Some Fishy April Fool's Day!

April Fool's Day is traditionally a day of jolly hoaxes and pranks. It is related to a change in attribution of New Year's Day to 1st January in line with the Gregorian calendar (introduced in 1582), which resulted in quid pro quo amongst the populations of Europe. 'The motivation for the reform was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of the year in which the First Council of Nicaea had agreed upon in 325. Because the celebration of Easter was tied to the Spring equinox, the Roman Catholic Church considered this steady drift in the date of Easter undesirable. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox countries continued to use the traditional Julian calendar and adopted the Gregorian reform after a time, for the sake of convenience in international trade. The last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923.' (Wikipedia).

Fish Platter by Andrew Ludick Ceramics

Now if you are not acquainted with French, Belgian, French Canadian, French Swiss or Italian traditions around April Fool's Day, you may not be aware that we like it fishy! Children (and the young at heart) attach handmade paper fishes in the back of unsuspecting relatives, friends, co-workers (yes!) and passers-by. The fish has some religious (Catholic) connotation attached to it, but whether you are a devout or not is totally irrelevant. What matters is to bring a smile to someone's face.

These days though, instead of sticking fishes in people's backs, I'd rather stick a fish dish on a loved one's table as a present! Those featured here are by Irish ceramicist Andrew Ludick and they bring together the decorative and the practical. His dishy Handpainted Ocean Life Platters are available to purchase from Crate & Barrel.

Fish Bowls by Andrew Ludick Ceramics

Handpainted Ocean Life Platters by Andrew Ludick Ceramics

Andrew's latest Fish Bowls

A Week-End Wonderweb 19-02 (Corsica)

More than just "une montagne dans la mer" (a mountain surrounded by sea), the aptly named "Ile de Beauté" (Beauty Island) commonly known as Corsica is multi-faceted in terms of scenery, a reminiscence of Italy, Switzerland, Côte d'Azur, Normandie, Ireland, Scotland, California and Argentina; follow the road less travelled for a discovery journey that will marvel your senses!

Sources (top page down):

• 'Le Tour du Cap Corse', first produced in 1923 by French graphic artist Roger Broders, is available to purchase as a poster print from Art.com and/ or via Amazon.com
• France for Visitors, Corsica > Nebbio > Farinole, pictured by Dominique Tison
• Corsica For Hikers, the scenic village of Evisa, near Porto, pictured by ©Pierre Bona (2005)
• Emma Keens, Aiguilles de Bavella (Sept 2007), via Flickr 
• Jean-Jacques Mattei, Palombaggia (Apr 2010), via Flickr.

Smile, There's a New Year Ahead! (Part 1)

Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to 2011! One year older, one year wiser. In the face of adversity past, present and future, let us put things into perspective, remain positive and count our blessings.

Keep on rocking!

2010 had its share of human and ecological disasters (Haïti, the BP oil disaster, Iceland volcano, and Pakistan, to name just four). It was also a year of further economic meltdown, exemplified by certain representatives of the Euro Zone (namely Greece, Spain and Ireland).

2010 was not all about doom and gloom though. Some people's survival was short of a miracle (Chili miners) and consequently this took the focus off the negative to give hope a huge boost. Hope in the future, hope in better things, hope in life, in life itself.

For most of us, 2010 was just a continuation of previous years, with those personal beliefs yo-yoing up and down the barometer of faith and happiness. On a personal note, 2010 was a mixed affair. In fact, I am one of those tens of thousands of economic casualties directly incumbent to the greed of Yuppie Boy down The City, Wall Street and other market places, playing legoes with our corporate profits and bonuses, spitting his Tiffany dummy out, throwing a wobbly and getting us all laid off in one sneeze.

The Glass Pavilion, Santa Barbara CA: yours for a cool USD28,500,000

Money never sleeps and money makes the world go round. The world of finance is finding novel ways to reconstruct, 'merge & acquire', reap all the cash rewards and incentives that it doesn't deserve. Our meagre consolation is that what goes around comes around. Sooner or later, the Madoffs, the Kerviels, the Leesons, the Enrons of this world (their emissaries and those 'faceless' figureheads) will get caught up in the Karma loop one way or another, yet sadly knocking off further innocent lives in their fall from grace.

If the legal judicial system does not always act in fairness and impartiality, at least we can console ourselves with one equality certainty: as sure as we are born, we sure are mere mortals. And the only wealth we may take with us to the after-world is unmaterialistic: personal knowledge and advancement, and wisdom (or lack thereof...). (to be continued)

La Saison des Champignons (Part 1)

When I recently praised Autumn's cornucopia as the bumper harvest time of the year that will (allegorically) see us through Winter, I meant to include this next element to the list of fruit, vegetables and grains, and then decided to dedicate a whole post just to its pleasures that encompass the delights of a treasure hunt of sorts followed by the satisfaction of a tasty dinner.

But before I end up sounding like the bloke out of River Cottage, just allow me to praise nature's resourcefulness in rewarding us with a produce it nurtures all by itself, without man's intervention: the simple - yet complex - wild mushrooms.

Mushrooms like ceps (porcini), morels, chanterelles, trompettes de la mort (horns of plenty), girolles, puffballs, etc. reward the vegetarians amongst us with a substitute to meat (high protein content), and also satisfy carnivorous appetites by admirably complimenting meat in a white sauce or a rich wine-based jus.

Mushrooms might not pop to the mind of the urbanite (myself included) whose encounter with fungi will rarely err beyond the supermarket's fresh produce aisle, where the cultivated variety (often 'limited' to the widespread white button mushroom or their brown caps counterpart, and produced in huge quantities in Ireland to cater for the UK market) will be neatly presented, packaged up in plastic trays enclosed in cling-film, after a rigorous selection and calibration process.

One piece of advice in passing: once home after purchase, be sure to store them in a paper bag at the bottom of the fridge, rather than keep them in their plastic packaging. Failing that, at least remove the cling film to help the mushrooms breathe.

Now back to our subject matter, mushrooms of the wild order: they come in an array of calibres, shapes, colours, patterns and... toxicity levels. Hence the fact that amateur mycologists are strongly advised to only forage under the safety umbrella of a mycological society who are experts and conoisseurs. If not, the least you can do safety-wise is to take your pickings to a pharmacist who should be able to help you identify the safe edible specimens from the rogues! I cannot emphasise enough that the toxicity risk needs to be assessed very seriously indeed as a matter of life and death.

Oh and I won't even mention magic mushrooms, that some members of society seem to pride themselves in identifying as experts in their field, yet of course not for the same enjoyment purposes as our average mushroom gourmet here... (to be continued)