I had my first real interview radio yesterday; not about work, just about me and my Hungry Breton Alter-Ego. It was quite fun, exciting and intriguing to have a producer and radio presenter interested about my life! During the pre-interview of the “Late Lunch with Gerry Kelly”, the lady asked me a few questions about myself and what caught their attention was my time I had spent in Glenveagh National park, summer of 1991, working on a clearance project of the cute but deadly Rhododendrons that has plagued Ireland since it had been introduced from Asia… Rhododendrons acidify the soil and create erosion as a consequence, as pretty as it may look, it is a curse for native species… If you want to hear my interview, click on the link, it starts at 32:50…
I had settled in Donegal Town, and every morning I got a lift with Rick “The Rocket”, a fine driver and co-worker who got his name from being just that, a wee rocket. Through Glengesh Pass, the Blue Stack Mountains, Letterkenny and we were nearly there, 70 km from my temporary abode. We stopped at an old petrol station to pick up a few tires ( dead rodhos are hard to burn when it’s raining) and he would launch himself in the descent with his Ford “Elan” to make a wonderful jump over the humpback bridge below… As much as it was fun, it must have cost him a bomb in suspensions!!!
We would drive through the park, jump in a van and go deep inside the valley. Some of the Churchill’s boys who were more experienced, tackled the big branches with chainsaws while we just tried to pick out saplings, putting one flag South East, the other North West of a designated perimeter and went back and forth… For entertainment, some of the boys would dislodge heavy boulders towards the team below, with a simple warning shout:” Stone rollin’ “; we had to run sideways, while they laughed, to the deafening sound and sight of a huge stone that flew by us. I was among some crazy young men and my feeling – to this day- remains mixed. But all in all, I didn’t care; I enjoyed the view and I had to pinch myself every morning about how lucky I was, while looking at the valley below, the last day when the project manager sent me off to enjoy the mountain, where I witnessed forty Red Deer stags getting ready for the rut and Mount Errigal always in the short distance… That memory will stay with me forever.
But when I was off, I would enjoy my £140 a week which was good money at the time; paying no rent was sweet too and my little treat was to go to a little café on the Letterkenny road called “Number 10”. A young red head girl – yet not much younger than me- would serve me scones and a cup of tea. I don’t really recall eating scones until then. It was a religious call I guess, and I loved the few Saturday mornings I had off, cherishing this new taste with butter and strawberry jam. All in all, this trip back to memory lane got me in the mood to make my own, I hope you’ll enjoy it…
You’ll Need:
- 200 g of organic pasta flour
- 1 tbsp of organic caster sugar ( Leveled)
- 50 g of butter cubed
- a pinch of fleur de sel
- a pinch of saffron
- 10 cl of organic raw milk
- 1 tsp of baking powder
How To:
Mix the flour, baking soda, saffron, sugar and fleur de sel ( good sea salt). Cube the butter and rub with your hand until crumbly. Add the milk and stir with a wooden spoon before using your hands to make a perfect dough. Pre-heat the oven at 200 c. Roll the dough roughly and with a skinny ring, cut shapes of scones and repeat until it’s gone. Egg wash the top and sides…
Bake in the oven at 200 c for 15 minutes or until they are golden…
I served my scones with organic cream cheese and aronia berries from the garden… Enjoy!
Keep Well and Eat Happy
Slán Tamall
Franck
Hungry Breton 
I had no idea a real life celebrity was in the midst of my blog feed! A radio interview – how neat. I love the look of your old home. Was it always this shade of purple? What nice memories and these scones are making my stomach growl, goodness gracious.
Haha Rachel, you crack me up, thank you! I can’t remember if it was that colourful; the Pub had three different names since then… Living upstairs a pub was good fun… D
Hello Hungry breton I love scones ! I writing your recipe on my recipe book (? livre de recettes ?) tout de suite (now ?) thanks !!
That’s great, thank you! Bon Appetit! 😉 🙂
Great that you gave out your scones recipe, thank you! Do you actually use baking soda or baking powder ? In your ingredient list you wrote powder, but soda in the how-to…
You are welcome! Haha! I can’t remember… I used Royal Baking Powder, soda is good too 🙂 This is just for a small batch, like 6. You might want to multiply x2 to have a descent bit. Thank you! 😉
Loved the interview … how nice to hear your real voice instead of the one that I hear in my head when I read your words. I wasn’t too far off the mark. Loved reading your histoire too and that purply-puce pub is a gem and a half. And I love the way that the scones look …. saffron – I never thought of adding saffron to a scone but they’ll be delish I know. And I like the fact that the saffron brings things neatly full circle to the interview – saffron being a very Cornish ingredient and Cornwall being so close in culture to Brittany. I make a mean saffron cake as it goes ….
Hey, thank you Fiona! Well, well, well, you’ll have to tell me more about that cake! 🙂 Thanks again mon amie! 😉