KEY POINTS:
I am in Uzes, in the south of France, presiding over a culinary adventure. Ten lucky individuals put themselves in my hands for a week-long dinner party.
I have been doing this for three years and, with only one exception, my clients have been unrelentingly charming, appreciative gourmands.
They sing, recite poetry, turn up on time and eat unprecedented amounts of anchovies and olive oil. The only exception was an appalling woman whom my business partner, David, nicknamed Amyl Nitrate.
So far so good. The clients are the easy part. The tricky part is all the colourful southern French characters who agree to share their skills with us. It is devilishly difficult to organise people of Mediterranean temperament long distance, never mind in situ. David spends months contacting and confirming the butcher, the winemaker, the guest chefs, the goat-cheese farmer, the snail provider, the grower the restaurants, the fishermen and the kitchen assistants.
I turn up and call them all again to be absolutely sure. And this is what I get:
"No. You're coming on Sunday already? Ce n'est pas possible. This Sunday did you say?"
"No, no one has called me, nothing has been agreed upon, no idea what to charge you."
"Dinner? No, we agreed on lunch. I can't possibly do dinner that day."
"Yes I know I said I would do it but now I can't come on Monday and Tuesday. Would my housekeeper do as a waitress?"
When you're Anglo-Saxon and organised to the last minute, as David and I are, this incomprehensible attitude drives you absolutely crazy. And now the fishermen are on strike and it is politically incorrect to buy or eat tuna.
Just when you're about to murder them, a winemaker calls to tell you about his friend who grows the tastiest tomatoes in the world, the lady who sells foie gras says she saw you in a food magazine next to some rugby players, and the cafe owner has kept a bottle of the best olive oil in the area for you.
The group I had this time were perfect of course, right down to the wonderful woman with a smile as big as Texas who carried two teddies around with her and insisted on sitting them up wherever she went.
So we had teddies in all the food photos, teddies at the bar, teddies in provenale outfits, teddies tasting cheese. I asked her if she had had ever considered counselling.
Before the clients arrived I tested my new tomato and goat-cheese charlotte.
It came out perfectly and was gobbled down by friends who had the temerity to suggest there was just a touch too much garlic.
When I taught it to the soon-to-be-impressed class, it imploded, sinking like pink lava into the chasm of my disappointment. More successful were the moules mariniere, a French classic.