coldcoffee

Straws

2009-04-24T10:51:00.001+01:00

Ok, the strawberries are in. So what's your excuse for not planting anything?

Those Overlooked Regarded

2009-04-17T10:09:00.004+01:00

Sometimes when reading a book or watching a film, a person asks: 'When is something going to happen, when will he do anything, what's the point? Well, as in the Irish movie Garage, sometimes the waiting is the point, the actual observing is the main exercise.
Pat Shortt plays a man at the edge of his society, no social skills, inept with people, maybe even handicapped in some way. We observe his existence and it reflects back on us, on our reaction to those different in some way. He runs the local garage, a terrible, miserable run-down spot where he gets only fleeting interactions with 'real' people. We watch him and we watch that which is around him. The picture as important as the words he speaks. The stunning photography gives a uniquely Irish backdrop of beauty to his pitiful life that he seems to enjoy, seems to be happy in. He makes a friend, sees a part of life that was kept from him. But it all ends in sadness or maybe a release, depending on how you've taken to him.
It reminds me of John McGahern or William Trevor with their painfully simple and quietly dignified view of Irish life and especially McGahern's descriptions of the unrecognised beauty in the Irish landscape and Trevor's sometimes macabre and unexpected endings. Some may say its stereotyped character stuff, but stereotypes are there for a reason: because they are true. A minor masterpiece and a genuine modern Irish experience.

Grow Your Own

2009-04-17T10:02:00.002+01:00

It's that time of year again, as the cliche has it, to think about sticking something in the ground and later on in the summer, eating it. I grew strawberries in our garden last year and judging by the wrecked state of the property market will be doing so again this year!
So, especially those of you who live somewhere that actually receives sunshine (what's sunshine, daddy?), you all have to report back and tell me what you plan to grow and eat.

New York

2009-04-17T09:47:00.005+01:00

Those of us who miss New York City should every so often take a look at the opening of Woody Allen's movie Manhattan. A stunning homage to his home with the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue soundtrack and the composition of the black and white cinematography. Pure movie joy.

Two

2009-04-17T09:17:00.003+01:00

This financial crisis has brought out some choice comments from public figures and commentators over the last few months. Politicians, economists, bankers have all tried to explain to us and themselves what exactly happened over the last year and we are still left wondering whether it is the system that is corrupt or individuals within.

Two people here in Ireland are particular examples of a sort of nonsense rising to the top in a whirlpool of debate very little of which is of any real contribution. But they get print space and air time: Jim Power, an economist with Friends First has called for those who have smoked cigarettes in their lives and now are sick because of it to be refused access to healthcare - apparently we can't afford it and we need to prioritise. He is seriously proposing this.
Where are we now, that a leading commentator proposes ridiculous lifestyle policing? What of bungy jumpers with detached retinas, rugby players with broken necks, overweight cardiac patients, the bronchial chests of those who chose to live in a damp climate? A hell of a lot of illnesses are caused by our lifestyle choices, but of course if we were all healthy we wouldn't need an expensive health service. And we would all live for ever.

The other nutbar currently enjoying media coverage is Senator Fergal Quinn, who sold his grocery business in recent years, just like myself. Fergal wants Easter to be set at a certain date every year. Why? So church goers can plan their attendance at mass with exactitude? No, but to help those in the tourism business establish a regular season length, they can plan ahead etc.
Just leave it, will you? Does everything we do, each aspect of our lives have to benefit business, have to be justified to suit profiteers? I'm not particularly religious but the moveable feast of Easter is something unusual, something different, something of the past that he should leave bloody well alone and allow us enjoy a unique vagery of life in our growing-more -uniform culture.

Yummy Daddy

2009-03-13T20:48:00.002Z

The Irish Times today told us that in Ireland there are 5,800 men at home looking after children full-time. Imagine!
We (for I am one, dear reader) are now to be known as yummie daddies.
Our patron saint deserves a mention and will lead us to pray:

Raspberry Jam Man

2009-03-12T14:31:00.005Z

I once had a shop in Greystones - a food emporium. A small old-fashioned greengrocer that stocked your usual fruit and veg with some exotica like mangos, wild mushrooms, etc as well as olives, buffalo mozzarella and tins of this and jars of that. One of the best products to be had in this delightful bazaar was the jams and marmalades. This was no ordinary jam but the best in Ireland. Made by an industrious elderly couple in their kitchen in Newtownmountkennedy, he growing the fruit, she making the jam, they supplied only a handful of small shops in north Wicklow.

Anyway, as you can imagine the work was hard but the crack was mighty and the staff and I enjoyed ourselves no end. Sometimes, even, the customers provided the entertainment.
One man brought us on many occasions to tears with the gut-bursting laughter and puerile innuendo. Old and very unattractive, dressed in a long black leather overcoat (think gestapo) and matching trilby, in all weathers, he would visit every week or so and buy our total stock of raspberry jam. Needless to say we came to rather filthy conclusions as to what he exactly did with so much of our jam (as no-one could possibly eat this amount in a week) and that old leather outfit of his. We christened him 'Raspberry Jam Man'. Seedy was the word and not just the jam.

Picture the scene when he would rather slowly walk in wearing his grin (for he knew we knew), ask for all the raspberry jam we had and poor me (I always got the weirdos) serving the old perv and the staff sniggering into their sleeves in the store out the back. The female members of the crew took a particular dislike to him and wouldn't serve him, much to his disappointment as he would tilt and strain his head to see if he could get a glimpse of the girls hiding (and giggling like 11-year-olds) in the back store. I on the other hand resented this man. Why should he get all the raspberry? Keep a few for the others, the normal customers who bought stuff for normal dietary reasons. So I would tell him that I could only sell him eight of the ten jars as we had other people who delighted in this treat. He didn't like that.

The story only became stranger when, by a remarkable fluke of serindipity we discovered what this man does by day: he is, and I do not lie, a medical Doctor.

Blessed are the breadmakers

2009-03-10T07:53:00.006Z

Now that the youngest member of the house has reached an age where her diet more resembles an adult's than a baby's and has acquired a fondness for cheese on toast, bread has entered our home. One of my greatest weaknesses is bread and butter. Not foie gras, truffles or caviar, you ask? Well, I can take or leave the gourmet delicacies you may find in a fine restaurant but without bread and butter I will die.

We have previously had a ban on all baked goods and I must say, after an initial period of withdrawal and secret feasts in lunch spots, it took some getting used to. But we came through it and managed to eat very little bread. Sadly, however, its great for the wee ones and, they get the best of butter and full fat milk too would you believe. So, with the sorrow of one defeated and back on the crack, I buy nice wholemeal bread, the Kerrygold and cream, full-fat milk and blocks of cheese, (Emmenthal is a hit) all being devoured by the parents like prisoners released.

The best bread in the world is French. You can buy poor bread in France too, of course but overall the consistency of quality bread throughout the land is one of the main reasons we travel there. The quantity consumed by the French would lead you to believe along with wine and cheese that it's the heart attack capital of the world but no, not at all, hence The French Paradox. (I'll leave you to google that one).

I have thought about my lust for flour and dairy and conclude that my descent from the peasant population has left its indelible agricultural mark on my appetite. For example, I can not eat white soda bread without thinking of my grandmother in her country cottage up to her elbows in flour, measuring everything by sight, mixing with one hand and the loaf appearing from the range, its own warmth melting the hard cold butter. White soda bread (it must be white) paved with butter and blackberry jam from the briars in the fields is part of our national heritage as much as your georgian houses or Pearse himself.

Paris

2009-03-05T17:57:00.005Z

All over Europe they like to prune their trees, rather neatly and eerily though.

They reminded me of something:

Kill Bill

2009-03-05T17:39:00.002Z

Tarantino has been mentioned before here I know but while looking over favourite Kill Bill scenes lately, the soundtrack has caused a minor sensation in these parts. This is particularly good for getting a certain chica clappin like crazy:

A master at dredgin up the greats is our Quentin.

Woody

2009-02-23T10:08:00.002Z

After a busy weekend in the real world, here's an old one from one of the greats:

Now, tell me what's so bad about America, eh?

Viva Espana

2009-02-19T21:13:00.004Z

Been watching a cool little series on one of my favourite channels UKTV Food (sad, i know) called Spain On The Road Again. With the most unlikely cast larking about Espana, not a slick young cheffy dude or boringly knowledgeable doyenne of cooking amongst them but a film star, great chef, actress and NewYorkTimes food writer. That's 4 different people not one.
They make for a cheery bunch of friends just cruising around Spain in convertible Mercs enjoying the local cuisine and having a blast (well, wouldn't you?).

Spain has to be the unsung hero of european food, generally ignored by the english speaking world where it's mostly french and italian food that gets all the kudos. I reckon its years of isolation under the Franco dictatorship held it back while the world discovered France and Italy. But the range of food ingredients, the regional diversity, the intermingling of Moorish with Christian, not to mention the sublime things they can do to a pig can all stand up to the so called greats of France and Italy.

So here's a taster and the music's deadly too:

So guess where we're going for the summer holiday? Well, France actually, sorry!

Hey Me

2009-02-17T21:34:00.003Z

Watched a film tonight - Juno. Very good if a bit too nicey nice in a kooky kind of way, good soundtrack, great acting and writing (all that hip teen talk (talk to the hand, girlfriend).
Anywhoo, (there i go again) the point of this post is to alert you people to Screenclick, an online film rental service i should have joined ages ago but have been too old and non-technical.
Pay your money, pick films, they arrive at door, return it and get your next pick. No more crap video stores. No more weird bearded assistants hoping to be Tarantino - sorry, only one in a generation.
Simple. And. Perfect.

Which actually leads me, Barry Norman like, on to a bit about Tarantino. Don't know if anyone else felt like this but when he arrived into the early 90s with that brilliant writing and jumped around narrative it completely changed my attitude to cinema, which was still in the star wars 70s, mainly because the 80s were so crap for movies. (remember Back to the Future, Top Gun). It was now about the words written as much as about what the camera showed you, very much like the Coen brothers around the same time. More anon.

I leave you with a band which, embarrassingly, my uncle-in-law discovered. In the post arrived this:

Bleedin Magic.

Half as High

2009-02-16T09:12:00.011Z

The Observer Music Monthly, (along with Food Monthly, Sport Monthly and SmugMiddleClass Monthly makes it one cool paper) has brought on my interest in music in the last couple of years and this long piece on U2 is great. Sean O'Hagan seems to think of it as another transformation of the band and Bono tries to justify his activism by quoting scripture: "I would always use the scriptures to argue my corner". So dodgy, in these days of religious extremism. Use reason, please. And he wonders why people don't or won't see his funny, edgy side.
Great stuff in the album reviews too, check out the suss on The Prodigy (first para could be about U2 hehe), Van's Astral Weeks and the new one by Bruce.

Today's ditty:

Also, following representations from our NYC correspondent in the wee small hours of Sunday and with the help of imported foreign muck, we concluded that The Wire is better than The Sopranos. A dirtier urban under-belly you will not find and the writing is shit hot (this is one of my favourite bits, so far):

Where lieth St Valentine?

2009-02-14T12:33:00.011Z

These guys' album was the soundtrack to a three week holiday in Catalonia in 2006:

And for something completely different, last night's dinner, try the delicious Uncle Martin's Fennel and Cod Soup. If you have Pernod, (a cookbook thing to say, who the hell has Pernod?) a splash in the pan will add an extra dollop of pre-crisis sophistication.

For the day that's in it and by special request:
(not without a little irony on my part)

Fifty years ago...

2009-02-13T08:56:00.000Z

The Promises of Capitalism

2009-02-12T15:04:00.001Z

"Honest failure is even more corrosive of trust than outright criminality." Discuss

Lunch

2009-02-11T20:29:00.002Z