At last after five weeks of rain, rain and more rain the Tramontane has reasserted itself and whupped the Marin back to St Tropez (which is welcome to it) and provided us with the weather we have become accustomed to.
Over the rooftops from the terrace this morning are blue skies stretching all the way to the snow clad Pyrenees, the only bit of mist is the early morning band which follows the passage of the river Orb.

God is in her heavens , all is right with the world.

This is a case of necessity being the mother of invention .

I had a problem , especially a winter one , in that I wanted to put something with a bit of a wow factor on the breakfast table , particularly in those months when the summer apricots and peaches had departed.

I had made classic French Brioche from time to time but it is impossibly calorific, pumped full of butter and eggs and, even though delicious , difficult to get consistently right .
There is a much lighter brioche in Provence called Pompe á l’Huile which is extremely good but not really breakfast food .

Sile suggested that my mothers Fruity Bread , basically a scone mix with currants added would be a good idea but somehow this seemed a bit too Irish- and anyway (I know this is heresy in an Irishman ) I much prefer breads risen with yeast than those using bicarbonate of soda (or its first cousin baking powder).

So I decided to try a variation of my Mother’s Fruity loaf but base it on a yeast dough – and further more I decided to use far more fruit than she did.

There was a tradition in Ireland that fruit bread and scones had very little fruit indeed, this I remember particularly on any of my (very rare) visits to a convent where the nuns would triumphantly produce their version of the height of decadence ; the Fruit Loaf, which was so careful with the fruit that we used to call it Bicycle Cake on the basis that if you were lucky enough to find one raisin you would then need a bike to find the next one.

But I digress.

With the intention of making this bread as easy to make as possible I decided to make a sort of Fruit Fougasse , the Provençal Fougasse is an Olive Oil flatbread with (often) Olives and Anchovies in the dough which is yeast leavened but not kneaded and so extremely easy to make.
This was not a success , the quantity of fruit I added was too heavy for the yeast to work properly and the resulting flat bread was I think more closely related to Nougat than bread , not the stuff from which memorable breakfasts are made.

Attempt the second was far more successful , I used much the same ingredients as I had for the Fougasse but this time kept the fruit to one side, let the bread have an initial rising fruitless, then I kneaded in the fruit, gave it a second chance to rise and hit, I think, Ambrosia.

This is a hell of a bread, sweet, light, and interesting. The oil keeps it very moist without being at all fatty and the dough (for those of you old enough) is a fairly good imitation of the stuff in Bewley’s Cherry Buns- Great Stuff.

Here is the final recipe.

Pain Fruité

50g Fresh Yeast (or two sachets of dried yeast)
4 teaspoons sugar
250ml Warm Water
4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Eggs
1 Teaspoon Salt
Grated Zest of 1 Orange
675g Strong Flour
50g Prunes (stoned and quartered)
50g Dates (stoned and quartered)
50g Dried Apricots (stoned and quartered)
50g Sultanas

Dissolve the yeast into some measured water and add in the sugar.
Put this somewhere warm and when completely liquid, top up to the desired amount of water with more warm water.
Add in the Olive oil , and beat in the eggs.

Grate the orange zest into the flour and add in the salt.
Now add in the yeast mixture and then blend well together with your hand.
Tip it out on a floured top and knead for five minutes.

Wash out the mixing bowl and then put the kneaded dough in this, painted well with Olive oil to stop it forming a skin and cover the bowl with cling film.
Leave this in a warm place until it has doubled in size.
Add in add the chopped fruit and knead these into the dough.
Divide this dough between two well oiled 1 Kg loaf tins, cover with a tea towel and again leave to rise for another hour or so.
Set the oven to 190 C , 375 F, Gas 5 and cook at this temperature for about 40 mts.
Slip the loaf out of the tin and cook for another 10 mts at the same temperature.

Have this for breakfast (or dinner or tea ) with or without butter.
It will freeze beautifully and toast well (but watch the pieces of fruit which can char in the toaster.)

I have a pepper grinder of which I am particularly fond. I bought it about ten years ago and it works well , providing me with a good coarse grinding of black pepper on demand.
It is also of a reasonable size, so that it does not have to be filled too often , being about 12 inches tall, but yet not of embarrassing Italian Restaurant proportions – which as well as being unwieldly, and shamefully phallic , do seem to have a facility to poke unwary users in the eye.

All pepper grinders however do have a weak point , and it is here at the base.
The plate which holds in the grinder comes under heavy pressure and is usually the point that gives first- resulting in a vomiting forth of peppercorns at an inopportune moment.

And so it came to pass with my pepper grinder.

As I prepared to jettison the whole thing I noticed that on the broken plastic disk there was a name printed; T&G Woodware Ltd .
After a little light Googling I discovered that these were the manufacturers of the whole mill and they had a factory in England and their web page provided me with a phone number.

I stated my case to the charming girl who answered the phone.
“That will be no trouble at all ” she said ” I’ll just slip a replacement in an envelope for you and you should have it in a few days , there will be no charge”

This is exactly what she did, and this morning the letter arrived.
A couple of flicks of a screwdriver and my grinder is as good as new.
Thank you T&G Woodware , I am impressed.

As I write this I can hear the rain beating down on the streets and on our terrace , the deep gutter outside our front door is as big as many a river.

This is not the sort of weather we expected or have gotten used to out here and I am seriously concerned about my capacity to withstand its Grotesque persistence.

With the exception of two or maybe three sunny dry days this pattern has been set for the last month .
There are, the weather people tell us reasons for this Unbelievable weather , the Marin , the soft west wind which comes to us from the Mediterranean has become set and trapped by the Massive Central.
Normally when this Bizarre pattern sets in, the Tramontane, from the Pyrenees , our more prevailing wind , gives this a short sharp thunderstorm and sends it packing back to Corsica.
For some unknown reason this has not happened this year.
This – the locals tell us- is Unprecedented.

We are just back from a weekend in Nimes , a marvellous Roman city, (I will post some pictures when I dry out ) and while there I mentioned to one shopkeeper that we were having wretched weather , ( Nimes is also in the Languedoc and suffering from the same weather as we are ) I was filled with nostalgia when she gave me the classic Irish shopkeepers answer , the French equivalent of “Ah but sure at least there is no cold in it “.
True but no excuse.

Today for the first time our long-range forecast is giving a break to the stranglehold of the Marin , the Tramontane is gathering its forces together and is going to send it packing in the next two days.
After the victory we are promised bright sunny weather.
If anyone complains about the cold to me they will get the classic Irish answer ;
” Ah sure at least ’tis dry ”

It must have been about 20 years ago , we were in West Cork , Síle, Daughter Deirdre and I.
I can no longer remember what we were doing there but we must have had some time on our hands , and the day must have been still young when we passed through Glengarriff because I got the notion of buying some picnic food in Mannings Emporium there and eating this for lunch on top of the mountain between there and Kenmare -where we were bound.

I can no longer the name of this pass but somewhere on the top, with a spectacular view both inland and to the sea we got out our Mannings goodies and tucked in.

It was after this delicious lunch ( I remember some particularly runny Mileens) when I went for a little stroll about our picnic spot.

It was then that I started having the strangest sensation.
As I walked about I noticed some people walking just behind me out of the corner of my eye.
I would turn my head to look at them and there would be no-one there.
After a while I got cute , I delayed turning my head as long as possible to get as much information about there people as possible but soon realised they were as cute as I was and other than discovering that they seemed to be all dressed in white , were rather smaller that normal and seemed to be in a chain as if holding hands I was still none the wiser.
The other significant factor was that they were not at all scarey these misty people , maybe this was just because it was broad day and a sunny one at that.

When I got back to Síle and Deirdre I told them about my wierd sensation- they just scoffed it off as one of my ramblings, and really so did I.

Just as we were packing up to go on there was a rattle and roar and a car, obviously in trouble pulled up next to us.
Out of this car, stepped a bit of an apparition.
This was a perfectly respectable middle aged (or maybe a little younger) lady , attractive in a comfortable way , but entirely inappropriatly dressed in something flowing and made of chiffon.
“Are you going to Glengarriff ? I was going to a wedding in Kilarney and my car is destroyed I have to get back to Jimmy Sullivan’s garage and get him up here to fix it ”
We explained we were heading in the opposite direction so couldn’t help.
“Ah Well, No Matter , any one passing will bring me down- I’d call me husband but he’s sick in bed ”

She then went on while she waited for a lift , to give us much too much information.
How she was her husband’s third wife (he had been widowed twice) how the “boys” his sons , didn’t like her- a sort of “Desire Under the Elms ” West Cork style.
Then suddenly she turned and said ” Why did you stop up here, this place gives me the creeps , don’t you know its a hungry road ?”

It took very little pressing for her to tell us the story.

At the time of the potato famine the work house in Glengarriff was full of destitute farmers and their families.
The day came when the work house itself ran out of food so the manager sent the hungry off up the mountains to look for asylum in the workhouses in Kenmare and Killarney.
” It was a terrible thing to do, sure they were weak and starving, many of them died , especially the old folk and the young childer”
They say the dead haunt this road dressed in their shrouds”

Then a car came up the mountain heading towards Glengarriff and Mrs. Chiffon , hailed it successfully and with a cheery wave headed home.

We finished packing up the car fairly quickly and sought refuge ourselves in Kenmare.

A couple of weeks ago we had a retired teacher staying with us who asked me the question which most people who meet me tend to ask : What ever started you in the cooking Martin ?
She had spent the latter part of her career teaching teachers so when I explained that it was because I had failed gloriously as a teacher I think she was quite shocked.
I was too abashed to tell someone who had spent their life teaching that this failure was certainly the best thing which ever happened to me.

The very second blog I wrote , way back in April 2005 , nearly seven years ago was my description of that moment – I called the piece An Epiphany.

James Joyce refers to an Epiphany as a “sudden spiritual manifestation”
I relate the moment when I decided to cook instead of teach as one such.

My epiphany happened on the number 17 bus as it went from Blackrock to Rathfarnham.
I had decided that with a bog standard degree in English and History teaching was the only suitable career choice.
I had just finished a years post graduate course in teaching for primary schools. I was a very poor teacher and had loathed nearly all of it but had convinced myself that now at 21 was the time I just had to adopt that life of “quiet desperation” which I saw as my lot if I became a teacher.

At the moment of salvation I had no idea that I was being saved mind you.
I had been summoned to the office of the principal of Sion Hill Teacher Training College in the middle of the summer shortly before the results of the exams were due.
In my innocence I don’t remember having any premonition of the news I was going to receive. The moment of salvation was delivered by the principal, a kindly and intelligent nun , breaking the news to me that I had failed the exams, failed so gloriously that she wouldn’t recommend me to repeat. In retrospect I realise that this was an extremely humane decision to keep unfortunate children from yet another unhappy teacher.
Initially I was devastated. I had a job as a teacher all lined up. I had met the girl I intended to marry. I was thinking of houses to live and long summer holidays. I was assuming that the acute feelings of misery, which my inadequacies as a teacher filled me with, would get better with time.
I was feeling fairly shell shocked as I got on the bus.
I sat upstairs and I could see the two towers of the generators in Poolbeg when suddenly,
from nowhere,
I was filled with a wonderful glow of happiness.

This was my epiphany
The decision had been taken from me.
I no longer had to teach.
I could do what ever I liked .
No more the terror of facing 45 savage (to me!) 10 year old boys, all well conversant with my various Achilles heels.
No more the guilt of feeling that, far from educating the children , I wasn’t even keeping them in control.

I decided there and then that whatever career I choose was going to be one I enjoyed.
The question was what did I enjoy doing?
I was living with my , recently widowed , sister D at that time and I seemed to have become the house cook and discovered that not only did I enjoy it but I also seemed to have a natural aptitude (possibly allied to my natural aptitude for eating.)

Obvious answer, I decided to give cooking a career try.

Within a week I had got a job as a general dogs body in Snaffles, one of the best restaurants in Dublin at that time. (The perception of cheffing as a sexy trendy career choice was about 20 years away.)

Within two weeks I was cooking lunch there on my own and, almost 35 years later (In 2011 read 42 years ), that is what I have been doing ever since.

The funny thing is that I can never look at those stripey towers in Poolbeg since without getting a little lift.

About two years ago we bought our sofa and chairs in Ikea , the same style (I think they were called Karlstad) the sofa with a cloth cover, the armchairs in black leather.
About two months ago one of the armchairs got distinctly wobbley and gave every indication that it was suffering from internal injuries.
Now this armchair had not come cheap , around €300 at the time, so we decided yesterday to take the bull by the horns and cart it off to the furniture returns in Ikea in Montpellier (we still fortunately had the receipt and discovered from the cataogue that it came with a 5 year guarantee.)

Well there was no bother , we were offered either the same chair delivered to Thezan (it was out of stock in Montpellier) or a credit note for the current value.
We went looking inside to see what we could get in black leather.

Now Ikea’s most successful line is the Poäng Chair , cheap as pommes frites (you can buy the basic model for about €50 ) they are everywhere in France.
Nearly every rented house we took over the years had several.
They are very sturdy (there is a permanent display of one being hammered by a power pummeler instore) and very very comfortable. They have a slight bounce , like rocking chair and are just about the only armchair I know which I can sleep in.

We found that they made one in genuine black leather for just within our credit note and, aware that they were certainly not exactly antiques , decided (having sat in it) to risk it.
So there you are, the Poäng sits , slightly incongrously, in the middle of the picture above , I kinda hope we get away with it , I’m looking forward to snoozing in it by the stove during our short winter.

The storm which has trapped us indoors for the last three weeks is finally abating and so yesterday we went to see the damage (and get some fresh air) on the beach at Les Cabanes de Fleury

A fair bit of flotsam and jetsam had been thrown up on the beach with the wind and the waves- a lot of it coming tfrom he river Aude which drains here and more from across the Mediterranean thrown up by the onshore wind.

A huge log had landed which had obviously spent some time at sea . time enough to be a home for thousands of mussels.

This float had obviously lost its moorings and also had been colonised by a question mark of tiny mussels.

A small fishing boat from somewhere up the river Aude had also gone to sea.

This I decided was some exotic red wood from the coast of Africa.

And this strange shrimp like shape was actually Bamboo Root.

Lord knows where this orange had escaped from , but it seemed to have survived its journey.

There were casualties too of the storm.

This I decided, as it is labeled Marakech , certainly came from Africa (Síle thought it was a bath oil freely available in supermarkets here.)

This sign with its faded lettering (the word Argentinas is just legible ) certainly came across from Spain.

Someone had piled the bigger logs up into piles – possibly for burning.

In other places the logs (and other jetsam) had been made into hides, like old stone circles , I have no idea of their purpose but there were several of these all solidly made.

In the middle of all the debris rested this perfect pink and white shell, a sign I hope that this storm is finally running out.

In this weeks New Yorker (well last weeks actually, it takes a while to get here) John Lee Anderson has a fascinating retrospective on Qaddifi.

Some wonderful titbits of information emerge.

An American travelling into Tripoli one day in the eighties found the roads lined with dead camels.
It appeared that Qaddafi got a notion that the use of camels were making the city look like a backward place so he sent the army out and had all camels shot in sight .
In 2008 the London School od Economics awarded his son, Seif , a doctorate , shortly afterwards he gave them a “gift” of 2.2 million dollars (they are now saying that the doctorate was probably ghost written.)

Best one (and surely should be a headline this week) in 2004 Berlusconi , on behalf of the Italian government gave this oil rich millionaire five billion dollars (you write the noughts) for “the harm his country had inflicted upon Libya ” and followed that, at a meeting of the Arab League in Surt , he (Berlusconi ) kissed Qaddafi’s hands in homage.

Now there would have been handy money to have held onto to pull you through last weeks shenanagins S. Berlusconi.

It seems that , unlike other dictators with their hoards of shoes or pornography Qaddafi’s stash , on which he spent his money, was gold plated Kalashnikovs.

To each his own.

I have for a long time been a fan of the politeness of the French nation.
Go into a crowded shop or restaurant and you always greet everyone and everyone murmers back a greeting , meet someone you know on the street and you shake their hand , or , even, kiss .
You always greet someone with a greeting appropiate to the time of day , Bon Appetit , Bon Weekend , Bon Continuation, Bon Courage – you name it thay have a greeting for it.
It is only recently that I am begining to realise that this politesse can have its drawbacks.
There is a polite rule in France that when you are dealing with one person (in a shop let us say) you do not acknowledge any other person.
Thus in the supermarket if one is next in line to the check out and one should inadvertently catch the eye of the cashier ones eyes glaze over and you do not smile , even though you know that the very second the previous customer has departed you will be greeted with a welcoming “Bon Jour”.

Now in the supermarket situation this is usually livable with , but let us take another example.

Yesterday we went down to the Mairie to pay for an advertisment we put in the village organ , Le Bassin. (a transaction which would take about 1 and a half minutes max)
The lady ahead of us was taxing a mobilette for one of her children and had several long forms to fill out.There was only one lady assistant behind the counter.
Madame the mother was not the quickest and so she spent possibly fifteen minutes with her tongue firmly gripped between her teeth filling out this form while Madame behind the counter looked on politely and we fumed silently in the queue.
It would have been a total breach of politness were the assistant to excuse herself from Madame and deal with us (as we would have done in Ireland) and so let us say if you see 10 people in front of you in a queue in the Mairie , or in the Post Office, or elsewhere you can anticipate that you will probably be waiting at least a half hour before you are served , with the Irish stystem the shop wiuld be empty in ten minutes.

Now moving to a new country one always has to accept their way of doing things but here we have a situation which is rapidly driving our blood pressure through the roof.
Buying a stamp can take three days as one first checks and counts the queue in the post office before finding a window when the whole transaction might take only ten to fifteen minutes. I now consciously try to do my shopping in (one of the few) supermarkets which is open during lunchtime when the French don’t ever shop and one is spared discovering that the lady in front of you in the queue is a sister to the cashier and they havn’t met (plainly) in ten years so they have a lot of catching up to do.

I once was in a supermarket in (French) Corsica where the ladies before me (an elderly lady and her ancient mother) had a trolley full of different brands of incontinence nappies. The merits of all brands were eagerly discussed by all parties (and the rejected ones put back on the shelf by the younger) until a decision was made and a mere 25 minutes later I was permitted to pass my groceries through the till.

I really don’t suppose I will ever manage to change this so I must learn to relax in queues , breathe deeply , write novels in my head and – above all- keep taking my blood- pressure tablets.