People are wondering , since there is not going to be a “Full Irish” how they will break their fasts here in Le Presbytére.
This morning before our guests came down I took a shot of the table when most of the food was on it and said I would run through it for you all.

From top left is today’s Baguette purchased this morning from the M. Strasser the village Boulanger.
Next is a fresh fruit salad, this morning’s offering is white peaches, figs and pomegranates. Next a basket with some Croissants from the boulanger with some of my own, toasted, very buttery, brioche.
In the yellow bowl is some Fromage Frais which we serve lightly sweetened and flavoured with vanilla (it is, incredibly 0% fat so this -with the fruit -constitutes the healthy bit .)
Next the home made jams, currently on offer are Greengage, Apricot, Plum and the last of my Apple jelly from home in Ireland.

Also on the table is some Charentais Melon, some Quetsch Plums and some Williams Pears, all in season at the moment.

Then its just the Orange Juice, Tea and Coffee, Cuban Coffee but we bring over our own Barry’s for the teapot.Our one concession to “The Full Irish”.

When you are in a French restaurant and look like you have finished a course the waiter will come up and raise an eyebrow and say “Terminé ?” meanining -of course – not are you terminated (i.e dead) but merely finished with your entreé.
It does beg the question though, about how the French must have felt when young Schwartzenegger burst on the world with his macho “Terminator”.
Instead of conveying the image of a lethal killing machine it probably meant, to them, something like “The Boy who ate up ALL his dinner.
Good Boy Arnold!

Sometimes living in a strange country, and indeed climate can confront you with a whole new set of problems.
I remember the first time the family went to the Cote d’Azur we were staying in a cabin in a campsite .
Me, in the role of Facitious Pater Familias said to my small children in the morning “We are very far south now and so you must remember to shake your shoes out every morning before you put them on for fear of scorpions”
I suited my actions to my words, shook out my shoe and, to my horror and shock, out fell a scorpion.
The unfortunate creature got hammered to a pulp with the heel of the same shoe.

Todays close encounter of the Mediterranean kind was a little less scarey.

I set out to make my seedy bread only to discover that my seeds, pumpkin, sunflower etc were infested with little drab brown moths and small maggot like caterpillers.
They also had managed to invade some of the flours and totally colonise some muesli.
A lot of stuff had to be thrown in the bin.
The internet informed me that I had been invaded by:

Mediterranean Flour Moths (Ephestia kuehniella or Anagasta
kuehniella),
And I just had to fling all the invaders out, along with their colonies.
(And keep my grains and flour in totally sealed containers in the future.)

All well and good but what the hell was I going to put into my seedy bread ?

I had some Poppy seeds which I was conserving for Bibliocooks Lemon and Poppyseed Loaf and some dried figs with which I was going to make Figues Au Whiskey, that Waterford /Provencal creation mentioned a few blogs back.

Needs must when the devil drives.

I present to you

Figgy Bread.

for 2 x 1kg Loaves

500g Strong White Flour
500g Strong Wholewheat Flour
2 x 7g. packets of Dried Yeast
1 Teaspoon Salt
.70 litres Warm Water
8/10 Dried Figs
2 Tablespoons Poppy Seeds
6 Tablespoons Olive Oil

First take a couple of tablespoons of the measured white flour and put this with the figs into a food processor and whizz until they are chopped small (or do this by hand)
Put the flour,yeast,figs and poppy seeds and salt in a large bowl.
Add in the olive oil.
Add the warm water to the bowl and blend all the ingredients together.
Knead the mixture in the bowl until the bowl comes fairly clean from the sides then put it out on a lightly floured counter.
Now you want to knead it for at least 5mts.
Oil your tins well and, if they are not well seasoned (or Non-stick) it is a good idea to line the bottom with some buttered tinfoil or greaseproof paper.
Divide the dough between the two tins
Put these in a warm place for at least an hour (if not warm enough they can take a lot longer,I sometimes light the oven to its lowest and put them in the grill space over the oven) They should rise well over the tops of the tins .
Pre Heat the oven to Gas 7, 220C, 425F.
Cook the loaves at this temperature for 30 mts.
Shake them out of their tins and put them back for another 10mts to crisp the base and sides. Let them cool before eating or freezing.

And the consensus ?

Well I was very taken, nice interesting sweetness from the figs, good little crunch from the poppy seeds and from the fig seeds.
I ate some with some Blue Cheese, and then some more with a little Goat and then had to sit on my hands for a while (for fear I would scoff the whole lot).

I’ll make it again, even without Ephestia Kuehniella attacks.

It was Caitríona who observed these moments of me with Fionn and they are her captions. If she minds me using them they may suddenly disappear.

Fionn and Martin read the paper;

though actually Fionn finds it quite boring;

Fionn, the beautiful grandson headed back to Ireland today.

The pain was eased somewhat by his kind parents Skyping us with video tonight AND we got a smile.
This shot is of the prince in his cot waiting to be tickled.
A Star.

Believe it or not Waterford has influenced at least one French dish thought to be traditional in the South of France.
This I discovered first in a French web site when I was looking for ways of cooking figs which we find growing on the roadside on our walk around the village.

In reference to a method of cooking Figs called; Les Figues aux Whiskey they said:
Recette du Petit fils de Lucien Bonaparte, Sir William C.Bonaparte Wise lors dun séjour en Avignon : Faire pocher des figues et les laisser macérer dans du Whiskey, le temps dépend du goût recherché.

Surely this grandson of Napoleon’s brother Lucien must be one of the Waterford family, as indeed he turned out to be when I looked him up in Wikipidia:

William Charles Bonaparte-Wyse was born in Waterford, the son of the politician and educational reformer Sir Thomas Wyse. He wrote in Provençal, was a friend of Frédéric Mistral, and became the only foreign member of the consistory of the Félibrige, the Provençal cultural association. His collection Li Parpaioun Blu (The Blue Butterflies) was published in 1868, with a foreword by Mistral. He created the Provençal dish of dried figs poached in whiskey.

As this refers to dried figs, which I don’t intend to cook when I can still get fresh, I haven’t tried it yet but mean to.

There are many different variations of cooking the dish on the internet .
Most poach the dried figs in a sugar syrup flavoured with lemon and or orange and or cinnamon.
When taken off the heat a generous dollop of Irish Whiskey is added.

Now as Figs are traditional here as part of the 13 Desserts eaten on Christmas Eve I imagine there will be excellent quality dried figs about in the winter.

Satisfying to feel that Waterford has left its mark on the cuisine of southern France.

As we have holidayed in many villages in France over the years we have got very used to measuring out our life by counting bells.
We have even accepted that because France is a secular country and that there is a certain tension between Church and State that in most villages the hours are rung by both in the Church and the Mairie.

Since we came to Thezan and live next to the church we have heard both these bells clearly during the day (fortunately here they remain silent between 9.00 at night and 7.00 in the morning)
What has puzzled us since we came here is that we hear not two but three bells ringing in the hours.
One we knew was the church, it is right next to us, the second we knew was from the Clock Tower, also very near us, just next to where the old Mairie used to be pre 1900 when the new one was built further down the village.
We wondered could the third be a nearby village bell but remained unsure.

All was revealed this morning.
From the new car park in the village we were able to spot another bell, previously unseen, on top of the Mairie so we realised that the struggle between Church and State had been very effectually won by the state for the last hundred and some years by the simple expedient of their ringing two bells against the church’s one.
They rang on the hour while I was there (none, of course quite at the same time) and I realised that if I craned a little I could get all three into the same camera shot.

At the extreme left the delicate iron cage that houses the old clock tower, then the church Belfry and right over on the right the bell on the Mairie.

Watch your back Jack Vettriano.

He tries to endear himself with his Grandmother

Breakfasts

Bathes in the kitchen sink