Some years ago I was on jury duty. Because I was at university, the idea of doing something that didn’t involve listening to a lecturer drone on filled me with excitement. It wasn’t an inconvenience like it would be now passed off with a teeth gritted “civic duty” but something I looked forward to. I was hoping for an interesting case-who doesn’t? Yet the luck of the draw, and probably a good thing, was that it was a robbery. A good thing in that it wasn’t anything more gruesome. I don’t know if I could look at actually murder scene photos. I mean to watch it on Law & Order is one thing but real ones are far too frighteningly real.

It was a robbery case in which a young man held up a chemist. He was dishevelled and the cheap shirt and tie appeared to be purchased solely for this appearance as he struggled with the tie as if it were a noose around his neck. He had very little in the way of alibi-an alibi witness who he only knew by his first name and who could not be produced. The staff from the chemist store were reliable and clear in their testimony. It seemed to everyone on their side that he was guilty.

However, despite out gut instincts, his poor testimony (described as shifty at best) we had to find him not guilty. Not because we didn’t think he was guilty, we all thought that he was, but the prosecution hadn’t done their job of proving him guilty which is of course where the burden of proof rests. I remember their shocked faces when the sentence was read out. It was a family business and people were wondering how we could have let him go. We were led out one way and everyone in the courtroom another so we couldn’t explain why we had come about with that answer. I didn’t feel guilty for that because we did what we were supposed to do and the judge had reiterated that they had to prove that it was him beyond a reasonable doubt just before we went in for deliberations. But I have been thinking about it lately given the developments in the U.S. trial of Casey Anthony.

With so much focus these past few weeks on babies in a most disturbing light I wanted to do something that was light and cute and joyful. And that’s where my friend Christie comes in. She has a baby girl called Poppy who has the most squeezable cheeks. Poppy was about to become baptised and Mr NQN and I were invited along. I decided to make some cookies for Christie to serve her guests at the meal after Poppy’s baptism. When I was talking to her on the phone I mentioned what I was going to make little baby cookies and after some discussion we decided on Poppy and Friends cookies – like a United Colours of Bennetton baby cookie selection to reflect who Poppy might become friends with and her half French African cousin that was to come in the next few months. Then Christie asked if I wouldn’t mind making them as a little gift and putting them in little bags with ribbon and I happily obliged.

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It is sitting in front of me face down, haunches up, goading me. I pry the legs apart but they modestly snap back together. It is a beautiful specimen and I hold up a knife to the goose fleshed skin and it retracts and follows the sharp blade. “Aren’t you a pretty one?” I say to it quietly.

“Do it, do it” it says back to me.

I grab a pair of shears, run my fingers down its backbone feeling the knobs of bone and cartilage against my fingers and murmur “This won’t hurt a bit dear” before savagely slicing through it’s skin and bone with the shears. It’s a particularly brutal act, made even more difficult by the size of the beast at over 7 kilos but it’s a necessary one. Although once I started cutting with the shears I wondered whether I had done the right thing. After hacking back and forth through the thick bone I remove the backbone and connected neck with a triumph raising it high but feeling like a serial killer at the same time that has eviscerated someone.

I haven’t turned Dexter. I’m making a turducken. For Christmas in July of course. Northern Hemispherans might wonder what on earth Christmas in July is and as far as I know, it is a Southern Hemispheran’s way of celebrating Christmas when our weather is at its coldest. Instead of our usual hot Summer’s Christmas of salads and seafood, having on in July means that having things such as baked mega turkeys make sense.

What is a turducken? Well you may have heard of it mostly in America which is the land of over the top excess (which is incidentally why I would love to live there ). It’s origins are originally Ancient Roman and it was then taken up by the French in the 1800s, in a dish called a “Rôti Sans Pareil” or “Roast without Equal.” A large deboned bird is stuffed with progressively smaller, deboned birds the smallest being tiny enough to fit an olive in and nothing else. This version, a more user friendly version made popular recently, is a deboned turkey stuffed with a deboned duck stuffed with a deboned chicken, hence the name Tur-Duck-En as a portmanteau of the three bird’s names.

I was sent a glorious free range Thirlmere turkey and cranberries from the U.S. cranberry institute and if I had any sense I would have simply roasted it whole along with some lovely cranberry stuffing. But because I am something of a masochist for punishment (and it turns out also a sadist considering what I did with the turkey) my inner Franck Eggelhoffer came out and said “Let’s make zis a Christmas in July to remember! Ja? Faaabulous!”

Queen Viv and her son Michael and his fiancee Terri who were here on holidays were invited along to come along. A day before I decided to brine the turkey to keep it moist. Since I was sent the turkey I couldn’t ask for them to debone it for me. I had deboned quails before and spatchcocks and they were, anatomically speaking, a smaller version of the turkey. So I knew my way around them but I also knew that as a vastly larger bird it would require strength that my upper body doesn’t possess readily. I really needed Dexter or Jack the Ripper to do it.

In the absence of a serial killer friend I set aside a large space on my workbench and cut and sliced away. It took about 30-40 minutes all up to debone the seven kilo beast but that was including time to wash my hands and take photographs. After huffing, puffing, swearing, pushing and pulling I removed the final touch, the wishbone triumphantly and plunged the turkey into its brining solution made up basically of salt, sugar, apple cider vinegar and whatever herbs I had handy and some black peppercorns. The brining solution would help to keep the meat moist. Afterwards I slumped down at my desk exhausted clutching a glass of something stiff (for me an apple juice and soda water, I needed my wits about me).

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“Why are we sitting in the naughty corner?” I ask Joan Holloway taking a seat at a banquette table in the corner of the L’étoile restaurant and putting my bag down.

“Manu is hosting a children’s birthday in the back” she answers smiling.

“Are you making that up?” I ask laughing.

“No I’m not! Besides…” she says leaning in and whispering “Who has a children’s party at L’etoile?” Joan Holloway asks.

Mirroring her I lean forward and whisper “And where do you go for the next birthday?!”

We’re busy chatting and the waiter who seems quite new or nervous seems to want to come over a few times to check whether we are ready to order. We dither between choosing foods suitable for a semi diet or full blown gluttony and end up choosing something in between.

Bread and butter

The bread and butter are superb although I’d expect no less . The baguette is crunchy on the outside and the butter lovely and creamy. Interestingly no bread plates or knives are given. an absence of bread plates are an expectation at a French bistro or brasserie but not usually at restaurants so we chalk it up to forgetfulness or new waiter nerves.

Boudin de Saint Jacques, Bisque de Crustaches $22

The scallop sausage is said to be one of their most popular dishes and cutting into it we can see why. It’s rich, absolutely so and we puncture through the thin skin and find the texture of the soft scallop is soft and buttery, almost like a scallop sashimi. It is paired with sauteed spinach and sits in a shallow pool of crustacean bisque which is well balanced (I find some bisques just too strong). We agree that it is best mopped up with the bread.

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