Where do the people end and the Trompe d’oeil begin ?

Some more of my old French glasses, now pressed into service, from the same dresser. In the centre my champagnes, sparkling Kirs are special sipped from these, to the left my white wine jug with its invaluable ice pocket which keeps all cool, and on the right various glasses used for the occasional Digistif- some of these are Irish Hotel sherry glasses and have GSH stamped on them from the old Great Southern Hotels

For about 24 years now I have been gathering French Café glasses in Brocantes and Vide Greniers. They are variously Absinthe (these often engraved with a measure line), Wine and Beer glasses, all hand blown and usually from the 1890’s. I have paid as little as 50 cent for one and as much as €40. I have seen them for sale in smart French Antique shops for over €100 each. For many years I have looked at them, cleaned them and drunk from them occasionally, lately I have decided that, as they are extremely sturdy, to also use them for my guests in Le Presbytere.

It’s been a while, about ten days, since I have managed to find time for a blog but I plead business.

It has been all go.

Last Saturday night, between family, friends and regular paying guests we had a record breaking sixteen for bed and breakfast.

That included a grandson on a click-clack in our bedroom and a daughter on a mattress on the floor.

It doesn’t look like it is going to get much quieter for the rest of the month either but no worries, it is all great fun too.

We had all three daughters and most of their partners and the two grandsons here for the last week so we have had a mighty family fix, any time off has been spent with the apples of our eyes who just get more and more wonderful.

So forgive the spottiness of communication, I’ll get back to you as soon as it calms a little.

This piece originally went out in April 2006- I thought it was time to give it a re-run. Especially since I got interviewed about it – for his thesis- by a graduate student in UCG a few months ago.

I came from a cultural background that wouldn’t have had much respect for the native culture or language of Ireland.
Being educated by the Christian Brothers, with their ideas of beating the Irish language into us, did little to foster love of my native tongue. In fairness I do remember a particular brother who used to roll the sonorous sounds of the poem Urchnoc Chein Mhic Cainte around in his mouth in a way that indicated to me, for the first time, that the language had great beauty;
“A chiúin-bhean tséimh na gcuachann péarlach,
Gluais liom féin ar ball beag,”

Otherwise my appreciation of the language has been almost entirely due to chance and falling into it in accidentally.

While still in college I had a great friend(and he is still one!) Jim Flanagan from Baile Mhuirne, in the Gaeltacht area of Cork, and I spent many happy times in their family house in “The Mills”. Another friend Maggie Loughnan had a summer house in Dun Chaoin in the Kerry Gaeltacht, I have a great memory of spending days perched over Cuminole Strand watching then film scenes from Ryans Daughter.
Almost incidentially I managed on these occasions to pick up a love and some small facility with the language.

My significant moment with the Irish language was however to arrive later.

One of my great friends in school and college (later to be the best man at my wedding and indeed a great friend still) is one Michael Healy.
Now Michael was talented in many ways but he was (and is) a bit of an electronics genius.
In the sixties, while we were still at school the Pirate radios started to broadcast in England.
Michael, fired by this , started up what must have been the first Irish pirate radio station, Radio Juliet.
As I remember it most of the necessary parts for the studio were in a biscuit tin and they travelled around Cork , moving from location to location on the backs of Honda 50s.
This received enormous coverage from the Irish press and a certain notoriety for Michael.

In 1970 he was approached by the civil rights movement of Connemara, Gluaiseacht Cearta Sibhialta, to help set up an Irish language pirate radio station in the Gaeltacht there.
This was to start broadcasting in Easter of 1970.
Michael was delighted to do this and asked me along for support.
My actual helpfulness quotient must have been fairly low.
My Irish wasn’t too bad but my knowledge of all things electronic was abysmal.
The people of Connemara were wonderfully kind to us however, and fed and housed us royally.
The transmitting station was this time a fairly sophisticated caravan, a long way from a biscuit tin but equally mobile.

On Easter Sunday 1970 Saor Raidio Chonemara hit the air to enormous press coverage.
The reporters and cameras arrived the following morning all keen for pictures of the Irish Pirates.
As most of the broadcasters had proper jobs to go back to it was decided that the expendable (and never publicity shy) Mairtin O Duibhir would be photographed as the token pirate.

The following day the Irish Independent front page was decorated with a picture of yours truly, taken from the back and presumably totally un recognisable.

(This is actually the shot which was on the Independent much battered by being carried around by me for 36 years.)

The day after I decided to ring in home.

The entire Saor Raidio project had of course been carried on in total secrecy.
I had told my family that I was going camping with Michael in Kerry.

“Well” said my mother to me on the phone., “And are you enjoying your time in Kerry”. When I said I was, she was quick to call my bluff.
“You are up in Galway with that Pirate Radio station “ she said.
“There is no way I wouldn’t have recognised the Aran jumper you are wearing on this morning’s Independent, I knitted it for you myself”
So I was hoist with my own gansey!

Saor Raidio was a great success and is generally admitted to have forced the government’s hand in starting up Radio Na Gaeltachta.
In several histories of broadcasting in Ireland they talk of the starting of Saor Raidio by the Gaeltacht civil rights movement “helped by two engineers from Cork; Micheal O Healaithe and Mairtin O Duibhir.

Is mise Mairtin O Duibhir.

Flying trip today to see Fionn and Ruadhan (and their parents) who are spending a few days camping in Collioure (before coming up to visit next week)

At the end of every July this wonderful festival hits our village in Languedoc.
It couldn’t start closer to us as the very first event (and the one after which the festival is named) takes place in the little ruelle of steps right next to our house, Le Rue del Catet. These steps are made into a tiny stone amphitheatre for the event and people sit on cushions to enjoy the performance. We have had Flamenco singers, a pianist playing Chopin on a baby grand, an accordianist and this year a group of musicians performing sacred music of the East.
At other days and times between 22nd and 28th we will have (at various venues close to the village) :- an Arab Andalouse version of Bizet’s Carmen, W. Shakespeare’s As You Like it, an amazing men’s acrobatic/dancing troop called Face Nord (watch them on Youtube) and my personal highlight the marvellous Madeleine Peyroux- chanteuse extraordinaire- giving a concert down the road in Chateau de Mus.

Get the whole programme here :http://www.sortieouest.fr/festival/les-nuits-de-la-terrasse-et-del-catet-2012.html

In Dwyers Restaurant
Wednesday June 16th 2004

Lambs Kidneys with Mustard Sherry
(“Kidneys were on his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly,
righting her breakfast things on the humpty tray”)
or
Devilled Crab with Cucumber Salad
(“A nice salad cool as a cucumber,Tom Kernan can dress.
Pure Olive Oil…God made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled Crab.”)
or
Gorgonzola Salad with Mustard Dressing
(“Gorgonzola have you?Mustard Sir?..
a warm shock of air heat of Mustard hanched on Mr Blooms Heart”)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Green Pea Soup
(“Whats in the pot?–Shirts, Maggy said. Boody cried angrily-Crikey is there nothing for us to eat?Katey,lifting the kettlelid…A heavy fume gushed in answer…-Peasoup”)
or
Fennel and Pernod Sorbet
(“Somewhere in the East….Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet.Wander all day”)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roast Fillet of Beef with Cabbage
(“His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant….
.Wonder what he was eating…Roast Beef and Cabbage”)
or
Fillets of Sole de la Dudebat (with White Wine and Mushrooms)
(“May I tempt you to a little more filleted Sole Miss Dudebat?
Yes ,do bedad.And she did bedad”)
or
Crepes of Onions and Mushrooms
(“After all,Bloom relents,there’s a lot in that vegetarian flavour
of fine things from the earth,crisp of Onions and Mushrooms.”)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Molly’s Pear and Almond Tart
(“I’d love a big juicy pear now to melt in your mouth
like when I used to be in the longing way”)
or
Brown Bread Ice Cream with Caramel Whiskey Sauce
(“Round Rabaiotti’s halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble”
“Our Lady of Mount Carmel.Sweet name too:Caramel”)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glass of Sloe Gin
(“…and a sloegin for me…Boylan eyed,eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice,
drankoff his tiny chalice, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops”)

Necessity, in cooking terms, is inevitably the father and mother of invention. Most of my happiest inventive moments in the kitchen have been caused by me having to stretch the old mind to get over a disaster, an ingredient that I had forgotten to buy, burning an essential ingredient while preparing or, often now, discovering that the person dining at Le Presbytere cannot tolerate something I was planning to feed them on.
When our latest clients booked we had no such last minute disruptions, they had warned us well in advance that they were both vegetarian and one of them was coeliac, they also said that they were staying with us for three nights but would only eat on one of them.
Strangely enough the problem of combining those two eating preferences did give me many headaches, as I thought of solutions I realised that I usually gave coeliacs meat or fish and only had to slightly adapt my sauces to exclude flour and that most of the vegetarian options which I produced tended to include flour, or breadcrumbs or pastry- all coeliac no- nos.
There is a salad I frequently make here though that I realised could easily be adapted. This is a Salade Composee of Lettuce, toasted walnuts, bacon, blue cheese and pear. Just by dropping the bacon I was home and dry.
I small glance through my own recipes yielded up my Vegetarian Sate in which the sauce was provided by ground peanuts rather than flour.
Dessert was a doodle, my own Chocolate Terrine was free of both dead animals and wheat, Sorted.
My problems started when they asked (having enjoyed their first breakfast) if they could eat with us two nights instead of one.
Back to the drawing board Martin.
A quick look in the fridge gave me my starter; there I had excellent Charantais Melon, ripe white peaches (my favourite fruit) and tomatoes. Peeled chopped and diced, dressed with seedy mustard and honey and topped with fresh mint from the garden this was beautifully refreshing and is certainly something I will try again.
Dessert was not a problem either, for many years I have been making Claudia Roden’s marvellous Orange and Almond cake which kills neither animal nor wheat in its manufacture.
Main course was making me sweat a little however.
I was contemplating a vegetarian version of Moussaka which I have done before which has a cheese soufflé top when I remembered that, of course, I would need to use flour in the soufflé.
This was the moment when the light went on.
When making dessert soufflé’s it isn’t always necessary to add flour, one makes a custard with the yolks and folds this into the beaten whites.
If this works for sweet custard why not for savoury ones too?
So I made my very first parmesan custard which made a most delicious soufflé topping, creamy and light it didn’t rise as spectacularly as the flour based one but was I thought an even better foil for the tomato base.
Here is the final version of this odd Moussaka hybrid which I have called (in honour of the ladies) Thompsons Moussaka.

Thompson’s Moussaka

I Medium Onion
1 Red pepper
6 Sticks Celery
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes

1Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar

1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Aubergines
300ml milk
4 Large Eggs
100 g Freshly Grated Parmesan

Good Pinch Nutmeg

Salt and Pepper and Olive Oil

Peel and chop the onion, chop the celery and the pepper and cook these slowly in a covered pan until they are soft (about 30 mts) Then add the tomato, the vinegar and the sugar, season with salt and pepper and cook for another 10 minutes but watch carefully in case it sticks.
Slice the Aubergine and fry these slices on both sides until brown.
Put half the tomato mixture in an oven proof dish; put a layer of Aubergine on top, another layer of tomato and top with the remaining Aubergine.
(This can be done in advance to this stage.)
Separate the eggs, put the whites into a large bowl and the yolks into another bowl.
Beat the yolks and season with salt and pepper. Bring the milk to the boil in a small pan, once boiling pour over the yolks, transfer back to the pan and put back on the heat, let it come back to just under the boil, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon until it thickens (it will coat the back of the spoon)
While still hot stir in the parmesan.

To Serve.
Heat the oven to 200C, put the tomato mixture in this until it starts to simmer. Beat the egg whites until stiff, fold these into the yolks and spoon on top of the tomato mixture and put back in the oven for about 20 minutes until browned and risen. Serve immediately