Monday, January 31, 2011
Pie matters
We decided that Saturday evening was a time for cakes and ale, or to be more precise pie with red wine. The pie was a large steak and kidney pie from Eve's of Ewell and the wine was Rioja. Pie about the right size for a snack for two; not really enough for a meal for two - which was fine as we were in snack mode. Even to the point of warming the thing in the microwave and eating it in front of the telly. It was a well made thing with good pastry, top and bottom, unlike some of those pie substitutes you get in pubs, with a slab of puff pastry dumped on top of some highly flavoured stewed meat in gravy. Good gravy. Plenty of meat and kidney - rather too much in fact. I think I would have preferred the pie to have had smaller meat lumps, those in this pie being a bit on the big size, maybe a cubic inch in volume, and less meat overall, leaving room for some potato lumps to cut the meat a bit. Perhaps I will enquire whether he does meat and potato pies in a bid to get him - or rather his wife - to make them.
At the time of purchase it was suggested that occasionally, when warming the things in the microwave, the lumps of kidney burst through the crust and unless restrained by some cling film were apt to wind up on the ceiling of the microwave. Which all sounded rather unlikely and I am happy to say that no such thing happened on this occasion.
All of which meant that by the following day we were well up for the book fair at the Dorking Halls. Say fifteen years ago, these used to be rather grand affairs with the main hall full, including the stage, and with overflow into neighbouring rooms. Serious books for sale and plenty of punters. The world has clearly moved on and yesterday's affair was rather subdued by comparison. By the time we got there there seemed to be as much action between the dealers as there was between the dealers and the public.
Managed two purchases. The first was 19th century Russia volume of the 'Oxford History of Modern Europe' by one Hugh Seton-Watson. Just over 800 good condition pages for £4 plus a plastic wrapped fly leaf. The seller managed to make me feel even better about it by managing to insinuate that the book was worth rather more but that since it was marked at £4 he had better let me have it for that. Few maps and no pictures but it looks to be a good book for all that. Written at a time when history was designed to be read rather than waded. And I feel even better about it now that I find that Amazon can do me second hand ones for £40 and upwards.
The second was the Pléiade complete Baudelaire. 1,842 good condition pages for £10 plus plastic wrapped fly leaf, slip case (now discarded) and binding which might well be leather. I had not realised that the chap wrote a lot more prose than poetry, was a translator of Poe and was a major critic in his day. The biography was a bit coy about cause of death, but there was mention of general paralysis, aphasia and hemiplegia, from which we deduced syphilis - a diagnosis confirmed by Mr Google. Amazon France would do me a second hand one for 25 euros (35 with plastic wrapped fly leaf and slip case) or the two volume current edition for 50 euros a go. So not a bad buy at all. All I need to do now is actually read some of thing. I did try 'Fleurs du Mal' once before but did not get very far.
As an extra we got what looked like the shopping list of the original purchaser, perhaps a well heeled, first year undergraduate student of French. Very neatly written on a leaf torn from a spiral bound note pad, dated July 1967 (just about the time I was starting out as an undergraduate), starting with Claudel and Jarry and running through to Genet and Beckett, taking in the likes of Baudelaire and Molière on the way. Some of whom I have heard of. Must have come to quite a bit altogether.
# posted by Jim @ 6:09 AM 
