Gougane Barra

roggernaut | Culture and politics | September 3, 2009

The sun shone outside the small shop in Kealkil. No one was around except for the shop girl and the cars stopping for ice cream. I had already finished mine and was watching the lady behind the wheel of her parked car licking hers with child-like happiness. A familiar, listless Saturday afternoon- I knew I wouldn’t make much more progress if I didn’t start moving. Empty hills and soft rain were appealing once more and I wanted to get to Gougane Barra before the end of the day.
Gou-gane, Bar-ra . Finbar’s place of worship. He took up residence on the lake when men were finding new ways of living in the world. Stationed on far flung islands these men withdrew to a different barbarism, a kind of bare-life. Scavenging, cold, hungry, alone; there was little room for uncertainty. This life so removed from what we know that every visitor who crouches in the dark, dank beehive huts asks the same, ‘How did they live here?’ Certainly not as the saints in the picture books; certainly not in harmony with the natural world. But in cold, hard, constant struggle, recovering shreds of a spiritual universe left in tatters, keeping it through low voices directed at the scouring winds and waves. Like the Jewish boy kept as cow herd in the mountains, persecuted by the gentiles who drink and fornicate and die young, while he inscribes the few lines he has remembered from the torah over and over again into the rocks and trees, inscribing God’s word as his word into the material world he has been abandoned in, never losing faith.

I got lost six miles outside Kealkil, two hours after walking up the hills. The yellow arrows which had guided me so far suddenly dried up. From a narrow wedge of height I could see two valleys, and the windmills to the north I had been advised to head towards. It was wet underfoot and my spirits were fading. I tried a path through a young forestry of sitka spruce, the saplings only ten feet high, planted close together so the branches scratched and snagged my face and body. I followed horse tracks thinking they might lead out to a trail but soon discovered the owners of the prints: two piebald stallions with thick feathers on their forelocks, who were themselves bound in by a sheer drop to a river below. They followed me back out making the confines of the mazy space even more unsettling. On the road they stopped and then, as if they had both seen or heard something I hadn’t, bolted, bucking and kicking like they were possessed. After that encounter I resolved to head back to Kealkil, to cut my losses and see if I could hitch a lift. I had hoped to descend into Gougane Barra from the heathered hills, to see the lake shimmering below and the little hermitage picked out between the trees with my birds eye view. But the paths were unclear and the weather uncertain and the hills were beginning to seem unfamiliar.

The small chapel appeared to float on the dark lake. Above, the fissured, sheer face of the black mountains marked by two, white tears of water- cataracts brought on by the past weeks of heavy rain. The last of the sun was out. I found a patch of vivid green in a copse of well-spaced pine trees, the sound of the rising wind, soft, flat ground, a stream nearby, even a stack of forgotten, rotten wood half toppled against a stone wall. No better place, with the broody lake of St. Finbar down below and my tent out of sight of prying eyes. But putting up my tent, settling into my new, temporary home, clouds of frantic midges descended, murdering my bare arms and neck. I retreated to the pub, only pegging in half the tent, and thought that it was odd that Mad Sweeney, with all his complaints about suffering wild nature, never mentioned midges. Even in his much loved Glen Bolcain, where the cress grows in handfuls and the water is sweet to taste, he was bound to be found out by the midges on a May evening.

The story of Sweeney, or versions of it, dates to the Battle of Moira (A.D. 637), the Battle in which the King of Dal-Arie was transformed into Mad Sweeney. It was a curse by Ronan Finn, a pious cleric, which had him wander the island of Ireland consumed with the fears of a bird- uneasy and constantly scared. His fall from grace for betraying the word of God- Sweeney throws Ronan’s treasured Psalter into a deep lake- and for betraying the spirit of God- his violent response to the sound of Ronan’s holy bell tolling. His punishment is a life of footloose angst, no ease, no rest, no friendship, no society, no peace. In ways this life echoes the life of Finbar- a life of silence, a life of nature- only that one is chosen freely, the other is forced. In Buile Suibhne, the roles are reversed: Finbar, and the other religious men, to leave the debased world of men and politics for a purer existence, in other words de-prived- de (‘entirely’)- privare (‘removed from’)- for the one dearest, single, and for them only justifiable, utterance: a long and suffering expression of God, to God- this as the retreat. Sweeney did not choose this. He is not a holy man who disconnects from the world, but a King who is disconnected by the holy man. He is a King projected into askesis,

Though, I still have life, haunting deep
in the yew glen, climbing mountain slopes,
I would swop places with Congal Claon,
stretched on his back among the slain.

My life is steady lamentation.
The roof above my head has gone.
I am doomed to rags, starved and mad,
brought to this by the power of God.

But once de-prived, he finds, in moments- for it is only in moments when the body is able to rest, when the tension, the tightrope tautness of embattled muscles, can dilate- the experience of a freedom felt only by the uncontracted man. This tension is what Buile Suibhne explores: the poetic expression of Sweeney contradicts the conventions he has left behind but craves. Sweeney is driven to a life of wilderness where death and violence and pain are part of waking experience, far removed from his cosseted life in Dal-Arie, enjoying the hunt and the feast. But in his wild life he also gains something- a proximity to life itself, an understanding of something usually shut out- or at least this is the hermit’s hope.

Three times Sweeney is coaxed down from the branches of his yew tree by Lynchseachan, his half brother, or some say foster brother, and his deceptions (he tells Sweeney that his wife and daughter, and finally, son are dead- the only connection Sweeney still retains with the world he is marginalised from is love for his son). Sweeney is made timid to come down out of the tree where he is met with manacles. Locked up in his own court again he hears the bleating of a stag, ‘like a scared musician’ awakening his memory with ‘high homesick refrains’. Sweeney remembers his beloved Glen Bolcain, describing in verse after verse the hosts of trees, “the alder is my darling/ all thornless in the gap,/ some milk of human kindness/ coursing in its sap”. But it is not ‘nature’ he loves, that harsh world of depravity, but freedom found in moments.

I prefer the scurry
and song of blackbirds
to the usual blather
of men and women.

I prefer the squeal
of badgers in their sett
to the hullabaloo
of the morning hunt.

I prefer the re-
echoing belling of a stag
among the peaks
to that terrible horn.

Behind the bar the old lady felt sorry for me, my lack of dinner. The nearby hotel was booked out, she said, though it could have been my dishevelled appearance that prompted her to say that- the mud up to my ankles and the stale sweat (I had seen the hotel earlier, the linen tablecloths and shiny, silver cutlery). She went off modestly chuffing that she would do her best to make me a sandwich in the kitchen below even though they had stopped serving hours ago. She couldn’t promise me anything, she said, but returned ten minutes later with a cheese and ham sandwich and a bag of crisps. Together with the stout they were a feast and everything was better for it. I drank a couple more slowly and all the while no one came in. There was a play on at the back of the hotel- explaining why the restaurant was so busy- and not many people would come by the pub on an evening. All it offered was a stuffed fox and a stuffed otter in glass cases and a television round the corner bleating out a steady drone laced with sporadic applause from an audience. The rain had set in and the night and I could hear the wind forcing the lake onto the shore in snappy waves.
At nine o’clock the television was turned off and the lady put on her coat. ‘I’ll be off then’. A pause as I realised I was being ushered on. Even my hesitation at the door with the equally suggestive, ‘it’s a wet night’, failed to melt her. I had no jacket so I ran blindly holding my jumper over my head, clenching the torch between my teeth. The muddy trail streamed with water already. My foot sank into several deep troughs. With the rain and black night the way was hardly manageable. Inside the tent the rain drummed with such persistence and the wind struck the sides with such force that I couldn’t sleep. During the night the roof fell in. Blind to the outside, sensible only to frightening noises, I worried irrationally about a world changing around me. Visions of landslides, trees blowing over. I worried that my pleasant home in the woods was really on the edge of a cliff which, in the soft evening light, I had failed to notice. The wind became maddening; no amount of clothes wrapped around my head could subtract the buffeting. At about four o’clock- I checked my mobile phone regularly for the comforting glow of the blue screen and the world it was connected to- a heron lifted off from below, by the lake, with a loud, terrified screech.

As if all the night had just been a bad dream, fraught and blurry, the morning I stepped out into was calm and clear. Long, sharp shadows from the early sun fell on the flattened grass pearled with drops of water. The small stream was swollen- the cold water great tonic on the face. At the hotel no cars were parked and there was no sign of anyone. I walked around the island for the first time. Was there always a walkway out to it? I had imagined it, as the home of a hermit, to be torn from the mainland, a solitary fragment of complete peace (that healthy knowledge that no disturbance is possible without warning).
A gravelly path with carefully tended lawns on either side and a great copper beech tree above felt wrong too, but not the eight cells of chest height with the water leaking in through three feet of stone and earth, like eight basic latrines. Above the cells were the fourteen Stations of the Cross in cheap plaster casts. The hermitage, or remains of it, didn’t feel so old, not as old as Sweeney and his versifying, not as old as Finbar and the dragon (when Patrick rid Ireland of the snakes one serpent remained in hiding in the valley of Gougane Barra. Finbar was given the strength to slay the dragon on the condition that he left his island retreat and followed the river lee from its source in the hills of the Com Rua, behind the lake, to where it met the sea tide. The cathedral of St. Finbar still stands, with the city of Cork growing around it, but Finbar’s remains were removed by the Danes and scattered around).

A service had begun in the toy-like chapel. The rain was falling again in rhythmic drifts, blowing at the same angle as the layers of sedimented sandstone in the cliffs above the lake. The lake was black- even on a sunny day it reflects the black rock said to be stained with the black blood of the drowned dragon. A heron was poised awkwardly but somehow elegantly on the sandy shore of the lake. He was deliberate in her work even as he appeared mad- mad-eyes under a bristly pate, and a grin from the long beak. He waded slowly in the littoral but gathered to the air with such urgency when I approached. I had seen him the evening I arrived beaten out of the reeds by other birds, ravens who take the easy target. Herons are rarely with company like Mad Sweeney who only once meets another man wailing lamentations in the woods. Like Sweeney too, heron is expressive in his own way- in his flight, his broad, strong claim to the sky when he takes off from fright or fickleness.

Imprisoned for six weeks in his own house by the nobles of Dal-Arie Sweeney is ‘brought back to his senses’, ‘restored to his old shape and manner’. There he is guarded by the old mill-hag. She asks Sweeney to tell her about his adventures in the wilds. Sweeney resists but the mill-hag doesn’t let up. Through her own cunning she sets Sweeney astray for the second time, not to fulfil the curse of Ronan, but because he has tasted something he can’t now refuse. Once he leapt into the raucous woods and hills Sweeney could not return, no matter how much he wanted, to a world of mere peace.

- Now listen, woman, he said, if you only knew the hard times I have been through. Many’s the dreadful leap I have leaped from hill and fort and land and valley.
- For God’s sake, said the hag, let me see one of those leaps now. Show me how you did it when you were off in your madness.

With that, he bounded over the bed-rail and lit on the end of the bench.

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The Edginess of Performance Art

hilary williams | Life in a cultural petri dish | September 3, 2009

The Problems of theory vs practice?

Oskar Schlemmer discussed this in Bauhaus days in the1900s.
In his theory of Performance he mentions the essential investigation of space, multidimensional in Performance, two dimensional in Painting.
In these early days many forms of the arts; dance, music, poetry, painting, sculpture and storytelling were often fused together.

I tend to make a multifaceted approach to Performance using my life and body as raw material, much of which remains private but some leaks out as bits of remained experience or storytelling.
This is a road report of sorts….
Last May I was tempted again to get involved in what seemed a very interesting opportunity/workshop/project.

The Black Swans Project with the Abbey Theatre as part of the Bealtaine Festival in Dublin were looking for people of a certain age category, (for once I fulfilled the age category).
A book by Nassim Taleb called The Black Swan inspired this Project. A metaphor for something people thought did not exist but actually did.
“An Impossibility come to pass” The Black Swan Moment maybe where something we thought impossible or that might never happen to us, comes to pass.

During a period of 14 days, sixteen of us elder individuals joined director Darragh Mc Keon and other (experts) in music, acting, fitness, choreography and a puppeteer all of whom gave us daily work outs, explorations of movement, voice, sound and character.
We all got to know each other well and moved from slowly, shyly telling our different stories to building on our varied strengths and weaknesses. We soon found that our weaknesses were sometimes our strengths too.
We explored our own pasts using theatre and performance techniques.
We were introduced to many Performance methodologies which many of us were not very experienced in but were encouraged to use. Our own true selves to tell our own true stories.
Of necessity we had to learn to edit them, shorten or emphasise bits, learn to project ideas physically as well as verbally.
The stories were many and varied, some anecdotally, humorous, some harrowing, shocking, some sad and some uniquely clever and entertaining.
It seemed we were slowly moving in the right direction with Darragh (half our age) the daddy who lead, protected, encouraged and praised but firmly demanded the risk taking of facing out and telling it genuinely.
It all seemed to fly by, on the last day when we produced a show for a small public gathered. Yet I felt the real magic was within the workshops when certain moments were really astonishingly wonderful when people suddenly “took” off and hilarious parodies emerged or quiet, sad reflections had us tearful.
The end product was only a show reel of past magic we created.
The experience had me reflect on many things, How I handled things in my life, opening up old wounds for others to survey, The need to learn to really listen. The belief that we all have a story, how it’s told and how it is received becomes very important and interesting,
I found myself looking at ordinary people at the Luas stop, at the Spike, exchanging drugs or conversation, fags and problems on the quays.
At lunch times I took photos of people around the city at random without them knowing and being a sort of undercover storywriter in my head.
Working with 16 strangers that become friends and then the show is over and it’s like Big Brother. You had your moments good and bad but on the whole it was a unique separate part of your life.
My “story” was to begin pretty gruesome I recounted an episode where I suffered a burst septic appendices and went to the edge; I condensed it down to the following short poem

PAIN is white; Pain IS white, Pain is WHITE.
I lay on the edge of a black abyss,
My body turns putrid.
Surgeons gently lift my bowel.
Night follows wracking night,
Days followed days,
An oozing cracked eggshell that’s me?
Walking down a moonlit corridor
Hope creeps silently beside me,
I feel a shoulder beside mine,
“A burst Appendics” You poor thing”
She smiles
I got to reach my home,
She never did.

This was the result of the first week reducing the story down and down but funnily in the second week my story was completely different,
I re-enacted The Ladies Choice – when I met my future husband. Acted more by movement and interaction with another. It had a different tone and maybe I perform better when moving literally, tracing back with my body the actions of yester year?
The whole experience was fulfilling, At times I was a little suspicious that we were theatre fodder for some directed production but at all times we were treated with great respect as equal actors.
The end result was a beautiful blend of stories produced with a variety of methods, Simple shadow puppets, few props and just basic good storytelling. Each had a different quality together made a lovely woven bedspread of humanity.

Hilary Williams

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Sendings from Acerbica: Kneading Bread

Ambrasia Kurtz | Culture and politics | September 3, 2009

This month our South African skills exchange member continues her cultural journey in Ireland with an essay on the importance of bread

Bread. A universally assumed, basic edible.

Make it through one day without consuming some form of this wheaten bake? Is anything more completely requiting than devouring a crunchy bread roll? A good Sandwich is produce of the skirts of heaven; what can bestow more pleasure on a native of planet earth – the anticipation, watching it arriving on the plate, picking it up, opening the mouth, the first bite in, munch, munch, the spreading sensation of masticating and tasting intoxicating? Ah then, Pizza, the melted cheese, epiphany, sure, but, without the base, this god food is nothing! Perhaps heroin is easier to come off of than wheat. Total addiction. Gluten allergics who have gotten through the impossibility of systematic diet change and the withdrawals and then triumph to sustain the total exclusion of this powdery substance from their lives might well be those who have beaten the most heinous craving. They could be deemed the lucky ones, if they no longer quiver in relish at the idea of a scone, a biscuit, a bun, a crumpet, a pita, a sub, a baguette, a donner, a muffin, a cookie, a pastry, a slice of toast – how do you have egg without it for salivations’ sake, a piece of carrot cake . . .

STEP ONE: Mixing and kneading
The stove just on low warm. A BIG bowl.
Insert 1400mls flour.
Into an additional 100mls flour in the measuring jug, with a fork, thoroughly stir a good dash of sea salt and a splash of sugar.
Add this dry mix to the flour in the bowl and stir it all really well. Prematurely heat 2 cups of non-tap water to LUKE WARM only – switch off the kettle BEFORE it begins to make a noise.
Make a well in the flour in the bowl till you see the bottom, pour in the 2 cups of warmed water.
Open 2 x7gm sachets of yeast and whisk the contents into the water with the fork. This should froth just a little.
Stir 1 cup of room temperature milk into the liquid (another cup of non-tap water will do if there isn’t any milk).
Mix into the liquid 1 modest cup of oil.
Now, circling the bowl with the fork, begin to bring the flour into the liquid well, until all the ingredients are combined into a lump of dough which should be reasonably soft, floppy and sticky.
Add about 1 cup (250mls) of flour into the bowl, make sure clean hands are floured and begin the kneading: mixing the additional flour into the sticky dough, rendering it firmer.
(The yeast is, er, ‘eating’ the additional flour to begin growing.) Breathe, close the eyes, use the arms from the shoulders down to push and turn and squeeze and roll the dough with the hands and fingers, repetitively, until a uniform blob is in the middle of the bowl, not sticking to the bottom or sides.
Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and leave it ON the warmed stove – anywhere from 10 – 30 minutes – the dough should double in size.

She was a naive, little colonial girl. Not her fault really. Her elders had found it convenient to retain brains that were dormantly deferent to the deliberate disinformation of the policies that were serviced by such scam. So, dumbly assuming bread just simply, always, on every table as a matter of course, as if loaves grew on bountiful trees with plentiful labourers picking at ease, it was sequitur for her to presume bread as common staple for the poor, unseen masses. Then, one day, her incredulity at Marie Antoinette’s infamous line about the peasants, 1789, France, “give them cake if they don’t have bread”, was suddenly reddening the other side of her own cheek when she realised she had been equally guilty of just such a disthink.

It was in 1983. She’d left a sprawling, divided, megalopolis city and gone to live on the ‘platteland’ –rural, flat, coastal plains that lay beneath the towering peaks of African escarpment on the way to the Indian Ocean. There she encountered ‘Ookeena’. She never deciphered how to spell the name of this woman who travelled to and fro four hours a day to come and do domestic work in her home. But, she did find out, with humbling, reverberating, shock and horror, that a loaf of bread and a brick of margarine were sheer treat and luxury aspiration hardly ever seen by all the millions of folk like Ookeena. After that revelation, in addition to supplying Ookeena with bread and tea at tea time, she would regularly send her home with a whole loaf and a whole brick.

This gesture never elicited a discernible sign of appreciation in Ookeena. There was just a perceivable measure of extra resilience in her hardened, life-worn demeanour, as, with a parting smile and quizzical laugh, she walked off with her carrier bag on the first steps of long, dusty paths towards a hut home in the far reaches of nowhere. But the stupefied, naive girl had begun her journey into finding out how the larger larder really lay for others. She would come to relate to the sensation of elation masquerading as resignation, when bread in the hand signalled the relief of a meagre feast. So, facts slowly came to occur, that where there was any daily food for the many who had no certainty in this regard, it was not bread that was the hoped for staple, but ‘mielie meal’. A porridge, made from corn, more nutritional than wheat, supposedly, tasty, of granular texture and cheap, really cheap, as a pot of its gruel-like constituent is much more stretchable around the floor of an extended family circle than a slice of bread.

Years later, she joined those orbiting in ‘the breadline’ ellipses, grateful for the white powder that would shower out of the 2.5KG paper packet into the waiting pot of bubbling, salted water; stir, stir, the stiffening mass, the aroma of cooking corn distracting the digestive gnawing and calming her worry over the children’s increasingly empty bellies.

STEP TWO: Kneading
Return the bowl to the mixing place, remove the cloth, enjoy the visual surprise, sprinkle about 1 cup of flour onto the dough, flour the hands, then thwap a fist into the middle of the dough. Repeat the kneading process.

So, it turned out, that her journey gleaned the insight that the convenience of unconsciously picking up a standard, sliced, enplasticked loaf on the way to the checkout is, statistically, a global minority right. For the in few. For those of automatically, well endowed hue. But some of those entitled to this premium lifestyle discover increasing, overwhelming bloating associated with eating any of this mass supplied bread manufactured in its many variations in the industrial sector. One has to question, what’s actually in those loaves? The 18 x 14 x 38 packets are at least useful for super efficient management of domestic waste – rubbish being a matter related in the all connectedness of everything, but entirely a tangent for another dissertation. Except that, in regard to waste and bread, in one city in the southern reaches of Africa, it can be noted, in driving by with recoiling nostril severity, that “Sam’s Bread”, which is touted in advertorial demonstrativeness to be the saviour of every citizen, is baked in a building that shares adjacent industrial space with “The Pooh Factory” – (yeh, the sewerage recycling plant for the entire region). Both Sam and Pooh have, as neighbour, a production plant that manufactures . . . batteries.

Well, why should one wonder then, at an imploring email that went out, raising calls for alarm and sounding warnings, that Sam’s slices should not be consumed under any circumstances. This bread being fed to an entire generation of not so completely unfortunate younger children, is, rather than nourishing them, actually denuding their growing bodies of minerals essential to vital development in the formative years, with girls, apparently, particularly vulnerable.

STEP THREE: Formatting the dough for baking
Prepare the dough in pans of choice, e.g. press out really thin on baking trays (3 or 4 breads, 35×25), sprinkle with rock salt / grated cheese / pizza ingredients.
Separate into 16 equal balls and form into rolls placed on a tray.
Press into WELL GREASED & FLOURED loaf tins (2 tins -10x20x6), ensuring that the dough is forced right into all the bottom edges and corners. Put these back on the stove top to rise again, 10 – 30 minutes. Increase oven heat to desired baking temperature.

Alas, it does appear to be firmly established that eating breaded foods is not necessarily a digestive system treasure. Rather, it seems to have become more like a pastime, a kind of reward, a cosseting pleasure. Without the grace to become a breatharian or, at least, a committed gluten allergic, where there’s bondage to bread (generic), it’s probably going to become increasingly pertinent for some to reach the point of serious reconsideration as to how to continue getting the daily fix. Self baking becomes less and less an option, but more like an exponentially necessary endeavour. Ingredients, sigh, turn into yet another intrepid exploration, given that, as no-name, nasty plain flour is cheap, it could all be utterly, genetically modified wheat by now, coming from Ohio, Argentina, wherever, who knows?

Some local flours remain, brands that claim old fashioned, healthy, organic fame, not debauched by bleaching or dehusking or additives, for which, the price goes up, naturally, but where the wheat is grown, who can say? And then, good wellness practitioners, bent on non-negotiably equating sound nutrition with optimum health stipulate that, the only form of really nourishing flour is that which is to be purchased through extremely exorbitant €’s at health shops, but this foodstuff is so alive that it requires refrigeration storage (yet another tangent dissertation) to prevent imminent demise.

Yeast, is very expensive. Much more so than baking powder. One box of yeast with 8 x 7gm sachets @ €2.79 lasts 5 days – 4 double batches of bread for a family of four. Whereas, a 113gm tin of baking powder @ €1.30 might not be on the shopping list more than once every good few weeks. Of course baking soda is the cheapest raising agent. One 500gm packet @ 75c seems to supply one indefinitely through a year. It’s a base ingredient, in its original form, without additives and there are many valuable uses for it in the home besides its contribution to edible product. Though there are times, when Soda is simply not available on the shelves and one does not know why. But, somehow, Soda Bread doesn’t do the definitive trick. It can burn the tongue. A few teaspoons of honey used in conjunction with sour milk or buttermilk can offset this in the mix somewhat, but the texture of soda bread always tends to be heavy, a stodge, unless a little baking powder is also added to give the dough that extra nudge to rise up more uniformly so that the bite encounters something a little more airy in the slice.

It’s hard to surpass yeast in a bread and, in a way, it can be the more economical route to baking, since a yeast risen dough cooks quicker, using less gas than a solid mix that draws a lot of power for the first onslaught of heat to get the air to begin to move through it for its expansion and growth and then there’s the wait for soda dough to cook through properly if the oven isn’t functioning hundreds, number 1.

‘They’ say, on the yeast box, that it is not necessary to go through the outmoded procedure of repeated kneading and waiting for the dough to rise once or twice. Just testing the quick route they advocate, “mix up and straight into the pan”, and it is clear that the directions on the packaging are simply fallacious. If one is looking for a quick fix rise, rather spend less on soda. For true, satisfying rising, yes, yeast, the longer way round, is best.

Time, is an issue, but this is something one can have dominion over – getting a routine and pattern up and running, till it’s off pat in the diurnal format and the regularity of one’s own activity is the unconscious convenience that is relied upon to supply one’s daily bread.

STEP FOUR: Baking
Ovens are so individual, one has to play with the firing. Depending on the format of the bread,
Thin: 8-9 gas mark (450-475F°) 10-12 mins.
Small shapes: 6-7 gas mark (400-425F°) 15-20 mins.
Loaf: 4-6 gas mark (350-400F°) for 15-25 mins.
Generally start high, then reduce heat after 5-10 mins.

The partner of the well journeyed colonial girl loves to knead bread. That might suggest that there are bread makers in his lineage. But not so. His forebears dealt in high quality textiles and high brow garments, leather making, vegetable growing and music education. He loves to knead bread. The thwap of one’s floury fist into the growing, living concoction that has crept upwards in the bowl, with the energy thrust coming down from the shoulders, along the arms, into the wrists, hand and fingers, the repetition, the back and forth, pushing and rolling and turning and prodding, the emanating ale-like whiff, the hearthy glow from the oven that is waiting warmed to receive and nurture the dough into being comforting food for the family.

Bread. A universally assumed, basic edible? Ye olde Gates’ thesaurus suggests only otherwise: ‘Cash, currency, dosh, brass, lolly’. This type of bread, in itself, is quite useless for any purpose, edible or otherwise; construed through long, age old patriarchracy into enforced consumable that became substitute representation for the gathering of all round, basic, staple needs, the imposition of it as a system, has reconfigured every planetary citizen into the collusion of a linguistic confusion: you need bread and you have to have it to knead bread to eat bread.

Is that how the word for the lump of pliable, sticky, uncooked food in the making came to be uttered as colloquial reference to money: “Got any dough for me honey?” It’s all very well to have a recipe for kneading bread. But, of the recipe for needing bread, what can be said? For the artist, the creator, the giver, the intellectual sensitive, the intuitive, the earthworker, the devoted parent, the musician who is aligned with tuning into the kneading of dough and its living, rising into a practical work of culinary art, wherefore art thou, ye tactics for needing dough? More like, pummel and thump the elasticity out of the thing and the breath out of oneself until there’s no more air to rise up in being.

He hates to need bread. He hates to not know what it is or how it is to know how to need bread so that the bread he needs can be kneaded in peace. He loves to knead bread.

It’s all in the practice of daily getting into a habit forming pattern of taking the first step in kneading before the stomach begins to mumble need for bread. So where there’s dough to buy ingredients for dough and there’s bread to pay for gas to fire the bread, and if one isn’t consuming all one’s time trying to find dough and bread, then kneading bread becomes practical, synergistic serendipity, as this kindly supply of a satisfyingly thwapped, well tried and tested recipe, from his and her life-kitchen will show.

STEP FIVE: Cool, Slice, Spread and Eat

Notes: ensure that the flour is ‘plain’ – that it does not contain pre-added rising agents. Nasty, no-name, white stuff will do, but adding a sparing, substitute proportion of more wholesome flour, eg stone ground whole-wheat, should improve the nutrition of the bake.

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen gives grand contribution to the art of bread kneading

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Pitching a Mobile Phone Game

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | September 2, 2009

When Bernadette Devlin first entered the British parliament she declared that her constituency, as far as she could see it, was the world of ideas. Over the past few years I’ve reacquainted myself with my childhood belief that ideas are a form of energy so potent they’re worth all the oil in Iraq. From the engine to Eastenders, from penicillin to Popeye, from the mobile home to the mobile phone, from nuclear power to power steering – ideas have sculpted life as we know it today; for better or worse.

Working as I do in the murky freelance waters of ideas pitching, I have never been put off a pitch by the fact that I know next to nothing about what I’m pitching. I have found that all it takes is one solid idea, and as they sing in Chicago, a bit of razzle dazzle. Hence my entry into the sweaty-male dominated world of mobile games pitching. Channel 4 had teamed up with Nokia and EA Games and was looking for ideas for a mobile phone game. All entrants had to do was to submit the idea in a clear and easy to understand manner. Entrants needed no background in gaming or the mobile phone industry. All entrants required to win was a good idea and an interest in mobile phone gaming. Right, I thought, rolling my sleeves up – I’ve played Tetris on my mobile phone, I used to be able to clear Sonic the Hedgehog on the Playstation and I’m no stranger to the online version of Who wants to be a Millionaire? – I can do this.

So I came up with three ideas and submitted these via email. No more the paper trail when it comes to pitching. The fact that you can send entries quick and on the cheap via email (it was free to enter) is an absolute blessing to those of us who are broke from buying stamps and postal orders to pay for pitching comps.

With my entry in the ether, I forgot all about it…until two weeks later when I received a missive from Channel 4 informing me that they had chosen one of my ideas – score! Ten finalists had been chosen and we were all invited to attend a 12-hour mobile phone gaming masterclass- after which we would have to pitch our ideas to the head commissioners at EA Games, Nokia and Channel 4 multimedia. The event was held at Channel 4 headquarters, an impressive space-age-like hub of bustling energy near Westminster Abbey. When I arrived I was quick to note that I was the only female present and that, judging by the goatees, the long leather jackets and the heated arguments they were engaging in about portals and something called Gears of War, all of the other contestants were die-hard gamers, apart from a man in his fifties from Northern Ireland who looked as much out of place as I did. He did, however, have the foresight to use a power-point presentation to pitch – nice.
We spent the day learning how to formulate and pitch a mobile phone game and we were also taught a little about how the mobile phone games industry works. The most important lesson to be gleaned from our masterclass: social networking is the way forward for mobile phone games. Hence the fact that by the time of the pitch-off, each finalist had integrated a social networking aspect to their games pitch. After our lessons we were shepherded downstairs to a surreal 70s harem-like den, where Channel 4 holds its intimate do’s and launches. Platters of sandwiches, starters and mini-bagels were on offer, and I tactfully decided to avoid anything that could possibly remain in my teeth afterwards. We were given an hour to eat and to put our final pitches into a coherent form and then, with frayed nerves, full bellies and barely legible scraps of paper, I led a leather jacketed army up the stairs to a conference room where we each had to pitch in front of the panel of judges, the Channel 4 talent crew, journalists from gaming magazines – and each other. Ouch!

My heart was practically sitting on my tongue by the time I was asked to stand up and pitch (which may account for some of my mumbling). And so I shimmied over to the pitching seat and clumsily adjusted the microphone. I opened with a little joke about being the token female, and received a knowing laugh from the only woman on the panel – Mandy Pollard, a Channel 4 commissioner. After that winning opening line, I can’t remember a single word I said. I can only recall the stony eyes of Nokia heavyweight Scott Foe beating down on me as I answered question after question about the ins and outs of my mobile phone game idea. I didn’t win the mobile phone game pitching event (the prize was a two week placement with a gaming company and £1,000). The winning pitch was that of a finders keepers social networking game where players could break into their pals safe-houses and steal goodies.

Before we left, every finalist received a new N96 phone and Channel 4 boxsets – nice! Even nicer was the fact that a Channel 4 commissioner advised me to turn my game into a TV quiz show and to launch it from there. On hearing this, another of Channel 4’s team cornered me and asked if he could work with me on developing the idea for the screen, which is what I am working on right now. Pitching is a painful process – especially if, like me, you suffer from inherent shyness. But it is an essential part of life for those of us who believe in the power of ideas. It took me less than thirty minutes to put my original ideas for a mobile phone game together, but those thirty minutes have resulted in the most unlikely adventure – I have since gained representation from a company who specialise in bringing ideas to television producers and I recently received a note from Stephen Fry informing me that he really liked my game show idea.

People often ask me what it is that I do and lacking an accurate term, I usually just say I’m a writer. But at heart I know I’m something else. An idealist? Absolutely. An inventor? Occasionally. A chancer? Most definitely. A general opportunist…now that sounds about right.

306 total views, 1 today

Sometimes it is the simplest things……

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | September 2, 2009

Walking down Cowgate, your first thought on seeing the throngs of Gothic teenagers, is that the city has been taken over by a Vampire Convention. It’s August 14th and Edinburgh City is in full swing. Everywhere, actors in make – up and full costume scurry from venue to venue carrying set, props, lights and fellow actors. The splendor of such a sight is nearly too much for any theatre enthusiast. Suffice to say that it nips the nose of any critic who suggests that the theatre is a dying art form. Edinburgh is the proof of the pudding that the theatrical community is hugely present internationally. The city itself is a casement of wonder.

Venues are tucked into every nook and cranny of the city. Festival hot spots pepper the centre. The city becomes a hive of productivity and a web of networks for the month of August. Music, film, art, comedy and theatre flood the city crossing one another as they flow. New influences are taken on, ideas generated and relationships formed that keep the arts pushing forward. The importance of such a hub to current theatre makers is invaluable. As resources are low, every opportunity is available for producers and directors to meet and combine ideas. There was an atmosphere of, ‘re-imagining’, throughout the city.

The Forgotten Things by Emma Adams, was one play that struck me personally. It came highly recommended to me by a friend working with the festival. It was very much the product of a writer/creator than of a playwright. The play looked at the pressures placed on a family that have to take care of their grandmother. It has a classic, George’s Marvellous Medicine, intro, where the son is asked to stay with his grandmother while the parents go out of the house. However, Adams distorts the dynamic by making the son a teenager on the brink of suicide. Two worlds are established next in the action, the naturalistic world of the grandmother and grandson and the more slightly bonkers world of the parents who reside with an eccentric therapist, which is played by a large puppet. Interestingly, Adams is a DJ too and the mixing of the two worlds is like the mixing of two vinyl records. The lines become blurred, set and props scatter from one scene to the next, one world bleeding into another.

The play had a very simple message but it showed it in an interesting way. It spoke about life and struggle and made a heartfelt comment on the pressures families face when caring for an elderly relative. The fun arose from the possibility of resolution while the characters themselves carried the tragedy. From the outside, looking in, the piece balanced the audiences part in the experience with that of the narrative. One connected with the characters in such a way that the social comment lived far beyond the one hour slot.

It made me think about theatre, about what speaks to audiences and what loses an audience. Much of the work in Edinburgh is fast paced and furious. Other work is obscure and profound, all which are great in their own way. I just thought in the midst of all the frills and fusions, the simple message about the elderly was clearly made in an interesting way.

Jenny Rogers

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On the QT: tentative rules for ‘postmodern filmmakers’

Gemma McCarthy | Life in a cultural petri dish | September 2, 2009

Inglorious Bastards may prove to be a blockbuster hit, and the most memorable of all the summer fare this year. Despite the gory scenes splattered throughout the movie, Bastards does not necessarily leave a bad taste in your mouth, but rather an appreciation of the colour, music and stylish shots that Tarantino has woven together. Anyone who has seen a QT flick will know by now that this movie-buff director packs his creations with homages to everything from spaghetti westerns through to classic Hitchcock moments.

If anyone were to encapsulate that term ‘postmodern’ today, then surely it would be Tarantino. Given that, within the field of film, postmodernism covers such practices as parody, pastiche and the reuse of former genres and styles of filmmaking, Tarantino movies such as Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction are prime examples of this movement. One well known Tarantino website has even comprised a lengthy list of the movie references to be found in Kill Bill alone (http://www.tarantino.info/wiki/index.php/Kill_Bill_References_Guide), and one glance is enough to make us realise how influenced QT is as a director. Indeed, Inglorious Bastards takes its title from the 1978 WWII film of the same name, so that viewers are making mental references to previous films before the new movie has even begun.

It could be argued that, as we are in a postmodern age, all filmmakers, be they professional or amateur, are part of that movement. Certainly, many of the amateur filmmakers around today (and they are numerous, given the now easy access to digital formats) cannot help but be influenced by older movies. First time moviemakers are prone to zombie horrors or Al Pacino inspired gangster pics, eager to try their hand at the classic movies with which they grew up. In an Irish setting, such imitation does not always succeed. Not only is it near impossible to recreate the impression bestowed on viewers the first time they were exposed to the likes of Goodfellas or Evil Dead, but it seems that there is a stage where one has to draw the line or else risk complete parody. A nod and a wink to a classic movie can work well and even impress the cinephiles who pick up on the reference, whereas attempting to transfer an American gangster story to Dublin city only highlights the differences and causes the viewer to wish they were watching the original.
Perhaps, Tarantino has somewhat mastered the particulars of postmodern filmmaking, swiping the best scenes, the most eye-catching cinematography and tunes that are not easily forgotten. Being a walking encyclopaedia of filmic knowledge, as Tarantino is known to be, does help of course, but a knack for knowing what to use and when to use it is key.

QT’s films are a playground of classic movie moments that leave viewers discussing certain scenes for years to come, but as Tarantino often keeps his references slight and mixes genres, he cannot be condemned for trying to repeat success with one particular film or style of moviemaking (unless you are a fan of the manga Lady Snowblood and thus refuse to acknowledge Kill Bill as anything original, see http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/i_just_watched_lady_snowblood_tarantinos_kill_bill_inspiration).

No doubt Tarantino critics may claim that he tends to steal outright, but even familiar scenes are given a twist, be it down to a modern music soundtrack or a setting that is at odds with the scene at hand. The lessons here for those of postmodern times? If an outright imitation of a classic movie ain’t gonna work, then let it be, and while references are fine, keep them brief and move on quickly. Really, it’s not such a bad method of moviemaking, and with the thousands of films from bygone times to pick and choose from, directing Tarantino style should be as much fun for the filmmaker as for the viewer.

Gemma McCarthy

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flaminglotus.com

roggernaut | Art and design | September 2, 2009

The Flaming Lotus Girls (FLG) are a female-driven group of artists formed in 2000 to create our first sculpture, the Flaming Lotus. Our sculptures are composed of steel , stainless steel, copper, glass, wood, light, and fire. Our flames blaze in sizes ranging from 2 inches to 150+ feet.

For the past seven years we have grown and thrived, creating installations for Burning Man and exhibiting at events globally including: Power Tool Drag Races (June 2004, 2006); Fire Arts Exposition: Art on Fire, Fire Arts Festival at the Crucible in Oakland; Festival of Lights in Sausalito (Dec. 2004, 2005); Robodock in Amsterdam (Sept 2005); and the Big Day Out in Australia (Jan 2007).

Dawn at the boobie tanks The FLG work in an egalitarian fashion, accepting input from anyone who regularly attends meetings. All creative decisions are made collaboratively. Over 100 volunteers worked on the Serpent Mother last year.

Ladies (and gentlemen) can join the FLG with no previous experience in metal working and the fire arts. There are hands-on opportuntities for members to learn the techniques used in the design, building and operation of our projects and refine these skills to further their own art.

Our collaborative process includes an open and supportive culture promoting volunteer contribution and leadership opportunities. Check them out at flaminglotus.com

328 total views, 1 today

today the red cross sent her for a chest x-ray

roggernaut | Short fiction and poetry | September 2, 2009

today the red cross sent her for a chest x-ray

this girl I know
who always wears summer dresses
and a smile
lent me a book on awareness
but wants it back before
she goes to work in a conflict zone
for the red cross in september

she travelled in a big red bus
to a surfers festival in donegal
where she worked
in the big red bus café
on her breaks she surfed
smoked loads of weed
listened to reggae and ate falafel

last Wednesday she received a
back payment from the social welfare
and felt guilty about it
so she donated half of it to charity
bought donkeys for three Ethiopian families
spent a small fortune on ingredients for a friends dinner
and paid for my vegetable soup

she stopped at a chocolatier
to buy one solitary chocolate
and then ate it hurriedly
while she chatted to
a circus guy she knew
about a party she had missed when she
was on the big red bus

while skimming through books
in the spirituality section
wearing her summer dress and a smile
she said she felt sick
from having eaten the chocolate too
quickly and was sad that she hadn’t
taken the time to enjoy it

today the red cross sent her for
a chest x-ray

the corner of the kitchen table

some people don’t like extremes

some people cry for you
on their kitchen floor

some people don’t read books
afraid that if they did they
might end up unhappy
from thinking

some people don’t masturbate

some people get off against
the corner of the kitchen table

some people don’t like sex
afraid that if they did they
might end up unhappy
from feeling

some people don’t sleep

some people take sleeping tablets
with their coffee at the kitchen counter

some people don’t like to wake up
afraid that if they did they
might end up unhappy
from waking

some people

copied and pasted

everything seems copied and pasted
everything seems done before
the fear of finally saying you love me
when i’ve heard it a thousand times and more
romantic dinners at romantic restaurants
romantic walks romantic breaks
dressing up in cheap lingerie
sitting on your wanton face

everything seems copied and pasted
all the good and all the bad
whispered words of tender undoing
bitter fights that drive me mad
stress filled dinners at stress filled restaurants
stress filled walks stress filled breaks
dressing down in unflattering pyjamas
pushing away your angry face

everything seems copied and pasted
something old nothing new
everything borrowed
Nicola Depuis

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Books on Collaborative Art and The Avant Garde

roggernaut | Book reviews and writers | September 2, 2009

Taking the Matter into Common Hands: Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices by Johanna Billing

Taking the Matter into Common Hands maps out the issues surrounding collaborative art from a practitioner s perspective. With contributions from Marion von Osten, Nav Haq, 16 Beaver, Copenhagen Free University, Maria Lind and Lars Nilsson, it examines the working relations between artists and other producers of culture, and explores the future of collective action in the art world

The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective by Arjun Appadurai

The meaning that people attribute to things necessarily derives from human transactions and motivations, particularly from how those things are used and circulated. The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Focusing on culturally defined aspects of exchange and socially regulated processes of circulation, the essays illuminate the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to social relations. By looking at things as if they lead social lives, the authors provide a new way to understand how value is externalized and sought after. They discuss a wide range of goods – from oriental carpets to human relics – to reveal both that the underlying logic of everyday economic life is not so far removed from that which explains the circulation of exotica, and that the distinction between contemporary economics and simpler, more distant ones is less obvious than has been thought. As the editor argues in his introduction, beneath the seeming infinitude of human wants, and the apparent multiplicity of material forms, there in fact lie complex, but specific, social and political mechanisms that regulate taste, trade, and desire. Containing contributions from American and British social anthropologists and historians, the volume bridges the disciplines of social history, cultural anthropology, and economics, and marks a major step in our understanding of the cultural basis of economic life and the sociology of culture. It will appeal to anthropologists, social historians, economists, archaeologists, and historians of art

The Return of the Real: Avant-garde at the End of the Century by Hal Foster

After the dominant models of art-as-text in the 1970s and art-as-simulacrum in the 1980s, Hal Foster argues that in the 1990s, we are now witness to a “return to the real” – to art and theory that seek to be grounded in bodies and sites, identities and communities. Foster’s concise analysis of art practices over the past three decades traces important models at work in art and theory, with special attention to the controversial connections between the two during this period. It also focuses on the relation between prewar and postwar avant-gardes: how does the return of a past practice affect the development of a present one?

The result is a genealogy of art and theory from minimalism and pop to the present. Chapters can be read independently, although Foster interrelates practices of sometimes disparate time periods and methodologies. Foster disputes the common assumption that contemporary art is only redundant, belated or condemned to pastiche. On the contrary, he suggests that the avant-garde always returns to us “from the future”, repositioned by innovative practice in the present. And he poses this retroactive mode of art and theory against the reactionary undoing of progressive culture that is so pervasive today. If “The Return of the Real” begins with a narrative of the historical avant-garde, it concludes with a reading of our contemporary situation – and what it portends for future practices of art and theory, culture and politics

“The Return of the Real” is one of the most cogent and theoretically self-aware readings of contemprary art I have seen.”
Howard Singerman

Department of Art History, University of Virginia

314 total views, 1 today

Culture without capita(l)

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | September 2, 2009

September. The beginning of my year.

Holidays are over. Summer having gone from wet and warm to wet and windy to wet and cold.
Things kick back into action
play goes into full throttle
This is my silly season.
And what better way to start than with ‘Culture Night’ or is it? What is it? Easy to miss. That’s what it is. ‘Culture Night’ is a state initiative in which as the City Council state on their website;
“the theatres, galleries, observatories, public laboratories, artist studios, prisons, historic houses and museums of Cork are staying open late and putting on a range of special programmes for one night only. With over fifty venues, one hundred and fifty events, the city opens its doors and lets the culture flow. You, your family and friends can all explore Cork and its culture in many different ways. There are workshops, plays, movies, readings, music, dance and exhibitions. Running from the early evening until past midnight, the events all offer a new way of experiencing culture in Cork. Everyone one is invited, the young, old, families and friends, visitors and residents. The Cultural organisations, their staff and their funding partners have all welcomed and supported this project. Cork City Council would like to thank them for all of their efforts in creating this programme for you to enjoy”.
This year the appointed night is Friday 25th September.

I for one am ambivalent about it. When looking at it from a cursory point of view it seems to be a fantastic idea. Why not? Bring everyone in. Let them see the mechanics. Show off the rich and varied culture tapestry of the City. Let the punter meet the makers, the workers, the people behind the scenes. The people that make it happen. Give the public a host of free events to pick and choose from; catch a bus with poetry on it, a walking tour, a cycling trip, look at the stars, the cosmos, listen to music, participate in a piece of impromptu theatre and so on. It all sounds great. And it is but for one thing. It is singularly hypocritical and does not serve its function in any meaningful way. On closer analysis there is, for me, something inherently wrong with the whole concept.

Firstly, you have a Government that spends less on culture per capita than all but two countries in the EU (Poland spend 31.5% less than Ireland while Greece spends 38.5% less) but claim to support and love the Arts. According to the European Institute, Ireland spends a measly €52.46 on culture per capita (see Cultural Policies and trends in Europe as part of the European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research @ http://www.culturalpolicies.net). The European country that spends most on culture per capita is Denmark at €351.99 (670% more than our culture loving state, the average spend in the EU is €137.53 per capita). What’s worst about these statistics is that they tell a pre- recession story. This was us at our best. Even more galling is that a percentage of that measly pot went into erroneous spending by our government representatives – in particular our wonderfully enlightened former Minister for the Arts, John O’Donoghue – and I’m sure more revelations will come out in due course. It’s an absolute disgrace. The phrase “put your money where your mouth is” comes to mind.
Putting all those figures aside let us ask ourselves another question. Is a ‘Culture Night ‘relevant and who does it benefit? Well simply put all culture is relevant. That goes without saying. We are the product of culture, we all take part in the creation, birth and development of culture, we live in it, play in it. Breathe it. So why the special night? Why turn it into a circus? Why distinguish it, set it apart from everything else? Who is going to benefit? The quick answer to a complicated question is that the state will. Once again – as is often the case – Culture will be used as a branding tool to give credence and legitimacy to the status quo. ‘Culture Night’ is part of this branding exercise. It is a smokescreen hiding the inadequacies of the state and its attitude to the arts and those that work in the culture sector. The status quo will become more entrenched

It is vitally important that people who care for and nurture culture do not allow the arts to be turned into a branding tool by the state. The state must start viewing the cultural sector as a necessary part of life and not merely an adornment. It must not take culture or those working in the sector for granted. Most importantly we must not let the state use cultural events to make itself look better when facing into the eye of a financial storm. A storm in which the cultural sector will be the first to be hung out to dry

281 total views, 1 today

Spank

roggernaut | Everything about music | September 2, 2009

This month in our culture blog the incredibly talented blues guitarist Spank, from Cork, tells us a little of his love for music

Eoin O Sullivan is Spank, Spank is Eoin O Sullivan. An experienced performer who has previously played around Ireland, New York, Minnesota and Chicago. He’s currently finishing his first album which will be brought to Canada later in the year. It’s a mixture of Rock/Blues/Soul and more Rock. At a solo gig, his mix of bluesy dark guitar and hypotic rhythms burst into all out war as his vocal like razor blades scream across the stage and through the bodies of everybody present. This guy sings from the pits of personal hell, he batters and tests his bloodstained vintage Guild guitar, tells stories of love, drugs and sex and every word is given freely and passionately to you, the listener.

blogs.myspace.com/spankmemusic

Listen to Spank on

Radio Mutation

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Pork Scaloppini with Tomatoes

Joseph x | Recipes from a mutant kitchen | September 2, 2009

This recipe for pork scaloppini with tomatoes is absolutely delicious.

I spend a great deal of time looking for foolproof, simple recipes. Experience has taught me that they are a rarity and so the search is on-going. Meanwhile, I am going to share with you one of my all-time favourite, easy recipes, which the poorest of cooks could not fail to get right. This dish comes accompanied by a little background.
Many years ago, my wife I and lived in the South Seas. It was a beautiful place and as one grows older, memory makes it all the more beautiful because of its association with one’s youth. How precious and sweet were those times! One hot, tropical day, we were invited to lunch by a member of the local consular corps. Our host was courteous and attentive as is the wont of his ilk and his wife was charming, warm and hospitable. Lunch was served under an awning at small tables set out around a swimming pool. There, the midday heat was dissipated by the cooling south east trade winds. The heady scent of flowering frangipani trees permeated the air and gorgeous, purple bougainvillea tumbled down the banks of the sloping garden. In the distance, across the top of coconut trees, the azure-blue waters of the lagoon were clearly visible. It was magical and the perfect setting for pork scaloppini which, thanks to the kindness of our hostess, entered the family culinary annals that day.

1 big pork fillet cut into small bite sizes
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
30g flour
250g thinly sliced mushrooms
1 clove of garlic crushed
2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tbsp chopped basil
1 400g tin tomatoes
120ml Marsala*/Vermouth
2 tbsp grated Parmesan
Salt and freshly ground pepper

*In fact, I have always used Marsala, a fortified Sicilian wine. It is used extensively in Italian cooking and I have been able to buy a variety of it specifically for cooking in my local delicatessen.

Preheat the oven to 170C
Dredge the pork in the flour and brown in the hot oil and butter. Place in a casserole dish with all the other ingredients, bring to the boil, cover and place it in the oven for 45 minutes. It is then ready to eat. – Trust me – I usually serve this dish with pasta and a crispy green salad.

Joseph X

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An out of water experience

Mark Kelleher | Life in a cultural petri dish | September 2, 2009

The first thing you notice is the wide fields of green, stretching out across the horizon like a grand quilt. And the history, too. Yes, all the learned about moments in history loom large, attack the senses, embellish all previous misconceptions, and tell you that you’re here, now, sharking in over the gothic churches, ominous-looking buildings and moments in time brought to life only in film and books.
Landing in Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss Airport is not entirely different from landing in Cork Airport, or any other than is surrounded by fields on such a vast scale. Flanked by pretty lawns marked with swaying trees that stand like eternal soldiers, the terminal stretches out for what seems like an eternity.
The evening sun is intense; locals, accustomed to the heat, fleet through the deserted hinterland of the baggage’s bay, whilst strangers trudge like wounded animals, waving newspapers across their faces, cheeks puffed out. There is a peculiar beauty entwined in the dead airport – with its immaculate floors, its utter timelessness and chaotic signs of neon glow, it formulates a misshapen branch of reality, an idea suspended in time. J.G Ballard, the recently-departed Sci-Fi novelist, wrote endlessly of the invisible secrets of the abandoned airport. One feels his finger was firmly on the spot.

The S-Bahn to Hauptbahnhof takes about forty minutes. Outside, as the train trudged slowly, industrial parks appeared frequently, their grotesque steel structures glistening impressively in the dying light of the evening. Each town-name is a tongue-twister for those of us used to the simplicity of our native tongues. Yet despite the intricacies of pronunciation, traveling on the S-Bahn brings about no confusion.
Stereo-types, ridiculously exaggerated, are nearly always brought to use when traveling abroad. However, in most circumstances, they hold a grain of truth, even in its most minute proportions. The Germans are, as often claimed, undeniably efficient. Train-estimations are met with infinite precision- there are no delays, tickets are stubbed beforehand – there is no need for conductors. One quickly finds that everything soon seeps into a comfort-zone; things fall into place like one could only desire them to.

Arriving in a destination in the early hours is often an oddity; a rarefied attack on the senses. Cloaked in the darkness of the night, the panorama of a city lies shrouded in mystery, until morn and the first glimmer of light. Viewed through a hotel-window, Munich’s skyline lies jagged, even, at times, seeming misplaced, but always endearing. The gothic cathedrals, penis-shaped business skyscrapers, and flowing rivers are an odd concoction but somehow work well. Indeed, one quickly learns that oddities in the eyes of those new to the city are all part of normalcy to it’s natives.
Feeling distinctly alien in your first day in a new country is a prerequisite of travel. Along the wide pavements on the outskirts of Munich’s city centre, frantic cyclists zoom by in their hundreds, fleeing around corners and out of sight like chased cats. For the minuscule walker, dealing with such a reality is often cruel, met often with harsh stares, wagging fingers and -worst of all – the jingling of a bell. It’s an intimidating sight for the foot-traveler, who must, at all times, be on guard and highly aware of the crazed bell-ringers of Munich.

Around Marienplatz, Munich city’s central-location, tourists gather in wild groups, hunched over with heavy-backpacks full of local souvenirs, whilst local pigeons peck wildly at their feet. A young American woman, robust and loud, holds a placard advertising free-walking-tours. Like mice, those in ear-shot flee toward her, cameras at the ready, smiles splattered on their faces. Despite the annoying woman-guide – for she is – a free tour is a free tour. Some listen intently, others hover on the outskirts of the group, unsure. Upon announcing that the walking tour- taking in the grand sights of Munich city – will take three hours, everyone streams away as though a canister of tear-gas has been flung into the heart of the crowd. Three hours is three hours, after all.

St Peter’s church stands in gothic splendor, its grand arches and pointed steeple veering towards the heavens, leering over the heart of Marienplatz. Down below, the eyes of those gathered directly below hover incessantly, waiting for it to either take off towards the sky, or for it to crumble, or just for it to stay there where it‘s perched, beautifully pristine and intimidating.
The real excitement happens on the hour. As the minutes flitter out in their fifties, large groups gather in larger groups waiting for the :00 to hit. As it does, the bells of St. Peter’s clang to the high-heavens, their chimes wailing into the Munich air; all the while, eyes are darting and mouths are yawping, when a clatter and hum sounds from the vast perches stationed high above, followed by a collection of well-suited statues who slide out with a boom, and disappear before the last bell clangs and the last clap is clapped. And then everyone follows suit and disappears. Though make no mistake, they will return in fifty nine minutes once more.

Sucking back a beer in Munich is fucking a Chinese prostitute in Amsterdam- it’s taking a blurry snap-shot of the Big-Ben from London Bridge, eating dog in Korea, puckering up to the Blarney stone whilst your fat friend holds your recently-purchased Aran sweater from Blarney. It’s an apparent must, and is on offer everywhere, and is consumed profusely, for it’s cheap and plentiful. Large clusters of boisterous English-men are to be found ordering gallons of local beer in the many bars located around the city. However, despite the endless consummation, serenity never destructs as night creeps in. Pavements stay vomit-free, faces and limbs remain in-tact and attached; nothing descends into the unparalleled madness the streets of the town’s of Ireland have become accustomed to. Such culture and peace amongst people would be the perfect gift to bring home.

As the days drift by in a new country, one becomes more daring – they venture that bit further beyond the boundaries of the city, leave the map behind in the hotel-room, and perhaps, if one has truly become embedded within the culture of the city, even chance a conversation with a local. One ventures and explores.
The omnipresent bus-tours of the city zoom away and back on the hour. Upon jumping aboard, one is supplied with a crackling set of earphones, whose narrator will whisper your way through the city, averting your eyes to the city’s many chic boutiques of style, its horrific past, and the its pretty fountains and lane-ways where rose-petals trip and wanderers wander towards the grand selection of famous beer-gardens.

Munich’s Academy of Music, a fine, building of grand gray, now lies where the former headquarters of the Nazi party once stood. Indeed Nazism, that eternal thorn in the side of German culture and history, appears to have left no traces. It isn’t forgotten – nor shall it ever be – yet it is spoken of only in vague terms, as one would speak of an uncle who once murdered a child, or a dream best forgotten. Its mark is a mark of shame, like a scar so horrid one wishes to conceal it for eternity.
There is, however, a subtle reminder of the stark devastation traversed across humanity as a result of Nazi tyranny. Located in the square of the victims of national socialism, a marble shaft stands idle, topped by an imprisoned eternal flame, fluttering and flickering day and night, year after year, for those perished by means of fascism.

Elsewhere, beer-gardens spread across the land, here, there, just about anywhere. Some, idle off beaten-tracks, sit pretty in their quaintness, decorated with begonias of red and yellow and neatly-crafted endearing furniture. Others house as many as 5,000 merry patrons, though, like many arenas of such a grand scale, somehow aren’t quite as pretty as their little siblings. And then we’re done; our whispering friend offers his good-bye, and with time running out – for what are holidays, but a clock constantly running out – we’re left wanting more. And luckily there is, Plenty more.

The Deutches Museum, the world’s central hub of showcased technology and science, is located a half-mile from the heart of the city, down a dusty, quiet road, on a tidy little island on the river Isar. For a meager €8, one gains entry to a splendid collection of gems. In the entrance room, ancient ships with tattooed sails, held aloft by decrepit masts, rise towards the ceiling. Such a bizarre sight – boats inside a building, lined together as though stuck in a traffic jam at the end of time – would be at home in a Dali painting. In a side-room, missiles lie astride one another, their sheer power and ability to destruct creating scenes of mayhem in the minds of those passing through the soundless room where they are stationed.
In another room we find a sleazy giant snake, its belly dissected in half for those looking on but not saying anything, to stare in awe and terror at the nation’s first U-Boat. It is, perhaps, the museum’s most terrifying sight, yet stands beautiful, alone and aloof. No one adheres to the “No Touching” signs dotted around its self – the urge to touch, to make sure it’s really there, is too much for everyone.

Out of the water, we take for the skies; the museum grand foyer acts as an unused air-wing. Suspended from the heavens, planes dangle above those looking up. Fighter jets with crude logos,; commercial jets; paratrooper planes and beastly war-birds fight for the arena’s airspace. The crowd in awe is plentiful, but no one speaks. The images reflect the mood – everything is damningly surreal. A dream-scenario of juxtaposition.

From the skies, the universe is our only goal yet to achieve. And yes, those good old Germans cater for that, too. The top-floor is dedicated to the most surreal of all journeys – into the cosmic unknown. Mannequins in space-suits are suspended lifelessly in mid-air to backdrops of stars; we step aboard a replica of a steel-box that was shot out beyond the perimeters of our world. But one feature – lit up in a minute glass box- beats everything this arena of wonder has offered: a fragment of the moon. One squints their eye, gets closer, and sets themselves upon it. And there it is,-small, looking like just any other stone, yet quite possibly the most unique item for us humans to behold – a token from another world.

And then, it’s time to leave. And the clock has finally run out – and like the whispering guide, it, too, is now time for us to say our goodbyes. Leaving the museum, one thinks about its location and the cancerous past it has to live with. Munich is the city where the most tyrannic of parties established themselves. It is a city with a permanent tattoo embedded within its psyche, where, although buildings can be destroyed, images in the mind cannot. There will always be a repulsion towards Germany’s past – it can not be forgotten. Yet, it moves on. It prospers, and, above all, it serves as a city of wonder to those who come to visit. It is a city of good people, in a country of good people. And it’s a city where, like all the other magical places one visits, people wish it stood still in time, in order for their enjoyment not to run out.

Accounts of journeying are often littered with a litany of cliché. Talk of stones being split by the sun, Irish-bars and endless comparisons to home are about as useful as reading a book review in the Sun. The beauty of travel lies within its mystery – and how you, as the observer, experienced it all. Munich is an experience – for not only are the horrors of the world lurking, but also the infinite beauty of it, too. And that’s exactly the way it should be.
Mark Kelleher

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Kale: The wheel begins to turn

Giles Clark | Recipes from a mutant kitchen | September 2, 2009

September can be an ambiguous, anxious month, as we try to enjoy any late summer sun while bracing our self or the darkening chill not far away.

Kale, similar to its sibling cabbage, can be grown and harvested year round. It’s a little backwards though in that with the first frosts later in the month its leaves become sweeter and more tender. It will then provide comfort during the shortening days and biting winds. Delicious with barley slow cooked in a light broth, or on top of sloppy butter beans on toast and the last of the summer’s fennel with a healthy splash of rapeseed oil.

A Soup for late September:
Haddock, Clams, Kale and Leek

The first young leeks of the season will also be cropping up late September.

The clams (or cockles) will need a good wash. If you’ve picked them yourself, about an eight hour bathe in cold, clean, salted water. Either way it’s important to go through them, hunting out any that have broken shells or are open and don’t close shut when tapped.
They’ll also need to be cooked separately so as not to take any risks with the grit. Pop them into a hot pan with a knob of butter, salt and a little wine or water. Let them steam with the lid on and the occasional shake of the pan. It’s very important not to overcook the clams as they’ll quickly turn rubbery – they’re happy enough a little under cooked. If they’re small then they shouldn’t need much longer than two minutes. When done scoop them out with a slotted spoon and then strain the remaining liquor through a fine sieve or clean cloth, so ridding it of any loitering grit. Take half of the clams out of their shells (which you can add to the stock).

The broth can be made with the heads, bones and skin of your haddock but it’s worth asking your fish monger for some more (from any white fish) so you can make a big batch. It’s important they’re fresh (from the freezer is kosher, as long as they were fresh when frozen), if not, the best you can hope for is a muted stock. Often when fish on the bone is on the old side but ok, its carcasses are not. Let your nose be your guide.

Give it all a good rinse under cold running water. Slice – as finely as you can – some onions, celery, fennel, garlic and parsley stalks. Into a hot pan; some oil, a bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Then chuck in the fish bones (and a few of the washed clams). A bash and a couple of stirs and then fill up with water. Bring to boiling point and then simmer slowly for half an hour, then let it begin to cool for half an hour in the pot, then strain. Be a master of your hob – if it breaks into a rolling boil it’ll likely become chalky and bitter. It’s ready for action now, though I often tend to reduce it just a little bit.

Cut your leeks in half lengthwise and then slice them up at half-inch lengths.
Peel the waxy potatoes (unless they are young and the skin tender) and cut into thumb sized wedges. Wash the kale, chuck the stalks and chop the leaves to a similar size as the leeks and spuds. Slice the haddock into hearty sized pieces and sprinkle them all over with some salt ten minutes or so before you add them to the soup.

Heat some oil in a pan with a couple of crushed garlic cloves, a couple of slivers of lemon zest and a bay leaf and a wodge of thyme stalks.

When hot add the leaks, then the potatoes. Season and stir over a medium heat for a minute or two. Then add your stock. Simmer for a couple of minutes and then add the kale leaves, washed and chopped. If the kale seems pretty tough then best to add it with the potatoes. When the kale and potatoes aren’t far off add the haddock.

Keep the soup at just below a simmer. Keep a close eye on the haddock, when they are almost tender through pop in the clams and their liquor. Check the seasoning, bring it back up to heat and serve with foaming butter and grinds of black pepper.

(If you’re not confident about the freshness of your fish and your stock isn’t singing then it might be best to bulk up the flavours a little. Some fennel seeds, celery seeds, and crushed cherry tomatoes can be added with the leeks and a splash of white wine before you add the stock)

Preserving summer

A weekend in, behind the stove isn’t a prospect many may consider. So much of summer’s bounty though spills right into September – damsons, blackberries, courgettes, green beans…with the lean months ahead of us there’s no better time to be preserving.

Elderberry vinegar
With elderflowers in abundance in early summer their berries are now triumphant in the dying days of the season. Pick them quickly before the sparrows get their beaks on them – they’ll likely be gone by the second half of September. This sweet vinegar will be especially handsome alongside game and smoked meats. It also makes a fine beverage, with a glass of ice cold tonic or with a mug of boiling water before bed to settle.

Lightly crush your stemmed berries and cover with cider vinegar. Let steep for four to five days, stirring once or twice a day. Then strain, with a little encouragement, through a fine sieve, muslin or a clean tea towel.
Then, over a low heat stir in some caster sugar until dissolved – 450gs to every 600gms of vinegar. This will help preserve the vinegar and help the elderness to shine. Washed out naggins and cork screws work a treat for bottling.

Runner Bean Chutney
Avoid the over grown, stringy runners and those that are wilting and wallowing. They are at their best they are fairly young, they’ll be a perky green, snap like crackling and have a juicy interior that’s a joy to eat raw.

For two pounds of runners I used a handful of demerara sugar and half a cup of cider vinegar.
Boil the runners in lots of salted water, drain them and shock them under a cold running tap while they’ve still half a bite to them. Let them dry, wrapped in a tea towel in the fridge. Then top but don’t tail them and cut then at a bias into inch or so lengths.

Bring the cider vinegar slowly to the boil in a pan with lots of mustard seeds and a bunch of mint. Turn off the heat and let it come slowly back to room temperature then strain.

Cut some spring onions into thin wedges and fry in a heavy pot, gently in olive oil, with a little finely sliced lemon rind. Raise the heat and add the beans and stir. Soon pour in the vinegar and then the sugar. Find a steady heat that lets the vinegar bubble gently away. Keep stirring on occasion and patiently wait for it all to become chutney-ish: the vinegar reduced and binding everything together – about half an hour. Taste it, it will probably need a wee pinch of salt, and some toasted poppy seeds (much less than you’d imagine, I think – they seem to multiply and are best enjoyed in the background.)

Jar it and it’ll be best if left to hang out for a month or so before opening.

Beetroot Wine
Some of the sweet summer beetroot is still knocking about, but the young autumn beetroot will be just right for the job. (Keep aside the delicious stalks. Maybe try boiling them until tender then frying them quickly in olive oil and parsley and serving with goats cheese and sherry vinegar)

I couldn’t say how well this wine will age. Certainly it will all be good for this years Christmas though. Maybe try some hot with spices and gin, or else as is, either way enjoy watching each others gnashers change colour, the mouth becoming a deep, dark purple cave.

3 ½ litres water
800 gm unrefined caster sugar
1 ½ kilos of beetroot
Half a sachet of wine yeast (http://thehomebrewcompany.ie)

Measurements should work out right to store in a five litre water

Scrub your beetroot and then slice thin with the skins still on. Put them in a pot with the water and some orange and lemon zest. Bring to a boil and simmer until completely tender. Strain on to sugar and stir until dissolved. Add a sachet of yeast
Activate the yeast in some warmed water and a pinch of sugar.
Stir in the yeast once the liquor has cooled.
Funnel everything into your container, seal, and punch a thin whole in the lid.
Rap the bottle up in any spare blankets and put it in a dark, warm room.
It should be ready in about two to three weeks. When the bubbles have stopped rising, and the sweetness has all but gone (taste through a straw), it will be time to strain and bottle.

Giles Clark

Image by Fiona Hallinan

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