6 Quotes by Agnès Desarthe

I see a lavish procession of frothy strawberry mousses, strips of smoked eel, bundles of mixed seaweed and mushrooms, exquisite spiced biscuits and specialist honeys. The photographs show pyramids, three-arched bridges, palaces with several floors and balconies and terraces- works of art for the delectation of the mouth. I admire a Golden Gate Bridge made of nougatine, an Eiffel Tower of profiteroles and a Taj Mahal in meringue.

Onion skins- light, translucent, golden- swirl round the chopping board in the draft created by my knife. I think of Ali Slimane's sublime white onions, as sweet as fruit, like light bulbs because, rather than being reflected in them, the light seemed to emanate from them.

All of a sudden the veal is in front of me and the smell of it is intoxicating. I could pick it up in my hands and bite right to the bone, like the wild animal I have become. But no. I look at it, study it. I analyze how it's been cooked, prod it with the tip of my knife, then make an incision: pink blood- some water, a bit of juice, nothing really- oozes out and blends with the brown sauce where Chinese artichokes drift past green beans so fine they look like chive stems, only firmer.

The beetroots come out of the oven and I shower them with walnut vinegar. The chard gushes into the colander and I sprinkle it with lemon juice and pepper. My worktop is a battlefield: pips, tops, droplets, stains, leaves and peelings- everything piles up and oozes. I melt at the sight of pink beetroot blood on a cucumber heart.

Fish fingers don't feature on my menu and I immediately hate myself for the arrogant way I put my menus together. What makes so-called serious food, dishes that are meant to be refined- cod loin in blackberry jus with wild mushrooms, millefeuilles of lamb and aubergines, torte of mascarpone with grapes and cognac- what makes them any more worthy of being served at Chez moi? I find my own elitism repulsive.

While I'm waiting for him to come back I make some shortbread biscuits which I will serve with figs in whisky and a vanilla zabaglione. I rub some shoulders of lamb with garlic and harissa, and put them in the oven, then blanch some celery and chard before glazing them with brown sugar.