PUB PORTRAITS

DERMY, KEVIN, RÍONA, SEÁN, SORCHA

VIEW FROM MY HOTEL (RAIN AND WIND HOWLING)

SODA BREAD

2 cups coarse wholemeal flour
2 cups cream flour
1 teaspoon bread soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 – 2 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 375ºF/200ºC
Sift the dry ingredients together through your fingers. Try to get as much air into the mixture as possible.
Add the buttermilk a little at a time until a sticky dough forms. Use a wooden spoon to mix everything together gently.
Use your hands to form a ball of dough then gently flatten the dough into a round disc.
Place the dough on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Place the cookie sheet in the middle of the oven.
Bake for about 40 minutes.
Check for a hollow sound then place the bread on a rack to cool.

SORCHA AGUS DARINA

Two people from my class (Madeleine the Swede didn't want to be in the picture).

I’ve been attending school every day. School starts at 10 in the morning. There is a break at around 11:30 then lunch from 1 to 3. In the afternoon we go until 5 in the afternoon. Usually there is some activity in the evening before everyone goes to the pub for a session. Last night there was a poetry evening with readings and discussion of prominent Irish-language poets (Áine Ní Ghlinn, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Aodh Ó Domhnaill, Máirtín Ó Direáin). On Monday night there was community singing of well-known traditional songs. Tonight, a pair of brothers from the Blue Stack Mountains played the fiddle together and told stories.
Class has been really good. There is a good group of people, about 16, from all over but mostly Irish. There are several Americans and some Irish people who live in the States, and a Swedish woman.
Every morning we start with conversation starters in small groups. Topics like “Body piercings”, “Worst gift you ever received”, “Gossip in the workplace” encourage lots of chatter and lots of laughter. Things can get serious, though. Today the older Irish woman from New York got very hot under the collar about the anti-christ pope – it seems she is a Tridentist.
After the conversation period we focus on some grammar. Today, for instance, we worked on the Tuiseal Ginideach (the genitive case). In the afternoon we usually do something lighter. Today we played 20 Questions in groups to guess what “job” people had.
Sometimes our teacher, Eithne is not at her peak. On Monday night she stayed in Biddy’s until 4 in the morning playing the fiddle with the other teachers.

MARCAS AND HIS MOM

Marcas with his mom Deirdre (no sorrows).

EVENING WALK

Marcas invited me over to his house for dinner. His parents have rented a holiday cottage above the college. They spend a week in Donegal each year with Marcas and his sister Ruthie. I went to dinner right after class.
Marcas’ mom is a typical Irish mother. She takes really good care of her darling son. She made a boiled bacon dinner (apparently the lasagna burned and couldn’t be served) with turnip mash and potatoes. She also made a wonderful apple tart. Before we could dig in we had to say grace – a tradition with his parents who are something like extreme Catholics.
Even though his parents are Catholic they are not pleased with the current pope. In the past few days he has compared ordaining woman as priests to child abuse. Needless to say, both woman and victims of clergy sex abuse are not happy with the pope right now.
After dinner we went out for a walk. Marcas wanted to find an iron-age prominatory fort that he had seen marked on the map. The evening was beautiful – a clear sky and a gentle breeze. After the heavy rain during the day it was nice to be out in the fresh air.
We did walk a good distance scrambling over hillsides, and along trails close to the edge of the cliffs. In several places there was squishy bog to be avoided and streams to jump over. We had a good walk but we never found the fort.
As the sun began to drop down into the sea we headed back so that we would be in time for the evening activity (amhránaíocht).

TRAVELS WITH MY CPAP

A rainy day in Donegal.

It has been an interesting experience having the CPAP machine to sleep with. I am finding my way around airport security now. In San Francisco there was no problem. It seemed like they knew what it was and had seen many come through. In Chicago, the security people acted as though they had never seen such a thing. I was sent to secondary screening so that they could open everything and check it out. They even swabbed it for explosives residue. Ryanair in Dublin were very ho-hum about it but Ryanair in Tours asked me if I had documentation proving what it was. They were very perplexed by it. And since Ryanair only allow one piece of hand baggage, excluding medical equipment, I was interrogated by more than one passenger about how I managed to get two pieces of hand bagage on board.

PALESTINE

Does it look like there is a street here?
(An tSráid = the Street).

I made Sunday dinner for some of the people staying up at the campus house. Even though I’m not actually staying there the people who are there are a little more interesting than the people staying at Roarty’s where everyone is making do for themselves.
I spent the day baking and cooking. I made a nectarine crumble (God-be-with-the-days when turnips were the most exotic fruit you could get in the little shop in the village) and some soda bread. In the afternoon I made a very French chicken dinner, but without the lentils (still not readily available despite the nectarines).
Mary came down to pick me up. She had already made boiled potatoes and steamed vegetables to go with the chicken. Yvonne from London joined us and Sandy from Milwaukee was also there.
Right after dinner while we were eating the crumble and whipped cream we began to talk politics. Somehow, Sandy said exactly the same thing that Leslie had said about the Palestinians. She said that they had sold their land to the Jewish settlers. This is exactly how Leslie started her Zionist diatribe. But Ireland is not France. Everybody jumped on Sandy. What was amazing though was that she followed the same script that Leslie had expounded: the Palestinians freely sold their land; the Arab leaders convinced the Palestinians to get out of the way of the fighting in 1948 and 1967 (no, they are not refugees since they left freely); there is already a Palestinian homeland in Jordan where the Palestinians are a majority of the population; the Palestinians have used the Gaza strip as their launching pad for rockets that have sown terror among the Israelis (just like Leslie she had never heard of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza); Hamas prevents economic development of Gaza so that they can better control the population; and Israel is not a right-wing terror state but simply being led by bad extremists who are trying to pervert a very good democracy (the only democracy in the area, mar ea).
Yvonne gave it back to Sandy in spades. She suggested that she read Edward Saïd, a writer Sandy and most Americans, had never heard of. It was a lively discussion but what struck me most was the sense that Jewish people are following a script when they think Israel is being attacked. I wonder how that happens – how that coordination of thought takes place. And I wonder if it is strictly an American thing or do all Jewish people respond in this way to the threat they perceive when anyone expresses sympathy for the horrors that the Palestinians have experienced?

THE “FOREIGNERS” CHURCH

The bullaun

I went to church today. I like the tradition of attending the Protestant church in the village rather than the Catholic service. For a start the Catholic mass is at 9:30 in the morning while the Church of Ireland service begins at midday. Very civilized. I walked over there in the morning, arriving just as things were getting under way. This is probably the tenth service that I have attended in this church over the years but today was the most dismal. There were barely ten people there and at least five of those were visitors or tourists. I wonder how long this tradition is going to continue.
On the way back home I checked for the bullaun. It is still there and still as enigmatic as ever.

BUS ÉIREANN

The lodging house.


I dithered about for two days trying to decide if I should rent a car. By Saturday morning there was a car available in my price range so I made for the bus. Timmy gave me a ride to the Kylemore Luas station. The Red Line now goes all the way to Busáras (and beyond to the Point). I arrived with about 15 minutes to spare. Just as I was getting down from the tram the heavens opened and it poured down rain. I scurried into Busáras and got in line to buy the ticket.
The bus was late leaving Dublin. There was a good crowd and we picked up more people at the airport. I was sitting beside an old lady who had recently gotten a mobile phone. I had to check her voicemail for her and show her how to access her address book.
The bus journey is long – close to five hours just to get to Donegal Town. (A person leaving Dublin Airport at the same time would arrive in New York long before the bus would arrive in Donegal!) In Donegal I had to wait until 6:15 for the bus to Killybegs and there was another change to a smaller bus for the Gleann. I met Seán from Milwaukee at the bus stop. He wanted to go for a drink. I sat and had a Ballygowan water with him then left my stuff in his care so I could go to the supermarket.
At the SuperValu on the outskirts of town I met Mary from Dublin. She had a car and offered to take my heavy grocery bag with her to the Gleann. She didn’t have room for me but I was glad I didn’t have to lug the groceries with me on the bus.
Seán was still in the bar when I got back. More Ballygowan water for me, more Carlsberg for him. Seán is in charge of a party of students from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He brings a group from the Celtic Studies Department every year for a couple of weeks. They are usually a wild bunch with parties every night. I think that’s why Seán drinks so much – so he won’t be fully “responsible” for them.
I am staying at Roarty’s, a pub with rooms above. There is a well equiped kitchen so I will probably be catering for all the singles who never got beyond baked beans in Home Ec. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEG

THE HORSE I RODE IN ON

LA NOTAIRE

M. Racinet came by to pick us up to go to the notaire to finalize the sale of his garage. We had agreed to use his notaire because her office already had the dossier from when he bought his house and the garage. Jenny Willis came with us to help with translation.
When we got to the notaire’s office in Saumur she was still with another client. We had to wait in the waiting room. We exchanged pleasantries then got down to business. We had already agreed on the price but there were some details that concerned us. The garage does not have the traditional ardoise slate roof but rather a composite cement tile roof with embedded asbestos fibers. We were worried that removing this roof could be costly because of the environmental regulations. We were hoping that he would agree to pay half the additional cost of removal of the asbestos but he only agreed to get estimates and negotiate again in the future. The second issue involved a complaint by another neighbor whose property adjoins the garage. This neighbor claimed that there was moisture demage in his house because of the maintenance of the roof. As we were getting into a more heated discussion of that issue we were called into the lawyer’s office for our meeting.
The notaire, Mde. Chalopin-Barré was very precise. She went through each point of the sales contract and our “état civil”. Everything was in order. She reiterated that we were buying the garage “dans état” or as-is. We tried to bring up the complaint of the other neighbor but M. Racinet was having none of it. Things got a little heated again. Finally, we agreed that he would have the garage inspected to ascertain the probable cost of repairs that would mollify the other neighbor. Everyone took a deep breath and pulled back from the brink. We shook hands and wrote the deposit check.

EVE OF THE REVOLUTION

We invited everyone to dinner at our house. TH and AMG had just arrived back in Montsoreau from Nantes. They had set up their trip so that they would be in the village on the eve of Bastille Day when we have a children’s parade throught the town and fireworks on the Loire. Stana and Danny, the Czech Republicans were invited too along with their host Phil.
The Czechs like white wine so we brought out a 2003 Meursault from the cave and Tim contributed a 2008 Filatreau to the discussion. We also had a rosé of Chinon and Bourgueil that Phil brought.
We worked our way leisurely through the rabbit paté and duck mousse. While everyone was enjoying the salad I made Mexican rice and grilled the pork chops. There was also a dish of leftover lentils that Rich put in the oven to warm.
We were just about finished the main course when we heard the sounds of the marching band coming up our street. We went outside to join in. In front of the mairie the mayor was passing out Chinese lanterns to the children through the council chamber window.
The parade marched down the street towards Càndes then turned left onto the road along the Loire. We waved to neighbors we hadn’t seen since this time last year. By the time the parade reached the Place de Mail it was beginning to get dark. We found a nice spot to sit looking out over the Loire. At about 11pm the lights of the town went out and the fireworks show started.

MODERN TROGLODYTE

Phil from Santa Monica invited us over for lunch. He wanted to show us his “house” – a troglodyte cave that he is slowly making into a home. So far he has created a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen. He has electricity but no hookup to the city sewer system. He has a solar shower on the front lawn. He lives in Montsoreau for about 7 – 8 months of the year.
We had a wonderful lunch. Two of Phil’s friends, a Czech couple who are staying with him prepared a great lunch from foods they had bought at the Tuesday market in Bourgueil.

FUTURE MONUMENT TO THE (FUTURE) ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

Across the bridge from the Île de Nantes a new memorial is being built. Along an esplanade on the bank of the river the Mémorial à l’Abolition de l’Esclavage is taking shape. Nantes was one of the points of the triangular trade as the French euphamistically refer to their shameful history of trafficking in human beings. Over the years the city sent thousands of boats carrying Africans to the Carribean and brought back the riches of the Americas. Nantes’ prosperity is built on the value in misery of those cargoes. It’s way past the time when French people should acknowledge that with a memorial.

EDICT OF NANTES

CAFE SOCIETY

THE VIEW FROM OUR HOTEL

We are staying at the Astoria Hotel in Nantes. It is right across from the train station. It appears to be in the middle of the red light district though things have been cleaned up since the last time we were here in 2008.

MACHINES DE L'ÎLE

After the Jules Verne childhood home museum we took the tramway back to the Chantiers Navals stop. We walked across the bridge into the Île de Nantes. This island in the middle of the Loire is also in the middle of the city. For years it was the main port for Nantes with shipbuilding and warehouses. All that port activity has moved down the river to Saint Nazaire leaving a huge new space for urban renewal.
It was lunchtime – we were very hot and very hungry. Our first order of business was to find a restaurant. We saw a number of places clustered along the main street including one called The Docks. We sat ourselves down and purused the menu board.
We didn’t have far to go to find the Machines gallery and workshops. The machines are fantasmagorical mechanical animals that are inspired by the writings of Jules Verne. They are paraded through the streets during the biennial Estuary Festival. Between times they are housed and displayed in a giant hanger with displays about their inspiration and construction. Each of the machines functions including the giant elephant that goes for a walk every afternoon with about 50 tourists on board.
There was a group of schoolchildren visiting the site. The guide gave some of the children an opportunity to ride on the various machines. Rich was plucked out of the audience to work the levers of a fairy princess carriage in the form of a seasnail. I got wet on the storm tossed boat machine. It was an amazing experience.
We finished our visit in the branches of a giant mechanical tree that is being built for the next festival in 2011.

CANARD A LA FIGUE

1 magret de canard (boneless duck breast with skin)
10 dried figs sliced in half
1 cup fig liquor (Apéritif à la Figue)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Soak the figs in the liquor for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 300°F.
Pat the duck dry and salt and pepper to taste.
Heat the oil in a frying pan.
When the oil is really hot saute the duck skin side down for 3 – 4 minutes until the skin is golden brown and crisp.
Turn the duck over and fry for 3 – 4 minutes on the other side. The duck should be golden brown all over but pink in the center.
Remove the duck from the pan and slice into six thin slices. Place the duck on an ovenproof platter.
Sauté the figs adding any left over liquor to the pan.
Arrange the fig sauce over the duck on the platter.
Serve immediately.

M. RACINET'S GARAGE

For some time now we have been in negociations to buy the neighbor’s garage. When we first moved in we told them that if they ever wanted to sell it we would like to buy it. Now the Racinet’s have moved to Fontevraud and do indeed want to sell their garage. The garage is not attached to either our house or theirs. It is a separate building two doors down from us that used to be the town blacksmith shop. The garage is a large one-storey building with plenty of room for our car. There is also loft accessed by a metal spiral staircase. M. Racinet showed us plans that have been approved to raise the walls by 2 meters and build a mezzanine apartment with a small kitchen and bathroom.
However, we have serious competition for the space. The Parisians who live across the street have no garage either. They are very interested in buying it too. They were previously living in Paris but now they are living in Montsoreau full-time. They have two cars and an extended family that comes to visit them often.
We all met together yesterday. M. Racinet revealed his bottom line – he will not entertain offers of less than 30,000 euros. We would be willing to pay that but it is close to the top of our range and a bidding war would leave us with not much money for renovations. All will be decided in the next few days.

DUCK DINNER

The car needed service (CLUE: loud noises from the brake area). We had arranged to take it in to be looked at. Rich dropped it off in the afternoon but had to wait while they worked on it. The Twingo Twins parked their Twingo and walked to Càndes for lunch. I was all alone in the house on the hottest day of the year so far.
Jenny came by to let me know that she had figured out how to get her WIFI up and running so that I could “brancher” or connect. It had all been installed the day before but the access code she received from Orange didn’t work for me. She called Orange who told her that the correct code was printed on the bottom of the modem.
When Rich came back with the car (no sickening squeal of brakes as he parked) we joined Jenny in her Cyber Café (her kitchen) happily quaffing a glass of red wine as we checked email and updated Facebook. Even the most mundane computer task is a pleasure now that we have access to a reliable connection right in our village (Thank you Jenny and Peter).
To celebrate we invited the Twingos and Jenny to dinner. “What should we bring?” everyone asked. “Don’t worry about it, I’m going to take care of everything” says the bold Rich Reynoso. “I’ll make a magret de canard à la figue”. And that’s exactly what he did.

SUMMER HEAT

It has been hot here in the Loire Valley. Last week there was a storm that came through that cooled everything off for a couple of days. But the temperature has been steadily rising ever since. Today, the thermometer on the patio registered 94°F in the shade. I asked the boulangière if this was a canicule – a period of unusually hot weather like our “dog days”. “Mais non, pas de tous, c’est seulement l’été.”

MIREBEAU

On the road into Poitiers we passed through an interesting looking town. We decided that we would not stop but instead check it out on the way home. In the late afternoon Tim was again driving. He got us past a haytruck with inches to spare – that Twingo can go when you need it to!
We parked in the main square and walked about. Just outside the square there was a small church. As we approached the door a man came out with keys who looked to be about to lock up the church. He let us in for a few minutes. Inside was a large interior in classic Angevin style. There were several stained glass windows, including one depicting a martyr being cooked in a large cauldron (St. Florent?).
Back in the place we found a tourist map with the remains of a castle marked. We decided to walk through the town to find it. We walked through narrow windy streets, stopping several times for directions. One woman told us that there was no longer a castle there but we decided to continue anyway. Finally, we saw a direction sign for an 11th century motte or moat. We followed the sign through what appeared to be a residential area. A farmer told us that we could walk around the moat. He told us that there had been a castle here in olden times. This castle was a stronghold of the Plantagenet Dukes of Anjou. During the Wars of Religion Cardinal Richelieu had the castle torn down so that the protestants couldn’t use it as a base.
We walked around the moat, a green strip encircled by the walls and backyards of the town. We hiked up to the top where the castle had stood. There should have been good views over the town but the vegetation made it difficult. Our walk around the moat was a good reminder that the Hundrted Years War was less about the English and French and more about two branches of French royalty – the Plantagenets and the Capetians.