While an assistant heaps logs into a wood-burning stove, Claude starts chopping wild mushrooms then covers them with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cooking is still a passion with me, but it's a problem of finding the time. I didn't have the gift for it. Besides, I always had to much music trotting around in my head. Actually, food and music have a lot in common.
Cooking requires almost as much improvisation as jazz.
Within minutes, Claude pulls the mushrooms out of the oven and sets the dish down on a rustic dinner table. The mushrooms are followed by creamed squash soup and a rare filet of beef accompanied by a sort of Swiss pasta called spaetzli. No 'mad cow' disease here. I tuck into the buttery filet and wonder if Claude didn't make a mistake after all when he abandoned his professional cooking career. The wine is flowing and Claude is regaling me with anecdotes about the great jazz musicians he has known.