Last night we celebrated Chandeleur (Candlemas) with our neighbours- 'come around for a few crepes, its the tradition'. and so we did. ' A few crepes' , consisted of (after the nibbles with the Pommeau) bowls of Soupe a l'Oignon , a Civet de Lapin with polenta galettes (and a red Minervois ), a salad of chicory and nuts , and then (and only because we refused cheese) were we allowed eat some pancakes with sweet delicious Normandy cider.
Bloated we waddled home.

Well the first draft of the Great Oeuvre , working title; "A Table- an Irish Chef in a Village in Languedoc" , approx 618,00 words or 140 paperback pages , is now written .

Just about long enough.

Now starts the shit work , correcting, editing, expunging, checking- not to mention trying to find a publisher.

I think I will give myself the rest of the day off.

"Have the rest of the day off Martin "

(there are some advantages to being self employed.)

My neighbour gave me a present of these superb lemons fruit from the tree which I had been lusting after as I watched them ripen out my window.
After much debate I made the following.

Lemon Marmalade

1.5 kg Lemons
Water
Preserving Sugar (Confisuc in France,Sureset in Ireland)

Put the whole Lemons into a large pot cover with water and a lid and simmer together gently for about 60 mts.or until the skin is tender .
Take the lemons out of the water with a slotted spoon and cool, leave the water in the pot.
When they cool halve the lemons and remove the pips. Either discard these or put them in a little square of muslin tied at the edges to boil with the marmalade.
Now cut the halves of lemon as finely or thickly as you like.

Put these back into the lemon cooking water and now measure carefully the amount of liquid this makes.
For every litre of mixture (or measured portion of a litre) weigh out a kilo (or portion of a kilo) of the sugar. Stir these together and leave for several hours until the sugar is melted. Now taste the mixture and if too bitter you may add up to 500g more sugar.
.
Bring gradually back to the boil (with the little bag of pips if you are using them) and let it come to a rolling boil .Let it boil well for 5 mts. then take off the heat and test for setting on a cool saucer.
It should take no longer than 10 mts. boiling altogether.
.
Take out and discard the bag of pips, and pot in the usual way.
If you like the flavour of ginger with lemon (and I do) you can add two peeled thumbs of root ginger to the lemons as they boil and then chop these finely with the peel and add to the marmalade.

Our neighbours have asked us to come around to their house on Tuesday next to eat Crepes for Chandeleur.

I made the assumption that this was a celebration of St. Blaise's day , this was always the day in Catholic Ireland when we went to the church to have our throats blessed. There we all knelt down at the altar and the priest came and placed crossed candles at our throat to protect us from sore throats during the year to come. Thus , for the last few years , when we saw the time come around for Chandeleur to be celebrated (traditionally with pancakes) at the begining of February , we assumed it came from a devotion to St. Blaise.

When our neighbour invited us to celebrate Chandeleur with them next Tuesday I mentioned St. Blaise and was greeted with a blank stare , it was obvious that she had never heard of him, obviously some research was needed.

First thing I discovered was that I had my dates wrong , Chandeleur is celebrated on the 2nd of February , St. Blaise has his day on the 3rd.
Chandeleur is in fact Candlemas , the day in which people brought their candles into the church to be blessed. This feast seems to have merged in time with the purification of the Virgin Mary (which seems to be like the Catholic post birth churching) and the presentation of Jesus in the temple.

Then I learned something else , Candlemas is thought to be a relic of an ancient pre-christian festival of light . It celebrates the day which is mid way between the shortest day and the spring equinox and the return of brightness.

À la Chandeleur, l'hiver cesse ou reprend vigueur
On Candlemas, winter ends or strengthens

In other words what we have here is a christianisation of an old pagan festival of light christianised as are Christmas and indeed Halloween.
In Ireland, a nation suffering from constant winter colds and flu, we use the candles practically as a guard against sore throats- in France they (typically) use the feast as another excuse to party.

Portrait of the Chef as a Writer (taken on the terrace this afternoon by Mrs. Dwyer)

Sometimes I think I have just that.
You will all be aware at this stage that I am plugging away on A BOOK- (at long last ) this oeuvre is at the moment somthing less than half way through but I have been blabbing on about it on the principle that this will shame me into finishing it.
It is part memoir , part travelogue and part recipe book and so will probably disappear instantly between three stools.
It has a working title ; À Table ; An Irish Chef in a Village in the Languedoc.

I was contacted a couple of weeks ago , totally coincidentially , by Waterford Writers Week (which festival takes place at the end of March) to ask would I be part of a panel on an open forum on Cookery Writing (this from my bits and pieces of food journalism) , this I accepted , they further contacted me today looking for a picture and a bio for their programme and to tell me that the local paper wanted to do a spread on me to publicise the festival.
Could any writer (especially putative) ask for better pre publication publicity ?

The divils own luck I tell you.

And now I am certainly going to have to finish the thing!