Themed weeks are fun! You can't really plan them. They have to arise spontaneously. Then you just tweak a bit to add some more grist to your mill.

And of course, you don't have to worry that you ate an excellent Indian lunch in the middle of your Franco-Japanese week...

It kind of started with udon noodle soup in Rakuzen in the Sunway Putra Mall. I had a nasty cold, and udon noodle soup seemed the best thing in the world.

And that evening we watched Seraphine. This tells the poignant story of a devout, slightly odd cleaner, back in 1930s France. She paints in her spare time, scavenging for her materials. She's discovered by a German art collector, who encourages her talent, but has to flee the advancing German army. He returns after the war to find Seraphine's technique has developed wonderfully. Access to his funding and commercial network revolutionizes her life -- but upsets her never quite stable mental balance. She ends up in an institution.

Obviously, the question is whether being discovered was ultimately in her interests. The world is better off for it, for sure. But Seraphine herself? Was the sudden blaze of freedom and recognition worth the subsequent dark incarceration?

For me, however, the best bit was that it was FRENCH. So long since I've listened to French, so long since I've visited that landscape... It still resonates. Church bells, markets, and those inimitable French windows:



The next day brought a hoji shiratama float at the Pavilion branch of Mama's Green Tea.

Hoji is roasted, and therefore brown, green tea. Shiratama are sweet rice flour dumplings. You're thinking, "Aren't sweet rice flour dumplings called mochi?" My thought too. Well, here's the answer. Not sure I can detect all those subtleties, but that just means I need to practise more.

Anyway, the float consists of a brown-green-tea latte, ice-cream of the same hue and flavour, and little shiratami dumplings. Nigel's was a more complicated version of the same thing. Nice. And an excellent accompaniment to news of the ongoing triumph of Hello Kitty diplomacy...



I was kind of on a roll now. So a couple of days later, we watched Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. The central message, amusingly delivered, is that we shouldn't yearn for the past. That past was probably yearning for another past. And no past is as great as nostalgia cracks it up to be.

It was an amiable little film, with some funny cameos, but nothing more (although this sympathetic review is worth a read). Its chief role though, in my little themed week, was to remind us of the joys of Paris. I never remember it looking quite so golden, but experiencing this city still has to be a major travel highlight.

Here's a (slightly wonky) shot from 1988:



To bring together my two themes, I've started reading Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysantheme (my second-hand copy of which, by the way, came from Noumea, Nouvelle Caledonie). I love Loti, and here his prose is as mellifluous and beckoning as ever. As a cameo of the Frenchman in late 19th-century Japan, it's superb. But what horrors it portrays, in its innocent, unselfconscious tone. Temporary marriages to Japanese "dolls", some as young as 13. A studied condescension towards Japanese society, with its supposedly odd habits and odder food. The full panoply of orientalism on horrifying display. Totally the way NOT to travel.

But such beautiful French quand meme...

And finally, to wrap up my week's little whimsy: Saturday lunch at La Vie en Rose, a delightful French restaurant in the middle of KL. It's not a cheap place to lunch, but it was worth every sou. Everything was so incredibly well executed that I simply can't find anything to reproach. Nigel's rib-eye steak was accompanied by Roquefort sauce and pan-fried potatoes. My duck leg confit came with a cassoulet-reminiscent white bean stew. On the side were crusty bread and garlicky mashed potato infused with truffle oil. A nice glass of red set this all off perfectly. For dessert we picked a classic creme brulee and a more innovative cold strawberry soup with basil sorbet and almond pieces. And espressi to round off.

Miam...

This has been fun. I'll look forward to my next theme suggesting itself...