Melt in your mouth Barbecued Snoek

Barbecued Snoek with garlic butter and apricot sauce – served with Beetroot and orange salad

It’s not the prettiest or most sensual delicacy (to me anyway), but barbecuing any kind of fish has a rather soulful element to it. Once it’s flavoured and heating up on the grid, the aroma permeates the atmosphere, leaving your mouth watering. And THAT is a sensual experience on its own.

Roasting snoek on the braai is a fine South African tradition that's well worth mastering. Now I have never been an expert at cooking anything on the fire (with the exception of vegetables), but what I do know how to make is a good sauce! And besides the freshness of your fish and the heat of your coals, your sauce is the next best thing that makes your snoek a winner at the dinner table.

This weekend past, was the first time I had ever attempted to ‘salt’ a fish and prepare it for the coals. After purchasing the fine specimen, I laid it out on a large sheet of foil on the kitchen counter. You can leave the tail on if you want, but it was too large for the grid, so I cut it off. I also cut the head off, ground a fair amount of course salt onto the snoek (the fleshy inside), and pegged it to a line outside so that the blood could weep out. Salt also has preserving qualities, which is particularly important so that it stays fresh for barbecuing later – when your coals are ready.

In the meantime, I prepared my special garlic butter and apricot sauce (a 10 minute process) and after that, whilst waiting for the salted fish and the wood to burn, I enjoyed some fine wine, music, companionship and conversation. These are essential ingredients.

After about 30 minutes of hanging, I took the fish off, placed it on the hinged grid (flat and open like an open sandwich, with the flesh side facing up), blotted off the excess salt pieces, then first placed the grid over the medium to hot coals, flesh-side down, for about 3 to 4 minutes. The flesh need to be a light golden colour. We then turned the grid over and cooked the fish skin-side down, proceeding to baste it throughout with a layer of my special sauce until it was done.

The fish is ready when it has turned white and if it comes away from the bones easily when you try to loosen it or if it flakes when you insert a fork into it. Ideally, this should take be between 14 and 20 minutes, depending on the size of the fish, the height of grid and the heat of the fire. Don’t worry if the skin side burns slightly – you won’t eat it.

And once the masterpiece was cooked, I removed the grid from the coals, placed it on a large table with a wooden board underneath it, and lifted off delicate flakes of moist succulent fish, serving it with fresh orange and beetroot salad and freshly baked bread. Large boiled jacket potatoes with hot garlic butter or sour cream is another great accompaniment. The salad is a winner though as the colours are spectacular!

Here is the recipe for the garlic butter and apricot sauce:

• ½ cup butter
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1 tsp chopped fresh ginger
• 1 finely chopped medium onion
• ½ cup fine apricot jam

METHOD

Melt the butter in a pan with the garlic and onions, and once the onion are slightly transparent, and the remaining ingredients, stir and remove from the heat until ready to use later.

You will use this sauce to baste the fish, which you can do with either a basting brush, basting tube or paint brush. If you don’t have either (you may be out in nature for all I know), use a large spoon and smooth it over your fish.

For the most amazing Beetroot and orange salad, follow this link: http://ahouseinthehills.com/2014/2/27/beet-and-blood-orange-salad/

Image from Sweet C's Designs

Artichokes arouse the flames of passion

Last night, I had artichokes. And I’m sure my neighbour must have heard me moan. 

I know I’ve written about artichokes before, but after last night’s secret culinary escape into my kitchen, I feel compelled to share this experience with you. I had cooked some chicken the night before, in a concoction of liquid, white wine, stock, celery, onions, carrots and garlic. But before that, on my way home I stopped at Checkers to get some goodies and low and behold, they had artichokes on sale for R9 a pack (of 2). This often happens at 5pm – they have amazing specials! So naturally, I bought them. 


They’re very beautiful you know. And hard to resist. Anyway, yesterday evening, I decided to cook my gorgeous artichokes in the left over broth.

I cut the stems off and lightly pulled some of the hard outer leaves off (discarding them), sliced them each in half length ways, and plunged them into the steaming hot broth, leaving them to simmer for an hour (turning them halfway throughout). Then, once they had cooled slightly, I gently scooped them out into a bowl, along with some of the broth and smothered them in butter and lemon juice, and here’s where the experience begins. Thankfully I was alone, because unless you’re with your lover, this is not the type of thing you eat with an audience. It’s wickedly messy and juicy and there are plenty of sounds that mimic those of love-making.

I took some of the softer leaves, turning each one upside down with the curve facing down and with my teeth, pulled the soft flesh into my mouth. You need to do this over a bowl because the juice tends to drip down your chin. It’s when I got the soft, butter-soaked hearts (the very centre of the artichoke), that my moans of ecstasy and the slurping noises I was making would have evoked some interest had I been in a restaurant – When Harry met Sally style. I went into a delicious frenzy. Eating an artichoke like that is sinfully decadent. It’s like sucking mussels straight from the shell, drenched in butter, garlic and lemon juice - whilst leaning over the pot - in secret. You just can’t get enough!!

I know not everyone is turned on by the idea of artichokes, but, if you enjoy exotic foods, and self indulgence, this is something that’s so easy to prepare and so delicious. It’s a great way to enhance an evening of pleasure with your partner, if you both feel the same way about artichokes – which are rather similar in taste and texture to fresh asparagus mind you.  

Raspberry and Red Wine Granita

I love this recipe. It’s still far from summer, but on a warm day, this is great to serve as a replacement for dessert. It’s also fun to serve at parties, especially since it can be served in any vessel of your choice, or as an ice lollie. Ice Cream cones, shot classes, wine glasses and tea cups all work well.

Raspberry and Red Wine Granita

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Rest time: 1 hour
Time to table: 12 - 24 hours
Makes about 10 servings

INGREDIENTS

• 1 bottle fruity red wine
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 cup (200g) sugar
• 350 – 450g frozen or fresh raspberries (a berry blend works great too)
• Fresh raspberries, for serving, optional

METHOD

In a saucepan, mix the wine, water and sugar and bring to a boil. Let boil hard for a minute, stirring to help the sugar dissolve.

Take off the heat, stir in the raspberries and let steep for an hour or more in the refrigerator.

Place a mesh strainer over a bowl and pour the wine mixture through it. Press the raspberries through the mesh with the back of a spoon. (Use the smashed berry flesh in a smoothie or the morning oatmeal!)

FOR GRANITA

Transfer the berry-wine mixture to a freezer container. To avoid spilling, place the container inside another dish. (I use a 9x13 pan, a spill makes a huge mess in the freezer.) Freeze until hard, about 12 hours. With the tines of a fork, scrape the frozen mixture to fluff into icy crystals and serve immediately.

FOR SORBET

If you prefer a smooth, fruity sorbet and have an ice cream maker, by all means, use it. Chill the berry-wine mixture first then process until firm.

MAKE-AHEAD

This can be made several days, even a week in advance. After it freezes, just apply cling wrap to the surface to avoid freezer burn. Lasts several weeks.

My journey, the reason for this blog and a thing or two on personal boundaries

The very reason I started this blog, is because of my own personal experience with rape and abuse. I was raped in 2000 by a complete stranger who broke into my house. I dealt with it quickly and wrote it off to Karma. But it was only after having the life sucked out of me by a very emotionally abusive ex-husband who became addicted to crystal meth, and resorting to extremely self-destructive behaviour, that I realised what I was meant to learn out of that experience.

I was jumping in and out of abusive toxic relationships and ended up being a sorry mess. I was consumed with toxic thoughts and spent hours crying over relationships that were emptying me up inside. I felt so trapped in the past and in my head that I couldn’t focus on my current surroundings, my career or my friends in a healthy manner.

It was only after making the decision not to get involved with anyone for a while, and coming to my senses, that I started to heal. The only way I knew how to drown out my thoughts and be in the moment, was by focusing on my senses.  I did this by surrounding myself with my girlfriends, and laughing. They say laughter is the best medicine. I can certainly vouch for that. 

The valuable lesson I had to learn about my experience was about setting healthy boundaries. Now listen, we don’t choose to be raped and stalked and abused. We don’t choose to be drugged and have our things destroyed and to be threatened. We don’t choose financial ruin. There are times when you don’t see these things coming and they hit you like a Tsunami.

Once upon a time, I had it all. And then I lost EVERYTHING. But what I gained was the knowledge that in order for one to transform into something healthier and whole, a proverbial death needs to take place. Death of finances. Death of assets. Death of friendships. Death of, what felt like, everything. 

I started healing by embracing my senses. I watched a lot of ‘feel good’ movies. Movies that made me laugh. Movies about music and food. Movies about love. I listened to feel good music and danced around the room on my own. I exercised and moved my body. I visited food markets, art galleries and museums (on my own) and savoured the colour and shape of everything my eyes consumed. I started creating and making things. Everything from gardening and planting, to herbs and making crafts.

I cooked these wonderfully creative dishes for myself and drowned myself in culinary bliss, on my own, writing about my experience. I remember having these long languishing aromatherapy baths, with candlelight and incense and soulful music in the background, being completely selfish. I spent a lot of time outdoors, sapping up the fresh air, the smell of my surroundings and the sounds of nature. The ocean – in particular – was especially healing for me.  There were times, when I was so financially strapped, that I never had petrol in my car to go anywhere. So I spent time in nature and creating. It’s amazing what you can do without money. Well, I learned this the hard way.

Of course, after the initial trauma of my experiences, I went for therapy. I needed it. I needed someone neutral to act as a professional springboard. NEVER use your friends and family as a therapist! It’s so unfair and they generally become too emotionally involved. During the coaching / therapy I was going for, I learned a valuable technique, called the detachment technique.  It taught me how to separate myself emotionally from my thoughts and my ego. How to observe myself and acknowledge my feelings and emotions from a soul perspective. It’s very deep and meditational and I will save this for another post.

I read self-help books, meditated, spent a lot of time in quiet contemplation. I also kept a journal, writing EVERYTHING down that came into my head, including my anger. I had SO much anger I needed to get out. I also started keeping a gratitude journal.

  

I was basically, ‘dating’ myself and doing everything that made ME happy, and learning how to fall in love with myself. And I eventually got to a point where I started taking my own power back. I started standing up for myself, and fighting for myself, setting healthy boundaries, and learning how to say NO. Do you have any idea how empowering it feels to say NO, and not feel bad about it. Just a simple and polite NO.  What people think of me is none of my business. It’s when they step in to my circle however, becoming manipulative and emotionally aggressive, that it becomes my business.

We teach people how to treat us. They get away with what we allow. We can’t force people to respect us, but we can certainly refuse to be disrespected, by setting healthy boundaries in a kind and assertive manner. Without feeling guilty, and without over-explaining ourselves.

Take back your power

Emotional and psychological abuse, affect women and children from all kinds of backgrounds every day. Sometimes, women are attacked by strangers, but most often, they are hurt by people who are close to them, causing emotional damage, undermining a person’s sense of well-being and leaving deep psychological scars. It can seriously damage the self-confidence of the person experiencing the abuse.

Victims of abuse often keep their victimization hidden, due to the fear of being blamed. This is however, a danger to yourself and to others, who may become the next victims of a sexual offender or abuser. 

To break the silence and take action, here’s what you need to do:

• Know what sexual assault, abuse and harassment are
• Get medical treatment if you are sexually assaulted or hurt
• Know you are not alone and you are not to blame
• Tell someone trustworthy about it
• Consider telling the police about it and laying a charge of arrest
• Establish a protection plan (available from your local magistrates court) if you live with an abuser
• Know your emergency telephone numbers 
• Get counselling

Trying to recover from a traumatic event however, takes time. Seek help for emotional or psychological trauma if you’re:

• Battling to function at home or work
• Suffering from severe depression, fear or anxiety
• Having difficulty in forming close, fulfilling relationships
• Experiencing terrifying flashbacks, memories or nightmares
• Feeling emotionally numb and disconnected from others
• Using alcohol or drugs to help yourself feel better

If months have passed and your symptoms aren’t letting up, you may need professional help from a trauma expert. Contact the following helplines: POWA - People Opposing Women Abuse - 083 765 1235 / FAMSA -http://www.famsa.org.za/contact.asp / WAR – Women against Rape - 021-556 9104 or http://www.womanagainstrape.co.za/

So what now? How do we begin our journey to self-love and self-acceptance? If you look at yourself holistically (as a whole), we have a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual side to ourselves, which all ideally need to be in balance with one another.

 

When you make a conscious decision to grow on all these levels, to gain wisdom, you consciously invoke all the parts of yourself that are not whole to come to the foreground of your life. Your journey to a holistic lifestyle requires you to look openly, honestly and with courage into yourself, into how you feel, what your perceptions are, your values and how you respond. This journey will enable you to consciously experience the nature of your personality, to confront what it has produced in your life, and to make a choice to change it.

As a fund raising initiative, WAR (Women against Rape) invite you to participate in their first annual charity golf day, to be held at Durbanville Golf Club, Cape Town on Thursday 10 September 2015. 

Please see poster below. For further details or enquiries, please comment on this post or email janine@durbanvillegc.co.za

WAR is registered with SARS which means that any donation made to the organisation will be officially recognised and the entity afforded a tax exemption, whether in monetary means or with goods.

A coffee chocolate orgasm in your mouth

How to have a coffee chocolate orgasm in your mouth with TimTam: 

Buy a packet of TimTams from Checkers, (chocolate coated biscuits selling for about R50). Yes, I know it’s expensive, but worth every mouthful! Take one out, nibble the corner off each corresponding side (as pictured below), dip the one corner into a cup of coffee like a straw, and suck the coffee through, and just as the coffee hits your tongue, pop the whole TimTam into your mouth. It gently explodes, filling your mouth with delicious melted coffee chocolate. 

It’s…….orgasmic!! 

Let music rush through you

There is something about the sheer power of music that has the ability to heal and revive one’s spirit, which sets it apart from many other art forms and sensual pleasures.

There are a few scenes from the movie, “August Rush” that brings a flood of emotions to the surface, and stirs my soul every time I watch it. The entire movie is based on this young boy’s gift for making music, and how through his music, he manages to find his parents. Its music I’ve never heard. It’s powerful and deep and inspirational. 

August Rush is blessed with a gift to hear sounds and transform it into a symphony, claiming, “the music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.” He is so desperate to be reunited with his parents, that when asked, “What do you want to be in the world? I mean the whole world. What do you want to be?” and he answers, “FOUND.” How beautiful is that?

Music certainly affects our emotions; there is no doubt about that. I am often drawn into a store when I had no intention of entering in the first place, simply because of the music playing. And when I drive, I sometimes drive a little faster (not intentionally), without even being in a hurry, because of the music I am playing.

Music surrounds us in many areas of life. Along with subliminally affecting us, it can evoke emotion, create inspiration, help us fall asleep, push us to our limits at the gym, aid our concentration and the list goes on. Recent studies have shown that listening to certain classical music can heighten particular areas of intelligence to varying degrees. For example, listening to classical music can promote healing within the body and stimulate development within the brain.

On a sensory level, many parts of the brain participate in music making. Musical sounds are processed in the auditory cortex. Pathways then carry music to areas of the brain that perform, anticipate harmonic and melodic changes, feel and remember, and read.

“An experiment undertaken by three psychologists in 1993 investigated the effect on the human brain of listening to music composed by Mozart. The study showed that improvement occurred while listening to the music, but didn’t show any long-term effects when the music was no longer playing.  The “Mozart Effect”, as it was called, has since been popularised and a set of commercial recordings are now available to the general public.”

Having a strong effect on mood and emotion, music is a way of communication, a mode of healing and a form of expression for artists and listeners. There is more depth to the melodies and rhythms than just singing and sounds, and music has been used for centuries to assist healing and manage pain. Both movies and television are excellent examples of how music is used to evoke moods and feelings so that viewers can feel the scenes.

Keep tabs of your breath and heart beat next time you’re watching a movie, and see how your body automatically responds to the music.

Hermanus Times Kalfiefees 2015

Celebrate the arrival of the Southern Right Whales at the annual Hermanus Times Kalfiefees, in Onrus on the so-called Whale Coast.

The Hermanus Kalfiefees, Afrikaans for calf festival, is the perfect prelude to the Two Oceans festival.

This year it is taking place from 6- 10 August 2015, incorporating national Women's Day.

The Hermanus Kalfiefees has been running for 14 years and is considered the baby-sister of the famous Hermanus Whale Festival. It is named after the calves which are typically born around August in Hermanus. Aside from the festivals, the southern right whales visit the Hermanus coastline from June to December annually

This is an Afrikaans-centred festival with a jam-packed line up of events. The Kalfie Festival has a very strong focus on theatre and drama, with many of the performers who headline at the annual Klein Karoo Kunstefees (KKNK), a popular annual South African arts festival held in the Karoo, also perform. The annual line up will usually include a Woman’s Day celebration, dramatic and comic theatre, entertainment for the little ones, as well as a book show, great food and music.

The show opens on the evening of the 7th of August and runs through till Sunday August 10th in afternoon. Each event that makes up the festival is individually priced and can be booked at Computicket.

Sixth taste discovered making food more delicious

According to an article recently published in the Washing Post, scientists have discovered a new taste that could make food more delicious.

Our kids learn about taste in grade school, and out of the five senses, taste appears to be one of the simplest. There are no tympanic membranes, miniscule bones, cones, rods or lenses. Yet scientists know less about taste than they know about sight and hearing - senses that are far more complex.

Why is taste, which is so apparently elementary, so mysterious, complicated and controversial then?

Well, to start with, most people confuse taste with flavour. Taste is a chemical sense perceived by specialized receptor cells that make up taste buds. Flavour, on the other hand, is a fusion of multiple senses. To perceive flavour, the brain interprets not only gustatory (taste) stimuli, but also olfactory (smell) stimuli and tactile and thermal sensations. With spicy food, for example, the brain will even factor in pain as one aspect of flavour.

Until recently, scientists have accepted four basic tastes. We all know them well – bitter, sweet, salty and sour. They are at the root of other tastes and the building blocks of flavour. The basic tastes went unchallenged for years, but in the early 1900s, a Japanese scientist, named Kikunae Ikeda sought to detect a fifth taste, naming it umami, which is triggered by monosodium glutamate, or MSG, as it's more widely known. Umami is a Japanese word meaning delicious, savoury taste, which you can taste in meats and tomatoes. It is also particularly prevalent in truffles, meat and anchovies.

Scientists believe they have now found a sixth basic taste that could profoundly change the way we eat. Evidence has been found, that fat interacts with our taste buds in a way similar to the five basic tastes. To conclude the research, Richard Mattes, a professor of nutrition science at Purdue University, and the lead author of the study conducted two experiments, involving 100 participants. They were asked to differentiate between and isolate the six different tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami and fatty. It was only after the participants had trouble identifying between bitterness, umami-ness and fattiness, that another experiment was conducted, isolating these three tastes.

The Washing Post reports: "It was really very telling," said Mattes. "We already knew that people have a taste receptor for fatty acids; now we know that it's a distinguishable taste — that it doesn't have overlap. The combination of those two things is what's important." If people learn to manipulate the taste of fat correctly, he says, it will allow us to make tons of food taste better by either reproducing the taste of fat or introducing substitutes that successfully mimic it. "We could isolate it and use it in the same way we have used the other basic tastes," said Mattes.

Clearly, many of us enjoy fatty foods, from steak to pretty much anything that is fried. Fat is a tremendous source of calories and eating it is encouraged by our brains to have us survive. In an article published in Live Science in 2011, Michael Tordoff, a behavioral geneticist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia reports, “There is no accepted definition of a basic taste, the rules are changing as we speak."

Our ability to sense the five accepted categories comes from receptors on our taste buds, with as many as 100 taste receptors on each taste bud. These tiny sensory organs appear mostly on the tongue, the roof of the mouth and in the back of the throat. How we experience a mouthful of food hinges on how the chemicals in the foods interact with the receptors on our tongues. The basic tastes blend together like primary colours to produce wildly different illustrations and masterpieces of flavour.

When you look at the colour orange, you don't immediately perceive that it is a combination of red and yellow. In the same vein, when you eat a food that contains fat, you don't immediately perceive the taste produced by the fatty acid. But it's there, and it's distinct. The article also reports that the sense of touch plays a key role in experiencing taste, as evidenced by the strong opinions on crunchy versus smooth peanut butter. Smell, too, impacts our tasting abilities. In the mouth itself, though, food scientists continue to discover new receptors and new pathways for gustatory impressions to reach our brain.

Like with primary colours, a primary taste can only be recognized as such if it doesn't share characteristics with other primary tastes. The fact that people can so easily recognize fat as a unique sensation in this context is evidence that it is a primary taste, especially since it already meets all of the other qualifications.

On its own, fat isn't reminiscent of bacon or lard. In fact, it's quite bland and doesn't taste very good. Neither does the bitter taste or MSG. In the way sugar, sodium and MSG have been used to enhance the taste of different foods, fat could soon be used too. One can only imagine what it will mean for flavour when the taste of fat can be sprinkled on top of a dish and how it can greatly contribute to the appeal of foods.

"Our understanding of primary colours, of vision, has allowed us to use that for creating art, for improving vision and for a wide array of everyday needs," said Mattes. "The better we understand our sense of taste, the better we’re be able to improve the taste of our food."

The impact of Mattes research could extend well beyond the reach of his lab. They might very well end up affecting what is on your plate, and, more specifically, how it tastes. "Understanding this could have huge implications for the food industry," said Mattes. "It could make a lot of food taste a lot better."

Sources: Washington Post and Livescience.com

Marie Antoinette - A chocolate box of visual delight

It may seem a little over the top, but the movie, Marie Antoinette, with Kirsten Dunst, epitomises a chocolate box of visual delight.

The movie focuses on the life of Marie Antoinette as a young queen in the lavishly opulent and eccentric court at Versailles. As she matures from a teenage bride to a young woman, she drowns herself in exquisite pleasure, from food and shoes, to scandals, spending most of her time buying shoes, dresses, jewelry, luxurious pastries, and gambling.

I particularly enjoyed this scene: https://youtu.be/3XiT9hDCsWQ

There is also a beautiful scene where she breaks away to her country retreat, to spend time in nature. The camera focuses on her feeling the warmth of the sun on her face, touching the reeds in the fields, picking flowers, pouring goats milk, and feeling free. She lived a life controlled by her superiors and was waited on hand and foot by her servants, which she clearly did not approve of. She was never ‘free’. So one can imagine the freedom she felt being out in nature, on her own, and being allowed to FEEL and experience taking control of her own life, in those beautiful moments.  

"All eyes will be on you," says the Austrian duchess, Maria Theresa to her youngest daughter Marie Antoinette. And all eyes were on her, as the most misunderstood and abused woman in history, from her birth in Imperial Austria to her later life in France.

The film's soundtrack contains quite a few post-punk bands, such as The Cure, Adam and the Ants, and New Order. Some scenes utilize period music, including Vivaldi and Couperin. It's simply sensational.

The film is aimed at a teen audience, but irrespective of your age, if you’re a lover of colour, food, music, and life’s little delights, you will simply adore this movie for its visual splendour.

As the critics have exclaimed, "Let them eat cake!"

Aromatherapy, perfume and the scent of a woman

 

I studied aromatherapy many years ago, where I learned about the extraction methods of essential oils. The most common and cost effective method of extraction is distillation, where the raw material or herb is macerated, placed into a large vat of water, and heated over a fire. The natural oils from the plant seeps into the water, the vapour then rises, with droplets of oily water running along an attached tube or pipe, and then filtering into another empty vessel. Water and oil of course separate, and this is how the oils are obtained. Pure, unadulterated essential oil. 

Another method is called enfleurage. A large framed plate of glass is smeared with a layer of animal fat and allowed to set. Petals or whole flowers are then placed on the fat and its scent is allowed to diffuse into the fat over the course of 1-3 days. The process is then repeated by replacing the used herbs with fresh ones until the fat has reached a desired degree of fragrance saturation.

This method is considered the oldest known procedure for preserving plant fragrance substances. Once the fat is saturated with fragrance, it is then called the enfleurage pomade, which is further washed or soaked in ethyl alcohol to draw the fragrant molecules into the alcohol. The alcohol is then separated from the fat and allowed to evaporate, leaving behind the absolute of the botanical matter – the pure essential oil. 

The spent fat is usually used to make soaps since it is still relatively fragrant. Floral oils, such as rose, Ylang ylang and Jasmine are typically extracted in this manner and it takes about 1 ton of rose petals just to get a small bottle of essential oil. Hence pure Rose oil being so expensive.

I never really understood the full meaning of the process though, until I watched the movie, Perfume – the story of a murder. It’s a German fantasy thriller, about a man called Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with a superior olfactory sense, who creates the world's finest perfume. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent. The scent of a woman.

It’s a rather dark tale and not everyone’s cuppa, but since I studied aromatherapy, the film fascinated me. So let me tell you about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.

After growing to maturity as a tanner’s apprentice, Grenouille makes his first delivery to Paris, where he revels in the new odours. He focuses on a redheaded girl selling yellow passion fruit, following her and repeatedly attempting to sniff her, but startles her with his behaviour. To prevent her from crying out, he covers the girl's mouth and unintentionally suffocates her. After realizing that she is dead, he strips her body naked and smells her all over, becoming distraught when her scent fades. Afterwards, Grenouille is haunted by the desire to recreate the girl's aroma.

After making a delivery to a perfume shop, Grenouille amazes the Italian owner, with his ability to identify and create fragrances. He revitalizes the perfumer's career with new formulas, demanding only that Baldini teach him how to preserve scents. Baldini explains that all perfumes are harmonies of twelve individual scents, and may contain a theoretical thirteenth scent. Grenouille continues working for Baldini but is saddened when he learns that Baldini's method of distillation will not capture the scents of all objects. Baldini informs Grenouille of another method that can be learned in Grasse and agrees to help him by providing the journeyman papers he requires in exchange for 100 new perfume formulas. En route to Grasse, Grenouille discovers that he has no body odour, and is therefore worthless. He decides that creating the perfect perfume will prove his worth.

Upon arrival in Grasse, Grenouille catches the scent of Laura Richis, the beautiful, redheaded daughter of the wealthy Antoine Richis and decides that she will be his "thirteenth scent", the linchpin of his perfume. Grenouille finds a job in Grasse under Madame Arnulfi and learns the method of enfleurage. He first kills a young lavender picker and attempts to extract her scent using the method of hot enfleurage, which fails. After this, he attempts the method of cold enfleurage on a prostitute he hired, but she becomes alarmed and tries to throw him out. He murders her and successfully preserves the scent of the woman, after which he embarks on a killing spree, targeting beautiful young women and capturing their scents using his perfected method.

I won’t tell you the rest. Like I said, it’s a thriller and rather disturbing, but beautifully narrated. The story of his life is told in flashback, beginning with his abandonment at birth in the stench-filled air of an 18^th Century Parisian fish market. It is the very fetid malodorous rank of the market and its patrons that stirred the newborn to life. Born without a smell of his own but endowed with an extraordinary sense of smell, he is able to nose out rotting fish or the richest perfumes with just a whiff, describing in detail the composition and element of each aroma.

THAT is what fascinated me the most; the ability for someone to have such a profound sense of smell.