I was once approached by a young chef in the restaurant with a problem.
He had just lately started courting and his girl friend’s birthday was approaching.
He was naturally anxious to discover what an older man of the world thought would be an appropiate birthday present.
To my suggestion of jewellery;- “Perhaps a necklace…?” He replied; “Ah No, she has a necklace already”
I treasured this answer, which showed such profound intersexual understanding, ever since then.
Just this morning, in this weeks New Yorker, it was bettered.
There is an article about Michael Seidenberg who sells second hand books from his apartment in New York.
When times were hard he had been forced to sell his wares from a stall on the street.
“Once a couple stopped” he recalled.”And the man asked his girlfriend, ‘Do you want a book?’ She said,’No, I already have a book’ ”

In 1989,when we bought the restaurant premises in Mary Street, over which we were to live, we were naturally curious about its history.
Its most recent occupant, other than a few brief months as a putative restaurant, had been as a Credit Union.
It had, we discovered, been let out in flats for some time before that and in the sixties and before it had been used as the offices for the Sack and Bag company, manufacturers of hempen sacks.

In time we came across an old street census of Mary Street and it was from this, dated in the 1890’s, that we discovered that at this time the building was an RIC barracks.
The building itself went back to the 1790’s we discovered from city records, but we never did find out how long it had been owned by the RIC.
The entry for the street gazetteer from the 1890’s stated that the occupants were “Sergeant and Mrs. Waldron and nine constables”
We often imagined the nine constables sleeping in the large attic at the top of the house which we used as our living room but which would easily have accommodated nine constable sized cots.

Sile’s sister Maire is married to one Padraic de Bhaldraithe, (his father wrote the English/Irish dictionary we all had to buy for our Inter Cert.)

When I told him this story he was surprised, his great grandfather had been in the RIC and, he thought, stationed somewhere in Waterford.
De Bhaldraithe is, of course the Irish for Waldron.
His Great Grandfather had not it turned out been stationed in Mary Street we discovered, our Sergeant Waldron, was in fact this man’s brother, Padraic’s Great Grand Uncle.
He was even able to produce a photograph of the same man.
Small world, even across one hundred years.

There follows a piece I posted two years ago on this day.
I think it bears repeating.

Todays date always rings a certain haunting bell for me.
It was in August in 1967 at the peak of the “Summer of Love” that Bobby Gentry released what must be the most mysterious and intriguing pop song of all time.
Called “Ode to Billy Joe” it is a ballad, in the classic sense of a song that tells a story, which uses many of the techniques of the short story.
From the first line it captures your interest
“It was the third of June, another sleepy dusty Delta day…”
There had obviously been something clandestine happening between the narrator and Billy Joe Mac Allister, who we discover at the same time as the narrator, has just committed suicide.
Various hints are given about her and Billy Joe and that they were seen;“Throwing something off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

What makes it most interesting is that except for the hints no questions are answered, you remain intrigued.

At the time it became a great talking point between my friends and I, various theories of aborted babies, murdered rivals even incriminating evidence being that which was thrown off the bridge.

It haunts me, in the gentlest possible way, to today.
I don’t think a third of June has passed since then that hasn’t reminded me of the song.

Here are the words:

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door “y’all remember to wipe your feet”
And then she said “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge”
“Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
“Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please”
“There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow”
And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
“I’ll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don’t seem right”
“I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge”
“And now you tell me Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

And Mama said to me “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?”
“I’ve been cookin’ all morning and you haven’t touched a single bite”
“That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today”
“Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way”
“He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge”
“And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

A year has come ‘n’ gone since we heard the news ’bout Billy Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going ’round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama doesn’t seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Dusting down the Ernest Weekley book from the shelf to be photographed for the paper yesterday set me off dipping in to it again.
There I came across a little gem of etymology which perhaps indicates that the Bold Ernest wasn’t such a prude as Lawrence thought him.

This concerns the origins of the French word for a tap, as in faucet.

Ernest explains that the nicknames for girl and boy in France are, from the Robin Hood myth, Robin et Marianne.
This corresponds roughly with Jack and Jill or Darby and Joan in English.
(Marianne is still the name for the topless French symbol of the revolution in 1798)

Robin, being the male symbol, gave us, by extension; Robinet,the slang term for the male appendage (see Willy or Dick in English) and then by obvious analogy became the familiar term for a tap.
(Again note how the English term for that malest of all male birds, the cock, extended itself to the term for a tap, as in stopcock etc.)

Knowing this always somehow makes the conversation with our French plumber, about the types of Robinet we want in the bathrooms, just a little surreal.

When the Irish Times started its new Curiosities piece in Saturdays Magazine I knew I had just the piece for it.

I sent it in, and today it is there in print!
My very first piece of non-food journalism!

Yey Hey!!

(For those of you who are too mean (or too abroad) to buy the paper I reprint it here.

——————–——————–

I have some VIP’s to dinner tonight (you know who you are, you read the blog!) so I was agonising over dessert when I got the following letter from my friend Isabel.

“Paul came home from Dubai yesterday and I asked him what he would
like for his birthday treat tonight and he said “Martin’s
Clafoutis”. So with the first of the season’s apricots, I made the
peach version, but using apricots – couldn’t do the apricot and
almond recipe because I couldn’t find the ground almonds, I was sure
we had them…we had, but they were in Berlin…..a half a pound of
butter!!!ten ounces of sugar!!! even more of flour!!!! Martin, what
are you doing to our cholesterol? Ah, never mind, birthdays come
around only once a year though years do appear to turn around much
faster these days.

But it was yummy and Paul had a second slice and said it was the best
birthday cake ever and we all lived happily ever after.”

Perfect, but because I can never pass a recipe without tweaking it (think of dogs and car wheels), and as we we have some terrific Rhubarb, just up, in the garden, and some ground hazelnuts and some praline powder (from France) in the cupboard, I ended up making the following:

Rhubarb and Hazelnut Clafoutis

400g (14oz.) Caster Sugar
140g (5oz.) Flour
140g (5oz.) Ground Hazelnuts (or Ground Almonds)
1 tsp. Baking Powder
4 Eggs
225g (8oz.) Melted Unsalted Butter
1 tbs. Cointreau or Grand Marinier (optional)
1 Bunch Rhuibarb (about 500g (1 lb.)
Some chopped Hazelnuts or Almonds (or, should you have it handy some chopped praline)

Chop the Rhubarb and fry quickly in 30g (1 oz.) of the butter just for about two minutes just to start it cooking.

Put the sugar, flour, ground nuts, and baking powder into a food processor and whizz for a minute to blend well.
Now add the eggs, the remaining unsalted butter and the booze.
Whizz again to blend thoroughly.
Pour this mixture into a 12 inch tart tin or quiche tin ( not one with a removable base)
Push the pieces of rhubarb into the batter.
Scatter over the chopped nuts.

Bake this at 150C. 300F.Gas 4 for 35 to 40 mts.
This should be served from the tin either hot from the oven or at room temperature with some whipped cream.

Eh! dites-le, dites-le.
is of course;

Hey Diddle Diddle (the cat and the fiddle)

Chacun Gilles

Jack and Jill

Si sot, mair, je ris d’eau

See-Saw, Marjory Daw

Loup, si l’eau quete

Lucy Locket (lost her pocket)

And one more which was my own.

Age, Pays, Meaunes oise raisin

The first line of The Rose of Tralee

Un petit d’un petit
S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit d’un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.

Having a naturally twisted brain I was thoroughly delighted with a book which came out in the sixties which I have lately remembered.

It was called : Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames – The D’Antin Manuscripts by Luis D. Antin Van Rooten.
It is it seems still in print and available on Amazon.
It consists of “Translations” into meaningless French of well known English nursery rhymes.

Any correct answers sent in to decode the above will recieve a voucher for a free Kir before their dinner when they dine in Le Presbytère.

Afterword.

Okay, since the first Kir went so easily I now offer four more if you can get these rhymes from their titles (previous winners disqualified!)

Eh! dites-le, dites-le.

Chacun Gilles

Si sot, mair, je ris d’eau

Loup, si l’eau quete

And one more which is my own.

Age, Pays, Meaunes oise raisin

I got a text from my brother David yesterday who, like me, inherited from our father an addiction for doing crosswords.

The text read:
Crossword enthusiasts know that someone who is wierd is just wired differently.