The Day I Burnt the Quiche

It was a perfect day in the sun-kissed south of Winocratia — the place where ducks have a short life expectancy and accents drip with sunlight. I’d rented out an entire floor of a local château whose owners, like their guillotined-dodging ancestors, were surviving the Revolution of the 21st century: Airbnb.

Market in the morning, wine in the bags, food in the baskets, laughter in the air — the recipe for our evening cooking session was ready. As always, half the group cooked with me, while the other half heroically took on the “difficult” job of drinking the wine not required for the recipe. Oops — I meant watching the news.

Suddenly, a chorus of panicked voices erupted from the lounge:

“Claire! Claire! Drop everything, you need to see this!”

I rolled my eyes. Too much wine (again). Too little sense. But then, something in their voices — that urgency, that inability to form actual sentences — made me run. Probably someone choking on a peanut — time for the Heimlich manoeuvre I had learnt so many years ago.

When I arrived, everyone was pointing at the TV. Was the TV choking? Did it need a Heimlich too?

And then I saw it. Before the commentary reached my ears, the image landed in my brain like a cannonball: Notre-Dame de Paris, burning.

I froze. Sat down. Stared. Mouth open, gobsmacked.

Now, here’s the truth: I never liked Notre-Dame. Too famous, too obvious, too touristy. Like every Winocratian, I thought it would always be there. It was background, like your great-great-aunt who insists on kissing you despite the facial hair situation. You don’t love it, you don’t hate it, you just assume she’ll outlive everyone.

But suddenly — gone? In flames? The unthinkable happening on TV. LIVE.

Minutes later, as the flames rose higher, a very different alarm went off in my head.

The quiche.

I dashed back to the kitchen, flung open the oven, and… well, let’s just say I discovered the dark side of French cuisine. The quiche was blackened beyond recognition, smelling like something that could be used in future archaeological digs.

That night, Notre-Dame burned. So did our dinner. And like the rest of the world, we watched in disbelief. Except we did it with delivered pizzas, which I’m fairly sure the château ancestors would have considered a crime against humanity.

But then again, so is burning a quiche in Winocratia.