This classy French Imperial chanson was written by Cole Porter for his musical Silk Stockings.

Foe some unknown reason I woke up this morning singing it.
This is an exorcism attempt.

Jo-o-o-o-osephine,
Commonly called Jo,
Was a throbbin’ robin, poor but chic,
Born in ultry-sultry Martinique,
Yet she rose to reach the highest peak,
And why so?

‘Cause she had
Agitating eyes,
Titillating thighs,
Lubricating lips,
Undulating hips,
A figure simply swell,
Plus other good points as well.
Man, she was real cool and low!

Jo-o-o-o-osephine
Commonly called Jo,
Tripped away one day to Paris, France,
In her ye olde Creole fancy pants,
Where she rocked Napoleon at a dance
And why so?

‘Cause she had..(Etc.)

Why did the great Napoleon fall
For her hot gavotte?
What did the doll have on the ball
Other dolls had not?
Why did the mighty man succumb
To this curvy wench?
Why did he make this little bum
Empress of the French?

‘Cause she had …….(Etc)

Yesterday, in the high Pyrenees.

Being a large (the polite French term for fat ) man of un certain age (French for old) I now consume a certain amount of drugs every day to keep me ticking over.
I have discovered that these are available in Spain for a far cheaper price than either in Ireland or France so, every three months or so, we make a drug running trip to Spain, not a huge ordeal as it is only about an hour and a half away.
The frontier town is La Jonquera which is, like all frontier towns , fairly depressing, with its supermarkets full of French people buying trolly loads of olive oil and booze (mainly booze) so we have gone further to Figueres , Salvador Daliville , and that has a certain charm but to be honest I can only stomach a certain amount of these melting clocks.

This time I decided to build our trip around a good lunch and found a restaurant in Banyuls , within our cachement area , which had the elusive Michelin Bib Gourmand .

Drugs successfully purchased we eventually found the Quatre Estacions where we went for their tasting menu- which was €30 a head , for what turned out to be, an eight course meal.
We were served a little amuse bouche to start of a little vol au vent of fish which was delicious , we then had a good artichoke and fish soup , then some deep fried battered scallions with a romesco sauce which was crisp and piquant.
Then we had some sea-urchins served in the shell with a cheese sauce (a speciality of the house Madame told us ) which we thought a little too cheesy and not fishy enough. After this (Yes!) we had a perfectly delicious and perfectly cooked fillet of sea bream served simply with olive oil and crisp little pieces of sweet fried garlic. Then we had the main course , a cheek of veal , cooked butter tender but rather spoiled for us by an overly intense reduction sauce . We finished up with a selection plate of desserts which were fairly ordinary but which, to our shame we polished off anyway.
The bottle of wine which Madame recommended was €9.00 and local, our coffees were an extra €1.60 each , our sparkling waters compris.
We felt we had got extremely good value for money.

Some demon then got into us and rather than going home on the motorway we decided to climb up through the high passes of the Pyrenees and go back to France via Mollo (in Spain ) and Prats de Mollo ( in France).
It was a bit of a knuckle whitener of a ride which Síle took the wheel for.
We went through a lot of snow on the road side and I was very aware of the drop from the side of the road into the valley below.
At one stage an eagle flew right over the car , I think he thought we might be encroaching into his territory.
The journey of course took far longer than expected and our two hour journey out became a five hour trip home.

This is a blossom on my White Peach Tree- this is its second year in flowering.

Today I have to cull this and the 30 or 40 other blossoms on the tree as, the books tell us it is , as yet , too young to fruit.

Heart breaking.

Nature Pink in Tooth and Claw

In Myrtle Allen’s Ballymaloe cookbook she gives a recipe from her mother which she called Inexpensive Flan.
(Myrtle adds that she never discovered her Mother’s Expensive one.)

Not only is this obviously inexpensive it is also dead easy.
Myrtle’s mother’s recipe is for rolling out a circle of pastry, weighing it down and baking it blind.
Meanwhile make an apple puree, once the pastry is golden spoon the puree on the pastry and serve.

Easy as pie.

I was immediatly intrigued, but, being a chef, had to make it more complicated.

Here’s my version.

250g Puff Pastry
60 g Butter
Sugar
6/7 Apples (I used French Royal Gala- in Ireland you could use half Bramleys and half a crisper eating apple)
Some apple jelly to glaze.

Preheat the oven to 200C, 400F, Gas 6.
Roll the pastry into a large circle (as big as will fit on your largest baking tray )
Now put a tart or cake tin on top of the pastry which is about 5cm (2 ins.) smaller in diameter. Put this in the centre of the pastry so there is about an inch border all around the tin of exposed pastry.
Now put some weights (I use old dried beans) into the tart tin and bake at the set temperature for about 15 mts.
The pastry will rise up around the tin making a handy retaining wall for the apple.
Now take out the cake tin and beans and put the pastry back in the oven to brown the part covered .( about 5 mts.)

Meanwhile peel and chop half the apples (or use the bramleys) and cook these in the butter , sweetening to taste until they are soft.
Make these into a rough puree with a potato masher (the bramleys will do this themselves)

Peel quarter and core the remaining apples and slice them finely.
Spoon the puree on the pastry and then lay out the slices nicely on top.
Put these into a lower oven (180C 350F, Gas 4 ) for about 20 mts until the slices are soft.
Heat up the jelly and spoon over.
Eat within a couple of hours or the pastry base will get soggy.

Voila !

I remember a song in French which was a hit in Ireland in , I think, the late fifties.

As far as I was concerned it was just a series of La’s as in Ladi ladi Lo so I assumed it to be a nonsense song and la’d along with the rest.

I heard it lately on Nostalgie and it actually is about a girl refusing a boy something.

The words actually say

Elle a , elle a, ell a dit , elle a, elle a dit non.

Not exactly Moliere I know but not total rubbish.

What surprises me lately is that as I age more and the past becomes clearer , words of songs adhering to my brain reappear and start to make some sense.

This all started with the eagle of a few post ago.

As we looked up at it a line from a Leonard Cohen song came back from my misspent college days ;

I thought I saw an eagle ,
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.

Then it lodged and I went about the house for the last week mouthing bits of this song , so much so that I got Síle at it too.
So yesterday I finally got out the lyrics and put them on my blog, then I got a youtube version of the song and put that up on my Facebook site.

I now am somewhat exorcised (Sile still is not, she claims the song went through her dreams all night last night )

However there is a piece in the song that I think we should embroider in our samplers , previously I had just heard it as la la la .
These are powerful words;

If you call me brother now
Forgive me if I enquire
Just according to whose plan.
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must
I will help you if I can.

The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
his blue eyes they were shining,
and his voice was very cold.
He said, “I’ve had a vision
and you know I’m strong and holy,
I must do what I’ve been told.”
So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of gold.

Well, the trees they got much smaller,
the lake a lady’s mirror,
we stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over.
It broke a minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and bloody,
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain
and my father’s hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now,
forgive me if I inquire,
“Just according to whose plan?”
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
man of peace or man of war,
the peacock spreads his fan.

About 15 years ago we brought Síle’s parents on holiday with us to Provence.
The highlight of the holiday was a night in the Arena of Orange at Donizetti’s Lucia de Lammermor.

It was a terrific production and we had given Síle’s parents the tickets as a Christmas present along with a CD of the opera so we were all word perfect on the night.
A couple of years later we were back in Orange and about to see The Magic Flute when Síle rang her father to tell him what we were at.
” Ah! ” he said to her “Don’t be grigging me ”

Grigg is a lovely old Anglo- Irish word for teasing.

We got grigged by daughter Caitríona last week.

She sent us a series of pictures of our new grandson Ruadhán giving his first smiles.
This drove us to Ryanair dot com.
There we discovered that we can take a sneaky 48 hour trip back to see the smile for under €75 for the two of us , (all told) from Gerona in a fortnight.
We’re booked.

We’d walk a million miles for one of those smiles.

Tastes of Languedoc Nature and Food.

Hello from Martin and Síle Dwyer.
This year we are going to run some short relaxed courses in Le Presbytere.

Síle’s brother Colm Ronayne, nature lover extrordinaire, will be your guide to the natural beauty of this undiscovered part of the Languedoc and Martin will introduce you to its cookery and food.

Colm’s Taste of Languedoc Nature will be two series of four days of short strolls taking in the natural history, plants, birds and insects of our beautiful region.
The May walks will reflect the enormous natural diversity of this Mediterranean area where the river valleys separate the mountains from the sea, exploring the Seaside, the Garrigue, and the Waterways of the Vallee d’Orb and the Canal de Midi.
The October outings will also look at some of the autumn foods to be garnered from the hedgerows and woods of the area.

The Taste of Languedoc Nature with Colm will take place this year in May and also in October
1. Arrive Sunday May 15th depart Friday May 20th
2. Arrive Wednesday October 12th depart Monday October 17th

Martin’s Taste of Languedoc Food will consist of four days of morning demonstrations of cooking the wonderful produce ; shellfish, vegetables, fruit, lamb, duck and wines available in this part of France.

The Taste of Languedoc Food with Martin will be in June and again at the end of September.
1. Arrive June 22nd depart June 27th
2. Arrive Wednesday September 28th Depart Monday Oct 3rd

Both courses will include Bed and Breakfast and a light lunch for the four days of the course and dinner cooked by Martin for the five nights you are with us- Aperitif, Starter, Main Course, Cheese, Dessert and Coffee served with the delicious wines of the Languedoc.
.

For the Taste of Languedoc Nature we can pick you up at Carcassonne Airport on the day of arrival and bring you back there for your flight home.
You do not need a car as we will organise your transport to the various walks.

For the Taste of Languedoc Food we would advise you to arrange your own transport as you will be free to explore the mountains, the rivers and the beaches of the Mediterranean in the afternoons.
Both of these courses will cost €675 per person sharing with a single supplement of €100.

Contact us at:

Martin and Síle Dwyer,
Le Presbytère, Chambre et Table d’Hôte,
14, Rue René Lenthéric
34490 Thézan Lès Béziers ,
France

Telephone : +33 (0)467487018
Email : martin@lepresbytere.net Web : www.lepresbytere.net

Referring to this post. my friend Petra sent me this picture of a certified eagle..

Her Eagle

My Eagle

The silhouette is certainly aquiline but to be sure to be sure my friend Isabel has sent the picture to the World Expert on Eagles to get the definite answer.

“Apparently Kate and Wills have requested that an orchestra of disabled Austrian musicians perform at their wedding.
Camilla Parker Bowles was deputed by the royal family to discover if this meant that the musicians were already disabled, or needed to be rendered so especially for the event.”

Ron Liddle, Comment , Sunday Times