Svetlana and Ivan were strolling down the Red Square in Moscow on a dull December day when suddenly Svetlana felt a drop land on her forehead.
“Aha !” she said “Snow”
“Nonsense” said Ivan. “That was rain “
“No it was definitely snow”
“Rain!”
“Snow!”

Just then Rudolph, the local party secretary came along.
“Let us ask him” said Ivan “and let him decide”

So they asked him was it rain or snow they just felt.

“Rain” said Rudolph decisively, and walked on.
“There!” said Ivan triumphantly.
“Why should we believe it just because HE said it” said Svetlana.
“We must” said Ivan, because;
“Rudolph the Red knows rain dear”

Thanks to Robert Hayes-Mc Coy for the story, and apologies for pinching it.

The most wonderful thing about the Terre Madre experience is the people you meet and the pooling of information that happens because of it.
I have long been fascinated at the amount of basic ingredients which have come to us from the Americas.
They did after all provide us here in Ireland with our staple, the potato, and also provided the entire Mediterranean with their staple, the tomato.
Add in a few other essentials like coffee, courgettes, chocolate and indeed all of the fiery spices in Eastern food and you begin to realise what a great bounty the discovery of America has given us.
This leads one to wonder how the people living in this culinary Shangri-La fed them selves, and, with my luck, who did I happen to meet in Turin but the people who have written the book.

Fernando and Marlene Divina’s “Foods of the Americas” is available from Amazon.com. My copy arrived in yesterday, it is a superb book, beautifully produced and full of delicious recipes.
I tried the first one last night, Potato Cakes, being an Irishman how could I not!
In their description of the dish the Divinas add;
“For an experience that transcends time, serve these with peanut sauce”
Hear Hear!
(I have translated the recipe slightly to facilitate us at this side of the pond- Sorry Fernando!)

Peanut Sauce

1 large Tomato
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Med Onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed
3 Tablespoons Coarse Peanut Butter (½ jar roughly)
150ml (5 oz.) Vegetable Stock or Water
Salt and Black pepper
Pinch Cayenne

Potato Cakes

6 Med Floury Potatoes
Salt and Black Pepper
White of two scallions finely chopped.
1 Egg White
Some Plain Flour for dredging
Olive Oil

Sauce.
Blanch the tomato to remove the skin, halve and discard the pips.
Chop the flesh into little dice.
Heat some oil in a pan and cook the chopped onion in this until transparent.
Add in the garlic and the tomato.
Cook for three or four minutes then add in the stock and the peanut butter.
Simmer gently for another minute or two, season and be prepared to add more water if it is too thick..

Potato Cakes

Peel and then steam the potatoes until just nearly cooked.
Take out two. Then leave the remaining potatoes cook until tender.
Mash thoroughly, season with salt and black pepper, stir in the chopped scallions,and the egg white and leave them get cool enough to handle.
Make into six potato cakes.
Grate the two reserved potatoes coarsely and press these gratings into both sides of the cakes. (this gives them a delicious crispness when fried)
Fry these in hot oil until brown and crisp.
Serve immediately with the hot peanut sauce.

The Divinas say to serve these with some crisply fried Plantain, or Potatoes for added texture.
I actually crisp roasted some free range chicken legs to go with them.
It is going to be difficult to enjoy potato cakes again without this wonderful peanut sauce.

I am at the moment reading a biography of Catherine de Medici by Leonie Frieda.
Catherine was –by the rules of the time- a commoner when she married Henry 11 of France, this even though she came from the immensely powerful Medici family of Florence.
To consolidate her position it was imperative that she conceive as soon as possible, unfortunately this was not to be the case.
Even though Henry did his duty royally, and already had fathered several children, Catherine failed to become pregnant.
In desperation she tried everything, drinking foul concoctions of mules urine and even boring a hole in the floor to spy on Henry and Diane de Poitiers- his mistress- to discover what they were doing better than her that made conception possible.
Eventually she called in the help of a sensible doctor called Jean Fernel.
He found that their reproductive organs both carried” slight abnormalities” and suggested a way these might be overcome.
Catherine more or less immediately became pregnant and then went on to bear ten children for Henry.

The mind can only boggle to imagine what these “abnormalities” were and how they were overcome. Frustratingly history doesn’t tell us and we can only speculate

I have discovered that having my photo next to my recipes in the local, free, paper can have its advantages.
I was renewing my passport last week and had to go to the Garda station with all my bits to get my photos signed.
While I was waiting I noticed a copy of Waterford Today on the counter in the barracks.
The Guard on duty took my stuff, and said”Are you a local man? Have you any proof of identity ?”
I opened the paper at the relevant page and said;”Will that do”
The Guard grinned at me and said it was a great likeness.
Small bits of local recognition can have their advantages.

Great day yesterday in the excellent Westin Hotel in Dublin for our annual food awards.

The lovely Rachel Allen presented these for us, and listed their citations, but, as I was involved with the selections here are a few personal notes on the recipients.

Louis Smith. is Irelands mushroom expert.
Almost single handed he has been foraging for mushrooms for the last 20 years, he has guided several hunts for us in Euro-Toques and given us great mushroom feasts (while avoiding slow deaths.)

It is rare to come across a young as passionate about his craft as Michael Kelly is about his, his coffee business, Ariosa Coffee Company, is superb. Watch out for him at country markets or contact him at www.ariosacoffee.com

At about this time last year Nick Price from Nick’s Warehouse in Belfast started to rave about a new Comte style cheese being produced in Co. Louth; Glebe Brethan.
We went, we saw and we were overcome.
An absolutely delicious cheese.
(I stole some from the cheese board to bring home)
Made lovingly by David and Mairead Tiernan contact them at 0416851157

Lovely to give a prize to a local man, Paul Crotty’s is the man who has managed to break the French monopoly on free range, organic chickens.
In conjunction with the Aherns in Dungourney they now produce and distribute under the name of Born Free.
Eat these at your peril, it is very difficult to enjoy a battery chicken after you have tasted one.
Order from Paul at 087 2792613.
Waterford people will find them at the Ardkeen Stores.

Into our hall of fame went Veronica Steele of Mileens Cheese.
Veronica has single handed initiated the whole renaissance of farmhouse cheese, not only here but in England and even in the U.S.A.
John Ehle, the man who wrote the cheese book which Veronica used to start her business has personally come all the way to Allihies to thank Veronica for the re-prints of his book.

Latest update is that we have been given a sign date for the house in Thezan les Beziers.
All going according to plan and we should meet the Notaire, and the representative of the Parish of Montpellier (the vendors) in the Notaire’s office at two pm on the 7th December.
There we hand over a cheque and they give us the keys.
I have telephoned a charming lady in a bank in the nearby village of Murviel les Beziers and she has told me that if I call to her the day before she will give me the necessary cheque to give them, in the meantime we have to send the requisite amount electronically to her.

All tremendously exciting.

This is the house from the back.
Hopefully a picture which we will regard fondly in the future
as a “before”

We have both decided to travel to Languedoc for this auspicious occasion and for the first time ever when we went to Ryanair we were able to book the two of us, return, to Carcassonne for 1 cent each journey, mind you by the time you add on the various taxes it becomes €80, still cheap though.

Sile and I, with Sile’s sister Una and husband Martin, have rented a house in a nearby village for the week after Christmas so I reckon there will be much Mrs. Mopping going on for that week.
In February Clive Nunn and I plan to go out to start knocking walls and at Easter Sile and I intend to camp in the house for a fortnight.
The two months of the summer will of course be spent there.
Roll on the Summer!

In September I bought some Chervil plants at a market in Macreddin, It seemed a little crazy at the time, small plants at this time of the year but the girl who was selling them assured me that they would last well into the winter.
So far so good.
The really do have the most delicious flavour.
Last night I made my best effort with them so far.
I had bought a good sized Brill from Billy Bourke my fish monger . The fillets were so fresh and fat I decided to poach them and , having decided that, the moment for diets seemed inappropriate, I decided to go the whole hog and serve them with a Beurre Blanc sauce, not just any old Beurre Blanc but with a Chervil one .
It was a deliciously good idea.

Poached Fillets of Brill with Chervil Beurre Blanc.
(for 2)

2 Fillets of Brill (or Turbot or Bass) at least 225g (8oz.) each.
Two tablespoons of white wine vinegar for the poaching water.

For the Beurre Blanc;

1 Good Handful of Fresh Chervil
3 Scallions
2 Tablespoons White Wine Vinegar
1 Lime
½ Glass White Wine
175g (5 oz.) Hard cold salted Butter.

If you want to serve vegetables with this get them ready in advance and keep them warm.

¾ fill a frying pan with water, add the vinegar and bring it to the boil. Once it has boiled turn it to a low simmer.
Carefully grate the zest from the lime and squeeze the juice.
Finely chop the scallions and the chervil.
Cut the butter into dice.

When you are about 8 minutes from eating then, and only then start cooking,

Slip the fish into the simmering poaching water.
Put the vinegar, lime juice and white wine and the scallion into a pot (not aluminium-or it would make the sauce grey)
Boil these together hard until reduced by about half- this will take 2 to 3 minutes.
Now start to whisk in the butter a little at a time and allow each addition to emulsify before adding the next.
You can leave it on the heat but don’t let it boil too fast as it can separate.
Once you have beaten in all the butter then beat in the chopped chervil and the lime zest and take it off the heat.
At this stage the fish should be just perfectly poached so take these out, drain carefully and put onto plates before you spoon over the sauce.

A bit of a fiddle maybe but well worth the effort.

Last night our book club met.
The book under consideration was Flann O Brien’s, The Third Policeman, it turned out to be quite controversial.
Out of the seven of us (two men, five ladies) there were two fans
(the men), two who liked it and three who, even though admitting that it was worthy, found it impossible to read.

One of the dissenting ladies put her finger on the pulse when she stated that she thought “only a nerd” could enjoy it.
I immediately stood up and admitted it.
“I am a nerd!”

This morning I am not so sure.
In typical nerdlike fashion I got out my Oxford English Dictionary and looked up nerd.
Here is their definition;
“An insignificant or foolish person, a person who is boringly conventional or studious.”

Now I can live with the studious bit but the rest of it I think is a little unfair to nerds.
I have a bit of a passion for words, this has led to me acquiring quite a number of dictionaries (a quick glance and a rough tally reveals about thirty large ones on a shelf).

These do not rest unopened on the shelf, if they did I probably wouldn’t qualify as a nerd.
Every time there is the slightest discussion as to the meaning, usage, or even spelling of a word I dive to the dictionary shelf to fine out the truth.
Nerdish, but to my mind wholly admirable.

I am , I confess, a person who tends to be taken over by enthusiasms.
My saving grace, and that which may ultimately save me from the OED definition is that these enthusiasms are neither conventional or studious-but then I would say that wouldn’t I?

A nerd, as I have always thought it, was a person who was boring indeed but not necessarily foolish.
Surely we should be allowed degrees of nerdishness.
Mr. Collins, in Pride and Prejudice, was surely a big headed nerd and indeed a foolish one, but then his obsession was with the local big house and Lady Catherine de Bourg, hardly an uplifting cynosure.
Let us take instead a nerd of a different calibre, Stephen Maturin in the Aubery novels of Patrick O Brian, (and if you haven’t read these you should)
This is a man obsessed with natural history, this and the overthrow of Napoleon and the playing of the cello dominate his life.
But Stephen, as portrayed by O Brian, is never boring, in fact he is one of my favourite characters in literature of all time.
Perhaps he escapes true nerdishness by having more that one subject that dominates his life.
In that case I make a plea for myself.
Not only am I obsessed with words but also with antique glass, food and all things French, this being but the tip of the iceberg of my many interests.
I could therefore probably cast off the title of nerd without guilt but I don’t think I really want to.
What I do quarrel with is the OED definition.
Could we not define nerds as;
“Someone with an obsessive desire to discover all there is to be known about a subject”
Like Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, or Stephen Hawkins.
There is nothing foolish there is there.

I’m happy to admit I am a nerd in such company.