Saturday night at Elaine’s birthday party, I was trying to tell Hens about Cantal, le fromage qui bouge tout seul, and she said: “Is this the cheese with the maggots?” It is not often, I think, that I come to a complete stop, words and actions alike, but believe you me, it was like maggots in the headlights. Or something. “I am speechless!” I said, and then, louder, to reiterate the most booming speechlessness in the world: “Do you hear? I am speechless!” I gathered up enough wits, then, to say: “Why have you brought this filth into my house?” but then I had to resume the cringing.

Henny says this is a cheese—

oh, I am still shuddering now—

Henny says this is a cheese that is made with maggot eggs in it, so that the maggots grow inside the cheese. The cheese is all the maggots have ever known, so that they are—think about it—made from the cheese as much as the cheese is made from them. As an exercise in theory, this cheese is an amazing thing. Happily for me, I don’t eat theory.

What I do eat is the bacon and spinach quiche and the pear-almond tart I made for the party, and all the little somethings Elaine was putting together all afternoon: the devilled eggs, the crudités, the konnyaku—plates and plates of colour and festive tastiness.



The good thing about throwing a party is that I like throwing parties, but the good thing about having Elaine throw a party at my place is that it looks like I am throwing a party when really I am camping out in the kitchen talking to Nai and Henny. I mean, I like the meet-and-greet and all—

and, hey, I was not a complete social misfit. I did meet and greet: Graham, who was very tall, and Katie, who was very small. Mimi and Lulu in full effect, with Mimi shedding sequins from her shirt onto the party floor all night, and Lulu in raptures over the fridge, the coffee maker, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. Valerie, who brought a chocolate cake; Aileen, who is not going back; Jackie, from South Africa, in a big gold belt—

so—

I like the meet-and-greet and all, but sometimes the party’s in the other room, y’know?



Sunday morning I groaned awake from having gone to bed very recently—but dim sum in Bayswater waits for no man. A good half-hour before Royal China even opened, a crowd was gathering outside. Then the click of a lock unlocked, and the glass doors flung open like welcoming arms, and the unsmiling faces of Chinese waiters ready to do you no favours.

We were eleven, which is a goodly sized crowd for a goodly selection of dim sum. All the classics at eight pounds a head, and Nai even got the beginning of a smile from the brisk waitress. He might have her number by next week, which means that in a month or so the wheels may be greased to such an extent that we might be able to enter through the kitchen next time.



Dim sum Sundays are good-vibes Sundays, and good-vibes Sundays bring a stroll down Moscow Road, veering left to the pub. Coffees by the open fire, and sugar cubes for sucking. And the afternoon light coming in the coloured window panes was warm and cosy like Sunday.

Like Sunday, one thing led to another, the bookshop and the train and the library and the grocery store, and still the sky was blue, and the company was easy and good, like Sunday.

There was not the Sunday paper because I am still working on the Saturday paper, but there was leftover birthday cake and an open bottle of Côte du Rhone when I got home.