International day of... Breton far! What's next...?!

What's a Breton far? It's a typical pastry from Brittany made with prunes. An International Day for this?! Come on, it's not that surprising, there are International Days for anything nowadays! I read on Twitter that the International Day of Breton far is today, so I feel a bit obliged to give you the recipe, because this is a good occasion for me to share something about Brittany, this region I love, this region where I live. And I'm sure that most Irish people don't know this dessert, because when you talk about Breton gastronomy, crepes are always stealing the show.  

For 8 servings :

1 cup of warm tea
1/2 liter of milk (2 cups)
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, cooled
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of salt
200g of all purpose flour (3/4 cup)
1 cup small or medium-size pitted prunes
1/4 cup of rum
Powdered sugar

Pour warm tea on the prunes and soak overnight.

The day after, position rack in center of oven and preheat to 180°C. 

Combine milk, eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, butter, vanilla, rum and salt in a bowl and stir. Then add flour progressively.

Butter cake pan and pour into prepared cake pan. Drop prunes into batter, distributing evenly.

Bake cake on baking sheet until sides are puffed and brown and knife inserted into center comes out clean, about 1h.

Cool cake completely in pan on rack.

Dust top of cake with additional powdered sugar.

This is my recipe, but of course there are other versions, you can replace rum by Armagnac, add raisins to the prunes, or you can make it with no fruits if you don't like it. Enjoy!

Of Gods and Men

I was quite reluctant about going to the cinema here in Ireland. When I pay 7 euros, I want to be sure to understand the whole movie. But Saturday, I realized that the classes were over, which means that my return to France is coming up...  And I couldn't leave Ireland without having tried at least once. So I decided to go and see Of Gods and Men. In fact it is a French film, but that's absolutely not the reason why I chose it. And I swear I didn't know it would be in French with English subtitles...

Anyway, I really liked this film. It is about French monks living in an Algerian village, in harmony with the inhabitants. When civil war and massacres start, they hesitate to leave the country. What is interesting about this film is that it shows the very human nature of the monks. They are depicted as ordinary men, with fears, doubts and even some vices. I realized I had a very stereotyped image of monks... Here is the trailer :

After seeing the movie, I read some spectators' critics and I found out that quite a lot of them had been really bored during this movie. I was not bored a single minute but I can understand that some people were. I think that there is no intermediate position about this movie, it's all or nothing. For me it's definitely ALL.

The movie is slow, for sure. But it so powerful, so "quietly powerful", as a critics from the NY Times wrote very cleverly. I really encourage you to try your luck with it, hoping that it will touch you as much as it touched me. There is a scene in particular which is absolutely amazing, I think it's the best scene of the movie : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrYLJzA1eNs . I don't know if this scene can be seen as beautiful as she is on its own, so you have to see the whole movie!



Yes, Ireland is nice!

In France, it seems that lots of people have a distorted image of Ireland.

"An Erasmus stay in Ireland?! / Yes. / In Dublin? / No. / In Glasgow? / IRELAND! / Where? / In Cork. / Where??? / CORK! / Ah. (look of dismay). But why didn't you ask for Spain?"

First, I don't speak Spanish and I hate the sound of this language (sorry...), and then, Ireland is not the bleak rainy country that most French people imagine! Here are some pictures to prove it. They were taken the last time the sun shined, in 1959 at the beginning of the month.

 Cobh :

Blarney :

I would have liked to post the pictures I took in the Ring of Kerry but it would discredit this article because it was so hazy and cloudy this day that we can't see anything on the pictures... I hope I'll have the opportunity to go there again on a nice day before I leave, because I know how beautiful it is with some sun.