CREPE SUZETTE

I have always been suspicious about setting fire to things at the dining table. Not only is it a waste of alcohol, but it can be downright dangerous.

    It just so happened that Nesta, my wife, and I were in Barbados a few years ago staying in one of the best hotels on the island.  We had spent a full day taking photographs and making notes for a travel guide we were putting together.  We returned to the hotel, took a shower and made ourselves ready for a pleasant evening.

The Maitre d’hotel made us feel that we were the most important couple in the dining room as he led us to our table.  We studied the menu while we waited for drinks to arrive and took in the beauty of the scene – a blood red sun slowly sinking into the ocean while a phosphorescent sea spread wavelets on golden sand below us.  We could not help noticing a young couple sitting a few feet away who had eyes only for themselves.  Nesta winked at me and said: “Honeymooners.”

    A steel band played softly in an arbour of palm trees while a young Bajan strummed his guitar making sweet calypso music.  It was the ideal setting for romance and helped us to fall in love with the island.

   

The main course arrived and produced another dimension for an already perfect evening.  Now and again we looked at the young couple and they managed to take their eyes off each other and gave us a smile. 

    We paced each other throughout the meal but when we ordered a coconut and banana pudding they asked for  Crepes Suzette.  This required a certain amount of preparation and we were well into our pudding before a waiter returned with a trolley. 

    He started to do things with eggs, flour and sugar before reaching for a bottle of spirits.  With a flourish, he ignited the mixture from a canister of gas attached to the trolley and the whole lot exploded. 

    The young wife took most of the discharge and was covered in flames.  Her husband covered her in a table cloth and tried to put out the flames but what he did not realize was that he himself was on fire.  All this happened within a few seconds before he was forced to leap over the balustrade and jump into the sea. 

    In the meantime, other diners, including Nesta and I, flung ourselves upon the girl who was still on fire.  Eventually we succeeded in dousing the flames and the Hotel manager and his wife took over asking us to stand aside and make room for the emergency services.  The ‘honeymooners’ were taken away in an ambulance and that was the end of what promised to be a perfect evening.

There was no evidence of the fiasco when we went for breakfast the following morning and the Maitre d’hotel looked blankly at me when I asked him what had happened to the young couple.  Life had to go on in that most majestic of hotels.