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.

St Patrick's Day : a bit disappointed

I have to say that St Patrick's Day was not really up to my expectations.  Maybe I was expecting too much, after all the French national day has nothing amazing, except maybe the firework in the evening.

I wanted to see something typically Irish, I wanted to feel at the core of what it means to be Irish, I wanted a real change of scene. But in the end, the parade was a bit like the French one on the 14th of July on the Champs Elysées, except that the public was dressed in green. No, I'm a bit unfair, I've liked the fact that the different communities living in Cork were represented within the parade, there is no such thing in France on national day if I'm not mistaken. 

But then... it was like a R&G week night. Drunk people everywhere. Except that it was 3pm and that drunk people were dressed in green. I'm not judging anyone, it's just that I thought St Patrick's Day would have delivered me some of the essence of the Irish folklore. Well, not really. No, you won't make me say that being drunk is the essence of Irish identity!

I did it : French-Irish tea brack!

Ok, maybe it's not very aesthetically appealing...

...but as far as taste is concerned...

this was worth trying!

Let's get even ;)

Warning : The content of this article is NOT to be taken seriously. I'm writing for parody purposes ONLY. If I were so narrow-minded and racist, I would have stayed in my "wonderful" (...) country. So I hope nobody will get offended.

Brief definition

Ireland is very nice with its verdant hills and mountains, and it strives to attract tourists, who could have turned to England. It's also a very sunny country, which explains the skin colour of its inhabitants : see-through white. Warning : The red skin colour proudly sported by some of them is not due to the climate but rather to beer.

People

The inahbitants of Ireland live on clover. This unique feature is risky since excessive consumption of clover can lead to orange-ification of the hair. The Irish are very small and like the nature. They spend their days walking around gardens and fighting against weed killers. Sometimes, mean landscape gardeners turn them into stones in revenge and force them to wear stupid hats and to hold rakes, barrows or flower pots.

The unlucky guys are then subjected to the acidic attacks of the gardeners' dogs peeing on them...

The Irish are world-renowned for their ability to gulp down liters and liters of beer in record time. This is a nice alternative to suicide in such a rainy and cold country. The Irish drunkard always stays friendly and joyful, contrary to his French counterpart who is rather depressive and aggressive. It's also interesting to see how impervious to cold weather Irish women are. They can go out at 2am wearing bustier dresses in the middle of the winter, with no coat nor tights, while ordinary people are freezing under 3 jumpers.

Language

An old language called Gaelic still exists in Ireland. This language has been recognized as an incomprehensible dialect by the UNESCO since...since it exists, as well as the Breton for example. But since nobody understands it, English is preferably used in the everyday life. However, to differenciate a bit from the British, the Irish use specific expressions. Here is a glimpse of these lovely phrases, with their translation into English :

• Feckin' bastard : My dear friend
• Feck off : I hope to see you again
• Póg mo thóin : What about your family?

Source : http://desencyclopedie.wikia.com/wiki/Irlande

Let's self-flagellate!

Brief definition

France is the country of moaning, strikes, camembert and dogs poo. Its inhabitants, the French, spend their time complaining about their pathetic country in economic crisis but describe it as the most wonderful place ever if a foreigner asks them how it is.

People

Every morning, the French man goes for a ride with his bicycle and a baguette on the carrier, a striped jumper and a beret on his head. French women are all easy and pretty as everyone knows.

Paris is the only French city. You can ask the Parisians, they will confirm it. When the weather forecasts announce a nice weather in France, it means that the sun will shine in Paris, even if it's raining cats and dogs everywhere else in the country. The rest of France is villages, burgs, hamlets, crossroads, holes, that are generally speaking called the provinces. The primitive tribes from the provinces are living under the poverty line, can't read nor write and speak incomprehensible dialects called "patois". These tribes are very different from one another. There are alcoholic tribes, like the Breton and the Norman, but also idle tribes, like in Provence for example. There is also the unemployed tribe (in the North of France), the Boche in Alsace and the pro-independence tribes like people from Corsica and the Basque, who can't bear invaders - that is to say everyone who is not from the region.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Culture

France is also the country of gastronomy, and especially of cheese. It is the biggest cheese producer and consumer, with approximately 1 987 234 576 299 different sorts, either hard like stones or soft and runny, all stinky. The nuclear accident in Chernobyl was in fact caused by a technician who let his extra-strong Munster cheese sandwich fall in a reactor.

Major French inventions :

• Strike
• Revolution
• the 35h working week
• Guillotine
• Quebec

Source : http://desencyclopedie.wikia.com/wiki/France

I found this website during a sleepness night and I spent 1h laughing alone in front of my computer, thinking that I HAD TO translate it for this blog. An English version exists, but I've read it and it's less funny.

Next time, I'll look into Ireland's case ;)

Cooking out

For most young people, cooking is part of household chores. For me it's a pleasure, even if in the everyday life, when I go back home late and tired, I don't feel like making any effort. But generally speaking, I really enjoy cooking, and almost everything I eat is home-made. In fact I don't trust industrial food at all, maybe that's why I started to make by myself everything I'm able to cook. Don't worry, I'm not obsessive enough to milk my own cow and then make my own cheese, what I mean is that I never eat ready-cooked meals.

Cooking is a very relaxing activity for me, and I like the creativity it allows. Sometimes I don't feel like eating but I cook all the same, just for the pleasure of creating something good. For me, being a good cook has nothing to do with the sophistication of the dishes. It's rather about being able to turn your cravings into something good, without being dependent on an existing recipe. So according to MY conception of cooking, I'm a good cook, and everyone can be a good cook...which doesn't mean that I never mess up (far from that) or that I never use existing recipes. I pick ideas here and there and I adapt them to my tastes and to the content of my fridge.

What I enjoy cooking above all is desserts, and especially cheesecakes and muffins. Not exactly typically French, I know. But I also love making "flans pâtissiers" (custard tarts) and this is French! I bake cakes at least twice a week because that's always what I eat for breakfast.

Last year, in France, I had a tradition with my friends that I nicknamed "the muffin Tuesday". Every Tuesday, I brought them a new sort of muffins, and they acted as critics to help me improve. I really miss this ritual...

This is not my picture but it perfectly illustrates why I love custard tarts so much : childhood memories, nostalgia.

I didn't try to cook Irish specialties yet, but I'd like to. For the moment, I just customized my recipes to make them look a bit Irish : cheddar in my makis, Bailey's in my banana bread.

I've been a bit too severe with Irish gastronomy in one of my previous articles if I remember well. The problem with me is that I don't like meat. So Irish stew makes me shiver for example. Same problem for the full Irish breakfast, with sausages, bacon... God... But the same goes for lots of French specialties. Boeuf bourguignon, blanquette, langue de boeuf sauce piquante... Yuk-yuk!

HOWEVER there are at least 3 Irish specialties that I really like : tea brack, Bailey's coffees and soda bread. So I take back what I said about the inability of Irish people to make good bread. I love your soda bread. But your baguettes suck! I won't try to make my own soda bread, but I think I will try to bake tea brack, it seems quite simple according to the recipes I've read :

Ingredients

• 300 ml cold tea
• 4 tsp Irish whiskey
• 110 g sultanas
• 220 g currants or raisins
• 55 g chopped glacé cherries
• 55 g chopped mixed candied peel
• 200 g brown sugar
• 225 g self-raising flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• honey, for glazing (optional)

Method

1. Place the cold tea and whiskey in a bowl. Add in the sultanas, currants, glace cherries and mixed peel. Cover and set aside to soak overnight.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4.

3. In a mixing bowl, mix together the sugar, self-raising flour, beaten egg, nutmeg and soaked fruit, with its soaking liquid until well-mixed.

4. Transfer the mixture to a well-oiled loaf tin.

5. Bake for 1 hour, 30 minutes until risen and set.

6. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes in its tin, then turn out and cool on a wire rack. Glaze with honey if required.

7. Serve in slices with butter and store in an airtight tin.

Source : http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/514212

If I make it, I will post a picture! I have to warn you that it may be a Hello Kitty tea brack, because I received a Hello Kitty tin for Christmas and since then, I adopted a HelloKitty-shaped food diet...

My first HelloKitty cake. A speculoos rice cake.

To be continued...

Let me introduce you to Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered as the father of photojournalism. It consists in telling a story related to recent events through pictures that replicate the reality in an objective way.

I think that this quote of Cartier-Bresson tells as much as any boring and academic definition:
"The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality." 

If you want to know more about him, Wikipedia is your best friend. I'm not going to copy-paste his whole biography here because there is no point. If you want to know more about him, you don't need me!

So let's have a look at what really matters : pictures!

This is one of the pictures that enabled him to achieve international recognition. It represents Nehru annoug gandhi's death to the crowd in 1948.

Don't you fill a bit dizzy watching these 2 pictures? I do. And they really make me think of some of Kertész's pictures, for example the one of Montmartre that I published in my last article.

This one too has similarities with Kertész's work I think. Who's the master? I think it's Cartier-Bresson. 

I hope you enjoyed this pictures as much as I do!

André Kertész : autodidact genius

This time, I'd like to share some pictures by André Kertész, a Hungarian photographer that you may already know because he is quite famous (he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government), but it doesn't matter. I particularly like his street scenes pictures (especially those taken in Paris) and his distorted nudes. I'm not in a position to comment the technical aspects of these pictures because I'm far from being an expert. But there is no need to be an expert to enjoy the beauty of his work. It took me hours to select a few pictures because they are so many of them that are worth seeing... Enjoy if you can!

Eiffel Tower
I LOVE this one

Montmartre

 

Place de la Concorde

 

Place Gambetta



 Next time I'll show you pictures of a French photographer, the father of photojournalism, whose work I really like too.

Favourite places in Cork

To share gossips with the girls  around a hot beverage :

The Nutmeg restaurant (14A, French Church Street)

God, I've been having coffee there almost every week-end since I arrived in Cork, and I didn't know it was called so 2mn ago. I've always called this place the 14 A, which is in fact its street number.  I didn't really know it was a restaurant either. I've found it out while looking for pictures in Google images... Actually, I've never sat inside except for paying and going to the toilets, I always sit at the tables outside because I (used to) smoke and there is the heating.

In fact there is nothing particular about this place, I've never eaten anything there, the coffee is good but not amazing. But I like this place because I feel as if I were at home, I mean in France. I don't really know why, but this is really the place to go when I feel homesick.

Fellini's (Carey's Lane)

It's been only a couple of weeks since the first time I went there but I've been fascinated by this strange bric-a-brac since the very beginning. It's not obvious to determine whether it's a tea-room or a vintage shop at first. I think it's both. I really like the atmosphere, I felt as if I had jumped into the 19th century. Even the customers looked as if they were coming from the past. A graceful little girl eating a scone, a dandy oldman with a long coat... Or maybe it was just my imagination. I can't remember if there was some music or not when I went there, but when I think of this place, the Turkish March by Mozart automatically comes to my mind.

Anyway, this is a very good place to have a hot chocolate for people (like me) who tend to down their drink in 30 seconds, because it's served in a pitcher, so you can pour yourself 3 cups if you want! And they also serve it with marshmallows. I don't really like marshmallows in themselves, but dissolved in the hot chocolate, it's just yummy...

To stuff myself without any feeling of guilt :

The Quay Co-Op (24, Sullivans Quay)

 

 It's a vegetarian restaurant that all the Corkonians know I think, because it seems quite reknowned. This is probably a frustrating place for lots of Irish people, because I have a feeling that they REALLY like meat. But I don't, even if I'm not a vegan. I never buy meat, and I rarely eat fish, except smoked salmon and tuna. So I really like this place because I don't have to boycott 80% of the menu like in ordinary restaurants. The food is simple but very good, and even when I eat a lot here, I don't feel poisoned or obese as if I had eaten in Burger King or Hillbilly's. I admit I have a real problem with fastfoods, I NEVER eat there. The only thing I sometimes buy is Mc Donald's milk-shakes and ice-creams. For all the rest, NO WAY! But let's come back to the initial topic.
The Quay Co-Op is the right place to go when you're looking for quiet and simplicity. Discrete decoration, silent people reading newspapers while eating, bright rooms with large windows. No invasive waiters. In fact it's a sort of self-service, you go to the desk, the waitress gives you what you want and you bring your plate to the table you want. I like this freedom. Have you ever been to a restaurant alone? Me neither.  How disgraceful, isn't it :D ? I don't know  why but I think I would be able to eat alone in this restaurant. Just me and Boris (a book of course, poor Boris is dead. Yes I call him Boris, what's wrong with that?). Or maybe just me and Cosmo, depending on whether I was out the night before or not.... Oh God no! I had forgotten that I completely stopped reading this kind of "literature" here. Why? 6,50 euros if I'm not mistaken. It's less than 2 euros in France. No comment.

To relax and recharge my batteries :

The Lough

No need to comment I think.

For fun :

Fun is not a matter of place, fun can be found everywhere, it's a matter of people, it's a matter of mood. So I won't talk about any particular place, except maybe the Pigalle Bar in Barrack street, because I feel a special attachment to this place, probably because it's French. I like its atmosphere, its ginger cocktail, its people. And even its toilets. Yes, I wanted to mention it because I don't think there is any other place where I could feel like partying in the toilets.