A Day of Memories

Yesterday turned into a day of memories.

It began before I even got up, as I listened to “Open Country” on BBC Radio 4. The programme was talking about surfing in this country. It started with a couple of questions. Where can the best breakers be found around British shores? Where did surfing begin in this country? Most people immediately think Cornwall. Certainly that is the best known place for surfing in this country. But no, it’s elsewhere. I found my thoughts going around the coasts of Britain, through various holiday memories. I instantly landed on Scarborough. The answer was Cayton Bay just south of Scarborough. It started in 1890 when a Hawaiiian prince & princess first went surfing there.

I must have been about 5-6 when we holidayed in Scarborough. One of the few memories I have from that holiday was going in the sea with my mother & brother. We children didn’t swim, more paddled. However, I was so small then I had to jump over the waves as they came in.

My other memory of that holiday was that in the hotel they had one of those machines you put money in, then manipulate a little crane to get out a prize. I don’t think I ever won anything. My brother did once – a small bottle of hair oil, something which at just a couple of years older than me, he saw no use for. Happy days.

Once up, I set about preparing dinner – poulet sauté à la Basquaise. As I cooked, and later as we ate, we were transported to a holiday we spent in Basque country. On that holiday we arrived first, then some friends joined us for the rest of the time. For the meal to welcome our friends we bought a good portion of ready-made, still bubbling Basque chicken from the local supermarket. It was delicious.

The Fox asked me what was so distinctive about Basque chicken from any other from any other chicken dish. I instantly commented it was the number of capsicum peppers & tomatoes. For our portion for two I’d used 5 tomatoes & 2 red peppers just for the two of us. And then there’s the other extras the cayenne. We remembered the houses bedecked with spicy peppers drying in the hot summer sun. The spiciness of so much of the local food we had there, so unlike the timidity towards spice so often shown in the rest of France. This particular recipe called for a 100g piece of the local Bayonne ham. As this is impossible to find around here I had opted for Parma ham as the nearest thing we could find. Both are raw air-dried hams. Whole hams hung from so many food shop ceilings around there. The smell enticing you in. I did manage to find a place here in the north of England that would cut the ham as a single slice rather than the usual wafer thin ones most people ask for. The chicken was delicious as were the memories.

(I wonder whether that holiday is also partly on my mind as it was our first holiday after may last bout of cancer in 2001.)