Don’t Say Cheese!

The little recipe book reminded me of France, and of my silly nickname . . .

ONION tart. Leg of lamb, studded with garlic and rosemary. Dauphinoise potatoes. Buttered peas and lettuce. A gooey but elegant chocolate pudding.

Aurora knew better than to vary the menu for Easter lunch – the family would never forgive her!

This Easter Sunday morning, as her husband hid mini eggs in the garden and they waited for their children and grandchildren to arrive, she lifted down the notebook she’d filled forty years ago with Leonie’s fabulous menus and the recipes she’d shared.

It was difficult to read, but the sight of her teenage scrawl and the aromatic smells filling the kitchen took Aurora straight back to her first visit to France.

****

“Please call me by my proper name,” Cheese implored her friend Hazel as they leaned on the rail of the ferry on their way to Le Havre. “Being known as ‘Cheese’ is ridiculous. Though Aurora isn’t much better. What were my parents thinking?”

Hazel managed to look sympathetic and amused at the same time.

“I’ll try,” she said, “but it’ll be hard. I’ve known you as Cheese for twelve years.”

Beside them, a red-haired lad of around their own age gave a snort of laughter.

“Sorry,” he apologised. “I couldn’t help overhearing. My parents referred to me as Nipper when I was a baby and it stuck! Only my boss calls me Philip. And my granny.”

“It’s given us some fun,” Cheese replied, giggling. “When the school photographer said, ‘Say cheese’, everybody looked at me and he had to take it again.”

Hazel turned to include Philip in the conversation.

“When my French penpal, Josette, came over to stay, I said, ‘Let’s go round to Cheese’s house’. She said, ‘ Fromage? This is a name?’ She thought it was funny.”

“Well, there you go,” Cheese said. “Your friend thinks I’m funny. And no doubt her family will, too.”

Including that gorgeous Olivier, she thought.

Hazel and Josette had been penpals since their first year at high school and they’d met three years ago when the French family came over to England.

Olivier, Josette’s older brother, hadn’t been with them, but Cheese had seen his photo and he was très

beau indeed. But what chance would she have with him when her name would conjure up a runny and pungent-smelling brie?

Eighteen-year-old Cheese was thoroughly fed-up with her nickname – cheesed off with it, in fact. The jokes – “Hard cheese, Cheese”, “Are you a big cheese, Cheese?”, “Feeling blue, Cheese?” – had worn as thin as a sliver of gruyère.

When she’d started her secretarial course last September, she’d hoped to leave “Cheese” behind, but her old schoolmates had spilled the beans to her new college friends about her insistence at school on having Cheddar sandwiches in her lunch box every day for years.

So she was still Cheese. Her new friends were lovely but she hated the course. After months of trying, she still had difficulty keeping up with shorthand dictation, and getting to the foot of a page of typing without a mistake was a distant dream. Thank goodness it was only for a year.

But she’d forget her problems for the next week. She’d been thrilled when Hazel had asked if she’d like to go to Honfleur with her, the first time either of them had been to France.

“Promise me you’ll call me Aurora, and only Aurora,” she begged Hazel.

“I promise I’ll try.” Hazel sounded doubtful.

The next minute she clutched Cheese’s arm as the ferry bumped against the harbour wall.

“Look, there’s Josette and her mum. Her mère.”

“I remember ‘ mère’,” Cheese said. “But every other French word I learned at school has gone straight out of my head.” Apart from Olivier est

très beau, of course, she thought, wishing she had worked harder and passed her French GCSE.

“Don’t worry, Josette and her family speak good English.” Hazel waved vigorously to attract

their attention.

“Have a good holiday, Cheese,” Philip called cheekily, hoisting a rucksack on to his shoulder.

“You, too, Nipper.” Cheese grinned as she and Hazel made for the gangplank.

Josette and her mère Leonie greeted them with open arms.

“You remember Aurora, don’t you?” Hazel said.

“No, I’m I afraid I don’t.” Josette’s eyes twinkled as she led her guests to the car park. “You have not brought Cheese with you? A pity. I was looking forward to seeing her again.” Cheese laughed.

“She sends her best wishes!” It seemed as if there was no getting away from that Cheddar-loving little girl.

She forgot the indignity of her nickname as they drove out of the port and into the Normandy countryside on the way down to Honfleur, and she looked around at the houses and farms.

Then they were back by the coast with a view of the Channel, and as they drove over a bridge Leonie told them the river underneath had started off in Paris.

“We’ll have a day in Paris,” Josette said. “Olivier will meet us and show us the sights.”

Cheese’s heart thumped. At last she was going to meet le beau Olivier!

She drifted into her favourite daydream of living in France with him, and being an elegant and sophisticated woman in her adopted country.

But even Josette’s brother went out of her head when she caught her first glimpse of Honfleur.

Leonie drove down through narrow streets to the harbour, where quaint houses were reflected in the water and overlooked yacht sails fluttering gently in the breeze.

It was no wonder that along the quayside half a dozen people sat in front of easels.

“We will explore here tomorrow.” Josette turned round to smile at them. “But I wanted you to see the harbour now.”

“Oh, it’s so gorgeous!” Hazel exclaimed.

“I wish I could paint.” Cheese sighed.

What was she good at, she wondered. Not French. Not art. Not shorthand – she’d only signed up for the secretarial course because she didn’t know what else to do.

“Can’t park here, I’m afraid,” Josette said, so they drove up through town until Leonie stopped outside a house with a thatched roof above a row of nine windows.

It seemed huge for a small family, but then Cheese remembered that Leonie took in guests. Lit et

petit déjeuner. Was that French for B&B?

Josette showed them into a charming bedroom which had one of the nine windows.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” she asked. “Or have a game of tennis? We have our own court. Then I must help Maman with dinner. She employs someone, but I also assist.”

“Can we help, too?” Cheese asked, feeling rather guilty that Leonie had taken time out of her busy day to meet non-paying guests from the ferry.

“Non!” Josette exclaimed. “You are on holiday.”

However, Hazel added her voice to Cheese’s and later they found themselves amid ingredients they’d never eaten before, and some they’d never even heard of. And familiar foodstuffs were used in completely different ways.

Cheese had had no idea there were so many recipes with potatoes, and decided that when she got home she’d try slicing them thinly and cooking them in cream and garlic as Leonie did.

On subsequent afternoons Hazel escaped the kitchen for the tennis court, having found another enthusiast among the guests, but Cheese begged to be allowed to watch dinner being produced and to help where she could, chopping vegetables and stirring sauces.

It was fascinating to see Leonie prepare fish for the bouillabaise, and the spicy sauce that was served in dollops on top, and make the lemon and apricot savarin to be eaten after the cheese course.

There were, her hostess said with a smile, over 200 French cheeses. Cheese smiled back and vowed to try as many as she could. How unadventurous she’d been to stick to Cheddar all those years!

She used an exercise book she’d planned to keep as a holiday diary to make notes in and Leonie kept up a running commentary on what she was doing.

Sometimes she used French when she couldn’t remember the English, so Cheese scribbled away in a mixture of languages and shorthand and hoped it would still make sense when she got home.

On the night before she and Hazel and Josette were to go to Paris for the day, Leonie turned to Cheese.

“I will miss your help tomorrow and when you go home. I am thinking you have a real feeling for food.”

Cheese thought about that on the train. She’d enjoyed homecraft lessons at school, but the recipes didn’t seem ambitious compared with what could be done with the same ingredients.

“Cheese, you were miles away! We arrive in Paris in five minutes,” Josette said.

She got out her powder compact and checked her appearance.

“We shall climb the Eiffel Tower and then Olivier will take us somewhere smart for lunch.”

Of course she could never look as chic as Josette, but Cheese hastily combed her hair and reapplied lipstick.

She gave Hazel a frown as a reminder not to use her childhood nickname. Then she was ready at last to meet le très beau Olivier!

His tall figure was waiting by the ticket barrier.

Up close, Cheese saw how his hair curled down his neck to his white T-shirt. His chin had a couple of days’ stubble and he smelled deliciously of pepperminty French cigarettes.

So grown-up, almost dangerous-looking, Cheese thought with a pleasant shiver as she hung back.

“It is good to meet you.” Olivier kissed Hazel on each cheek. “And you, Aurora.”

He held her arms and delivered the Gallic greeting to her, too. The way her name came from his throat – Aurrrorrra – sent a thrill down her spine.

For once she was glad that her parents had named her after the princess in Sleeping Beauty, her mum’s favourite film.

Then he laughed and kissed her again.

“And to meet you, mon petit fromage!” It sounded so much better in French.

“That’s the eggs hidden.” “Good.” Aurora smiled at her husband as she put her notebook back on the shelf beside her cookery books. “Trip down memory lane?” “It’s practically unreadable, what with writing so quickly and getting the French spelling wrong, but yes, it reminds me of dear Leonie and her encouragement.” Aurora opened the oven door to check on the lamb. “Without her, who knows what I’d have done with my life.”

She could never have foreseen that one day she would own two successful restaurants. Her schoolgirl fantasy of Olivier falling in love with her and begging her to stay in Paris with him had not included her having a career.

But when a glamorous brunette had joined them for lunch and was introduced as Olivier’s new girlfriend, she hadn’t minded at all.

By that time she’d known he would only ever think of her as his kid sister’s friend – and all she could think of was going home and finding out how she could learn to become a proper chef.

“And meeting you again on the ferry back was serendipity,” she said to Philip, not for the first time.

“Come here,” he said, enveloping her in a hug. “Happy Easter, Cheese.” Aurora hugged him back. “Happy Easter to you, too, Nipper.” n