take care of yourself

Am way behind the times here. This is no doubt due to the increasingly frequent nightmares where the board who sit on my viva line me up against a wall and shoot me instead of just failing my thesis. Hence writing thesis, not blog. Good times.

Having said that, I've still been out and about to see and do lots of interesting things in the last few weeks (yes, aside from work and nightmares): Ravel's L'Heure espagnole and Puccini's Gianni Schicchiat the ROH - amazing, hilarious, and beautifully performed - and who knew this ravishing aria was in the rather unassuming one act about a cheeky Italian farmer. Divine dinners at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon (the third best dining experience I've had in London in the last year, after Landau at the Langham and the fine food and wine evening at the White Swan) and on the old Pullman Orient Express train. If I have the time, I'll write these up properly but I did want to single out one thing in particular: the Sophie Calle show on now at the Whitechapel Gallery until 3 January.

It's a sort of retrospective of Calle's work but the clear star of the show is Take Care of Yourself (as vile a phrase in French as in English: prenez soin de vous), a piece which won rave reviews at the Venice Bienalle in 2007. After receiving an email in which her then lover breaks up with her, Calle whizzed the email off to 107 various women and asked them to use their professional skills to interpret the missive. While the exhibition is simply unmissible and anything I say about it here would only get in the way of your own response to and enjoyment of what is a very, very clever piece of artistry and social engagement, there was one thing that really stood out for me and that was the email itself.

I don't know about you, but I've been broken up with by letter before (and it was handwritten, baby. One up on Madame Calle) and while his letter was as polite as the situation demanded, it wasn't anything like the email Calle's lover sent to her. I kept thinking over and over (you practically come to know the letter by heart - in French and English- if you stay in the exhibition long enough), god, why have I never gone out with a French bloke before! I don't want a boring 'I hope one day you may forgive me. It's nothing you did, nothing I can explain, blah, blah, blah' break-up letter, I want a mysterious, freakishly formal email about 'the others' and how he will always remember the 'unique and beautiful way I interpreted the world' - I still never did quite figure out what the hell he was referring to with 'the others'. Trust me, it's not as obvious as it sounds. But the disconnect between his letter, grounded in the rhetoric of courtly love, the fact that he sent it via email, and well, just that men actually exist who write letters like that sort of turned my world upside down. I think it's a sad day indeed when a gal starts looking at the men of another country differently (favourably, even) by the way the write break-up emails. Obviously, I'm not getting out of the library enough.

Duck Fat in the Holy Land

Two cultural highlights this week. I took the Boy to lunch at the Fat Duck for his birthday and The Philosopher and I went to see Jerusalem at the Royal Court. I've been thinking a lot about the function of reviewing lately and this week has clinched it: reading reviews prior to experiencing the subject of the review is a bad, bad idea.

Yes, Fat Duck is fantastic and it's distinctly different from any other restaurant in the UK, but a life changing experience it is not. The best I can think to equate it to is a surprising and rather fun one night stand. You're not having the kind of sex that's going to ruin you from ever wanting to have sex with anyone else ever again, but it's definitely enjoyable. However, if you have to pay £400 for the pleasure of having sex that doesn't rock your world, you're probably not going to rush back anytime soon.

I love food, but I don't cook. This is heresy to lots of foodie people, but I'm not that fussed. I love eating out. It's what I do. So for me the idea of a restaurant whose raison d'etre seems to be to establish yourself as the kind of restaurant people come to once, maybe twice in their lives is completely inane. I don't know if my expectations were too high or whether I had read too many reviews and knew what was coming, but I just expected more. The other problem is that I recently went to a foodie evening at The White Swan, a pub in Clerkenwell. I live practically around the corner and had never heard of this place. The Philosopher found out about an evening they run about once a month - a fine food and wine evening - so along we went. It was absolutely fantastic: delicious food, divine wines, a jaunty sommelier chatted about our wines, and our hosts were angels. I'm sure it has something to do with expectations, given that mine were sub zero going to The White Swan and through the roof at The Fat Duck. Hand on heart, if you handed me a cheque for £500 and said I could pick between the two places for dinner tomorrow night, I'd high tail it straight back to The White Swan.

Heston's gaff is, for me, exactly the opposite of what dining out should be. Going to a restaurant is not first and foremost about the food. It's about the experience and here's where I think The Fat Duck gets it wrong. Heston thinks food is about memories, which is certainly true in many cases. The problem with this is that there should be no place for reminiscing and reliving one's memories in a restaurant. Unless, of course, you're on your own, eating out is above all a shared experience: it's about creating new memories, not reliving old ones. At The Fat Duck, yes the food is delicious, but it should be a restaurant full of tables for one. What's the point of going out to eat with anyone else if you're only interacting with the plate of food in front of you and not your company? Inward looking eating is just plain creepy and it's certainly not the thing for me. I'd take a convivial table full of laughing and conversing friends over a table full of serious-faced sullen cows, ears plugged up with headphones, (yes! headphones! at the table!) any day of the week.

I feel like I've finally learned my lesson. The Philosopher and I went to see Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem at the Royal Court. We bought our tickets ages ago, which was clever going on our part, as the run has been sold out for weeks. I knew it was going to be good: Lloyd Evans doesn't say that a show is among the very best, after having reviewed more than 700 shows for the Speccie, and not mean it. Apart from his review, which gives nothing away, I read nothing else. I wanted the experience of seeing the show to hit me with the full force of its amazingness. And boy did it.

It's not often that I say this, but there is some truly terrific theatre on in London at the minute: Acordia at The Duke's, Phèdre at the National, Winter's Tale at the Old Vic, even Helen at the Globe is pretty fun. Jerusalem wipes the floor with all of them. Do whatever you have to do to get a ticket, this is that good. At 3 hours and 10 minutes, this is one of the longest plays I've ever seen, but perhaps one of the only shows I've ever seen where my attention never wavered. Not once was I aware of time outside the world created by this play. And it is an incredible world, by turns hilarious and witty, yet terrible and cruel. The performances are breath-taking. Mark Rylance in the lead is like no one I've ever seen. Typically, when the lead is so strong the rest of the ensemble pales in comparison, but this cast seems better for having Rylance in their midst and, though I don't often say so, the entire cast are equally sublime.

I wish I could write what the play was about and what I felt about it, but that would be unfair. You need to experience this play. It's the most important thing on stage at the moment. This play is a revelation. It's theatre in its most perfected form and you'd be a fool to miss it.

The most expensive restaurant in the world?

I love eating out, but even this is a bit much.

I'm the kind of person who would happily eat out 3 meals a day, every day. I like to cook, but I hate washing up and when push comes to shove, if someone else is making the grub I'm happier. Where most people cringe at an £80 tasting menu, I think that isn't bad value - as long as the food tastes incredible.

With that in mind, it's quite surprising that I've found a restaurant (Alain Ducasse's Plaza Athénée) whose prices shock even me! This menu is absolutely ridiculous! I don't know who eats here, but my guess is you have to show proof at the door that you own a diamond mine in Africa. I mean the food does look delicious and I still want to eat here, but seriously, €135 for some lobster!!! These prices are the most ridiculous I've ever seen (congratulations M. Ducasse). And that's saying something. Makes the Fat Duck look downright cheap!

http://www.alain-ducasse.com/public_us/plaza_athenee/fr_cuisine.htm

This is their 'Winter' menu:

• Black truffle marmalade and Roseval potatoes,
sea salt 125 €

• Roasted blue lobster, gnocchi, young leeks
and truffles 135 €

SPECIALITIES

• Steamed langoustines served cold, Iranian osetra caviar,
reduced stock 175 € 95 € - half portion -

• Bresse chicken glazed in an Albufera sauce,
tartufi di Alba 175 €

PLEASURES OF THE TABLE

• Vegetables and fruits cooked / raw, tomato / truffle chutney 65 €

• Sea scallops and cauliflower cream « grenobloise » style 80 €

• Guinea fowl from Challans and duck liver, truffled dressing 90 €

• Line caught sea bass flavoured with citrus / peppers, caramelized fillet 90 €

• Dover sole, clams and cockles, parsley juice 100 €

• Brittany turbot in matelote 95 €

• Rack and saddle of lamb, artichokes and fresh salad, dry fruits crumbs 95 €

• Venison with winter vegetables, reduced red wine spicy sauce 100 €

• Preserved and smoked pigeon, sweet and sour turnips 90 €

• Cheeses refined for you 25 €

• Three dishes of your choice from our "Specialities" - half portion -, cheeses and dessert 360 €

• Three dishes of your choice from "Pleasures of the table" - half portion -, cheeses and dessert