ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A CASTLE...
We are castles, bodies that have lived many lives and revolutions, buildings full of secret corridors that hide memories and mysteries. We are walls full of memory, silent paintings that observe and tell to those who want to hear them, stories of intense lives. We are a strategic place on the hill overlooking the landscape and the river, owners of dawn, storms and sunsets, and as such, we see them coming and we prepare for them by organizing welcomes when we want to celebrate and share, or we lower the gates when what we need is to protect ourselves from dangers, be they disguised enemies, galloping anguish or unexpected pandemics.
We are the need to constantly start over, to recover, to heal, to square ourselves and stand up, majestic. We are often so different from how they see us! Fragile and soft when we are perceived as stone and iron, or strategists and labyrinthine when they think they discover an unprotected flank.
We are queens, princesses, maidens and commoners. We are sages, wizards, witches and ghosts. We are dragons, warriors in armor, roses with thorns, the sword and the pit.
We are the stories that have been passed down from father to son for generations, the ones never told, the ones not known, the ones guessed, the ones feared. We are the castle of princesses dreaming in childhood, and the castles in the air we build out of nothing in our most ambitious delusions. We are made of wet sand in a sunset on the beach. We are part of stories, legends, fantasies, the past and the future.
We are fortresses, we are home, we are landmarks for those who travel, and of course, we are collectors of stories, as castles are and always have been.
Once upon a time, a castle witnessed the birth of one of the key elements of today's pastry making, the famous Chantilly cream. Chantilly cream. It happened in 1671 in the castle with the same name and at the hands of the already known as Grand Vatel, French chef and maitre d', but also the first precursor of the art of organizing gastronomic events.
In front of 2000 members of the court of the Sun King Louis XlV, Vatel had to give shape to what was to be the three-day banquet. The menus, accompanying shows, decoration, service costumes, music, staging, everything was his responsibility. His legacy, therefore, was not only the delicious cream that was born as a fortunate accident when sugar was added to replace bad eggs, but the skill and ingenuity to entertain, and the talent to align the protocol at the height of the already sophisticated French culinary art.
On a tragic note, Vatel took his own life on the third day of the famous banquet when he was told that the fish ordered for the last day would not arrive. The fish finally arrived, and the feast was a success in every way, only that its architect could no longer see it.
Once upon a time there was a castle dedicated to women, The Château des Dameslocated in the Loire Valley, and is so called not only for its elegance, but because it was different women and their persistent struggle over the centuries, who built it, saved it from being demolished, took care of it, expanded it, and gave it a relevant role in the most important occasions in the history of the country, being a field hospital in World War I and safe conduct for Jews and French escaping from the Nazis in the Second World War.
Once upon a time there was a castle, the Chateau d'Herouvillenear Paris, when it was no longer a time of reigns, dragons or chimeras, which housed another kind of kings, the mass gatherers of the twentieth century, the kings of pop and rock. Within its centenary walls were recorded the most beautiful songs of our time: "The yellow brick road", "Candle in the wind" by Elton John, or "Staying Alive" by Bee Gees.