This is a summer image which I have put up on my screen to help me get over the no-sun November.
It is of my Friends Peter Denman and Siobhan Ni Fhoghlu taken in the Mediterranean Gardens over the River Orb in Roquebrun.

Today the Irish Times Magazine accepted and used a second of my Curiosity
pieces.
Oh the pride of it!
See for yourself, page 70 in the magazine.
(Or be a cheapskate and see the copy below)

With all the excitement of the Japanese Maples I forgot to mention the reason for my trip to the Botanical gardens last weekend.
My brother-in-law Martin (too) had told me that the Japonica had fruited and the ground around them was littered with wind falls.

He knew that one of my life’s passions is Japonica Jelly.

Small bit of science first.
Japonicas, at least what I call Japonicas, are in fact Chaenomeles, a shrub which has a bright red flower and yellow green apple like fruit.
These are the ones which I lust after.

Just pick handfulls of them the next time you come across them and put them in a bowl in a warm room.
They have a wonderful warm waxy citrus scent which will seduce you.
Well, with just the smallest amount of effort you can turn this smell into a taste by making Japonica Jelly.
If you want to collect them in the Botanicals you will need two people, one to stand guard and one to scrabble under the bushes for wind falls.
This was my role last sunday.
I gathered about a kilo, filling every pocket I possessed and looking a little like a misshapen Michelin Man.
(This gave me a kilo and a half of jelly)

Keep them for a few days in a bowl in a warm room, just to work up your appetite.
Then make jelly from them.

Now I am more than happy to use sugar which is special for jelly.
This gives a reliable set after one minute’s boiling thereby preserving the freshness of the fruit.
If you are picky about this, tackle in the traditional way and keep boiling until you get a set.

Whichever method you use the start up is the same.

Quarter the fruit, put into a large pot, just cover with water, boil until soft and mushy (and have given their all)
Strain the juice off the pulp. measure and boil up with a kilo for every litre of juice.
If using Jam Sugar you boil vigorously for just one minute, if using ordinary sugar keep boiling until a teaspoonful in a cold saucer wrinkles into a set after a few seconds.

Which ever way you use do not bother with jelly bags and all that palaver, so who cares if the end result is a bit cloudy.

What really matters is the taste.

My cloudy, but delicious, Japonica jelly.

This story was told to me as true by someone whose ancestor, a younger son, had been sent abroad in the late 19th century British expansion in Africa.

It is an extract from a this mans diary as he trudged through darkest Africa in search of new territories.
As you will remember this exploration was always accompanied by teams of native bearers carrying everything which the travellers reckoned to be essential for living, portable baths, wonderful toilet cabinets and thunder boxes, and foods like Marmalade, Bath Olivers and Gentleman’s Relish.

The exract from the diary reads;

This is the third day without water, had to shave in sherry again this morning.

Danny was a waiter of a certain age from North Cork who worked with me about 38 years ago in Snaffles in Dublin.
Danny had a great line of parish priest stories which I suppose at the time were a little iconoclastic.
This was one of my favourites;

Deaf Parish Priest meets a mother carrying her baby in the lane one night.

Priest: “Well Mrs Murphy thats a lovely little child , Is he good for you?

Mrs Murphy: “Divil a bit Father, he’s very cross”

Priest: “What was that ?”

Mrs Murphy: “He’s forever whinging father !”

Priest : “What?”

Mrs Murphy: “He Bawls Like a Bull !”

Priest, (bemused): “Have he?”

I sent my piece on the pronunciation of these spices to the Maestro David Crystal and that erudite gentleman was kind enough to reply as follows:

Many thanks for your message. I’ve just had a look in the 15th edition of the English Pronouncing dictionary, 1997, and they recognize the alternative pronunciation of ‘cumin’ that you’ve heard. In fact they give three, in this order: ‘come in’, ‘coo-min’ and ‘queue-min’. So it does look as if this word is in the process of change. They don’t give an alternative for ‘turmeric’, though, so the change here must be more recent. There’s nothing Indian about this. There is always unpredictability about the pronunciation of words beginnig with cu- in English – compare ‘cup’ and ‘cure’, and with unfamiliar words it’s not surprising to find some vacillation. The same applies to tu- (‘tutor’ and ‘turn’).

David Crystal

His analysis of the Obama speech should be read by anyone with an interest in language, in oratory, in history, or in modern politics. It has already been extensively quoted in the Sunday Times and I (were I the minister for education) would distribute it for study to schools and universities.
You can find it if you click on to his blog on the link at the side of my page.

“Why yes my dear. Of course it is organic”

Last night I went to see Couscous (aka La Graine et le Mulet) a film in our local Storm cinema in Waterford.

The film which is set in Sète, a Mediterranean port which you can see, on a clear day, from our house in France, was I knew about a Arab man and his attempts to open a restaurant.
Given those themes there was no way I was going to miss it.

Having checked the price as I went in , €9.50, I handed over my tenner to the youthful young man behind the till.
He gave me one of those flickering glances, almost imperceptable, and said; “That’ll be €6.50 please ”
A little surprised but never one for over perusal of gift horses, I gratefully pocketed the €3.50 change.

As I went into my cinema I glanced back at the prices.
Under the €9.50 price was one of €6.50 for OAPs.

The little shit had taken me for a 65 year old God Bless him, and I only in my fifties (until March next at least)
So a whole new dawn is opening up for me.
Cheap cinemas, half price glasses, fuel vouchers,even free travel.

Turning eighteen wasn’t half so much fun.

As for the film.
The first three quarters were terrific.
We were introduced into the complexities of working class Arab family life in Mediterranean France.
The performances, often while eating, had a lively and authentic style which seemed unscripted but probably weren’t.
It was going great when the director became involved in (and couldn’t extricate himself from) two intercut sequences, one of a chase of a mobilette and another of a belly dance which became numbingly tedious and went on far too long.
Still worth a visit if you get a chance, particularly for all lovers of Fish Couscous.

Again in “The Bots” on Sunday, in the vegetable garden.
(Who needs flowers)

As a chef of long standing, and a certain age, I am fascinated by the modern pronunciation of two spices which I have used for years.

For the forty odd years I have been using these spices I have pronounced Cumin as one would say “come in” and turmeric as if the first syllable were identical to “Term”.

The pronunciation by modern chefs is quite different (and I can cite Nigella and Jamie for this, as well as most others)

They pronounce Cumin as if it were spelt Queue min and Turmeric as if it were Tumour ic.

I did study phonics many years ago and as far as I an interpret these symbols in the OUD I am correct in both cases.

Perhaps I’m missing something, and there is an authentic Indian twist on the pronunciation of these spices?