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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/1922517/barmbrack-and-hallowe-en">Barmbrack and Hallowe&#39;en</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><b>Barmbrack and Hallowe’en </b></span><br><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">As you know -- or should know -- colcannon is the traditional food of Ireland and is eaten at this time of year in many parts of the country in celebration of Hallowe’en -- or Halloweve as we called it when I was a boy. Our neighbours over in England (a small island off the east coast of Ireland) tended to ignore the holiday, focusing more on Guy Fawkes Day on November 5, when bonfires and fireworks would mark the day. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The ‘trick or treat’ scenario was different in those days, too. Children (and some adults) would dress up in costume and mask and go door to door. In more rural parts, particularly, this involved the participants doing ‘a turn’, usually a song or a recitation. In return for this entertainment there were the same rewards handed out that you see here in the US. More of a treat for a trick scenario and strongly reminiscent of the old mumming tradition. It was important, though, that your identity not be guessed. I don’t recall a penalty for this but certainly your neighbours would try hard to discover who was behind the disguise. My father had  some difficulty in this regard because he had a beard at a time when it was very unusual in Ireland.  (I learned at his wake that he was know in the extended family as ‘Hairy Paddy’ to distinguish him from the many other Paddy Bolgers). And, of course, any adults involved in the entertainment would be offered a drink rather than sweets and that was usually when the Da was found out. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In early October cheap Hallowe’en masks would start appearing in the shops and, a little later, commercially made barmbrack would appear, too. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Barmbrack (from the Irish Gaelic ‘bairín breac’ -- speckled loaf) is a type of sweet fruit bread. Not as rich or fine as a cake but definitely more festive than regular bread. This commercial brand would be shaped much like a regular loaf of bread and have a brass ring, wrapped in waxpaper, somewhere in the loaf . Whoever found this ring would be promised good luck. The homemade, traditional barmbrack would more often be circular and flat in shape and have a ring, a button, a thimble and a sixpence. If you found the ring it meant you’d get married in the ensuing year. A sixpence promised wealth, a button bachelorhood and a thimble meant that if you were an unmarried woman, that was not going to change that year. These same ‘charms’ would be put into colcannon but really barmbrack was the preferred medium. The ‘charm’ was more quickly seen in a sliced of bread and the removal was a much less messy affair than extracting a waxpaper package from mashed potatoes. And, sometimes there would be other ‘charms’ -- a pea or a bean meant poverty for the next year … </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The following recipe is a fairly standard one and you are free to play around with it. I’ve heard of people using cranberries, blueberries, mixed fruit. You might spice it a bit differently. Whatever works. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"><br><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/d7eb801a19b33acdd2b6f16a139448e927991d34/medium/unknown.jpeg?1382661133" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Ingredients: </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">½ lb. all purpose flour </span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">2 tsp baking powder</span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">4 oz. sugar </span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">10 oz. raisins </span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">1/2 tsp mixed spice</span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">1 egg </span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">warm water </span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">butter</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 16px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Directions:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Preheat the oven to 350° </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, raisins and mixed spice. Make a well and break in the egg, then use a wooden spoon to mix it with the dry ingredients. Add a little bit of water as needed and make the dough fairly wet. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Sometimes people soak the raisins overnight in tea and/or whiskey. That does add a certain <i>je ne sais quoi</i> but it makes the fruit very mushy and hard to work with. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">LIne and butter a 2 lb. loaf tin</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Spoon the dough into the tin, add whatever ‘charms’ you have in mind and place the loaf tin on the middle shelf in the oven and bake for about 1 hour. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 16px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">You can put it on a rack and let it cool a bit and slice and eat with butter. You can store it for a few days -- it seems to benefit from a good rest. At that point, I like to slice it and toast it. It makes a perfect toast with good butter.</span></p></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-10-24T18:33:58-06:00" title="October 24, 2013 18:33">10/24/2013</span></p>

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  <a href="/blog/blog/1739821/recipe-shrimp-bisque">Recipe: Shrimp Bisque</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/823e0bb3c8520def6b82690246b788693e34c6a1/small/shrimp-bisque.jpeg" class="size_s justify_left border_thin" alt="" /><span class="font_large"><strong>Shrimp Bisque. </strong></span><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Many years ago - in 1970 to be exact - recently out of high-school and consumed with wander-lust, I hitch-hiked from England to Morocco with a good friend. The fact that we ended up in Morocco was incidental. We were, in fact, headed for Portugal but found ourselves at a cross-roads in southern Spain at noon on a day in the middle of August. We were looking for a lift west towards Sevilla but the only vehicle that stopped (a VW minibus, would you believe?) was headed for Morocco - so we ended up in Marrakesh, then one of the places to be in the hippie world. It was a magical world and I was enchanted. We ended up spending quite a bit of time there and so I only payed the briefest of visits to Portugal before returning to a wintery England and a job in the brickworks.<br>      But the short time I had spent in Portugal was enough to leave me beguiled and so, in 1972, I returned there with my great good friend, David Marsh - followed a few weeks later by the lovely Dee, my then girlfriend. We fashioned horseshoe-nail jewelery and sold it to tourists. We made a comfortable living and lived in a house quite close to beach of Praia de Guincho. We worked in Cascais, in the orange-tree-scented evenings when people were out strolling and socializing. It was here that I first truly learned about the pleasures of good food and wine.<br>      You could always find wonderful food in Ireland and England -- excellent cheeses, pies, breads, seafood - but in the early '70s wonderful cooking was rare and expensive. The food in Portugal, though, was an inspiration. There were African influences from the colonies in Mozambique and Angola and South American flavours from Brazil. I vividly remember 'Chicken Piri-Piri' - a lovely fiery dish from Mozambique accompanied by Maricujá, a passionfruit drink popular in Brazil. But the indigenous cuisine, 'Frango en Tomate', 'Lombo de Porco Asado', 'Iscas', 'Caldo Verde', Canja', was exquisite. We usually ate at a place called A Tasca - it was still there the last time I looked. It was cheap and great!<br>      The following recipe, however, was not a dish that appeared at 'A Tasca' but rather at a place called 'Castro's'. Late in the evening when we had finished our peddling of <i>cravos</i> - this might be about midnight - we would often repair to the Cascais sea-front as the fishing boats were coming in and the fish auction was beginning. We'd often see people we knew - we had a number of friends who were high school age who saw our hippie image as very rebellious; this was fascist Portugal, in the early '70s, after all and I suppose we were quite exotic. Then we'd head for our supper and a cab home. And this was our supper:</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Creme de Camarão </span></p>
<ul>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">2 onions, chopped coarsely</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1 Tablespoon olive oil</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1 Tablespoon butter</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1 bayleaf</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">4 cloves of garlic, crushed</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">3 tomatoes, chopped - don't bother to peel and seed</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Tomato paste - most of one of those wee cans - 5 - 6 Tablespoons</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1 red chili, or about 1/4 teaspoon cayenne</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">salt</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">black pepper</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1 lb or more of shrimp, raw and in the shell</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">6 cups water</span></li>    <li style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1 cup dry white wine</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">      Sautée the onions and garlic in the oil and butter until the onions get 'glassy'. Add the tomatoes, the tomato paste, the bayleaf, the chili (or cayenne) and a grinding of black pepper to your taste. Cover and simmer on very low heat for about a half-hour while you go about the next part of the task.<br>      This part is a little tricky because you're dealing with shrimp and there's nothing better than properly cooked shrimp and few things more disappointing the the tough, rubbery result of badly prepared shrimp. So, you have some options. You can put the shrimp, water and wine together in a saucepan on a medium heat and as soon as it simmers take the pot off the heat, strain the shrimp and and reserve the water/wine mixture. Or you could, as I do, peel and devein the raw shrimp and set aside. Then cook the skins in the water/wine mixture for 10 minutes or so. Strain and add the liquid to the onion/tomato mixture. Simmer, uncovered, for an hour or so. Let the liquid thicken a bit. About 5 minutes before the end add a dozen shrimp to the pot and let them cook gently. Take out the bayleaf and blend the mixture in batches in a food processor. Strain through a sieve into a clean pot. This might seem a little odd but tomato seeds are indestuctable and though I can't prove it, I believe that no matter how well you've blended something it will be smoother if you put it through a sieve.<br>      If you're going to be serving this straight away bring the soup to a slow simmer. Add the remaining raw shrimp and cook them in the soup - about three to five minutes, or so. Remove from the heat and add salt to taste. At this point you might want to add a half-cup or so, of cream. Stir it in gently and adjust the seasoning. Garnish with chopped parsley or cilantro. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">When we supped on this we did so with a loaf of crusty bread, a bottle of vinho verde and a half-kilo of steamed shrimp -- gluttonous, I know. If you can't find the wonderful vinho verde any dry white wine is good or try it with chilled vermouth -- it's not just for martinis. It's somewhat more potent than a regular wine but it's very good with this.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Enjoy.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Mick</span></p></div>
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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/1739798/book-review-i-could-read-the-sky">Book Review: I Could Read The Sky</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><span class="font_regular"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/c2783a81d7a13014008fd987e2a7f5bab0919c51/small/i-could-read-the-sky.jpeg" class="size_s justify_left border_thin" alt="" /></span><span class="font_large"><strong><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I Could Read the Sky </span></strong></span></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><em><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Timothy O’Grady. Steve Pyke.</span></em></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Harvill Press 1997 </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">170 pp </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">John Berger, in his introduction to this book, says of it “It’s a bastard. It has been made in the dark, as photos are made in a darkroom … you will find the unsaid all the while here”. And so it is. Perhaps because I know a version of this story personally, I fill in those unsaid things readily. It is a book of photographs -- black and white -- of fairly recent vintage: the early 1990s. But with a timeless quality to them. And it’s a short novel that reads like a memoir. Combined it’s a document about exile and emigration -- interchangeable words in the Irish language. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Emigration is at the heart of the Irish experience. It informs how we think of ourselves and our place in the world. It may be that Ireland has its reputation for hospitality because we know what it is to be in the stranger’s place. There was the huge emigration of Ulster Dissenters in the late 1600s, the Great Hunger that devastated Ireland in the mid-1800s and drove over a million people to foreign shores in a few short years and in the 20th century, short-sighted government policy and harsh poverty have driven further generations abroad, mostly to England. This migration, while better documented and acknowledged, still has a cruel residue. Many of those who went to England seeking work had fully expected to return to Ireland at some time and never integrated fully into English society. They find themselves abandoned there, with few connections back home and lives that somehow evaporated. You will find these experiences documented in the songs of Dominic Behan (and many others) and you will find, in books like <i>Father’s Music</i> by Dermot Bolger or <i>Sudden Times</i> by Dermot Healy, the raw existence suffered by many of those emigrés.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I first went to England in 1969 when I was just short of eighteen years of age. I worked some construction then worked in a car factory. Other jobs included lifeguard and grave digger and a job testing asphalt and concrete. In time, I went to University and then left England for the US. But during my time in England I met many an emigré and tasted that often lonely life. Maybe that’s why this book,<i> I Could Read the Sky </i>had such a profound effect on me. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In elegant (even beautiful) prose O’Grady evokes a rural Irish childhood, the rich tapestry of neighbour connectedness and the awful wrench of having to leave that known place and go into that other poverty of community where drink and distraction are a paper-thin prosperity and grinding labour saps the soul and strength. In the end what’s left are memories and the odd job sweeping up on some desolate building site; the one little room and the nowhere to go. This book tracks the relentless and insidious way that the spirit is ground down. Even the music that evokes the old life becomes harder and harder to play with hands beaten and brutalised by hard labour. Friends and family move on in their own journeys and fall away into their own distance. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">But there is beauty in the telling of this book, a prose that is richer than much poetry you will read. There is a love story of great simple beauty and sadness. It’s a powerfully moving piece of work and I cannot recommend it highly enough. </span></p>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/1519595/the-yellow-bittern">The Yellow Bittern</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p>In marking the passing of Seamus Heaney we would like to offer you this reading of his marvelous translation of the old Irish poem "An Bunnán Buí (The Yellow Bittern)". Also for your listening is Colcannon's recording of the song; our version gives the first verse in the original Irish and then the verses of Thomas MacDonagh's 1913 translation.<br><br> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_K2XRP4l6Rk?rel=0" width="480"></iframe><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/sj1QMh-tRrA?rel=0" width="480"></iframe></p></div>
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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/1519593/farewell-to-seamus-heaney">Farewell to Seamus Heaney</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p>I was very saddened to learn of the death of Seamus Heaney on August 30, 2013.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Those who know me well know that Heaney was the poet I admired above all others. I first discovered his work (a bit late) back in 1979 when I read <em>Field Work</em> and I’ve been reading him ever since. I had heard of him before that -- knew he was a friend of Ted Hughes, whom I admired greatly -- and I had seen the well-known <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/seamus-heaney-b-1939-117820"><span class="s2">painting</span></a> by Edward McGuire in which he looks young and of the times. And I had read some poems in a magazine, poems about Viking Dublin. They were from the collection <i>North</i> and I rather liked them. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">But it was with <em>Field Work</em> that I first heard the poet that I came to love and though I also prize his earlier work, too, <em>Field Work</em> will always have a special place in my affections. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Certain poems stand out for me. <i>The Toome Road</i>, where he speaks of the soldiers in Northern Ireland and how their presence will pass and leave what is important and real in the place where he lives: </span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>O charioteers, above your dormant guns, </i></span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>It stands here still, stands vibrant as you pass, </i></span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>The invisible, untoppled omphalos.</i></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In <i>The Gutteral Muse</i> we hear his longing for youth, for <i>“soft-mouthed life”</i>. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In <i>Casualty</i> he paints not only the man who will be killed in the sectarian violence of the times but paints the times themselves </span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>Those quiet walkers </i></span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>And sideways talkers </i></span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>Shoaling out of his lane </i></span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>To the respectable </i></span></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>Purring of the hearse ...</i></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">And in <i>In Memoriam for Sean O’Riada</i> he says of the composer/conductor</span></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>            He conducted the Ulster Orchestra </i></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>            like a drover with an ashplant</i></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: center;"><span class="s1"><i>            herding them south. </i></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">And yet Heaney is always an Ulster poet for all that he lived in Dublin as long as he did. </span>He was never “herded south”. Irish through and through, he knew there was much to admire in English culture and literature. He knew that the voice of Ulster had that English turn to it as well as an old Gaelic song deep in its heart. </p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">If you’ve never read him, find some of his poetry and read it aloud. Much has been written about him but what will count will be what you will find there. </span></p></div>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/1311077/book-review-ancient-light">Book Review: Ancient Light</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/87ab821eec03693ef929ae6725da83b1ea301220/thumb/Ancient-Light.jpeg?1375325891" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="125" width="85" /> <b><span style="font-size: larger; ">Ancient Light </span></b><br><i>John Banville</i><br>Knopf 2012  pp. 304<br><br>John Banville’s books can be hard work. I think I’ve read enough of them to be able to make that statement without fear of contradiction. That said, I will add that he is worth every minute you spend with him.<br>The first book of his that I read was <i>The Untouchable</i>, a <i>roman à clef</i> loosely based on Sir Anthony Blunt, who after an illustrious career as an art historian was unmasked as the ‘fourth man’ of the infamous Cambridge Five spies. In real life this caused genuine consternation for those who knew him. Blunt seemed to be anything but a socialist and, indeed, had close connections to aristocracy and the English royal family. In the novel, Maskell (the Blunt character) is also a mystery to himself and the unfolding of the book is his existential examination of his own life. It’s probably a masterpiece (I think it is) and I remember it as replete with stunning insights into human emotions.<br>This latest work, <i>Ancient Light</i>, is a slow piece and not without some problems. It’s the remembered story of an affair between the narrator when he was a fifteen-year-old boy and a married woman in her thirties. It’s clear from the beginning that the affair will be discovered and a lot of the time is spent while reading the story in a kind of dread of that eventuality. At the time of telling, the narrator, Alexander Cleve, is in his 60s and is a mostly retired actor.There is a subplot about the suicide some years earlier of his daughter, Cass, and a lot of references to events that occurred in two earlier books, <i>Shroud</i> and <i>Eclipse</i>. I’ve not read either of those books and can’t help but feel that I might have gotten more out of this book, had I done so.<br>Therein, in fact, lies my problem with this book. I found it very hard to see the people clearly. Mrs. Gray, the young Cleave’s paramour, remains an enigma to me. Why would a married woman (who was both religious and in love with her husband) have an affair with a fifteen year-old boy? In a small community? The narrator gives no clue. Indeed, the cover of the hardback edition that I read is a picture of an empty slip (see above) and perfectly illustrates the absent Mrs, Gray and the unromantic, unerotic feel of the whole story.<br>Reviewers have mentioned about the narrator’s confused memory, and indeed there are instances of that but it’s mostly about what season it was when events occurred. The real problem seems to be more a case of the self-absorbtion of the narrator and his cluelessness about other people’s inner lives. Whether this is illustrative of a solipsistic youth or is a failing on Banville’s part is not clear to me.<br>The grown Cleave finds himself in a starring role in a film, the lead of which is a young, fragile actress whom he takes under his wing. She’s grieving for her father as he is still grieving for his daughter, but it still seems an almost arbitrary connection and I don’t understand what either party got from the friendship.<br>Characters in Banville books seem to find themselves in situations that they got into by merit of their own actions but without any semblance of volition on their part. I have noticed this in both <i>The Book of Evidence</i> and in <i>The Sea</i>, where the main character seems to just go along in a kind of stunned resignation. And yet these characters seem to be acutely aware of the minutiae of their own emotions if not always of the collective heft of their feelings.<br>Still, Banville’s prose is a wondrous thing -- clean, smooth, precise and full of startling observations. He has a kind of way of triangulating situations. Stating them one way, then moving slightly aside and re-stating “She had an air of faint desperation and at the same time seemed ruefully amused”<br>But mostly it’s the precision with which he can depict the inner ebb and flow of feelings and thought:<br>“Every aurate woman I have loved in my life and I use the word loved in its widest sense, has left her impression on me as the old gods of creation are said to have left their thumbprints on the temples of the men that they fashioned out of mud and turned into us. Just so do I retain a particular trace of each one of my women -- for I think of them all as mine still -- stamped indelibly on the underside of my memory. I will glimpse in the street a head of wheat-coloured hair retreating among the hurrying crowd, or a slender hand lifted and waving farewell in a certain way; I will hear a phrase of laughter from the far side of a hotel lobby, or just a word spoken with a recognized, warm inflection and on the instant this or that she will be there vividly, fleetingly and my heart like an old dog will scramble up and give a wistful woof.”<br>And yet for all this lucidity there seems to be much untold and at the end one is left admiring the writing but somehow perplexed by the story.<br><br> </p></div>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/1303124/squash-overload">Squash Overload</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p> <img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/51c854b58af704c273cbda1b5334f4e40822bcc4/thumb/Yellow-Squash.jpeg?1375325884" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="90" width="60" />There are many pleasures to having and working a garden just as there are many downsides. It’s a lot of work for the return and when the return is abundant, that’s a problem too.<br>Take Summer yellow squash. In fact, take all of it that you want. This gourd can seem not so much prolific as bent on world domination. Just one plant can yield oppressive amounts of food. Before you know it you have a behemoth lurking in the elephant-ear leaves and you will be advised by well-meaning friends to stuff it. Well, just tell them to do the same with their advise. Stuffed squash is a joke. You can remove all the squash flesh you want, you put together the most delicious filling and you can bake it ‘til global warming reverses and you’ll still end up with an under-cooked, bland refugee from an old folks’ home. It’s a kind of reverse alchemy.<br>I still don’t have a complete strategy but I’ve come up with a couple of simple solutions to the squash problem. One thing I did was use squash in a warm salad. You’ll need about a pound of squash.<br><br><b><span style="font-size: larger; ">Warm Squash Salad</span></b><br><br>1 lb of yellow squash cut into ¼” cubes<br>About 6 oz of chopped onion<br>1 Tablespoon olive oil<br>1 teaspoon of smoked paprika<br>cayenne to taste<br>Salt and pepper to taste<br>Can of cannellini or white beans, drained.<br><br><br>Chop and sauté the onion in the olive oil. When it’s starting to get tender (after a couple of minutes) add the squash and sauté for about another ten minutes. Add the smoked paprika and the cayenne and cook for another minute. Then add the cannellini and warm through. Salt and pepper to taste.<br>You may have to go to a specialty store for the smoked paprika but you’ll be glad to have it in your kitchen. I used a Spanish smoked/spicy paprika and so didn’t need the cayenne.<br><br>I also made a soup using about two pounds of squash.<br><br><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/c1c97ebc30ec15b46cba4aa790d2a66f799f1278/thumb/Squash-Soup.jpeg?1375325882" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="60" width="60" /><b><span style="font-size: larger; ">Squash Soup</span></b><br><br>2 lbs squash coarsely chopped<br>1 onion coarsely chopped<br>2 tablespoons vegetable oil<br>1 teaspoon ground cumin<br>½ teaspoon ground coriander<br>2 teaspoons curry powder<br>4-6 cups chicken stock<br>½ cup red lentils, washed (optional)<br>Salt and pepper to taste<br>Cream (optional)<br><br>Sauté the onion until tender. Add the squash and the cumin, coriander and curry powder. Mix well and heat through until the spices ‘loosen up’, about 30 seconds.<br>Add the chicken stock and if you’re using them, the red lentils. Bring to a boil and turn heat down to a simmer. Leave it simmering about a half hour. Put in a blender in batches or use one of those handy-dandy blender wands and blend to soup until it’s smooth. At this point you could add some cream to make it more special.<br><br>I still have a lot of work to do to keep this problem under control. The eggplant are starting to propagate and there’s already a myriad cherry tomatoes asking for attention.<br>Time to consult Dennis Cotter or Peter Berley or Yotam Ottolenghi …</p></div>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/1043900/recipe-lamburgers">Recipe: Lamburgers</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/0c3cc4837346087cdf4cf30a5ac99a4c1a1cee35/thumb/Lamburger.jpeg?1372611627" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="75" width="125" /> <span style="font-size: larger; "><b>Lamburgers </b></span><br>A good burger is a wondrous thing and everybody seems to have their own idea of what it is that makes a perfect burger. Good meat is a given, as is the preferred temperature -- medium rare, well done etc.. For some it involves a topping of bacon or blue cheese or just classic tomato, onion and lettuce.<br>So, far be it from me to make any claims for this burger, other than to say that you might want to try it for a change. I’ve grilled these up on holidays and seen them be more popular than their beef counterparts.<br>They’re inspired by Indian cooking and are based simply on the wonderful affinity that cumin and coriander have for lamb.<br>I don’t usually bother with a topping other than mayonnaise but I have sometimes added a dollop of mint and cucumber raita or some sliced fresh mango.<br><br>Serves 4.<br><br>6 tablespoons plain yogurt<br>2 teaspoons ground cumin seed<br>2 teaspoons ground coriander seed<br>1 teaspoon salt<br>1/4 teaspoon cayenne<br>2 pounds ground lamb<br><br>Combine yogurt, cumin, coriander, salt and cayenne. Add to lamb and mix well.<br>Form into patties and grill to taste.</p></div>
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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/1043859/book-review-sweet-liberty">Book Review: Sweet Liberty</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/9f20f1ee9392ab8eae6f22b7bc71bce92c39d484/thumb/Sweet-Liberty.jpeg?1372610951" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="125" width="81" /> <span style="font-size: larger; "><b>Sweet Liberty: Travels in Irish America</b></span> <br><i>Joseph O’Connor </i><br>
Roberts Rhinehart 1996 pp. 317 <br><br>
Any culture, taken out of the place that wrought it, will tend towards caricature. It’s not just that it seems out of place in it’s adopted environment  (I think of those hacienda-style bungalows in Connemara) but it also becomes prone to invention and exaggeration. Like Irish stepdancing, where the costumes of today have more in common with a Las Vegas aesthetic than with the rural Irish culture from which the Irish dance sprang. (This aesthetic first started appearing in the US but the Irish in Ireland were quick to adopt it and, indeed, are today probably more ‘glam’ than their American cousins.) <br>
In my own experience as an immigrant, I was baffled from the beginning by Irish-American culture. The idea that corned beef and cabbage was the traditional food of Ireland. The affection for the maudlin ‘Danny Boy’ and the notion that it was ever an Irish song. The wearing of green clothing on St. Patrick’s Day -- not to mention the drinking of green beer. And the comic-book versions of Irish history with the noble Irishman suffering under the perfidious English yoke. <br>
So, when I saw this book of Joseph O’Connor’s a number of years ago, I was hopeful of gaining insight into the forces and conditions that brought about this culture.<br>
O’Connor is an Irish writer (the author of the bestsellers <i>Star of the Sea</i> and <i>Redemption Falls</i>) and is a lover of things American. He refers to the country as “one of the greatest experiments in mass idealism since the dawn of human history”. His affection is profound and real and so, too, is his curiosity. He had lived for four months in New York in 1991 and was told constantly that New York is not “the real America”. “I knew I wanted to write a book about Irish America, but I decided pretty early on that I needed to broaden the meaning of that term. I wasn’t particularly interested in green beer or inflatable leprechauns or that Reaganesque ‘Oirish’ America of complacency and conservatism …” (Of course, it was that America he mentioned that I’m curious about -- and had hoped to gain insight into.) So where should he go looking for this America? Eventually, he decides to visit all of those places he’d heard of as a child -- the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Dallas, Las Vegas -- but he also comes up with a plan to visit a long list of towns called Dublin along the route.<br>
O’Connor takes to the road starting in Boston (of course!) and ending in San Francisco. What ensues actually gives little insight into Irish America -- most of the towns called Dublin have little or nothing Irish about them. But it does give lovely warm and often hilarious insight into America as seen through foreign eyes. The tone gets a little ‘wiseguy’ if you read too much in one sitting but, truly, it’s hard to put this book down. <br><br><br><br></div>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/848251/irish-soda-bread">Irish Soda Bread</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/e678e42849a669e03118390ebe42b7ec68d19704/thumb/full.jpg?1369962378" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="97" width="125" /> Though found in many cultures, there may be nothing more iconically Irish than soda bread. There is, of course, the shamrock and (God help us) the leprechaun -- but few things say ‘Irish’ more than soda bread.<br>When I was very young I would sometimes accompany my father on his rounds in the countryside. He was, at the time, an agricultural instructor -- which would translate in the US as an extension agent. He would go around to various farmers who had asked for advice and there do soil tests, make suggestions on crop rotation or drainage or any of the myriad challenges that crop up the workday life of a small farmer. And at all of these stops he would be plied with food. This was (and probably still is) de rigeur in rural Ireland.<br>At many of these places, soda bread would be baked in a heavy skillet placed on banked embers of an open fire. It seemed, too, that a fairly standard way to check the heat of the pan was to spit on it and if the spit ‘hopped’ the pan was ready. My father was a fastidious man and I think it perplexed many of his hosts that he would refuse the soda bread. The skillet method makes perfect sense, of course. In the mid-1800s when soda bread was first being made (due to the introduction of baking soda from the US) few Irish peasant kitchens had anything as grand as an oven. Nowadays, of course, the oven is where you’ll most commonly find this bread being baked.<br>The bread is leavened by an interaction between the buttermilk (with is quite acidic) and the baking soda.<br>My mother made it regularly -- as well as variations on it, which might involve adding raisins or molasses. But these were more like cake than bread so, for now, I’ll stay with the basic recipe.<br><br>3 ½ cups of all-purpose flour<br>1 teaspoon of baking soda<br>1 teaspoon salt<br>1 ½ cups of buttermilk<br><br>Preheat the oven to 425˚ F<br>In a large bowl mix the salt, the flour and the baking soda together. Add the buttermilk and stir it in until the mixture starts to come together in clumps. Form into a ball and place on a floured counter. At this point resist the urge to work to dough. Shape into a flat disk about a hand span across, place on a baking sheet, cut a deep cross into the dough (go about half way down into the dough) and put in the oven for about 40 minutes. You can check it to see if it looks done or you can carefully know the bottom of it and if it sounds hollow, then it’s done.<br>Set on a rack to cool for a while and consume with good quality butter.</p></div>
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