francofiled

Out for a walk today I came upon my latest French discovery - a repurposed vintage Citroën Type H commercial van.  Love it! Painted blue with white bumpers, all that was missing was a splash of red upfront to confirm its distinctive Frenchness. The branded chevrons at the front weren't immediately obvious but that corrugated metal surround is a distinctive feature.   I'm sure that you, too, will have seen similar vans while out and about. Since they stopped being manufactured in 1981 restored and converted versions pop-up in loads of places these days pressed into new life as coffee docks in parks, drinks outlets at events and even catering outlets along roadsides. Built for commercial use, those grab handles and footplates to help the driver climb into the cab are surely as practical now as they ever have been. I wonder when importing them became a thing.  The "plaque de l'immatriculation" - the licence plate for the vehicle includes the number 49 at the end.  ...

Having spent a year living in Vierzon, in France's Centre-Val de Loire region, I feel a strong connection to the Cher department and the Loire Valley more generally. This part of France is famed for its châteaux and its wines particularly Sauvignon Blanc, and Chenin Blanc. I visited several times over the decades, but recently, the Cher came to Belfast in the persons of winemaker, Thierry Delaunay, and his wife, Marie. They brought 9 of their wines with them, to Direct Wine Shipments (DWS), for a meet the wine maker tasting, organised by DWS.  There was a large crowd of wine enthusiasts, and the air bubbled with conversations and excitement. Making our way up the stairs we each received a welcome glass of sparkling wine at the top before a member of staff assigned everyone to their place in the tasting room. I had gone on my own but soon our table was a buzz of conviviality, fellow tasters swapping names and sharing wine adventures. A handbell sounded out, and commanded attention....

  Our Cercle français is bringing a taste of Lyon to Belfast later this month.  The special menu has been created by the Culinary Arts team at The Academy Restaurant of Ulster University and in previous years our dining experience there has been simply excellent.  Looking forward to this.

  Feeling withdrawal symptoms after the Paris Olympics?  I'm feeling them too. So I went in search of this old purchase. An Astérix published in 1968 to coincide with the Mexico City Olympics.  Good fun!

  Liber tie , Égali tie , Fraterni tie It's the day for it!  Bonne fête nationale !

Browsing the wine section at my local supermarket, I suddenly stopped as I found it interesting to come across these bottles with French idioms on their labels.  Varietals / Grape Varieties More about their meanings below, meantime the varietal names, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay are by now so well known to wine consumers that they need no further explanation.  If it were a competition varietals would win among local consumers. In many establishments that's all that is offered.  However, most of the wine in France is bottled with regional or estate names and may not immediately recommend themselves to those who select their wine according to grape variety - Chablis, for example is a Chardonnay.   We're getting there but it may take a while longer until outlets and the wine consuming public develop greater confidence with LaBel(le)France  And that's why these labels are such a good idea.  They create  a splash of fun with the language and...

  Françoise HARDY has left us at the age of 80.  Time then to revisit her reflective 2018 album, Personne d'Autre.  The sleeve notes record: "Pour des tas de raisons raisonnables, je n'envisageais pas de refaire un album".   So pleased that she did make it thanks to conversations between her and producer Erick BENZI.    The last track of the album, Un mal qui fait du bien was co-written in September 2017 with Thierry STREMLER.  The final couplet roughly translates as "I stop there, I hold back; neither last word nor final word..." It says:  "j'arrête là,  je me retiens ; ni dernier mot ni mot de la fin..."

  It was a green lemon moment.  It happened when translating  citron vert   for a menu I was working on.   It would be nice to say that my rendition was due to pressure of time or working late at night but no, from a French language perspective, it was a basic school day error. The translation should of course have been lime .  I realised and self-corrected my mistake for a later version but the original menu had already been circulated.  You can guess: Blush and red now added to the colour palette of lemon, green and lime. However: The interesting thing is that green lemons do exist and they are not limes.  Although lemons and limes are from the same plant family they are not the same fruit.  In fact, some supermarkets recently had to compensate for shortages of lemons - you know the yellow ones - by selling green lemons.  Now they are the same fruit at different stages of ripeness, with the green ones having some days extra s...

We recently took a mid-week break in one of our more prestigious hotels and among the facilities I spotted on arrival was a small library space but with expansive shelves. Books! Forget about the spa; a reading nook is my pamper place. Getting absorbed in a book is something that I really enjoy and what a delight it was to find these volumes from the Masterpiece Library of Short Stories.  Naturally I picked the one marked FRENCH - Volumes 3 and 4.  Just look at this contents page. Wouldn't you be tempted to spend an hour or two?  Well, I was and that's just what I did.  It was time well spent. What a labour of love it must have been for editor Sir JA Hammerton   He and his board of eminent critics worked under the auspices of The Educational Book Company to compile these volumes of stories across countries and time periods. The books, dating from the early twentieth century, naturally show signs of age, wear and tear but those stories are timeless...

 I've only been to a couple of such exhibitions in which the work of artists is projected onto walls, ceilings and screens to the accompaniment of musical soundscapes. As it was nearing the end of its run in Belfast at the Carlisle Memorial Church we decided to make a day of it and visit The Claude Monet Immersive Experience.   Although not as extensive as an experience we viewed in Paris at the Atelier des Lumières  we very much appreciated the scale and depth of this one and its venue -  an old church at Carlisle Circus in Belfast. It was just right and care had been taken to present material in fine detail. Monet's art was set in context through several information boards, again that music bathing us in sound. A walk through a set with the bridge and the artist's home at Giverny; books on top of a table as if they had just recently been read and set down. Details. We moved on through into the body of the church taking a seat in one of the many deckchairs arou...

  Dessert for our French-themed dinner last night. Lovely!

  Not long to go to a talk with my daughter, Rachel on the Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. It's for the Cercle français de Belfast and will cover Edgar DEGAS' sculptural masterpiece and Camille LAURENS' book of the same name published by Les Fugitives press.  Oh, and Théophile GAUTIER gets plenty of attention too thanks to his short treatise on Le RAT - the name given to the young dancers at the Paris Opéra. One of those "little rats " is the subject of the talk, Marie Geneviève van GOETHEM.  She was born in 1865 and grew up to be our Little Dancer and model for Degas.  Check out the Cercle here  and the book at Les Fugitives available here . It's fascinating and well worth a read.  Maybe see you there?

Now that was a substantial and great value lunch. Moules frites and a Moroccan stew.  The mussels were enough for two - a huge portion. Très bon rapport qualité-prix. Next time you are in Dublin give yourself a treat and visit Chez Max at the Alliance in Kildare Street. It's like being in France for an afternoon. Check it out here.

  Marking the occasion of France's National Day - La Fête Nationale - by putting my feet up. There's all sorts of marching going on along the Champs Elysées and it would be nice to be there but nice too to be at home, shoes off self, showing off socks! Bonne Fête Nationale ! 

An old friend has left the magazine shelves - France - the magazine for Francophiles.  I collected it for very many years, since the 1980s and started becoming a subscriber with Issue 2.  Back then it was published four times a year and was a very collectible publication. You could even get slip cases to hold four issues, the series for a year. Later it was published monthly and still managed to retain its freshness with new and interesting articles. While sometimes some features would recur they always had a different angle or approach. Back then the magazine had competitions and I was lucky there on a couple of occasions winning some lovely French-themed books.  But my special win was a return Motorail package with ferry crossings between any two rail stations.  I opted for Calais to Nice return! Eventually decades of issues built up and I decided on recycling and give aways. I have held on to several significant issues: The 150th offering and the homage to Paris e...

 

 

  It was nice to come across an old box of French coins - francs and centimes - in use before the country moved to the Euro in early 2002.  For some reason, call it coincidental, I decided to check on how many francs there were to the Euro back then and I discovered that the conversion rate was €1: 6,55 francs. I also discovered that the old French coinage ceased to be legal tender on 17 February 2002 when the Euro became the official currency. A coin-cidental twentieth anniversary.

I have been toying for a long time with this idea:  Taking a stay@home wine tour through the Beaujolais Crus.  I like Beaujolais and find it an excellent food friendly wine.  It's made with the Gamay grape and there are ten distinct classifications.  Over the next weeks and months I aim to taste each of them. Some have been favourites down the years and some are old friends with whom to get reacquainted. Above is an acrostic and below a set of clues.  If you would like to join me on this stay@home journey then use the clues to work out the name of the cru and then look out for tasting notes in future posts on this blog. Here are the clues: 1.   Starting to get foggy in France. (8) 2.   A flower field? (7) 3.   A windmill in France. (6,1,4) 4.   This one on the side. (4,2,8) 5.   Includes a girl's name or a boy's with an extra letter. (8) 6.   Others have left too. (6) 7.  Ends in Russian currency. ...

"They called us the Inseparables" Lasting friendships that were formed in early childhood are a fascination for me. What is it that brings individuals together, keeps them together and makes them inseparable? And for me, as an avid Francophile, add to that the “mystery” of why a novel by French writer Simone de Beauvoir should come to light years after the celebrated author’s death then I’m hooked. I had first learned of this book having spotted it on NetGalley, a site that sends pre-publication copies in eformat and sure enough I applied to read it and was duly sent a copy. Of course I had been much aware of Simone de Beauvoir, her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre but I had been more used to reading about her rather than her work. I am so sorry that I didn't start sooner because I just loved this book.  I was grateful for the introduction by Deborah Levy who rightly pointed out that her foreword  contained  spoilers .  I decided to stay with that however as it he...