Superbe! Renaud used time-lapse photography to take more than 1,120 images, one every two seconds, then stitched them into a two-minute video montage at 10 images a second.

But there’s something more. He also applied “tilt shift” to the images. We always get a little mesmerised and disoriented by tilt-shift photography: it’s a magical technique that alters the focus and the depth of field to simulate the effect of a model or miniature – façon maquette as he puts it.

The Eastern-tinged grunge music, by the way, is by The Offspring.

Renaud definitely looks like a name to watch. Also check out his website for some other great projects, including his series of photos about the 2011 floods in the Hérault.

The Schleck brothers Andy and Fränk seem to be “decent skins”, as they say. And Contador is, well, officially, in a word, a CHEAT. Alright, four words: A Conniving Chemical CHEAT.

But in a French word? Oh sugar, that has us diving for the big fat dictionary on the mantelpiece, in order to be well versed for all those conversations that will inevitably ensue about this burning topic in days to come and especially next July in the middle of Le Tour.

Besides, we all have a special need for those particular words. In France and Ireland alike, we’ve been living through a decade of monumental cheats, systematic fraudsters and hucksters.

Those chancers and charlatans operate in far more important fields of human activity than – sorry, no offence to the vast bulk of professional cyclists who don’t cheat and who do do an incredible and very honourable job in an amazing sport – “a bit of a bike ride”. We need to know the words for cheats and cheating in this much wider world that goes far beyond the world of sport.

The nouns…

The basic noun for a cheat in French is un tricheur or une tricheuse.

Tricheur. As an aide-mémoire,  just think of tricks, tricksters and treachery.

• He is a cheat – il est un tricheur
• Cheating – la tricherie
• It’s cheating – c’est de la triche
• A lie – un mensonge
• A fraudster – un fraudeur

The verbs…

• You’re cheating! – Tu triches!
• To cheat a person or a company (or an entire nation) – tromper (just think of trompe l’oeil)
• To feel cheated – se sentir lésé(e), or se sentir dupé(e)
• To cheat somebody (out) of – dépouiller quelqu’un de
• To cheat in the Leaving Cert - tricher au Leaving Cert
• To cheat at cards – tricher aux cartes
• To defraud -  frauder
• To swindle – escroquer

Finally, a few more related phrases that may come in handy in the cycling conversations in the months to come…

“I’m disgusted”
“Je suis dégoûté”

“What’s really rotten in cycling…”
“C’est que ce qui est vraiment pourri dans le cyclisme…”

“It’s a sad day for cycling”
“C’est une triste journée pour le cyclisme”

“If you’re certain that a rider wanted to dope and cheat, he must be punished – and punished severely”
“Si vous êtes certains qu’un coureur a voulu se doper et tricher, il faut le punir et le punir sévèrement”

“There wasn’t any reason to rejoice. First of all I feel sorry for Alberto…”
“Il n’y avait aucune raison de se réjouir. Je suis d’abord triste pour Alberto…” (actually this last quote is from Andy Schleck himself this morning)

Finally, finally, please don’t drag up Thierry Henry’s infamous handball incident yet again. It’s even engrained in Google searches now (see image near top of the page). La tromperie? Time to move on from that particular one…

Le Roman d'un tricheur (The Story of a Cheat), the 1936 film starring, written, narrated and directed by Sacha Guitry

In weather like this you want to crank up the oven and slow-cook in the kitchen. Thankfully the freezer has some good old reliables including a dozen sausages. They’re perfect for a hearty stew – a twist on a cassoulet perhaps – or in this case a straightforward casserole or bake.

The meal takes five minutes to prepare, as most of the work is done by your oven. Don’t forget to improvise with what’s at hand…

Strictly speaking, a casserole (French for “saucepan”) isn’t just a type of cooking but one of those large, deep dishes that go into the oven and can then serve as a serving dish. But a fairly deep old roasting tin does just as well for this recipe.

1. Put some quality sausages in a roasting tin or baking dish,  sprinkle lightly with vegetable oil and pop it in the oven on a high heat until the sausages just begin to brown (about 4-5 minutes)
2. Meanwhile gently fry some sliced onions in a couple of tablespoons of oil in a frying pan until soft but not brown
3. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to the baking dish
4. Turn the oven down to a medium heat and turn the sausages
5. Now add a few potatoes to the baking dish; waxy ones are best as they hold their shape much better than “floury” potatoes – don’t even peel them, just wash and cut into medium slices
6. Check the fridge and cupboards for other likely contenders – a couple of tomatoes or (more likely) tinned tomatoes, or a tablespoon of tomato puree, and a diced carrot perhaps
7. Next some liquid: throw in a glass of wine, or a tin of cider, and/or chicken stock (or a good stockcube and water if you’re stuck)
8. Your baking tin is mounting up. Add a generous sprig’s worth of fresh thyme (or dried at a pinch)  and/or 2-3 bay leaves; if you want to add a slightly spicy twist and a little extra heat, sprinkle on some smoked paprika
9. Bake slowly for an hour or more until well cooked (but not overburnt) and the liquid is quite reduced, and the kitchen is full of the smells of comfort food
10. Sprinkle on some fresh chopped parsley or scallions, season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve

This is just our take on it, of course, and there must be many variations out there – such as “Saucisson de Bologne sauce tomate”.

Freezing sausages

Sausages make great store cupboard staples and usually freeze well. Put them in small batches in freezer bags, so that you can use them in smallish quantities if needs be.

Normally for safety’s sake you’d need to thaw them first, then cook them well. For this dish, though – assuming the frozen sausages can be separated easily and aren’t aren’t stuck together in a huge block of ice that could sink the Titanic – you could just pat them down with some kitchen towel  and cook from frozen.

Simply fry them lightly to brown them, knowing full well that they aren’t fully cooked through just yet. The long, slow cook in the oven will thaw them out nicely and cook them through.

Related posts:

• Slow-baked sausages in Irish stout
• Pig’s cheeks in red wine
• Mustard rabbit – lapin à la moutarde
• Poulet aux quarante gousses d’ail, or chicken with (a mere) 40 cloves of garlic
• Sex, drugs and sausage rolls

While Ireland is frosty and chilly enough at the moment it has largely escaped the big freeze that’s sweeping across Europe. But some parts of France could get temperatures as low as -18C tonight.

Even in many parts of the Languedoc it’ll be a case of un bon bonnet, les gants et une bonne veste (the good hat and gloves and a decent jacket) on Thursday morning.

The sub-zero temperatures are terrible for homeless people in particular.

The local préfectures are on alert with their emergency plans, and extra accommodation in Montpellier, Sète and Béziers. The mobile emergency services of SAMU (that’s the Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente) are being mobilised, and extra patrols of SMUR (Service mobile d’urgence et de réanimation), and various other acronyms of plans and services for the homeless.

Talking of which, SDF must be one of the strangest French acronyms we’ve come across in France, and it’s everywhere.  SDF stands for sans domicile fixe,  those with no permanent fixed abode.

France and French do have their fair share of acronyms, but we still find the SDF one ever so peculiar and jarring.

There are many other French (and English) words for homeless people, such as

• marginal (socially marginalised)
• sans-abri (literally roofless) et sans-papiers (no papers)
• nomade (wanderer)
• trimardeur (vagrant)
• chemineau (hobo)
• clochard (tramp)

Some of the words are hardly used nowadays, others pepper French translations of Jack Kerouac’s writing and so on. Some are simple descriptions while others – in French or English – may have negative or even insulting overtones.

Yet SDF is the one term that seems to have taken off in France instead of all these other “homeless” words. When did that happen? And how, when it’s such a strange collection of letters instead of proper words – letters as cold as ice?

Related posts:

• Popular French acronyms
• Snow in the Languedoc (2009)

Across the water, the UK Met Office says spring starts a month later on 1 March. That makes March, April and May the spring months, “for simplicity’s sake”. The UK weather people have June, July and August as summer; September, October and November as autumn; and December, January and February as winter.

Others will tell you that spring starts at the vernal equinox, when the days become as long as the nights.

“Vernal” comes from the Latin word for “bloom”, and “equinox” for “equal night”. But the vernal equinox is on the night of 20-21 March, so that makes the Summer Solstice (21 June) the start of summer. Yet the following day is called Midsummer’s Day.

Then there’s the official start of  “Summer Time” in our time zone – at 2am on the last Sunday in March – i.e. 25 March 2012, when the clocks go forward (or is it back?)

And in southern latitudes, the equinoxes are reversed, so that while Easter is a spring thing in the northern hemisphere it becomes an autumn celebration in Australia, New Zealand, South America, South Africa and so on.

In Ireland, just to be bolshie and different, our spring traditionally starts tomorrow, on 1 February, St Brigid’s Day. It continues until early May (Bealtaine).

Very confusing.

At least with the equinox thing it’s a scientifically fixed date, totally dependent on the angle of the Earth to the Sun and not other things which are sometimes related of course, but which vary quite a bit, such as when the first daffodils appear, or a big bout of frost, or when spring lambs frolic or March hares do whatever they do, or even global warming and climate change.

That way, the four seasons – les quatre saisons – are simply determined by the changing sunlight, which in turn is determined by how our little planet wobbles its way around our nearest star, and the tilt of its axis as it does so. La terre aime le soleil.

Related posts:

• The 18th Brumaire
• Daylight savings time – le temps perdu
• When France had a 10-day week

The following is a slightly decadent version of an Irish breakfast, though it’s far healthier than “the Big Fry with All the Works”. Basically it’s just scrambled eggs with a smoked salmon twist.

Quick musical aside: even without the fishy angle, scrambled eggs rock. Beatles fans will know that “Scrambled Eggs” was the original title of the Beatles’ “Yesterday”, and here’s a rare moment (sound only, with Spanish subtitles for los aficionados españoles de los Beatles) of  Sir Paul doing his original proper eggy version on the “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” show on NBC…

(Don’t believe us? Here’s the full video version with images – though the sound is a bit dodgy).

Right, enough of the musical asides: without further ado here’s our “smoked salmon scrambled eggs” recipe. Serves two – with the perfect quantities for a Valentine’s Day breakfast…

• 4 to 5 eggs (depending on size) – organic, free range, as fresh as you can
• A small knob of unsalted butter (no, olive oil isn’t quite right)
• A tiny bit of smoked salmon – be conservative, because it can be domineering
• Freshly ground pepper – white rather than black if you’re fussy
• Bread, for toast
• Optional: a tablespoon of cream or crème fraîche (or even natural yoghurt)
• Optional: a couple of chive leaves

Slice the bread. Put on the toaster.

Chop the smoked salmon fairly finely.

Break the eggs into a bowl and beat gently with a fork. Season with pepper (no need for salt because the smoked salmon has more than enough).

Put a small pot or even a frying pan on a moderate heat, add the butter, let it foam gently. Add the smoked salmon for just a few seconds to release some of its oils, but don’t let it brown.

Pour in the egg mixture and make scrambled eggs in the usual way – if you’re not sure how to do scrambled eggs, check Delia Smith’s scrambled eggs tips.

Stir well and take it off the heat while the mixture is still runny but just about to set. This does take a certain knack, in order to get the eggs cooked yet still soft.

Take it off the heat. Add the cream if you want to slow down the cooking process and add a bit of richness. Garnish with finely chopped chives if you fancy. Bon appetit!

Variations

Right, how about doing an en cocotte version of the same? Oeufs en cocotte  (or oeufs cocotte)  involves gently cooking each individual egg in its own buttered ramekin dish (ramequin) in the oven, preferably in a water bath, for about 12 to 15 minutes, with some extra ingredients.

(Minor aside about language: does the English word “coquette” come from “cocotte”?)

Those hidden extras are a brilliant surprise at the bottom of the ramekin dish: usually a slice of ham and a dollop of cream or crème fraîche, with an optional topping of a pinch of grated cheese, along the lines of white cheddar or gruyère.

Instead of ham, try smoked salmon, and maybe skip the cheese. Check out Mrs Multitasker’s Smoked Salmon and Egg Cups recipe.

Hey Carignan, what's your game now - can anybody play?

Once upon a time Carignan was the most widely planted grape on the planet. It was the single most common vine variety planted in France.

Its vines are late budding, ripen late and are highly susceptible to rot and mildew. They favour a hot climate and long, dry growing season – is it any wonder that Carignan became the grape of Languedoc-Roussillon?

Then something happened. It fell out of fashion.

The amount of Carignan vines in the south of France halved during the 1990s. It was overtaken by Merlot.

If you believed some wine experts (and we’re not experts by any means, just wine fans), everything about Carignan – all 100% of it – was absolutely wrong: “too high in acidity”, “rough tannins”, “green and unripe flavours”, “not great for early drinking”, “and doesn’t age well either”.

Carignan became associated with “the kind of wine you could pour into an empty petrol tank in an emergency”, as one English Sunday newspaper harshly put it. Or take the highly respected Jancis Robinson’s verdict:

“Its wine is high in everything — acidity, tannins, colour, bitterness — but finesse and charm. This gives it the double inconvenience of being unsuitable for early consumption yet unworthy of maturation.”

- Jancis Robinson in “The Oxford Companion to Wine”

Carignan vines can be exceptionally productive – sometimes “churning out” (Ms Robinson’s words) 200 hectolitres per hectare – and maybe that was part of  the problem too. Excuse the mixed metaphors, but the Languedoc-Roussillon’s cash cow became the elephant in the room.

As our Twitter friend from Cork, Blake Creedon, so vividly puts it, Carignan was “long regarded as the lantern-jawed ruffian of the wine world, mostly destined for the notorious EU wine lake”. We can’t help thinking of a ruffian and said jaw being tossed into a very large lake.

The gnarled old Carignan bushes began to be replaced by gentler, fruitier, trendier grapes, the “improvers”, the cepages ameliorateurs. Not that Carignan disappeared altogether. There was still plenty around, but now it had a much lower profile. It disappeared into blends – particularly to add acidity to Cinsaut and/or Grenache.

So very brave was the producer who dared to make a 100% varietal Carignan, of all things.

The authorities weren’t against Carignan, not officially, but there were all them EU grants to rip up the old vines, and while many Languedoc-Roussillon producers took the funding on the one hand, very few would be planting new Carignan vines on the other.

The result, by luck perhaps, was that what was left included a lot of very old vines in overlooked corners. And some growers found that the problem wasn’t with the grape per se but with where the vines were planted. Instead of going for big volumes on your best soil, you had a much better wine if it came from these older vines, vines with plenty of character, on extremely poor soils, with much lower yields.

You’d also get better results if you let the grapes ripen properly, and harvest them  late, and store them in older oak barrels, and do the “Edward Scissorhands” thing and prune back your vines very severely every year.

Lo Vièlh and the Carignan fightback

Carignan’s fightback had to come. It seems to be led by a couple of Languedoc vignerons – John Bojanowski, originally from Kentucky, and his French wife Nicole (nee Fernandez).

They run Clos Du Gravillas, a small organic domaine in St Jean de Minervois, on chalky gravel soil just south of the Montagne Noire (Black Mountains). Gravillas means gravel, crushed white gravel chips, or  beaucoup de cailloux. Take it away, John (in French)…

Before becoming winemakers, John was the East European Sales Manager for a supplier of uninterruptible power supply equipment, and Nicole was as an export manager at Terroirs D’Occitanie.

In 1999 Nicole came across two and a half hectares of Carignan vines in their vineyard’s neglected nooks and crannies: vines planted in 1970, 1952 and 1911. Imagine that – some of the vines are now over a century old.

They started to make a 100% Carignan wine, Lo Vièlh (“The Old One” in Occitan). Ask for a glass of it the next time you’re in Le Chameau Ivre in Béziers.

Anyway, John started the Carignans.com website, and in 2004 he organised the first “Carignan World Tasting”, a gathering in Béziers of dozens of local growers, Carignan fans, and (v imporant) some doubting scribes from the international wine press.

As Ryan O’Connell explains on his blog, “Now, there’s a safe community where growers can come out of the Carignan closet and admit to the world and to themselves that it is a great grape when grown right.”

And when it’s treated right, a 100% Carignan is superb: silky smooth, easygoing, with great depth and flavours, from black olives to coffee and dark chocolate and a hint of tobacco.

OK, Carignan is an underdog, a workhorse rather than a racing stallion. Yet what’s wrong with workhorses? This one is a strong and sturdy and a perfect reflection of its perfect terroir.

It can also be great value in Irish shops: take the “Rare Vineyards Carignan Vieilles Vignes” from the Hérault, which has been appearing in Superquinn in recent times for as little as €6 a bottle (apologies to specialist wine merchants: we’ve only seen it in the supermarket giants, so if you too have some good 100% Carignans, please give yourselves a nice big plug in the comments box below).

Mind you, the labels for this particular “Rare Vineyards” wine try to press all the right marketing buttons (“terroir”, “garrigue” etc) in a contrived sort of way, in clumsy English that seems  deliberately so…

“Made of a forgotten Languedoc grape” (Of? from?)
“Grown on rare vineyards” (On? in?)
“Located in far away valleys” (Far away from where? Narbonne? Carcassonne? Termonfeckin?)
“This Carignan old vines expresses all its true characteristics enhanced by its ‘garrigue” terroir aromas” (Buttons. Being. Pressed)
“The wine richness and concentration will transport you through the 40 years age vines…” (Sorry?)

It’s a pity too that (unlike Lo Vièlh etc) these labels are ever so vague about who produced it, and where exactly these Rare Vineyards are located. All us consumers can work out is that it’s bottled in a 34360 postcode, maybe around Pardailhan near St Chinian.

It’s easy to make your own, and in our house we do it one of two ways: either in a lemony brine or in olive oil (we might even try rapeseed oil next winter).

Brine is cheaper, though you don’t get the benefit of the flavoured oil. Some recipes also insist that you remove the pulp (interior flesh), but it’s “waste not, want not” in the Evening Hérault HQ so we don’t bother.

Both these recipes involve five or six fat lemons (preferably with the leaves attached), and you’ll need a large, sterilised, airtight jar such as a one-pint Kilner pot.

And both recipes need plenty of coarse sea salt. Never table salt, which is far too chemical and harsh.

Recipe #1: Preserved lemons in brine

• Lemons
• Sea salt
• Spices (e.g. fennel seed, cumin seed, coriander seed, peppercorns, a couple of bay leaves, a cinnamon stick, perhaps a pinch of dried chili)

Mix the spices and salt in a bowl.

Cut a cross into each lemon so that you quarter it almost to the base, but so that the quarters still hold together.

Rub plenty of the salt mix into the lemon segments, then reshape the fruit.

Put a tablespoon of the salt into the bottom of the jar.

Pack the lemons as tightly as you can into the jar (the more tightly, the less salt you’ll need), pressing the lemons down to release their juices and sprinkling more salt/spices on them as you go along.

If the juice released from the squashed fruit doesn’t cover them, add some freshly squeezed lemon juice. Leave a little air space before sealing the jar. Seal. Put them away for a month for the preserving process to do its work.

To use, take out the lemons as you need them, and rinse well under running water.

Recipe #2: Preserved lemons in oil

• Lemons
• Sea salt
• Plain olive oil

Wash the lemons, quarter them as in the above recipe.

Roll them in the salt and stuff them tightly in the jar. Leave it overnight in the fridge.

The next day, take the lemons out of the jar, and drain them in a colander for 15 minutes. Rinse the jar, rub it dry with kitchen towel.

Half fill the jar with the olive oil. Shake the lemons to remove excess salt and place them in the jar. Top up with more oil and make sure the lemons are well covered. Seal.

Again, leave for a month before using. The oil itself can also be used in cooking – for example, to flavour a fish dish or a tajine.

Alternatives – preserved oranges

In each case the lemons will be ready in a month, and will last for at least a year.

The same techniques should work perfectly well if you have a glut of oranges or limes, though we’ve still to come across dishes that involve them lads.

There are so many ways to have beetroot – and just some of them are fresh and raw, steamed, boiled, baked or fried.

Beetroot adores strong flavours, such as smoked mackerel with rocket leaves in a lemon juice and olive oil dressing, and a blob of horseradish sauce.

Or why not try…

1. Ultra-thin slices – so thin that they are almost transparent – of raw beetroot with smoked salmon and a Dijon mustard sauce
2. Thinly sliced beetroot, caramelised in a frying pan with cumin seeds and a reduced balsamic vinegar sauce.
3. “Beetroot boxty”: grated beetroot and grated raw potato, feta cheese, a raw egg and dill. Shape the mix into balls or cakes, and fry – it’s our veggie answer to a fishcake.
4. Or Shawandar bi’l-Laban – with yoghurt, garlic paste and mint in an Arab dish popular in Lebanon and Palestine. Check out Clifford A. Wright’s splendid recipe.
5. Or beetroot, carrot and parsnip crisps (chips as our North American cousins would say). Use a mandoline – rather than a mandolin – to slice the root veg very thinly, and lightly douse with sea salt before frying in hot oil for about two minutes until they are crisp.
6. Or Elizabeth David’s beetroot consommé
7. Or beetroot risotto – a vivid crimson dish with a splash of vodka, a good fist of fresh dill and soured cream: basically add your grated beetroot with the vodka (or white wine) after frying the arborio rice
8. Or in baking. We’ve already raved about beetroot bread, but don’t forget to try grated beetroot in chocolate muffins and other cakes for a wonderfully moist and fudgy texture and taste. Here’s Nigel Slater’s chocolate beetroot cake with crème fraîche and poppy seeds
9. Or… beetroot ice cream. Yes, beetroot is perfect in many desserts
10. You can even make your own pickled beetroot, and it’s nothing like the harsh malt pickle stuff in the supermarket.

Pickled beetroot recipe

One simple way to make a homemade pickle is to simmer the beets whole, in a mild wine or cider vinegar with four times as much water and a pinch of salt, sliced garlic and a finely chopped chili.

Once the beetroot is cooked, pat it dry and allow to cool slightly, then peel and slice it and put the slices in jars with the marinade mixture.

And don’t forget beetroot as the central star of a fruity chutney, hummus (though you can skip the tahini in that particular recipe), beetroot wine or chapati

Italian chef Antonio Carluccio is a big champion of beetroot, and he recently devoted half an hour of A BBC TV programme to its wonders. His recipes included this intriguing souffle, with an anchovy sauce. We must try it soon.

Some 2,000 of the famous platanes or plane trees along the Canal du Midi have a fatal disease. So they need to be felled and replaced by disease-resistant ones.

The big cranes and cutters have arrived at Villeneuve-Lès-Béziers, which would be about half-way between Béziers and the ocean. All very sad.

Related posts

• Canal du Midi to lose 2,000 trees

It was the finger-staining, throat-cutting beetroot that would lord it over the rest of a “salad” along the lines of…

1. Cos lettuce (very limp)
2. Egg (v. hardboiled)
3. Scallions (thick)
4. Tomato (three halves)
5. A big dollop of “dressing” (i.e. Heinz Salad Cream)

No wonder many Irish people still have an aversion to “the beetroot”.

But what about real beetroot (betterave in French, an biatas in Irish), the stuff you cook yourself (or even buy ready cooked and vacuum packed)?

Real beetroot really is a  different animal. It’s sweet, earthy, low in calories, and rich in antioxidants including betanin (which is also used as a food dye).

Beetroot is a trendy superfood for the likes of Italian chef Antonio Carluccio – he’s nothing less than a beetroot beatnik. It’s even becoming a cliché in many Irish restaurants now, as the starter with goats’ cheese. And what a lovely cliché it is. So let’s not call it a cliché – it’s a classic. Of the beet generation.

Roast beetroot recipe

Our favourite, simple way to cook beetroot is to roast it. It may look unpromising at the start, but bear with us – the finished dish is gorgeous.

Scrub the beets (try not to break the skin) and put them on a baking dish with some whole cloves of fat garlic and a few sprigs of fresh thyme.

Sprinkle with rapeseed oil, cover it with foil and place in a hot oven (about 180C) and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (depending on size) until tender. (Take the garlic out if it looks like it’s about to burn.)

Let them cool down until you can just about handle them, and here’s the fun bit: peel them under running water in the sink. The skin should slip off very easily. This also means your fingers won’t get stained. You can also slice off any remains of the leafy top, and pinch off the tail if it stlll has one.  Eat warm, or cold, with what you fancy.

For example, serve thinly sliced or cubed with a few salad leaves, a teaspoon of finely chopped herbs (thyme or mint), walnuts or hazelnuts (lightly toasted), a sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, just a tiny streak of good honey and – oh, nearly forgot – some creamy (not chalky) goat’s cheese.

More beetroot recipes soon…

What does it make you think of – Ennio Morricone? “Pet Sounds”? Flamingos in the Camargue? Sit back, relax, enjoy…