As I have now, as near as dammit, passed day sixteen in by month of abstinance and am therefore over half way and on the down slope, I thought who better to illustrate the new pristine state of my liver than Cork’s own Apostle of Temperance.

The man who single-handedly put more pubs out of business than even the drink driving laws.

The man who sits in the middle of the busiest thouroughfare in Irelands Real Capital and is responsible for the movement of all the busses.
(you would have to have lived there……..)

I can even claim a special relationship as the great-grand father- John Francis Maguire- wrote his official biography.

I present Father Matthew:

Well I may have given an indication during the course of this month that my being alcohol-free has improved my scrabble somewhat and I have made a habbit of beating Síle (who still is imbibing small quantities of red wine of an evening)

This evening, having consumed almost two glasses of red wine (her consumption declines shockingly without me to pour for her) she got her revenge.

My score was a totally acceptable 338:– bear in mind that any score over 250 (with two players) is reckoned to be very good.

But that is to reckon without Mrs. Dwyer, let us remember that she thought herself publicly humiliated by my previous mentions in the blog of how I was winning more than the normal average.

Revenge is sweet.

Mrs D’s score was a thundering 394 (this included two fifties for getting all seven letters out), which means that not only have we succeeded in having the highest combined score of 732 (beating the Kiwi and my April high by 12) but she now has the highest score yet in Le Presbytere.

The Kiwi will now have to play Síle to regain his crown.

Thanks to Michael O Leary, and my very vigilant eye on the internet, I managed to sneak off to Ireland from Girona in Spain (two hours away by motorway) for about the price of a train ticket from Waterford to Dublin and, as the grandson (and his parents) were also heading off to Waterford for the weekend I managed to get a good go of him.

He is getting as big!

Here he shows his appreciation of the blocks I got him in Girona.

With his ever adoring Granda (N.B. the way he uses the right foot as a balancing prop against the Granda’s belly)

With his equally ever adoring Grandma (she was a child bride)

With the Mammy

And another with Granda.

My thoughts are that a few years of education in France through French would give him a terrific basis of the language but so far his parents aren’t biting.

Martine’s mention of this beautiful song from WW1 – which I had never heard or heard of before-sent me off to the internet to find out something about it.

One fact I discovered is that this strong hitting anti war song was banned in France until 1974.
I suppose it could hardly have received a greater compliment.

For those of you who cannot read it in the original I have made one of my poor attempts at translation, but just of the chorus.
(True French speakers can close their eyes)

– Refrain :
Adieu la vie, adieu l’amour,
Adieu toutes les femmes
C’est bien fini, c’est pour toujours
De cette guerre infâme
C’est à Craonne sur le plateau
Qu’on doit laisser sa peau
Car nous sommes tous des condamnés
Nous sommes les sacrifiés

-Chorus :
Good bye to love, Life it is gone
Fond ladies fare thee well.
Now it’s all done, we’re going on
From this bloody war from hell.
Up on Craonne’s high mountain moor
Is where we will die for sure.
Our lives are cheaply priced
We are the sacrificed

I know immediatly that I have , just with the title, lost half of you.
The enjoyment of offal does seem to divide the world into two, those that do and those that don’t.
(And I rather fear that those that do are the smaller half)
I’m a do.
Probably even more of a do now than ever before because my wife is a don’t so offal, in the shape of liver and kidneys rarely hits the table in the Dwyer household.
I have, as a result, spent most of the last 36 years hankering after the uneatable so, when the chance comes for a bit of indulgence, I pounce.

Síle has preceeded me to Ireland on a quick trip back to that wet green isle of ours, I join her for the w/e so I have two whole days here to indulge in my secret vice.
The one thing about offal is that it adapts excellently to solo living.
Cooking a stew, or a roast for the single diner is just too much of an effort.
Slipping a piece of liver on a pan, or a few kidneys is a perfect exercise in elegant cooking for one.

On tuesday morning I went to the village and bought my self a slice of veal liver and about 5 lambs kidneys; my affaire des abbats was about to begin.

Tuesdays dinner was classic French ;
Foie de Veau Lyonnaise

For this I sliced an onion finely and cooked it slowly in a teaspoon of butter until very soft.
Then I cooked the slice of liver, nicely seasoned with salt and lots of black pepper, just as slowly, in another teaspoon of butter until that was pink (make sure not to overcook, but also it needs to be pink not red in the middle, just keep cutting into it to check-after all no-one but yourself is going to see the end condition)
Reheat the onions in the liver pan, spoon over the liver and indulge.

Wednesday I declared Lambs Kidneys’ Day.

Now I love kidneys cooked in the Spanish fashion, in sweet sherry.
This stretches easily to any sweet fortified wine or port.
Unfortunately when I went to the cupboard it was bare of anything sweet.
I had dry as a bone Manzanilla or dry Noilly Prat Vermouth.
In desperation I grabbed a bottle of Sloe Gin, my last from Ireland (and if the truth be known, not made from gin at all but an illegal substance which I cannot mention publicly)

So I carefully halved , skinned and took the cores from the kidneys, seasoned them well, and fried them slowly, turning occasionally, until nicely pink all through.
Then I turned up the heat, poured in about three glugs of Sloe Gin (pardon the technology) and then doused the flames with a tablespoon of Creme Fraiche.
I swirled the pan about on the heat until that made a sauce and then entered offal heaven.
I think I may have to patent this one, the difficulty will be sourcing the “gin” in France, and the Sloes for that matter. (I have seen some but they are a little small and mean).

So that’s it really until the next time.
The good thing is that while rooting in the offal counter (a place previously taboo) I found some sweetbreads, the one piece of offal that Síle does enjoy.

Anyone for Riz de Veau ?

Síle read in the local paper that there was a farmers market each Saturday in the Place Madeline, just behind the regular market, in Beziers and so off we went last Saturday to see what we could find.

On the very first stall there was a box of the freshest spinach I have seen in France, the dew still glistening on it, so I put a generous couple of handfuls into a paper bag.
While the stall keeper was weighing this he said, “C’est pas epinards Monsieur, c’est l’oseille ” even better, said I and shoved another handful in for weighing.

Sorrel is not commonly sold in Ireland and although it grows well , there is as yet not much evidence of it appearing at the markets.

I have grown it with much ease when we lived in the country, it grows like a weed once you plant it.
Indeed my Father-in-law mistook it for dock (which it closely resembles) and cleared a whole patch of it out one day while I was at work.

In the market we also bought a nice little capon ( a neutered cock ), some spinach (on another stall) and a couple of Pardailhan Black Turnips which are a speciality of the area and which I have yet to try.

The first dish I cooked with the sorrel was the Roast Capon which I decided to serve with a Sorrel Beurre Blanc.

I chopped some of the sorrel very finely. mixed it with some softened butter and pushed that between the skin and the breast of the capon before roasting.

The beurre blanc I made by cooking some finely chopped shallot in a glass of wine until reduced to a tablespoon, then stirred in some chopped sorrel until it wilted then beat in butter until I had a thick creamy sauce.

The whole result was a bit of a mixed bag.
The sorrel under the skin was a great success, the flesh moist and slightly sharp from the sorrel.
The beurre blanc was a bit of an overkill, too much flavour, it sort of killed everything it touched.

Day two Síle got some salmon fillets for me to make that French Bistro classic, Salmon a l’Oseille.
This was much better.
The salmon I poached lightly, the sorrel I wilted in some butter then added a little Creme Fraiche and salt and pepper.

It was extremely good.
We were left with a small portion of the sauce, about two tablespoons, which I guarded.

Today I am on my own as Sile has gone back to Waterford for a few days.

For my lunch I decided to have another French classic; Omelette a l’Oseille.

This was the best so far, totally delicious.
I simply melted my leftover sauce in the microwave until it was soft.
(You could start from scratch with an ounce of butter, a handfull of chopped sorrel, finely chopped. and a tablespoon of creme fraiche)
I beat that into two eggs, seasoned with a grating of black pepper and pinch of salt and made my omelette in the usual way.
The combination of the sharpness of the sorrel and the creaminess of the eggs, butter and cream was superb.
This one (and indeed the salmon recipe) I will try again.

As always at this time of the year (although I have never caught him at it before) a man from the council comes up to the Place l’Eglise, directly in front of Le Presbytére, and, with his chain saw, decimates the trees.

Before

After.

Yes they do come back, every year.
It must be good for them.

Today is November 11th, Armistice Day, the day that most of the world commemorates the end of the first world war and remembers the dead of both the first and the second.
WW1 officially ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

This is a day that has traditionally passed in Ireland without recognition and there , of course, are reasons why.
Not only was it not recognised but the wearing of the poppy was thought (in my youth at any rate) to be a traitorous action, as if it was a victory over Ireland which was being remembered.

When Síle and I lived in the Loire in the early seventies we lived in a little village called Cheffes sur Sarthe in a street called Rue 11 Novembre.

To my shame I didn’t realise at the time what this was called after.
It was only that we were there for the date itself and saw all the Ancient Combattants gathering in the square outside the Mairie that I realise the significance of the date.

Today is a public holiday in France.
When I went to collect my paper this morning the old men, medals proudly on their chests , many equally proudly wearing berets (I think a symbol that they were in the Resistance), were gathering outside the Mairie.

Maybe it is time for us in Ireland to forget our disagreements with out neighbour and to remember the many Irishmen (I lost two Great uncles), and indeed French, Belgian, Canadian, Australian, and also the English and indeed the Germans, and all the other Fine Young Men who were killed in the great wars.

All The Fine Young Men
Eric Bogle

They told all the fine young men of when this war is over
There will be peace and the peace will last forever
In Flanders Field, at Lone Pine and Bersheeba
For king and country, for honour and duty
The young men fought and cursed and wept and died

Ah young men, can you see now why they lied

And so winter is coming into the Languedoc.

The first signs in fact were not the drop in temperatures but the dramatic change in wardrobe.

Everyone now wears a fleece or an overcoat, animal activists would be kept overworked with the mountains of fur being worn, and all women now wear boots (often high heeled and probably useless in snow or slush).

As this happened rather before the temperatures started to drop we feel that the average native French person either has a direct line with the Meteo or else, just perhaps, cannot wait to show off their new winter wardrobes.
This is so different from Ireland where we cling on to t-shirts and short sleeves long after our winter has started in the hope of forestalling its arrival.

Now this winter is not winter as we know it in Ireland, the sun still frequently shines so the temperatures vary between 13C and 18C during the day but the evenings and nights are much cooler, 6C or 7C, so we have been trying out the Godin.

First reports are excellent , it works a treat, banning all chill from our large sitting/dining /kitchen almost instantly and buzzing and crackling away comfortably.
In fact we have noticed that at these temperatures it keeps the first two stories of the house almost chill free. It’s range does not unfortunately quite reach to the attic where Síle and I sleep.

Now in the supermarket they sell net bags of about 5 long logs for €5 a bag.
Not terribly expensive, as they last a couple of nights, but our neighbour Danny was horrified that we could be so profligate as to buy wood like this.
She calculated that it was about 8 times cheaper to buy it by the Stére.

Next problem, what the haydays is a Stére.
My usually reliable Robert lets me down. His only translation is Stere, a word idemtical in all but accent.
Back to the OED (I can hear my friends laugh already) and there I find it :
A Stére, is a cubic metre of wood.
That achieved our next essential is to go and get one.

On the road to Beziers we found our woodman and, after some negotiating, and provided we carried it off ourselves we could have a half Stére. for €30. This was about all we could fit comfortably in the back of the Megane.
It was he promised all very dry, and Oak.

So without to much bother we brought it home.
We now have a quarter Stére under the stairs;

And another quarter Stére in the cupboard beside the stove.
Happily this is exactly 50 cms deep, exactly the length of the blocks and a perfect fit for the Godin.

There was a Vide Greniers in our closest village, Corneilhan, today and we went along.
For those of you who have forgotten a Vide Greniers (literally Empty Attic) is a sort of car boot sale but usually only held once a year in a village when the inhabitants do just that.
This one was fairly typical, about a hundred stalls scattered through the village, selling mostly rubbish that people should have binned long ago.
There as always is the odd dealer who sneaks in the back door but, as always, if you keep your eyes skinned it is possible to find something to amuse.

This on first viewing seemed a fairly innocent carafe.
But then I discovered it came apart in the middle.

As Madame took the asking price of €2 from me she asked did I have any notion what it was.
We both agreed that despite appearances it didn’t seem to be an oil and vinegar.
(For one thing they are both roughly the same size, in most vinaigrettes the oil flask would be larger)
But then, we shrugged (my shrug is getting very fluent) maybe it was.

My other purchase (for one Euro this time) was these two glasses.
No great age on them I would have thought and certainly moulded but their European-ness appealed to me.
I bought them in France, on the bottom it explained that they were “Made in Spain” and the moulded inscription “Absolutely Pure Milk ” is of course in English.

I had to take some glasses from my display to fit them in.
I still have about 4 or 5 boxes full of unpacked glass in the cellar.
I have no idea what I will do with it all.

Talking of the European-ness of things I was, as said previously, at a concert on Síle’s new choir in Figueres last week.
One of the members of the choir is from Scotland (married to a Frenchman).
As we talked afterwards I remarked on the Pan European nature of her performance being a Scotswoman singing in German (the concert was a requiem by Brahms) as part of a French choir performing in Spain.
Very European.