Every Sunday I go and visit my parents who live in Kenton near Harrow and more often than not Mum will go through the arrangements for her funeral in fine detail. “Your sister knows where the insurance policy is, she has to phone them up and tell them that I’ve died and they will make all the arrangements to fly my body back to Valencia (the little town of Sueca in Valencia
“Yes Mum” I say casually, as if listening to yet another account of her latest car boot sale/charity shop acquisition.
She goes on “My Mother has been paying for my funeral since I was four; this is the photograph I want on my grave”. She holds up an old black and white passport photograph. It was taken some thirty odd years ago, her hair was much darker then, but done up in the same neat French pleat that she has always worn. Her lips were fuller and painted and her eyebrows beautifully shaped. As a child I would sit on the edge of the bath watching her, mesmerised as she created those perfect little arches.
“I won’t be going to your funeral Mum, you know I don’t like flying” I say. She presses on without hesitation. “The insurance pays for one person to accompany the body, Pepita (my older sister) can go”.
At this point I might mention that there is nothing actually wrong with my mother. At 74 she has more energy than me, can spot a ‘Moorcroft, Minton or Majorlica’ at a car boot sale from 500 yards and run like a rabbit to ensure she gets to it before anyone else.
“When I’m gone you can have lots of car boot sales and sell all my stuff before your father throws it all out” she says. Even her precious hoard of anything and everything skilfully haggled for over a great many years is considered in her final wishes.
The reason that I begin the very first post of this brand new blog in this way is that when you are lucky enough to have the luxury of knowing that your parents are still in the departure lounge rather than on the runway back to the old country, it gets you thinking of all the things that you should say, ask or do before it’s too late. For me it will always be about the food – Mum’s cooking. Never tasting her dishes again in exactly the same way that she has always cooked them, would be my biggest loss, besides Mum of course!
Now Mum wasn’t one of those women that said “Let’s bake some fairy cakes”. With five children under five (eventually seven in 12 years) there just wasn’t the time or the money to waste on such frivolities. But we did pick things up, purely by default because we had watched her make them so often. Such as the ‘Ensalada Rusa’ (Russian salad), Mum’s artfully decorated piece de resistance and star attraction at our numerous celebrations. The‘Tortilla Francesa’ (plain French omelette); a regular in our school lunch bag much to the disgust of our ham sandwich eating classmates. By the age of around eight or nine we had all mastered the frying pan and were knocking up our own omelettes in moments, we’d never starve.
Over the years I have asked about and occasionally attempted some of the slightly more complex dishes such as ‘Cocido’ (Spanish stew), or ‘Pollo en Pepitoria’ (chicken in a wine sauce with peppercorns and nuts), the depth of flavour is never quite the same as Mum’s. So, on my next visit I will go armed with pen and paper and I will be taking detailed notes of some of my favourite dishes and who knows she might even find it a distraction.
