Noses and attitudes

Quick update on the whole hanky thing. I love it and it's another one of those things I can't believe I took so long to get around to. No problems with snotty dirty ones either, haven't done any special soaking, just throw them into the laundry basket and wash them with my usual weekly load. I think if I had a cold I'd be more careful and would probably soak them in water with tea-tree oil or similar while they were waiting to be washed but otherwise am happy with the way things are. My nose appreciates it too. I've been sneezing a lot with hayfever recently so all in all it was a good move.

My sister was home from Oz for a couple of weeks and we had a great time. We didn't have too much catching up to do as we spend lots of time on the phone doing that (apropos of which, can I recommend www.dialwise.ie to anyone making international calls from Ireland - my call charges this phone bill were 8 euro where normally they would be at least 40 euro and I wasn't trying to make fewer calls at all - one more thing I should have done a long time ago). However, it was nice to just sit and chat about anything and nothing. We never seem to run out of conversation and we had two really nice nights out with one of our other sisters and my brother which doesn't always work out (plus spouses). It's a big family and no matter how well we get on individually, when more than three of us congregate it's not always smooth going. :-)

They headed back to Sydney yesterday and before she left she gave me two lovely presents. One was a lovely photo frame with a little poem about sisters on it - I'm going to dig through the family albums and see if I can find a photo of the two of us when we were small to go in it. The other thing she gave me was a little card with the following on it (I don't see anything credited this to anyone so apologies if I'm reproducing something I'm shouldn't and if I am, please let me know and I'll remove it). She said she wasn't sure why but it made her think of me and I really like it. It articulates some things which I really do believe. And coincidentally the card it's on is decorated with some leaves which have a connection to our family and that makes it even more special somehow.


Attitude

Your life is an expression of your mind. You are free to will whatever state of being you desire through the use of your thoughts and words. The quality of your life is brought about by the quality of your thinking. Realise, the one thing you have complete control over is your attitude. See the affect it has on those around you. If you truly want to change your world, you must change your thinking. Reason is your greatest tool. It creates an atmosphere of understanding which leads to caring and love.

In other news the One Local Summer challenge started again and I missed the deadline for registering. I've gotten so bad at blogging regularly that may not be a bad thing. I had an interview in Dusseldorf last week so will hear back in the next week or two whether I get that job or not. It's all happening very fast so I may have a hectic couple of months ahead of me which could make keeping up with any challenge difficult.

One Local Summer - Week 10

Still no photos as I still haven't managed to retrieve my camera from little bro. However, I did finally manage to roast that chicken and it's delicious. Pulled the rest of the meat off the bones today and am making stock with the carcass, which is also a good excuse to use up the last few veg in my fridge before going away. I'm off to Germany to WWOOF for two weeks. Heading over on Friday and will be singing on Saturday in Limburg with choir - we're singing Dream of Girontius again with the German choir who came over to Dublin in May for a performance of it here. Have the rest of the weekend to spend with friends and then on Monday will be heading off into the unknown to spend two weeks on a farm with people I've never met before. I'm trying not to think about it too much as I think I'll just get nervous. I know it's going to be physically challenging as well as I'm so unfit but I'm planning to bring much gusto with me and hope that helps.

So, to my local meal this evening. Cold roast chicken with fresh garden peas and chutney.

Chicken - from Coolanowle (60 miles)
Green tomato and lemon chutney - McNally's Farm (30 miles)
Peas - from my back garden. Yum.

Is this the last week of OLS? I can't remember. However, I expect that I'll be eating a fair amount of local in Germany - it'll be interesting to see what kind of a set-up it turns out to be. As far as I could tell from the description they grow mostly herbs. I'm hoping the onion harvest is already underway though because I remember Zwiebelkuchen (onion cake) from around this time of year with great fondness but can't quite remember if it was a bit earlier or later than this.

I'm not sure how much I'll be posting until after my return - bis zum nächsten Mal!

One Local Summer - Week 9 - part 2

I wrote the post down below as Part 1 as I fully intended to have at least one more local meal to talk about by the end of the week. I did but all leftovers from previous weeks (going on holidays next week so trying to use up everything from the freezer) and eh, basically, bread and cheese.

I did remember to take the chicken a bought a couple of weeks ago out of the freezer this morning. Have been in work much later than planned though so am meeting my brother in town to use up some vouchers for Wagamama I have. If the chicken is actually defrosted by the time I get home I will cook it and use it for sandwiches and other meals during the week. So there is a very, very slight chance that I will get a photo up of something I've cooked this week.

I've worked all weekend but have made some real progress. Bloody filing. I actually enjoy filing (think there's a closes librarian in me somewhere) but when you're trying to work someone else's filing system and it doesn't seem to make sense it's tough. I've been here three years now and still had a few bits that I'd never been able to find places for. Have just about cracked it now and although I've spent nearly the entire weekend here (one of the few non-raining weekends we've had!) I am glad to have done it and will be able to relax far better when I'm away (am trying to mitigate any don't-want-to-go-back feelings ahead of time, not sure two weeks WWOOFing in Germany will do much for my feelings of (dis)content at living in Dublin).

One Local Summer - Week 9 - part 1

Well, no picture to prove it as my brother borrowed my camera (he's gotten some work recently as an extra for The Tudors and wanted to take some photos of himself in the frilly shirt and pantaloons) but yesterday evening after working very late I was nearly too tired to bother cooking and faced with that familiar dilemna of having no food in the house, only ingredients.

Thankfully, as my brother had come over (minus my camera, I may not see it again for a while!) I made an effort and didn't just fall into my old bad habit of ordering a take-away.

So, my local meal this week was even more simple than usual, let's just call it Plate of Veg, shall we?

Potatoes - McNallys - 30-odd miles
Broccoli - McNallys as above
Beans - not sure what type, my brother got them from a friend who picked them from his garden, I think in Wexford.
Cheese - a very nice cheddar from Tipperary, I did ask the name when I bought it from Sheridans but have forgotten again - must start carrying a notebook with me at all times!
Home-made tomato ketchup - the ketchup I made last Friday which just wouldn't thicken but was very nice as a sauce with this dinner.

One Local Summer - Week 8

Earlier this week I had a wonderful omelette. What's so wonderful about this omelette? It had peas and tomatoes from my very own garden in it! Absolutely yummy. Organic, free-rang eggs from Co. Meath and a tiny bit of cheese from Paddy Jacks were the only other things that went into this. The peas were a bit on the small side and there weren't many because I just couldn't restrain myself from picking them any more. There are a good few still growing on the plant so I'm going to try and wait for those ones to grow to a decent size before picking them. I definitely need to grow more peas next year. And get bigger canes to allow them to grow higher too.

Will try and get the photo uploaded soon. Am off to the Irish Green Gathering tomorrow so have a day off. Am taking advantage of being off on a Friday to go to the market in Leopardstown in the morning. Hope to get there early enough to meet my sister before she has to go for a physio appointment and to get a chicken from the guys from Coolanowle. Then rush home to cook that chicken so that I can take it with me in sandwiches for the weekend or (much more likely) to put it in the freezer to cook next week.

One Local Summer - Week 7

This week it was another very simple meal. I've also noticed that all of my meals seem to kind of look the same. A sauce that's a kind of murky red/brown colour and a pile of potatoes. Hmmm. May try to get my hands on a chicken next week for a bit of variety. They sell out very early at the market and I'm not often up early on a Sunday.

This week I had a dish which, in my house as a kid, was simply called "mince". It was usually served with mashed potato and I wished I had mashed what I had but it was nice with just boiled potatoes too.

Beef mince - Coolanowle (57 miles)
Onions - organic, bought from Denis Healy, (not Irish, exception)
Bisto - from cupboard, still haven't figured out where it was made, either UK or Ireland
Potatoes - Irish, organic, bought from Denis Healy

Brown mince, take off some of the excess fat, add onions to fry for a minute then pour over the gravy. Leave simmering in pan while potatoes are cooking. Add more water if needed. No spices, no extra flavouring, just a plain, hearty meal like Mum used to make. In fact, I think this may be the only thing my mum ever did teach me to make (she died when I was 11 so we didn't have much time for things like cooking lessons, especially bearing in mind that she apparently hated cooking).

In other news, I now have 11 pea-pods and two of them look big enough to pick so I'm heading home now to do that and add them, along with five more small tomatoes I picked yesterday evening to a big omelette. If I still have good eggs that is. Came in to work for just a couple of hours today and have been here all day so didn't get to the market to buy more. Have gotten a lot done here but have to admit I also spent a couple of hours reading blogs. Am really enjoying catching up on the goings-on at O'Melays, a blog discovered recently when Karl left a comment here. They're building a root cellar you see and I just got Root Cellaring out of the library and am finding it very interesting reading but not always able to picture it - seeing theirs in progress is fun.

One Local Summer - Week 6

I'm late again, sorry. However, I had a marathon cooking session yesterday (not really, but it felt a bit like it) and have made lots of extras so that I'll be eating local or nearly local every day this week. I also checked the place I got my white wine vinegar from as mentioned in my post on tomato ketchup below and it's from Breisach in Germany which according to ViaMichelin is 1,263 km (bit less than 800 miles) away - so definitely not local then.

First up then is bistecca all' pizzaiola which is beef in a tomatoey garlicy sauce but that description really doesn't do this dish justice so I stick with the Italian name.

For the beef, I used a housekeepers cut (which is only €10.50 a kilo, I got about 500g) cut into four slices - more or less, decent knives are one thing I don't have so it was more like three slices and some diced bits for a fourth portion. Meat was browned on each side and then put into a casserole dish. Meanwhile I chopped an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and fried them in some olive oil. A tin of tomatoes was added to this with salt, pepper, basil and oregano and the whole lot simmered for fifteen minutes then poured over the beef and put into a low oven for an hour or so. This should normally be served with a baked potato and peas or a green salad but I had no greens so just did some potato. It was absolutely fabulous, the meat was meltingly good and very, very tasty.


Ingredients:
Beef - from Coolanowle about 57 miles
Potatoes - organic, from market, Denis Healy sold, definitely Irish but not sure if from his farm or not.
Onion - forgot to ask, also organic, Denis Healy sold but not Irish (onions are on my list of exceptions)
Garlic - French (also an exception)
Tomatoes - I used a tin from the cupboard, Italian tomatoes so not local but have been in the cupboard for ages so I'm counting them as a storecupboard ingredient. I did intend to use the tomatoes I had cooked and frozen a couple of weeks ago but had already added them to my lentils (see below) by the time I remembered I was aiming for local on this meal! So, instead of one almost entirely local meal and one not, I have a mixture.
Dried basil and oregano from cupboard.

My second dish was not very local at all (bar the tomatoes which should have gone with the beef above!) but will last me for at least six meals I think.

Lentil stew with chorizo.

Ingredients:
Lentils - from cupboard. Another item that's been sitting in my cupboard for ages but in Tupperware so no label to tell me where they're from. I'm pretty certain you can't get Irish lentils but that these are organic.
Chorizo - from local cheesemongers - label was blurry but I believe this was from France.
Tomatoes - Irish, bought and cooked down a few weeks ago and used from freezer
Potatoes - Irish, organice, bought from Denis Healy
Onion - as above
Garlic - as above
Rosemary - garden

I also made a broccoli and herb quiche - tried to be clever and make wholewheat pastry for this but obviously there's a different technique for making pastry using wholewheat flour so it ended up more like biscuit than anything else. Haven't tasted it yet so will be interesting to see what it's like.

Ingredients:
Pastry made using organic Irish wholewheat flour (Co. Tipperary) and handmade butter (purchased from Coolanowle but made by a neighbour of theirs).
Eggs - Co. Meath
Broccoli - Irish, organic, bought from Denis Healy
Courgette - garden (only a mini one)
Tomato - first from the garden, a cherry tomato, half of which I ate (soooo good) and the other half sliced in two to add a bit of colour
Scallions - garden
Chives, thyme, oregano - garden

Doing a bit better on the local front for this one. Next time I think I'll just do a pastryless quiche.

I still have some mince at home which I bought from Coolanowle as well, will be doing something with that this evening. I think a bolognese style sauce made using the Irish tomatoes I bought at the market this weekend.

One Local Summer - Week...eh...what?

I've been neglecting my blog even more than usual although I have managed to eat quite locally over the last fews weeks. My sister is home from France for two and a half weeks so I am spending almost all of my free time with her, chatting and playing with the kids. This is the shortest time they've been over (they started with about six weeks and every year it seems a little bit more difficult to find somewhere to rent and arrange trains/boats/flights and they end up coming for a little less time) and I had to go away for a weekend to a friend's wedding so I took three days off work to have a bit of extra time with them. Had a great three days and visited Newgrange on one of them, which is one of those places everyone expects you to have visited but I never had. The centre there is great and well set up to keep the kids interested (although I do have very interested nieces and nephews, especially these three) and then you get a bus up to the site itself. It was very interesting to see it although I didn't feel as much atmosphere as I expected to. I think I'd like to go back sometime when it's not peak tourist season.

My local meal for this week (it was on Sunday, what week is that?) will be one I don't have a photo of as my batteries were recharging. Hamburgers and homemade tomato ketchup. As simple as anything really, bought mince from Coolanowle and made the burgers purely out of the meat. Lovely salad to go with it from the wonderful McNally farm and my own homemade tomato ketchup albeit not entirely local - I used Irish non-organic tomatoes, French organic onions, garlic and spices from the cupboard and German white wine vinegar I think, the bottle has a German label on it, forgot to check provenance althoug it could be Alsace. And organic French mustard which I bought the last time I was over there so that counts as local. Still haven't been able to find any Irish onions, organic or otherwise, will have to look into growing my own I think. I was delighted with my homemade ketchup and can't wait to make more. This was my second batch, the first was a bit vinegary but tasted great all the same (my brother: "tastes like tomatoes instead of tomato-ketchup-flavouring") and didn't last long. This batch is nearly gone as well. My sister heads back to France at the weekend so when I've a bit more time to myself I plan to buy as many local tomatoes as I can and try my hand at bottling them as well as making more ketchup. I've already cooked down a large pile I had left over and frozen them but my freezer is small and freezing large quantities isn't feasible.

I made the ketchup using the recipe in Rachel Allen's Favourite Food at Home. It's very simple - for my second batch I added a bit more sugar (forgot about the sugar, hmm, that wasn't local either but for this batch it was organic, fairtrade raw cane sugar) to offset the vinegar and was also more careful with my vinegar measurement (only needed 75ml and my smallest measure was 100ml so I used two jugs, put 200ml in one then poured 125ml from that into the other and used what was left. Felt very clever - this is the kind of maths they should teach in school!). Next time I might let the tomatoes drain a bit before starting as I did find it a bit more liquid than I like. karl left a comment on my last post and I linked to here from his blog which was lots of food for thought on further variations. I think I prefer the recipe I used which doesn't involve skinning and deseeding the tomatoes although I suppose I'll have to do that when I just want to bottle tomatoes on their own. I have to say I really enjoyed making ketchup and best of all was the bit when I tasted it and it tasted like ketchup. Because I really wasn't expecting it to. Which may sound odd but then odd I am at times.

Anyway, enough rambling for now, I have lots of work to finish before I can get out of here but I'd already nearly posted this all day yesterday and today and it would never have gotten done if I hadn't put work aside for a few minutes.

Oooh, one last thing, I used old jars (ones that had salsa in originally I think) to put the ketchup in. I boiled them and their lids in water for five minutes and then left them drying in a low oven until the ketchup was ready, about fifteen/twenty minutes. I just ladled the ketchup in and put the lids on (note to self to remember that jars and lids coming out of oven are HOT!!!). This time it was all eaten too quickly for correct preservation to be an issue but I was delighted when we opened one jar after a few days and I heard the safety seal pop. That means I did it right doesn't it? Still trying to get my hands on a decent book on bottling/canning through the library, all suggestions for good books welcome but in the meantime will take any advice anyone wants to offer. Especially want to find out about re-using jars and lids that I've bought something in and particularly about if there is a certain type of lid you're not supposed to use.

I will be attempting next week to cook one local meal every day as I really want to get back into the swing of things once the summer holiday hectic is over.

One Local Summer 2007 - Week 2

A little late with my entry this week although I did actually cook this meal last Tuesday. And no photo as I loaded it onto my PC in work but am posting this from a (very stuffy, overheated) internet cafe. So, I went to the Temple Bar market last Saturday morning. It was a flying visit and the terrible weather we've been having was very obvious in the lack of selection of Irish produce. McNally's did have a large selection of herbs and salads though. I bought a very big bag of spinach, a smaller bag of watercress, a small packet of edible flowers, a half dozen eggs and some of their new potatoes. I also bought a cheese from Sheridans Cheesemongers which is from Fermoy (but I've forgotten the name of the cheese, doh!) and some not very nice-looking cheddar from Paddy Jacks, which is a farm in Portlaoise. It was extremely tasty though and despite its dry, cracked appearance, very easy to grate and tasted wonderful in my omelette.

Yes, so far I'm sticking with the basics and not trying any new and exciting recipes, although I've never cooked a lot with spinach before. Anyway, that was my local dish last week. Omelette with spinach. I also added a handful of herbs from my garden and had a few of the potatoes on the side. Here the herbs from my garden:


From my garden: oregano, scallions, parsley, rosemary
From McNallys: eggs, potatoes, spinach, edible flowers
From Paddy Jacks (about 55 miles away): cheddar cheese
Avonmore milk: here's an interesting one though, I've always just assumed that milk I buy is Irish but there's actually no reason to believe that. I'm going to write to them and find out. When I was growing up there were two main producers of milk available in Dublin, Avonmore and Premier. They merged some time ago although they still sell under both brands.
Salt, pepper, oil: as before

This was absolutely delicious and I can't wait to eat more of the spinach. Unfortunately I ended up not getting home at a reasonable hour most evenings last week so had to throw out the rest of the watercress yesterday without using much of it. The spinach has been in tupperware though and is okay so I'm going to make spinach soup later. The weather is still basically crap so it's more soup than salad weather anyway.

The bad wind continued last week and I've lost a courgette plant to it. Just snapped it clean off at the stalk and out of the pot - it took me a minute to figure out what was wrong with the picture when I went outside yesterday (the first sunny day we've had for weeks) and then realised it was because on of the pots had no plant in it. At least the potato plant which was bent over completely (the stalk is split) seems to be recovering and continuing to grow.

Debates - Old City, New Dreams

Last week I attended a few debates/discussions which were held as part of The Dubliner week-long event Old City, New Dreams (unfortunately the link on their website seems to be gone now). The debates were hour-long sessions, lots of participation from the audience was encouraged and there were two each evening (with a free cocktail reception inbetween - one of the main sponsors was Diageo and the free cocktail was a foul Smirnoff concoction, I heard someone mention pomengranate and someone else said watermelon. Either way, it tasted like those free cocktails people give you in places like Playa del Ingles to try and lure you into the pubs they're working for. Awful stuff, even my brother wouldn't drink it!) I wish I had taken notes so that I could give a better account but it didn't occur to me until afterwards that it'd be interesting to blog about.

The first one I attended was supposed to be one of the focal points of the week and was called Old City, New Dreams (as the event was). It was a more light-hearted one where eight people on the panel (I'd even heard of some of them :) ) each had four minutes to present a radical idea to completly change life in Dublin. Most of them rambled on a bit more than that without really getting to a point. Some were total pisstakes (or at the very least thought up of at very late notice), some very, very serious and some interesting but generally impractical. It was a fairly unbalanced mix and I got the feeling that the people who were on the panel had not really been given much in the way of pointers or preparation help for the type of level the idea should be at.

After the first round, the audience voted for the four ideas they liked best and those four people got to spend another two minutes elaborating on their ideas. Most of them didn't seem to have much to add to be honest and as the facilitator wasn't really very good at keeping things running along it was all very rushed at the end. The very serious and worthwhile suggestion for mental health visitors to be made available to families with children won the day. I can't remember what was second but I think it was what I voted for - a change in attitude and a "love" campaign. The guy was aiming for a campaign similar to the famous I heart NY one in the 80's but the facilitator (who thought he was very funny but kind of wasn't - you know the type I'm talking about don't you? Everyone has met one at least once!) kept making comments about "free sex for all" which is just a bit different. I probably still would have voted for that, but heh, I'm a single gal with needs. :)

One of the suggestions made which was voted out in the first round was to build a roof over Grafton St and Henry St. These are the two main shopping streets in Dublin. Fergal Quinn, who founded the once excellent Superquin chain of supermarkets (I've lost a bit of faith in them recently given the amount of imported food, especially fruit and veg, they now sell) made this suggestion to improve the shopping experience for people. When his suggestion was voted down the facilitator seemed surprised and I offered the viewpoint from the floor that the reason for it was that shopping does nothing to enhance the cultural life of the city. He made some snide remark about how I wouldn't feel that way when I'm shopping but offered me no chance to say anything more which did irritate as I feel it's an important point. Ah well. As mentioned it was generally a light-hearted event. Probably could have gotten more out of it if it had been better organised but it was something different to do of an evening. It seems to be time I paid more attention to my intellectual side so attending events like this are a good way to do that.

We also attended the second debate that evening on whether nuclear power is the way forward for Ireland. And on Thursday I went to the "What is Irish cooking" debate which was also very interesting. More on those, plus my one local summer meal for this week to come later.

One Local Summer - Week 1

Liz from Pocket Farm has once again decided to host One Local Summer and I've signed up this year. I found the Pocket Farm blog just as it was coming to the end of the OLS challenge last year and thought it was a great idea so was glad to be able to sign up for it this year. The idea is that once a week you cook a meal which is local and then blog about it (and also post in a flickr group - have to figure that one out at the weekend). The first week began last Sunday but as I was away at the weekend and have been erratic at buying and preparing food over the last couple of months I wasn't quite prepared. Still, I'm hoping it'll help to focus my mind again and to get me back in the kitchen cooking proper food again.

So, not wanting the week to run away with me I spent all day Monday trying to figure out what to cook (additionally challenged this week as I don't get paid till Friday and am very, very broke and had basically been planning on living on pasta and porridge all week). Then I remembered that I had some beef pieces in the freezer which had been intended for a dinner which ended up being cancelled a few weeks ago. I also still had a few potatoes left from my visit to Ranelagh market two weeks ago. Stew it was and with the weather the way it is at the moment it didn't feel at all strange to be eating this wintry comfort food at all!
I browned the beef pieces in a little bit of sunflower oil, then added some boiled water, salt and pepper, a dash of worchestershire sauce and some bisto. Meanwhile I boiled the potatoes and a couple of carrots I also found in fridge. As I had been delayed in work yesterday and the traffic was appalling to boot I ended up cooking this much quicker than I wanted to but it still tasted great. And I was particularly proud that I did it even after the day I'd had and even though it was already half-eight by the time I started cooking.

Ingredients:
Beef pieces from Coolanowle Farm (according to the AA routeplanner about 57 miles from me)
Potatoes from the Berry Farm, Kiltiernan (about 10 miles from me)
Carrots had been in the fridge for a while but I think they are from McNally's Farm in Naul (which is in north Co. Dublin about 24 miles from me)

Salt, pepper, worchestershire sauce and bisto powder were from the cupboard. Worchestershire sauce and bisto made in England. Salt is, I think, French - the only unrefined salt available. No idea where the peppercorns came from as I bought a huge bag from an oriental shop a few months ago and just have them stored in an airtight container. The sunflower oil was the last dribble from a Lidl bottle purchased last year.

So, a delicious meal, everything for it was already there in my kitchen and it reminded me that the most important ingredient in any meal is a bit of enthusiasm (and lack of laziness!). If I hadn't been participating in this challenge I would have had a very boring dinner - in fact I reminded myself of the moany kid I heard on a reality TV show once complaining that there was no food in the house, only ingredients! And the best part is I had more than enough for three servings so that's lunch sorted for a couple of days too!

I'll post my general guidelines for the OLS challenge soon. Basically I will be aiming for one entirely local meal a week with some exceptions such as oil/condiments/spices.