Second son born this morning to Caitríona and Aonghus.
All well !

Daughter D decorates the family cake in Waterford in 2005.

I think since the Christmas of 1976 , and possibly earlier either Síle or I have managed to make a Christmas cake in time for Christmas.
The recipe we use came from Margaret Costa’s, Four Seasons Cookery Book- the appropiate page is much splattered with batter over the 35 years of usage.
We have tweaked the recipe about a fair bit over the years.

Here is our basic recipe;

For a deep 12″ Cake Tin
Fruit:
110g (4 oz.) Yellow Sultanas
110g (4 oz.) Stoned Raisins
225g (8 oz.) Glace Cherries
110g (4 oz.) Crystallized Pineapple
60g (2 oz) Crystallized Ginger
60g (2 oz.) Angelica
110g (4 oz.) Walnuts
60g (2 oz) Candied Citron Peel
60g (2 oz) Candied Orange Peel
60g (2 oz) Candied Lemon Peel
Glass of Irish Whiskey
(this is 850g ( 30 oz) dried fruit and110g( 4 oz.) nuts in total)
5 Eggs
280g (10 oz.) Butter
Grated Rind and Juice of 1 Lemon
225g (8 oz). Caster Sugar
280g (10 oz.) Plain Flour
Good pinch Salt

Note. You can use different dried fruits and nuts so long as the end weight is the same.

Method.

First prepare the tin.
Butter the tin well and line it with two thicknesses of baking parchment deeper than the tin and coming up over the edge.
Pre Heat the oven to Gas 3, 160C,325F.

Soak the Sultanas and the Raisins in the whiskey for two hours.
Halve or quarter the cherries and chop the peel (if you are using whole peel) and cut the angelica, pineapple ginger and nuts into dice.
Beat the eggs until thick and foamy.
Beat the butter with the sugar and the lemon rind until pale and fluffy.
Add the beaten eggs a little at a time and stir well after each addition.
(If it starts to curdle fold in some of the flour)
Mix the salt into the flour and stir this into the mixture thoroughly but lightly. Then stir in the lemon juice.
Stir in the fruit , a little at a time, and then the whiskey.
Put the mixture into the prepared tin and make a hollow depression on the centre of the top to help it to rise evenly.

Cook at the prepared temperature for one hour and then reduce the temperature to Gas 2, 150C, 300F. and cook for another hour at this temperature.(If you have a fan oven I would reduce it to Gas1,140C,275F at this stage.)
From this on it is in your hands.Use a skewer to test the cake into the centre.
It should come out clean. Depending on the actual temperature of your oven this can take anytime between 1 to 2 hours more. If the cake is getting brown on top and still not cooked in the centre cover the top with some bakewell paper.

Once it is cooked leave it to cool in the tin.
(If you like you can pour some more whiskey over it at this stage and more from time to time afterwards should you like a strongly alcoholic cake)
The following day take it out of the tin but leave it in the baking parchment and wrap in tinfoil until needed.

If you don’t want to go to the bother of icing the cake glaze the top with some warmed sieved apricot jam, make a pattern on the top with some toasted nuts and some cherries and then glaze these with the jam as before.

This years variations were; as we couldn’t find Crystallized Pineapple or Angelica here we substituted Stem Ginger and upped the other fruit.
The French Glace cherries were much sharper that those in Ireland so that will give some interest.
We used an illegal Irish Spirit , a bottle of which I smuggled into France, in place of Whiskey or Brandy to soak the fruit (They smelled superb)
We folded in a couple of tablespoons of ground almonds at the end , just because they were there , and as we had left the Christmas Cake Tin in the attic in Waterford we cooked it (to no obvious ill effect ) in a cast iron saucepan.
The proof will be in the eating.

Last February Clive managed to erect the Family Tree on the wall on our hall here in Thezan.
As it had been rolled up in a cardboard tube for as long as I had had it, I promised myself that now, I could at last have a good gander at it.
I didn’t.

It wasn’t until last week when Clive was again hanging up some more ephemera of my family in the hall that a little piece in the corner, read years ago and forgotten, caught my eye.

This is a story about my Great great great grandmother one Mary Downey who was born in the parish of Ballinakilla on Bere Island Co. Cork in 1781 , a mere 230 years ago.
She told a story to her grandson, William Martin Murphy and he has passed it down through the family.

When Mary Downey was ” a slip of a girl” – her exact words he says- she climbed up the hill behind her fathers farm in Ballinakilla and found Bantry Bay full of the French Fleet .
History now tells us that the year was 1798 and Mary was then seventeen years old.

Strange to think that , 213 years later, her great, great, great grandson is feeding their descendants breakfast !

Strange out here giving breakfast to people of various continental persuasions how one begins to discover that they all have a very different vision of what this meal should be.
Out here I try and serve a breakfast which is basically French but with lots more on the table than the French would dream of eating.
Their breakfast is simply Coffee, Bread, Croissants and Jam with the odd piece of Patisserie to celebrate special days, a pain au chocolat or a chausson aux pommes..

Nothing savoury there. In fact very much like we would have called “morning coffee” or “elevenses ” at home in Ireland.

The Germans on the other hand prefer a rather more hearty and savoury approach to breakfast , cold meats and cheese are likely to be served with the coffee.

In other words what we in Ireland would call lunch.

Going……….

…….going………..

…………gone.

This is more of a found in translation.

Firstly let me give you a little preamble- for the benefit of those who didn’t do French in their Inter Cert.

La Cigale et La Fourmi, the Cricket and the Ant is a much loved , and I always thought rather nasty little fable by Fontaine which I , and countless others, studied for the inter.

The Cricket , cold and hungry in the winter tries to beg for some food from the ant.
The Ant asks him what was he doing all summer while she was gathering food.
“I sang ” said the cricket.
“Well dance now” says the nasty Ant.

Today Síle and I went to a new shop a couple of kilometres down the road which has just opened as a farmers cooperative.
I have been there a few times and have got to know the girls who run it , it is a great source of duck legs which make a Confit de Canard which is a staple in Le Presbytere.
Today we gathered together the legs and headed for the checkout.
I nudged Síle to show her that they had kindly put up the card of Le Presbytere by the till, but her attention was attracted by a poster to her choir’s Christmas concert next to it.
All this nudging and pointing had then to be explained to the nice lady checking us out.
“Ah ” said she admiringly to Síle ” So you sing ”

It was at that moment that I managed my first French literary joke.

“It is like the Cricket and the Ant” I said.
“She sings while I cook ”

You will be glad to know that both Síle and Madame got the joke and laughed politely.

Selon l’Insee, le Languedoc-Roussillon est la région la plus attractive de France.

This is the headline in todays regional paper.

According to l’Insee (the French national statistics office )Languedoc Roussillon is now the most attractive part of France , and there are more people moving there, within France, than to any other region.

I think I must have started a trend.

The temperatures have changed dramatically here over the last few days.
Having gotten really cold, with the thermometer approaching zero- (I had to wrap up my lemon tree in fleece) it has suddenly decided it is summer again and we have been eating lunch on the terrace in temperatures of 20 C and over.

This morning I noticed for the first time that the sun was also creeping down the passage from the new back French Window.
Now this had been all blocked up by the previous encumbant , M. Le Curé , who had made a downstairs loo there which we had moved.
It has suddenly struck me that we might discover ourselves with a direct alignment with the sun and by the Midwinter Solstice the sun might creep all the ways up to the front door.

Eat your heart out Newgrange.

Daughter Caitríona just sent these pictures of Fionn looking his coolest.

See you in a mere fortnight grand son !

The French still lunch , a meal which has nearly disappeared in Ireland over the last thirty years.
Not for the French a quick bite of an apple and a cup of coffee at midday , no, they like to go the whole hog and have starter , main course , dessert and coffee and they like to eat this at 12.00, not later.

Mind you I do understand why they are fairly famished at this time.
Since I have started to feed breakfast to French people I have noticed that it is not a great eating time for them and often they will look askance at my fruit, fromage frais, and fresh juice and their only early morning sustinance is a croissant crumbled into their coffee.

We Irish have lost the practice of lunching but , as we now live here, we have realised it is a meal well worth rediscovering .

Lunching out in France is one of the great French bargains.

We did it twice last week , in two very different restaurants.

On Saturday last, with our friends Clive and Sue , we decided to go very up market and eat in Restaurant Octopus in Beziers , one of only two restaurants in that city which has a single Michelin star.

It was a perfectly enchanting experience.
Highlights were the amuse bouche of a warm softly poached quails egg on a small short bread tartlet with a wonderful herbed hollandaise, a starter of little perfectly boned sardines with a very successful hazelnut dressing, a main course of tender beef on a bed of creamy celeriac with crisps of the same vegetable served with a demiglaze of remarkable intensity.
For dessert I had a dark spoon of chocolate icecream on an iced parfait of vanilla and thyme which I can still taste- delicious.
This cost €30 a head (more for wine) which, for such an exceptional meal , was , I think , a bargain.
(Dinner in the same restaurant would have been at least three times that.)

Fast forward to yesterday lunchtime when Síle and I found ourselves in Serignan at lunchtime and were disappointed to find the hotel there was shut for it’s Fermeture Annuelle.
There seemed only one cafe open, the Brasserie Fop, not at all prepossessing outside, in fact downright shabby but when when we stuck our heads in the door it was steamy and buzzy with the red formica tables all full of locals eating lunch.
A very good sign.
We were squashed in by Madame on to the end of a table and ordered the Formule du Jour which included a demi of vin rouge , a starter main course and dessert and cost €13 per head.
I started with a half a camembert cheese, liberally flavoured with parsley and garlic, and hot and melting on a slice of toasted baguette , next I went for the calves liver, cooked a point in butter with just enough of the pan juices to make a delicious sauce for the crisp chips it came with.
For dessert I had an unremarkable but home made chocolate mousse.
Again a bargain, we left having paid for the lunch, including wine, just €26 for the two of us.

Which was the better value do you think ?

I am happy to be able to choose either.