Nigella Eats Everything

There’s been a week’s intermission from blogging and from France, but I can offer you some pear, chocolate and hazelnut scones as compensation, dear reader.

I don’t look like a French native. My cheeks are almost ruddishly pink – something even my dad pointed out recently in a fairly critical manner (‘why are your cheeks so pink?’ I don’t know Dad, you tell me) – and my skin is the shade of a crisp sheet of printer paper, my eyes are blue and my hair is dark blonde (with the occasional sparkle of silver under certain lighting. I now only use the bathroom by torchlight).

This is me. Hi.

Even if beyond all that you still thought I was French, or if someone French stopped in me in the city centre of Toulouse and asked for directions or something, do you think I could convince them that I am a French native?

‘Parrrdon, mon fruncay nay pah tray bon.’

I sunburn, I freckle, and throughout my life I’ve had a better track record for attracting mosquitoes than sexy eligible bachelors. I get tongue tied over the French liaison and, oh god, I desperately want to be able to say ‘j’ai 30 ans’ when asked, not ‘je suis 30 ans’, but by then my tongue is wrapped in a knot and the incorrect ‘je suis 30 ans’ spills out anyway. And those pink cheeks turn even pinker.

So this week, I gave myself some time off. I returned to a drizzly Angleterre.

The first thing that hit me when I landed was the ease of communication – I could ask questions! Without needing to practice them first! I could understand… everything! How freeing, and how crazy is it that I used to take it for granted.

I left Toulouse to a heat wave and embraced my waterproof coat and the splash of raindrops on my glasses. I also embraced my parents in tight koala hugs and together we enjoyed hearty pub lunches and the Downton Abbey film which made me weep at least four times, we took walks along canals, and sheltered under trees to picnic in the rain. We also baked. As always.

My mum turned out this beautifully golden marmalade bread and butter pudding puffed up like an inflatable mattress, then my dad rustled up his speciality of a fruity crumble, and I baked pear, chocolate and hazelnut scones.

Life is short, eat more pear, chocolate and hazelnut scones

Please excuse these somewhat Christmassy photographs, I am aware it’s mid-May. My bed at my parents’ flat is covered with a decorative tartan blanket. Combine that with the deep twilight outside (meaning I had to photograph these scones sharpish to have any light at all), and also that it had been raining, naturally, so there is a decidedly cosy, autumnal air going on here.

My family are fans of rustically plain scones. A couple of years ago I deemed myself daring enough to add strawberries and raspberries to the recipe which worked a treat, and so now pear, chocolate and hazelnut scones didn’t seem too daunting. The pear was juicy and ripe which is essential if you want to taste its sweet fragrance – unlike a pear I bought recently which genuinely tasted like a raw potato. Peeled and diced, the pear is tossed into the buttery crumbs of flour, along with chunks of chocolate and crushed hazelnuts.

How to describe these pear, chocolate and hazelnut scones? Well, they’d been sitting on the work surface in the kitchen and I came home late the night after baking them. Eager for a snack, searched the kitchen for the plastic tub of scones. It was nowhere to be found. I’d eaten one. My parents had eaten six between them. So I think they were a success. Once baked and steaming, the scones can be sliced open revealing molten pools of chocolate, hazelnut freckles, and soft, tender chunks of pear. I spread mine with clotted cream, I am English after all, and once cool, the crumbly texture firms and stays intact long enough to reach your mouth.

Give me pear, chocolate and hazelnut scones and clotted cream along with these pink cheeks and I can tackle anything France throws at me – even ‘j’ai 30 ans’.