Tastes of Home

A few weeks ago (May 30), Bill and I drove up to County Meath to the headquarters of Sheridans Cheesemongers for their first Irish Food festival. It was one of the sunny days we're getting used to around here, and the drive to Carnaross was lovely.

Sheridans is a vendor at the Saturday market in St. Anne's. We are fans. Lots of their suppliers were at the festival and we chatted with several friendly cheese makers.

I also sought out the Gubbeen Smokehouse stall. Our US trip featured as much smoked meat as possible, and at each meal Bill and I dreamed dreams of the aroma of long-smoked brisket and pork shoulder wafting over the green hills of Eire. Smoked meats exist in Ireland, but occupy slightly different territory. Ham and bacon rashers are typically not smoked, but we'd found some smoked streaky bacon from Gubbeen, which is a close match to US bacon. Gubbeen also produces a variety of cured meats. So I knew the Gubbeen folks understood this equation: smoke + meat = bliss.

I asked the blond lad behind the counter if he had ever thrown a brisket on the smoker. Happily he knew what a brisket is. He also told me that he had actually built a pit smoker--had to weld it together as no such thing can be purchased in Ireland--and had experimented with some brisket and pork shoulder. The primary smokehouse at Gubbeen is a wood lined room where the meats can be smoked for up to several days, using hard-wood charcoal (from wind-felled trees) created in a kiln. I enthusiastically encouraged their pit-smoker experiments, saying a knew at least a small market that would be willing to pay top dollar (I think I offered a million) for gen-yoo-ine bar-be-cue. If I had any experience with my own pit BBQ, I'd be down at Gubbeen on the weekends, teaching them the way.

The Gubbeen guy told me a place in Dublin has a pit BBQ imported from the US and hosts a large street BBQ every year. This restaurant is supposedly called Junior's--a fine name for a BBQ establishment. If anyone hears anything about this, please do let me know!

I've long been a stickler that the term bar-be-cue refers to smoked meats, and not grilled food served at a cookout. I don't know why grill so commonly has the adjective BBQ attached, but really that is no excuse to be imprecise with our meat cooking terminology. I'm but birdsong in a hurricane here in Ireland, where the back yard cookout (oops, I mean back garden) is invariably called a BBQ. Moreso, my grounds for protesting are weakened, even devastated, by the fact that no one even knows what bar-be-que is.

Here lies the expat dilemma.

An expat must be curious and entranced by the tastes, sights and sounds of her resident country. Otherwise the not-unpleasant hum of homesickness will increase and overwhelm with bitterness and dissatisfaction. But at the same time, I think the expat has wonders to share--the best joy is in the exchange.

So, I talk about meat. I talk about smoking meat for 18 hours. The tender texture. The intense flavor. The brutal understanding of why we kill cows. The thrill of happening across a BBQ cook off with smokers as big as locomotive engines. I try to wax as eloquently as this guy:

The brisket was a revelation. When I bit into the glistening meat, I literally staggered a step. Could brisket really taste this good? Succulent, firm, robustly flavored, the thick slices of beef were as tender as a ballad and as powerful as an R&B belter.

I show people pictures like this:

[The pit at the Salt Lick; photo thanks to the NYT.]

I post pictures of BBQ to Facebook while on holiday in the US. But, do the people of Ireland really care. Should they? During our US trip, I repeatedly had the experience of your man quoted above: Can this brisket really be this good? Or this rib? Or this pork sandwich? It's these moments that make me dream of driving a BBQ wagon through emerald towns and cities and fields dotted white with sheep.

Face it. When you love something you want everyone else to love it too. This is a great part of what makes community, and also requires that we are patient with the evangelist in all of us. So, I'll keep talking about smoked meat, and posting slide shows of BBQ to my blog, and hope I can find Junior's pit BBQ and take every single person I know with me.



In the meantime I'll enjoy Ireland's amazing offerings, like cheese. We came home from the Sheridans fair with a crozier blue, some goat-milk cheese that resembles Monterey Jack, and a very funky cousin of Camembert--along with hot and cold smoked salmon from the Burren Smokehouse, pork terrine, duck confit, and bread & butter pickles. Nope, we aren't going hungry here.

What's for dinner: Tacos al carbon y sopa de tortilla

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a holiday held on May 5 that commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.  In Mexico it is a minor holiday at best, but in the US and elsewhere it's a celebration of Mexican heritage and food. Since we have no Mexican heritage, it's all about the food.

On the menu this year were tacos al carbon with refried black beans. Tacos al carbon are strips of grilled beef (I lack a grill, so these were pan-seared) on corn tortillas with one or more salsas. We had ours with a bit of cheese and sour cream. The steak came from Simply Sourced and was seasoned with smoked serrano salt I brought back from the US. The salsa is a pico de gallo I made with cherry tomatoes, red onion, cilantro and chiles (jalapeño, I think, as the package didn't say) and a bit of lime juice and salt. The corn tortillas I also made myself. The refried beans were canned black beans cooked down with some onion, cumin and oregano--quick and dirty, but tasty. Topping everything is a light feta cheese that approximates queso fresco.

On seis de Mayo (the next day) I made a tortilla soup. I'm recalling what I did for this recipe, so your mileage may vary.

• 1 medium green bell pepper (or, even better, poblano pepper)
• vegetable oil
• 3 chicken leg quarters
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 red jalapeño chile, seeds and ribs removed, minced (leave the seeds and ribs if you like it spicier)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 qt chicken stock
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 lb new potatoes, quartered
• 1 can Mexican Fiesta Rotel tomatoes with green chiles
• 1 lime
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
• Garnishes: diced avocado, shredded cheese, corn tortilla chips
• Flour tortillas

Broil the green pepper in the oven until blackened on all sides. Remove to a bowl and cover. When cooled (about ten minutes) remove the blackened skin and dice. Heat 1 T of oil in a dutch oven over medium high heat. Add the chicken and cook until well-browned on both sides, about five minutes per side. Remove to a bowl. Drain all but 1 T of oil from the pan. To the pan add the onion, carrot and chile, cover and sweat for five minutes. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the stock, chicken and oregano. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the chicken is done, about fifteen minutes. Remove chicken to a bowl and let cool.  Add the potatoes, Rotel, roasted green pepper, juice of half a lime and half the cilantro. Simmer until the potatoes are done, about fifteen minutes.  Meanwhile, remove the meat from the chicken. When the potatoes are done add the chicken and remaining cilantro to the pan and heat through. Serve in bowls topped with the avocado, cheese and crushed corn chips accompanied by the flour tortillas. Squeeze on more lime juice if desired.

We enjoyed both of these dinners immensely. The tortilla soup was really good: spicy, tart, chicken-y and corny. Simmering the chicken legs in the broth gave even store-bought broth great body. I'll definitely be experimenting more with this one.

Irish dairy

One of the first things we noticed about the food here was the high quality of the dairy products. Apparently dairy farmers are struggling because prices have dropped so much. If there's something we should be willing to pay a bit more for it's high-quality milk, cheese and yogurt. They really are better here.

A King Cake Day

One day every year, if it's a good year, my husband calls upon the power of yeast and cinnamon to create...King Cake! Who cares if Mardi Gras was technically a few weeks ago. In our apartment, Saturday was the day for King Cake, and all the Cajun goodness that goes along with. This year's menu included the following starters:

• Boudin Rolls with Remoulade
• French Onion dip with Potato crisps

Preparing Cajun food in Ireland requires a bit of extra effort and invention, but when the result is homemade boudin served with homemade remoulade along with made-from-scratch French Onion dip, you really can't complain. Bill was happy with his sophomore attempt at boudin; he felt it was better seasoned than last (but still using only half the cayenne than the recipe for Irish palate), but may reduce the liver component next year. Wrapped in wonton wrappers, deep fried and dipped in remoulade, the boudin rolls were delish.

The remoulade is a bit of food processor magic where whole grain mustard, yellow mustard, prepared horseradish, ketchup, oil, onion, celery, garlic and lemon juice turn into the loveliest of condiments. The prepared horseradish could have been tricky as we've yet to find it in Ireland, but we happened to have some as a souvenir of our January trip to London.

Without access to typical cajun meats like andouille and tasso, Bill had to look to our Eastern European friends and use all-pork kielbasa. For mains this year Bill prepared Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya and Red Beans and Rice. The kielbasa performed very well in the jambalaya. With a slightly different seasoning accent, the smoked sausage could have been andouille.

Bill brined the kidney beans for the red beans and rice, and they turned out perfect: wonderfully creamy and tender but not disintegrated.







I made some pralines for the party, and as you can see it is quite fun! They turned out really well. I posted on twitter that I was making pralines and got a response saying, "Oh, your kitchen must smell like New Orleans!" I hope so.






Of course, a Mardi Gras party wouldn't be a party without revelers. Thanks for coming!

Saturday in the Kitchen with Bill

It's official: We have a Saturday routine.

After a bit of a lie in, Bill gets up around 10:00 to watch Saturday Kitchen. I usually wander into the living room by 11:00. Saturday Kitchen is a bit of an institution, which is evident by the number of mentions in the twitterstream during the broadcast. The show features in-studio cooking demonstrations by visiting chefs, as well as dishes prepared by the host James Martin. James is a polarizing force in the world of television hosting, with distinct pro and anti camps. We're both pro. I think he's an excellent host, very adept at describing what he's cooking and chatting up the celebrity guest* at the same time.  Saturday Kitchen also includes clips from a variety of other BBC cookery** shows by the likes of Rick Stein, Keith Floyd, the Hairy Bikers and sometimes even our old Fat Lady friends, Clarrissa and Jennifer. The Omlette Challenge which pits guest chefs in a timed egg match is surprisingly entertaining. One benefit of watching Saturday Kitchen is that we're now familiar with many of the British chefs of the moment.

After watching 90 minutes of food being prepared, Bill makes his way to the kitchen to produce some kind of amazing brunch. Recent creations are pictured below.

 French Toast with Orange Zest and Cinnamon.

Baked Eggs with Spinach.

Breakfast Tacos with M&S British, Outdoor-Bred, Dry-Cured, Smoked,

Streaky Bacon. Tastes like real bacon!

Most Saturdays Bill pays a visit to the Red Stables Market*** in St. Anne's park.  I frequently accompany him. The market is one of the reasons we love our proximity to St. Anne's. It's a small market, but contains all the major tasty groups: organic meats, cheeses from Sheridan's, various ethnic foods, tempting breads from Soul bakery, and organic fruit and veg from Duncan at Organic Delights. Sometimes Duncan has amazing surprises like tomatillos or white onions.

Bill comes back from the market inspired to cook wonderful things. For example, the cavolo nero in this photo (above) was featured in pasta along with garlic, pancetta,  and cherry tomatoes.

Recently Bill has been keeping an eye on the wild garlic growing by the river.

I guess it makes sense that our Saturdays, like our holidays, revolve around food. Happy Saturday everyone!

Hey, Bill just came back from the Market with Scallops! Yum. 


* Guests are of some noteriety in Britain, which means we often have no idea who they are. My favorite guest: Len Goodman.
** They say cookery here.
*** If you have four minutes, watch this video I found with scenes of Red Stables market, with a few misspellings, set to a slightly annoying soundtrack.

Beer and Brats

Yes friends, we drank plenty of beer as we meandered down the Romantic Road towards Füssen. Not when meandering via das auto, of course, but meandering from meal to meal. Being more of a wine person, it's interesting how quickly I embrace beer when in brew region, like Spain or Germany (and from time to time, Dublin City Centre).

Bill and I were already fans of Hefeweizen, a wheat beer (especially Live Oak HefeWeizen brewed in Austin!), so we were naturally inclined toward Bavaria's Weissbier. As we also prefer darker beers, we were extremely happy to find a Weissbier Dunkel in every establishment. Of course Franconia in Bavaria is a wine region, so we were not completely beer-centric.

Before heading on our trip, a co-worker warned me that Germany was beautiful but the food was awful. "All that pork," she said. I just nodded and thought two thoughts: 1) An Irish person complaining about the preponderance of pork. Ha! and 2) Mmm....Pork.  And we did eat pork. Pork roast and sausages and schnitzels and bacon. A common meal is Nürnberger bratwursts, small sausages--typically six or so served with sauerkraut, mustard and brown bread. What more could you possibly want on a plate?

I also tried currywurst, a national favorite. I'm afraid I was not taste tingled by this sausage covered in ketchup and curry powder. Perhaps I did not sample the finest currywurst available, so I'll keep an open mind, but really, even speaking as an American, ketchup needs a lot of doctoring to truly become food.

Finish your pink slime, Bobby--it's fortified with NH3

Just read this article at the NYT about Beef Products, Inc. and their "processed beef." Is this what we've come to? Let's take the leftover muck that we would feed only to animals (and beef processing plants aren't exactly inefficient to begin with, so this really is muck), liquefy it, mix it with ammonia and feed it to kids (in school and out at McDonald's)--all to save three cents per pound of ground beef? And after all that it's still contaminated with E. coli and salmonella?

I propose some NY resolutions:

1. Avoid McD, BK--heck, all fast food burgers. Not hard for me, I rarely go anyway and always regret it, plus there's not much choice here anyway.
   
2. Never buy pre-ground beef. Also not hard, the ground beef here is too lean for burgers and freshly-ground beef is soooo much better.
3. Source the majority of my meat from reputable farms, e.g. via Simply Sourced, Carlow Foods, Coolanowle.

We can afford to support artisan producers such as these, but we're in the minority.

Update: BK and McD defend their use of the ammoniated beef.

'nduja like sobrassada?

Just read about the "sausage of the moment" at the NYT: 'nduja (pronounced en-DOO-ya). It's a spicy, cured, soft sausage from Calabria likened to "'flaming liquid salami,' 'spicy pork butter' and, from one heartfelt fan, 'the spreadable Italian love child of pepperoni and French rillettes.'" Sounds great, but it made me think of a similar sausage we discovered in Malaga called sobrassada. It's actually native to Majorca, but has spread all over the Spanish coast. It's also soft and spreadable like 'nduja, but made with pimentón instead of chiles. They must be related, right? Turns out, the (reportedly) best sobrassada comes from the Soller valley in Majorca, and some of its original inhabitants (15th century) were from Calabria. Since chiles weren't discovered by the Europeans until they found the New World in the late 15th century, the sausages in their current form couldn't have existed when the Calabrian colonists arrived in Majorca. However, there is most likely a connection. I love discovering stuff like this.

A can of beans

I was in my local Tesco about a month ago looking for cannellini beans. They normally sell them, but with all the changes Tesco has been making lately you never know. Next to the Epicure pinto, garbanzo, and other beans I found them. Take a close look at the picture. Notice the price. Now, organic typically costs a bit more, but janey mack, €10.30?! I thought it had to be mistake, so I grabbed two cans and took them to the self-checkout. €20.60 for two cans of beans. I asked your one who minds the checkout about it. She was as shocked as I was. She asked someone else and the response was "If it says €10.30 it must cost €10.30." I told her I didn't need beans that badly and left.

I kept checking occasionally and the price never changed. Last week I emailed Tesco Customer Service about it; here is their response:

Thank you for your email querying the price of Epicure Cannellini beans

I have checked our customer service database and can confirm the current seling price is €10.30. I will check this with our Technical manager as it does seem very high.

I have also notified the store and they have agreed to clear the shelf of these beans until we can verify the price.

Thank you for making us aware of this.

It does indeed seem very high. How did this even happen? Did no one question the price when it was stocked? I've bought the same beans at the same Tesco for 1/10 the price. I'll check tomorrow if the beans are still on the shelf.

What's for dinner: Potato & chorizo tacos

I've been lamenting the lack of Mexican chorizo in Ireland for two years. The only kind of chorizo you can get here is Spanish--tasty, but nothing like the Mexican kind. Even the chorizo molletes at Taco Taco in the Epicurean Food Hall are made with Spanish chorizo. Spanish chorizo is a cured, dry pork sausage seasoned with pimentón. Mexican chorizo is a fresh pork sausage seasoned with dried chiles, oregano and warm spices such as cloves and cinnamon. Vinegar is also added for tanginess.

It finally occurred to me last week that I could make my own chorizo. Our food mules (thanks Charles and Celia!) were kind enough to bring us some guajillo, pequin and ancho (16 oz!) chile powders, so I was all set. Here's my recipe:

• 1 kg pork mince
• 1/2 cup of ancho
• 1/4 cup of guajillo
• 5 or 6 pressed cloves of garlic
• 2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• a bit of water
• salt (not sure how much, I was adding it and testing the chorizo by frying as I went along)

I kept some out for the tacos and froze the rest. For the tacos I browned some chorizo with a minced white onion. To this I added some cubed boiled potato and fried it until browned and crispy. Very tasty on its own, but the key to these tacos is the avocado-tomatillo salsa. Tomatillos are another Mexican ingredient I've been unable to find, but last week the organic veg vendor at the St. Anne's Saturday market had a whole crate of them! He let me have some more this week gratis because there's just not much of a market for them. The salsa is really simple, just a few tomatillos, a chile, a clove of garlic and an avocado whizzed up in the food processor with a bit of salt. Slathered on homemade corn tortillas with the chorizo-potato filling it's just amazing. We have my Mexican food muse, Rick Bayless, to thank for these.

Over the Mountains

On our second day in Slovenia, August 27, after a lovely breakfast and stroll, we set out for Idrija, a town about thirty or so kilometers away as it appeared on the map. What the map didn't show was the three mountains we had to cross to get there. Up and down, round and round went Sharon and Bill in the little Fiat. A flat, green space in the valley to catch your breath. Then again into the hairpin turns, so tight upon themselves that I said they were hairbow turns. "I think we're on a Möbius strip of road," Bill said.

We got hungry and ate some nuts I had brought along. We glimpsed amazing views too fleeting for the camera and cyclists with no fear of altitude. The trees and houses started looking more peaked and Alpine. Around 3:00 we reached Idrija and wandered around somewhat deliriously, looking for Gostilna Pri Škafarju where a wood-fired oven reportedly turned out lovely pizzas, and you can try the regional specialty, žlikrofi.

We found the restaurant just off the square and sat at a picnic table out front. We ordered a starter of pršut, cheese and olives, and pizza and žlikrofi with mushroom sauce. The server brought out some ketchup. For what? The pizza, he said.

The žlikrofi are small dumplings filled with potato and bacon and served with a variety of toppings. These žlikrofi were gorgeous, obviously handmade. The filling was fluffy, not at all gummy. The sauce contained fresh porcinis. Delicious. The pizza was wonderful as well. Perfect crust. We ordered far too much food, and wrapped up half the pizza to take with us.

Idrija is a lovely town, known for a history of mercury mining and lace making. We were a bit too late to visit the mining museums, but we did stop by some lace shops. We didn't have long to stay though. We were due back at the farm at 7:30 for dinner.

What We Did Last Summer

With schools starting back around the globe (or at least in the US and Ireland), the summer is quickly fading to wistful memory. Even though for me school starting just means no seats on the DART, I am aware that I haven't reported on any of our summer activities. So, in the grand tradition of school busywork, here is What We Did Last Summer:

May
After our return from Spain, we celebrated Bill's birthday with dinner at Carluccio's and a movie at the Savoy. Later in May we attended a couple of plays: a stage production of The Shawshank Redemption at the Gaiety and Miller's All My Sons at the Gate. The Shawshank production really just left us thinking about how great the movie is; the production of All My Sons was excellent. The visit to the Gate gave us an opportunity to try one of the Asian restaurants on Parnell. We visited the Hop House for some tasty Korean fare.


Laurel wreath at the statue of James Connolly to commemorate his execution on May 12, 1916 for his participation in the Easter Rising.

June
Over the June bank holiday (first weekend in June), we once again attended the Trinity Church weekend at Ovoca Manor in Avoca. Again this year we were blessed with splendid weather in which to enjoy the beautiful setting in Wicklow. It was nice to feel that a year later we're a bit more connected. Bill led worship for a couple sessions and we even performed in the talent show. Click here for more pictures from Ovoca.

Also in June we attended a dinner party at our friend Colin's in Laytown. I'm pictured with Colin's famous Bread and Butter pudding. We also attended the Taste of Dublin. We tried some bites from various restaurants in Dublin. The two highlights were fish with mushy peas from an Indian restaurant, Jaipur, and the burgers from Ely.












We hosted Bill's friend Sarah for a week before she left to spend four months volunteering in Nepal. She's French, and prepared us lovely omelets for dinner.


We took the last Friday in June off of work for a long weekend in Kinsale. We'd heard that Kinsale was a gourmet mecca, and we learned that Kinsale has long been in the food business. A busy harbor, Kinsale was a provisioning center for seagoing vessels. Its proximity to Great Britain also made Kinsale a hotly contested and heavily fortified port. Especially in the Battle of 1601, where some Irish Chieftains from the North joined forces with Spain to try to wrest control of the port from the English. The English defeated the Irish and Spanish forces, leading to a power gap in the North that made way for the Protestant Plantations to move in and create the Protestant/British connections in the Northern Counties which are now a part of the UK.

We had gorgeous weather in Kinsale, so much so that we came back sunburnt. Click here for more scenes from Kinsale. And here for spectacular views from our coastal drive on Saturday.

On Sunday we stopped by a huge SuperValu in Clonakilty and stocked up on local sausages and cheese. On our drive back through County Tipperary we stopped at Cahir Castle and the Rock of Cashel. Of the two sites, Cashel is definitely the more spectacular and interesting. Set imposingly upon a hill, the site was the traditional seat of the kings of Munster for several hundred years. The majority of extant structures date from the 12th and 13th C when Cashel was a religious center. My favorite part of Cashel was the 12th C Chapel. A uniquely sophisticated Romanesque structure, the chapel contains extremely rare examples of Irish frescoes.

July
We celebrated July 4th with some very tasty burgers (seriously, Bill had the mince ground fresh at the butcher!) with potato salad and coke floats for dessert.




We enjoyed the long days with walks along the coast. And basically, July slipped by pretty quietly.


August
Over the August Bank holiday we spent Saturday night at Mornington House in Multyfarnham, Co. Westmeath. We love staying in these manor houses, and the hosts and guests at Mornington house made for a fun stay and interesting conversation ranging from ghost sightings to Afghanistan. Plus we enjoyed a lovely dinner with many items fresh from the garden. Click here for more pics.

Other August activities included dinner guests for chilaquiles and tres leches cake and a visit to the food market in St. Anne's Park, after which Bill made blackcurrant and blueberry jam.





Our summer was light on guests, but that will soon change!

Malaga: Sun, Sand and Various Goos

It's been three months since our trip to Southern Spain. Years ago, three months wouldn't be an unreasonable amount of time to wait for a written account of travels on The Continent, but in these times it's an almost unforgivable expanse. So imagine you're reading these words on onion skin air mail stationery and dreaming of the next time you'll hear my voice.

Spain has been a wonderful surprise for Bill and me. Back in the era before I traveled Europe freely, Spain was not on the short list of places I intended to visit if I ever lucked into 10 days across the sea. But this season, generous with sights and sounds and flavors, has taken us beyond all expectations, and now we know--we love Spain.

We're particularly drawn to the balance between food and drink embodied by the tapa. Little bites to accompany refreshing beverages. Compared to Ireland which, I'm afraid, loves its drink more than its food, Spain seems to love them equally, and better yet, doesn't ask you to choose.

I've already described some of the wonderful flavors we encountered in Granada, and we continued to eat well in Malaga. Our first night we wandered the entwined streets looking for seafood. Not a difficult hunt, we quickly found some calamari, fried shrimp and manchego.

Tuesday morning we had breakfast at Cafe Moka, adjacent to our hotel--cafe con leche and pitufo (small) sandwiches. I had sobrassada and cheese and Bill had Spanish tortilla (tortilla de patatas).

We then visited a market full of veggies and fruit and cured meat. We kept seeing bowls of orange goo labeled Lomo en Manteca--we would find out later what it was. We picked up a few snacks--skewers of marinated anchovies, pickled onions, olive and pickle (loved these in Barcelona), and some empanadas. We enjoyed these later on our balcony.

Later we walked down to the beach for lunch. We had some gazpacho--gazpacho originated in Andalusia--and I ordered grilled squid. I had been profoundly changed by the grilled squid I had in Barcelona; the grilled squid I had here was a bit bigger and filled with goo, but the non-goo parts where tasty and I could watch a guy stick the squid on the end of a pole and grill it over charcoal, so that was cool. We also had some tortillitas and Bill had gambas al pil pil (spicy shrimp).

After lunch we waded a bit in the Mediterranean and relaxed on the sand. We returned to our hotel for siesta--the air had been turned on and we napped in cool comfort. That evening we started dinner at Gorki, a wine bar which is a chain, but seemingly popular with the locals. We wrote some postcards and ate jamon iberica and a wonderful salad with blue cheese and wilted leeks.

Our next stage of dinner was at La Rabana where we dined on figs and more jamon iberica (it's so great!), a black pudding sandwich, and yes, Lomo en Manteca! Pork in lard--delicious!

Spain had been so kind to us with its gentle sun, fragrant orange blossoms, and marvelous flavors. We were really reluctant to leave and wished we had planned to stay for the whole week. I knew we'd be glad to have the days for a later trip (for oh, say, Slovenia), but it was hard to leave.

Wednesday morning we returned to Cafe Moka for a bittersweet cafe con leche and more of the amazing tortilla pitufo. Click here for more food pics.

And we did do a few things between meals, other than siesta. Click here for more scenes from Malaga.

Blackcurrants are back!

Blackcurrant cultivation is on the rise according the NY Times. Though mostly unknown in the States, blackcurrants are very popular here in Europe. Basically anything that would be grape-flavored in the U.S. is blackcurrant-flavored here: jam, juice, Skittles, Starburst, etc. They have a funkiness that some may find strange (a "stinking and somewhat loathing savour,” according to a 1925 book, “The Small Fruits of New York”), but we're very fond of the flavor. It's good to see that farmers and chefs are beginning to embrace it.

Goodbye to Granada

After an extraordinarily lovely afternoon at the Alhambra (May 3), we stopped for a cafe con leche. The Granadians were out in droves wearing their traditional clothes for Dia de la Cruz.










Seeing everyone in traditional dress truly made the day more festive. I was enchanted by these girls in their finery riding a merry-go-round. Note the little one in her mother's arms is also wearing frills.



We returned to our hotel for siesta, and then back out for a tapas-filled evening. We started at Bar Poë, a tapas bar unique in that you get to pick which free tapa you would like with each drink, and the menu is tantalizing. The owner behind the bar is a Brit, so that was helpful for those of us with poor language skills. In our time at Poë we ate seven delicious tapas including pork stew over rice , chick pea salad and chicken stew with polenta. We also tried our first tinto de verano, red wine with lemon soda. Great! The tinto was €1.80 and a caña (small glass) de cerveza only €1.20. Our total at Poë was a gobsmacking €11.40! Incredible. I can easily pay that much for a takeaway lunch of a sandwich with salad/soup and soda in Dublin.

After Poë we walked back to Plaza del Carmen where dancers were still twirling and stomping upon the stage. We stopped at another cervaceria and ordered a selection of meat and cheese tapas.


Supposedly the smoking ban for bars says that smoking is not permitted if children are allowed; it seems most bars in Granada have chosen ciggies over kids. Bill and I theorize that the clouds of nicotine add a bit of zing to the legs of jamon iberico suspended from the ceiling.


Monday morning we returned to Malaga, but not without a moment of sadness for our friends in Dublin who were under rainy skies. You can't see the radar in the pic, but trust me, it was rainy. We also regretted not ordering special pillows from the pillow menu.

Turns out I know a couple people who have lived in Granada, but I didn't remember because I filed the information into the great black box in my brain that was "Oh cool, Spain." Now that I've been there, I am thrilled that anyone I know got to experience this beautiful city day after day.

The spice burger is no more

According to today's Irish Times the inventor of the spice burger, Walsh Family Foods, has gone out of business. I had no idea the spice burger was strictly an Irish thing. They may have been a tradition for 50 years, but from my one experience with them I think they're really awful. The one pictured in the article looks much better than the one I had.

Evening in Granada

We arrived in Granada on May 2 just in time for siesta. The timing was perfect as we had been up since 4:30 for the 7:30 flight. We flew into Malaga, arriving around 11:00. We took a bus to the bus station, and then ate lunch at a sunny sidewalk cafe--meatballs and hand cut fries, preceded by a salad of greens with canned tuna and olives, followed by cafe con leche. Total €18.00.

While we were eating a man in a blue dress shirt sat at the table next to us. When I glanced at him again, the tie was off and his shirt was unbuttoned to his sternum. He drank a coffee and ate some buttered bread before picking up his briefcase and departing, buttoning his shirt and arranging his tie as he went.

Our skin was already turning pink after an hour, when we boarded the bus for Granada. The two hour trip took us into high hills with scrubby brush, not unlike Central Texas. We drove past groves of olive (or possibly almond) trees and stands of tall, straight poplars planted in tight rows.

After our nap at the hotel we walked over the Rio Genil into Central Grenada. We passed several bars packed with people watching a match. We walked through the Plaza del Carmen where a large stage was covered by adorable girls in traditional dresses. We had arrived in Granada during Dia de la Cruz, the Day of the Cross. We sat in the square for a while and watched the girls dance Sevillanas, a type of Flamenco traditional to Andalusia. The dancers curl their arms through the air above their heads, and follow that movement with their hips, while shaking their frilly skirts and stomping their feet.

Looking for dinner, we wandered down a street filled with sidewalk tables. Some of the restaurants were full, others deserted. I created a restaurant selection logic like this: Choose the first place you see with just one empty table. This restaurant was Casa Jose.

Bars in Granada have a wonderful tradition of serving a free tapa with every drink. Our gratis tapas at Casa Jose was fried sardines. We also ordered a plate of fried seafood which contained more sardines, calamari, shrimp and bacalao. My first encounter with bacalao in Barcelona was, shall we say, slimy. [Although Bill was okay with it.] This bacalao was seasoned with oregano and fried. The bacalao balls were the best bites on the platter.


After dinner, we wandered around and got some ice cream. The next morning after a large breakfast at the hotel, we headed toward the Alhambra.