“And that is how it ended; I went back to my desk, Shooting Morse codes at Jupiter Knowing fine well,
That the taciturn
Never rings
Back…”
Franck…
I am not going to lie, I find Christmas day very long, filled with deep personal loneliness, trying to keep everything bottled in, and whatever is in a bottle out. I keep busy, I cook all day, even if my body is still wrecked from very cold long busy days at work. I made a simple organic roast chicken, and for dessert, some chocolate mousse…
I think I have made a new friend ( my young colleague “Chelsea” calls it “Bromance”…). I am not joking; we all need pals in this crazy world. I try very hard not to mix work and leisure on this blog, but unfortunately it is such an intricate and indivisible part of me, I even wonder who I am anymore. That is why I run away sometimes, away from the acting, away from my daily mask where I keep my true character alive. There is a common denominator though, a link between the two personas that very few understand. I have been preaching for a long time about the importance of good music in retail, it is a tricky exercise, using feelings, understanding what you do to create the perfect atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong; what I play in the shop is very different to what I listen to in my car; even if what I listen in my car will motivate me to the day ahead.; I know, it’s complicated. The reactions are incredible, but the best are when customers don’t say a word and everything falls in some form of [sorry for the pun] harmony.
Franck aka Hungry Breton and Sally Barnes from Woodcock Smokery
I met Sally for the first time 16 years ago; somewhere in 2000. It was quite a day really, the launch of the “Slow Food” movement in Ireland. Three Italians had just landed in Dublin to promote the franchise and a press conference was being held in a newly opened and brave wine bar, just off Stephen’s Green. “Ely”, on Ely’s place and still running and going strong. A fresh idea always passes the test of time in my book, as long as you stay faithful to your idea. My cheese bosses sent me over to make a display of the best Irish produces the island had to offer. Giana Ferguson from Gubbeen cheese and Sally Barnes from Woodcock Smokery were there to help and represent their products. The food critics were gathering downstairs, sharpening pens and licking fingers for an adequate and professional flick on the yet blank notebook leaves. I liked Sally straight away, cracking jokes with her other West Cork friend, their candour unintimidated by the approaching journalists, ready to feast on a still under confident Ireland. One of Sally’s friends from South Korea spent a great deal of time making beautiful smoked mackerel sushi, just to be nice, just to be different and also to show how cool and open Ireland had become. A sweet over middle aged lady ( or at least that’s what I thought), with a sober Mac and a black leather handbag hung inside her elbow, approached the table and ate one of the Sushi; she looked at me with squinting eyes, while our young Korean friend bowed to her in a thankful and deferential respect. Then “The Lady” opened her gob:
When we were kids, my sister and I, found that the last weekend in November started to get really exciting. Not only we got to put the fake tree up, and the art work our Father used to do with the wonderful rock like paper, a grotto in and around and at the bottom of the tree for a bit of drama; decorations were out, the fun could start(unlike now, where it starts at the end of August… You people have lost it! Big time!); my mother would sit at the end of the dining table in the living room, and in her majestic teacher’s style would start writing the menu for the 24th and 25th. Those two days were the only ones, as well as Birthdays, where I was asked what I would like to eat… The golden question… I was kind of the black sheep in the family, it was three against one. My sister could eat a dozen oysters for starters, I could barely see the sight of them. So my Mum designed a menu just for me. I was never a big seafood eater, apart from scallops and langoustines. My favourite dish was “Coquilles Saint Jacques”, the name for scallops in French; Jacques, Seamus, James, Tiago… Diego… Santiago de Compostela, Il Camino and the original pilgrims recognisable with the famous shell around their waist! A symbol often portrayed on bottles of wines, from Languedoc to Northern Spain… All the way to the Citadel…
The day I became a “Pizzaiolo”, or for you and me, a pizza chef, started in the autumn of 1995, after spending five months in Galway; “Blue eyed girl” and I were coming back to Sligo. “Arnold The Hero” gave us a lift, the skies were very low like today and my mood wasn’t much higher. Maybe it was the fact that I was leaving the “City of Tribes” for another little bit, maybe it was the fact that he played a cassette of Mano Solo ( son of “Cabu”, one of the cartoonist killed in the Charlie Hebdo attacks). Don’t get me wrong, his material is great, just freaking depressing when you are hangover and rain is battering the Western land… Or maybe it was the fact that I had to find a job, no pressure so… A few days later, I saw an ad in one of the Italian restaurants of the town; bold as brass, I jumped in thinking I would have nothing to lose, I had no experience in the food business, or very little. I remembered what one of my peers once said to me: “ If you are in a night club, and you fancy a girl on the dance floor, if you stay on your chair, your chances are virtually none; if you get up your ass, and ask that girl if she would like to dance with you, your chances suddenly jump from 0 to 50%”. That is more or less what I did that day, and I got the dance…
Last Friday was my mother’s anniversary, and after 19 years of absence, I still like to make a little something special to mark the occasion. I was on my own, and since we were reaching the end of the week, my fridge and food press (cupboard) looked like a Russian supermarket in the 80’s. I closed the shop and called in to my Friends next door, owners of The Forge restaurant. I knew what I had at home, and wanted to use it before getting my usual Saturday shopping. I fancied a bit of fish, and I know that they have a great supplier. Pauric gave me a nice piece of monkfish for one, we have helped each other for years now, and like a friend of mine said when I was telling her the story: “you know you have great neighbours when you can do things like that”, and she is right, even if I don’t really make a habit of it to be honest. Driving back home, I started to chuckle and thought of a great one liner: “You know when you have socializing issues, when you go to the restaurant next door to get your ingredients and cook your own dinner at home”. There is a bit of truth there, for sure!
I went a bit nuts today; I went to the woods in search of inspiration for a cake I wanted to create for a long time… I also wanted to find myself, drifting and surfing on long gone memories when we had a family, when we spent October Sundays harvesting chestnuts in the forest back home. I love that descent into darkness, I feel great again, knowing that the clock will go back to its original solar time. I feel restored, in harmony with nature. We didn’t have Halloween, but we had the great “Legends of Death”, gathered from all around Brittany by Breton writer Anatole Le Braz, Anatole “The Great” or so it translates. The first time I read the book, I was 17, and after a couple of chapters, I went to sleep, or rather to bed, I don’t think I closed my eye lids that night… “Samhain” the Celtic origins of Halloween, when the wheel turns, welcoming the darker side of the year… I am aware that a lot of people feel depressed at this time of year, I get it, I sympathise and I don’t go on too much about it. I asked a Scandinavian friend of mine once, on how they deal with six months hardly seing the sun? She just replied: “we live in each other’s houses, we are very sociable folks”. I was humbled… What a great attitude…
The paradox in the job I do is that even though I am surrounded by food all day, it can get pretty busy and before you know it, you realise that you have just skipped lunch again. Therefore, it is important for me to get a good breakfast; I love breakfast, from yogurt to beans, a lot of fruits of course, nuts, honey, and even goats cheese on rye. But what is sure to see me alive over the crest of a missed midday bite, are eggs. Scrambled or fried, at least once a week. But since the egg and avocado thingy doesn’t agree with me ( my eyes go funny, or rather my vision, I am very sensitive to some of nature’s chemistry, I get high very easily ), I wanted to come up with something that would work well for me. It happened early this month, in my kitchen ( well d’ah), I was “starving with the hunger”; the ingredients were staring at me, something happened, I knew then what a sorcerer must have felt when he cast his first spell…
After writing “The Storm”, I was reminiscing about my favourite tuna sandwich and how it came to be. I used to treat myself to a pan bagnat, originally from Provence. A bakery in the centre of Rennes used to make a beautiful one, with sweet bread, mayo and a hardboiled egg. To recreate this lovely bohemian memory, I made brioche dough, and a homemade mayonnaise with tarragon mustard. The spinach was local and the eggs were a gift from friends in Galway. And this is pretty much how it went, as far away as possible as the tuna and sweetcorn we got in that floating pub…
I am not a big fan of Sundays, but I must say that I do enjoy the first part of the day, until at least 1 or 2pm. After that, I find it heavy and boring. After getting up and discussing the mysteries of the universe and other existential topics around breakfast, I always make an effort to dress nice, have a shave, even if it is my day off, and maybe use the more expensive eau de toilette for the day that’s in it; nothing. I realised that every time, I am re-enacting Sundays of the past, where imaginary family members would knock at the door and we could all have a wonderful, worriless and merry afternoon. But of course, they never come, or very rarely and despite my enjoyment at getting the dinner ready, you know, for later with “Blue eyed girl and the Seven cats”and “Doggy Woggy acting as a Dominical commis chef watching my every moves.
Hungry Breton 