Use DATE_FORMAT
from Date Conversions:
In your initializer:
DateTime::DATE_FORMATS[:my_date_format] = "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
In your view:
date = DateTime.parse("2011-05-19 10:30:14")
date.to_formatted_s(:my_date_format)
date.to_s(:my_date_format)