Last Days of the Bus Club Read Online Free PDF

more cock-ups , I thought, when we got onto the real business. But for now what was needed was a little alcohol. We served some beers and wines and offered around some roasted almonds and capers and pots of home-grown olives,
Arbequinas
and
Acebuches
, which we reckoned Rick would not have come across before – they’re tiny with very little flesh, and most people would think that they’re not worth the trouble, but take it from me, they are.
    The load lightened and we all had a giggle about what had just happened, and started to get to know one another a little. I had boned up enough on Rick’s work to know he was a man after my own heart when it came to sustainable fishing and the rustling up of food, but he was an easy guest too, unassuming and with a ready charm. The cameraman and sound recordist wandered about the place getting what they called ‘atmospheric stuff’, while the rest of us got into the mood for cookery. I slipped on a clean apron and with a whetstone whipped up an edge on some knives. Ana went down to the vegetable garden with Rick and the camera to get some home-grown vegetable shots.
    The meal plan was as follows: we would start with some lightly fried lambs’ balls, dusted with beaten egg and breadcrumbs, and fried in oil and butter with a hintof chilli and thyme. You don’t often get lambs’ balls in Britain, so I figured that this would be a rare treat for the visitors. A tabouleh would be next, a mountain of mint and parsley chopped up with tomatoes, chilli and ginger and bulghur wheat, lemon juice, and perhaps a small red onion finely chopped and soaked for half an hour in icy water to take the worst of the kick out of it. If anybody fancied it, there would be some yoghurt with garlic, chilli (I put chilli in everything, as a consequence of having once visited Mexico), ginger and fresh coriander, to slop on the tabouleh.
    Then would come the pièce de résistance, the thick red meaty stew accompanied by the lightest creamiest
aligote
– mashed potato with cheese and garlic – and finally, to dazzle the senses, Ana’s floral salad, one of the most beautiful dishes that ever graced a table. It would certainly look good on the telly, we thought.
    We all repaired to the kitchen to get this stuff on the move. Amid the clashing of knives and the bubbling and steaming of pots, I liberally bestowed cookery hints upon the patient Rick, who did his level best to assume an amused interest. I told him for example, that I thought people were far too fussy about food hygiene and, as a species, it was not doing us any good. ‘You’ve got to eat a peck of dirt before you die,’ I ranted. ‘What possible harm can come from a handful of bluebottles on your meat? If meat is dangerously off, the smell is so bad you can’t get near it …’ and other singular and questionable pronouncements . ‘Lemon squeezers are for pussycats,’ I told him, squeezing a lemon through my hand and filtering the pips with my fingers. I think he took note of this particular hint for future use.
    By this time, what with all the dithering about that is the inevitable concomitant of filming, we were all starting to feel just a little bit hungry. All the talk of food and the kitchen badinage did nothing to allay this. Ana and Rick sat down at the table and I burst through the fly curtain with a pan full of hot balls. There were just the three of us eating and it was hardly the most relaxed meal I have had in my life, as there was a big fluffy sock of a microphone dangling over the table and the long snout of a camera sticking into my left ear. The hunger getting a grip now, I sat up in my chair and raised a glass of wine to my wife and the guests, and then, fairly quivering with anticipation, I speared a hot ball with my fork and raised it to my lips.
    ‘CUT!’ cried David.



CHAPTER THREE
THE GREEN, GREEN ROOVES OF HOME
    F EW PEOPLE GET TO SEE their homes from above. We have that pleasure from not just one but two