WHEN we receive excellent news, sometimes we wonder if they are true. This was what happened to Veronique Jacquet when she heard the news on the local radio that she had won a Michelin star this year.
It was highly impossible as her restaurant did not fit the criteria of a gourmet restaurant.
Jacquet runs Le Bouche à Oreille in Bourges in central France. It is a modest, lunch-only bistro with 20 tables and a clientele mostly of local workers.
Even the cook works part-time and Jacquet herself is the only other member of the staff.
And so it turned out to be a technical mistake as the restaurant that actually won the Michelin star is about 193km away in the village of Boutervilliers and has the same name.
Then there is this bizarre story of Frane Selak, a Croatian music teacher who escaped death when a train he was on fell into the lake.
After that, he survived a car crash, allegedly fell out of a plane and landed in a stack of hay, while 19 passengers tragically died.
The man also survived a few car crashes. Finally, Selak, in 2003, won about €800,000 (RM3.4 million) in a lottery.
There’s also this expression “the luck of the Irish” and I thought it meant that the people from Ireland are lucky.
However, according to Edward T. O’Donnell, an associate professor of History at Holy Cross College and author of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History, the term is not Irish in origin.
“During the gold and silver rush years in the second half of the 19th century, a number of the most famous and successful miners were of Irish and Irish-American by birth... Over time, this association of the Irish with mining fortunes led to the expression ‘luck of the Irish’. Of course, it carried with it a certain tone of derision, as if to say, only by sheer luck, as opposed to brains, could these fools succeed.”
The Malay proverb durian runtuh means a windfall. Literally, it is an avalanche of durians. Even now, I dream of eating the rich and creamy durian. But, I digress.
Every so often, we wish for nice things to happen — winning the lottery especially.
I have seen so many hopefuls at the supermarket counter buying lottery tickets.
The idea of getting big money at an affordable price is too hard to resist.
Raffles are also very popular here and for €5 you get three chances of winning prizes.
Usually, they are done to raise funds for a club, or for a specific cause.
You can sense the spirit of hope and expectation in the air.
However, I hear of many saying “I never won anything”, maybe because in any draw the winners are few and the disappointed, many.
There are some people who are always on a winning streak — so we say that Lady Luck is smiling on them. Or grudgingly, we mutter beneath our breath “some people have all the luck”.
Tempting though it may be, I do not buy lotteries, or gamble in the hope of striking it rich.
In fact, about 70 per cent of people who win a lottery or get a big windfall actually end up broke in a few years, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education. Scary but true.
I used to enter many competitions because I enjoyed solving puzzles and coming up with creative slogans.
To that end, I did win many holiday trips abroad and electrical appliances.
Now, I’ve passed on that mantle to my son.
I remember once when we released a sky lantern into the sky, the host of the party asked us to scribble our hopes on the lantern.
We decided on “good health”, while others wrote “money, money, money”.
Luck is fortune, which is an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon, that causes an event to result in one way rather than another.
Blessing, on the other hand, is the formal act of approving and of divine grace.
So, I attribute all that I had, have or will have to being blessed rather than being lucky.
It lies in the difference in the mindset and heart where I do not leave happy events to chance.
It is also an attitude of gratitude. When we know that we are blessed, then it is so easy for us to give to others.
So what happened in the end to the bistro that was told it had received the Michelin star?
When Jacquet’s cook Penelope Salmon was asked whether she ever dreamt of receiving a Michelin star, she said: “No, not at all. I cook with my heart.”
The last I heard was that the lunch spot has received really good reviews on Google.
Dr Koh Soo Ling was a lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Mara and now spends her days enjoying life as it is