but vegetarians. They include members of the United Nations, Nobel Prize winners, doctors and food writers.

Apart from about a year where I dabbled with vegetarianism in my early twenties, I have always been a confirmed meat eater. I love a good steak and chicken features in a huge number of my recipes. Like many other people, I have been rather alarmed by the idea of seriously cutting back on my meat consumption. As a food writer, I have written more vegetarian recipes recently because people seem to be interested in them, and I do love vegetarian food – but I seriously doubt I could make the huge commitment involved in becoming a proper vegetarian. A dear friend of mine who has been a vegetarian for years says if you can withstand the smell of a hot bacon sandwich, then you are truly committed to the vegetarian way of life. Well, I’d never manage that to start with.

Doctors have long advised us that meat consumption can cause serious health problems. Eating too much meat can cause heart problems, cancer and other nasty diseases. Not only that, but too much meat equals too much protein – and that can only be excreted through your urine – putting pressure on the kidneys. We don’t often think much about our kidneys - but if they don’t work properly, it can kill you. More people than you think die of kidney failure – my own wonderful Dad was one of them.

But now it is not only a matter of health, but also one of environmental stability. Some of the reasons many knowledgeable people cite for seriously cutting back on meat consumption are enough to make even a hardened meat eater worry about the environment. Mark Bittman, author of Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, writes that the problem with raising animals for food is that they consume more resources than they produce. He states that the environmental impact of eating a typical family of four steak dinner is to drive around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home. Oh dear, that does not sound like a good idea at all. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently recommended that people should aim for one meat free day a week, before scaling down their consumption even further, to help the climate become more stable. Furthermore, Compassion in World Farming calculate that if every average household in the UK cut their meat consumption by fifty percent it would cut emissions more than if car use was halved. As someone who loves her cars, I have to confess I’d much rather cut back on meat than use my cars less – although I appreciate that the idea is probably that I actually do both.

Needless to say, all this has caused considerable alarm in the farming community. The poor farmers have had rough time in the last few years – particularly in the UK, with Mad Cow Disease, Foot and Mouth and Bird Flu scares. Now all these professionals are recommending people cut back on meat, presumably cutting back rather seriously on the farmers’ livelihoods. It is no surprise that farmers have responded angrily to these suggestions. They believe they have been unfairly targeted and that moderate meat consumption benefits health. Not only that, but they feel there are other ways to effect climate change.

On some levels they may be right. Moderate consumption of lean meats can offer health benefits. Most of those of us who get into difficulties with our health due to meat consumption simply eat too much of it. In fact, not so long ago the USDA Agriculture Fact Book reported that since the 1950’s, meat consumption has increased by over fifty-seven pounds annually per person in the United States. Fifty-seven pounds is one heck of a lot of meat for one person to be increasing their consumption by, and I’m not even going to begin trying to multiply that by the number of people living in the United States. Yes, God did tell us we have dominion over the animals and we could eat them, but I am pretty sure He did not have the 16 ounce steaks offered on many restaurant menus today in mind when He said that. It all comes back to the old saying “a little of what you fancy does you good”.

Lucky for us, most of the people recommending we cut back on meat are preaching moderation and not abstinence. I would really miss my ultimate comfort meal of a good steak and a glass of red wine. I do think we need to heed these recommendations though. Carrying on as we are is simply not an option, unless we want to live very unhealthy lives in a world ravaged by climate change. We each need to take responsibility for making the small, necessary changes in our individual lives in order to benefit both ourselves and the planet.

As for me, the recommendations have encouraged me to explore the vegetarian side of my culinary work even further by developing more meat free recipes. I’m also planning to keep some days meat free in the 21st Century Household. I hope other people will take action too so that we can all keep on enjoying reasonable quantities of meat – and a stable environment - for years to come.