Meatballs

During the first few months of my residence in Germany, way back when, I was severely hampered in my grocery shopping because of my limited vocabulary. I had learned one word, Hackfleisch. Ground meat could get me through many a menu: meatballs, meatloaf, and burgers (tacos would have been on the menu had tortillas been available in the Vaterland).

Ground beef is in the headlines yet again, this time because of production methods. Blasted off the spines of unhealthy beasts, mixed with ammonia and tainted by the now-infamous pink slime. Once again, real butchers stand tall and proclaim that they grind their own meat, and that it is meat and only meat, nothing else. A few more customers have woken to question just what is in their food.

It is in this context that I stroll into the tiny butcher shop in the sleepy village of Cloughjordan in Ireland, hoping to find something for supper. I had leftover noodles and red sauce from our first jet-lagged evening, and was hoping against hope for a few hundred grams of ground beef that we could eat. I wasn't sure what to expect, given that the shop window featured not only an etched cow's head, but a display of assorted tools, as the butcher's doubles as the hardware store. Screwdrivers and sausages.

The selection of both hammers and meat was not huge, but it all looked very good, clean and bright. Still recalcitrant, I asked about where the meat came from. "Nowhere," replied the rosy-cheeked fellow without a hint of mischief. Wondering if my accent was hampering communication, I tried again: From how far away was the meat? "The family has a farm just up the road."

In other words, nowhere. Nothing to fear here, no frightening slime or corporate profits. Just real meat from a few yards up the road, from the man who raised and slaughtered it. No need to make it any harder. Or tastier.

Blow-ins

They are nearly everywhere I turn here: blow-ins, the endearing Irish term for those who are not from these parts. The village "in calm of middle country" is full of folks who, for whatever reasons, have gotten off the bus because they didn't want to go where it was headed. And somehow they ended up here, lost in the middle of Ireland, in Cloughjordan.

Cloughjordan has many distinctions: birthplace of Irish revolutionary Thomas MacDonagh, and named after a stone brought back from the crusades (Cloughjordan means stone; Jordan would be the crusader's rock's source). But these days, it is the Ecovillage that is being built here that draws both new blow ins and locals who are both curious and interested. We stumbled upon the village virtually, and unsure whether the appeal was the Eco-centric foundations or the appeal of an address in Tipperary, decided we had to see for ourselves.

So we are here, in Cloughjordan, trying to figure out how to visit four pubs in three nights, how to balance respecting folks privacy with our wanting to ask a thousand questions. And of course, this being Ireland and a small town, we needn't have worried, for people know (of) us--those Americans--before we have a chance to open our mouths. Short chats in the street, across a fence, on the front step and in the living room, longer discussions where we pick up the thread a day or two later.

But it all boiled down to broccoli. Delicate purple broccoli sprouts, bountiful in the village these days. We saw them on our first tour through the village, fully jet lagged, a crate full in the CSA barn, with a sign on them that said "loads;" piled on the counter behind the lady of the house who offers to show us her home office, offered like a bouquet and tucked into the basket of the baby's stroller. Best of all, they were there, these yuppie blow-ins (for they certainly cannot be considered a native species) heaped in a Pyrex dish, an offering to the groaning table at the community supper to which these blow-ins were warmly welcomed.

Airing our laundry

Our little rented house in Ireland has all the modern conveniences save one: a dryer. Make no mistake, the winters (and autumns and springs) are wet, whence the green hills that justify the famous moniker. It has been a challenge to work with time, planning ahead, making sure clothes are washed in time to line dry before trips and scheduling in sheets and towels to not leave us without underwear and socks.

We have cheated a couple of times, borrowing a friend’s dryer for a down jacket and availing of my mother-in-laws capacious laundry room over Christmas, luxuriating in the easy life. But by and large, we are simply living with laundry constantly hanging in the living room, and crunchy towels. We even rearranged the sofa so we could get the rack closer to the radiator, which cuts drying time to only a day.

Our first power bill made me gasp: €780, and it wasn’t even winter yet. We understood why everyone else hung out laundry, even on cool, moist days. A dryer would simply be an unaffordable luxury, one that could easily double a power bill. And so, we see peach-colored sheets and long nightdresses along the N81 just past Silverhill on all but the soggiest days, and compare the virtues of various folding racks with our neighbors.

Our three-week visit to the US has coincided with an amazing stretch of fine weather, which I hope to not jinx by mentioning. As our folding line gets a workout, our Swedish dryer sits unused as of yet, and we depart for the old country again in a few days. A fellow mom at the school has just convinced her husband to put up a clothesline in their side yard, and has been asking advice about hanging laundry: How many clothespins do I need? (More than a single pack of 50 for a family of four!) What is the protocol for hanging underwear? (On the inside of the rack, where nosy neighbors won’t see your shy tween’s smalls or your unmentionables) When do you need to bring it in? (Only if it is pouring, since wind will evaporate light moisture quickly.) Another mom overhears us chatting, and says, “Oh, I miss how line-dried sheets smell. Maybe we should put up a line too!”

How funny that something as simple as hanging up laundry, a task that our grandmothers saw as a chore (this woman’s thoroughly modern suburban mom had a dryer), has become something we must learn. And how odd that these college-educated women—and men—have bought into laundry additives, and scented dryer sheets and asthmatic children to make their laundry smell good, when the sun is there for free. How ironic that we are having to relearn something as simple as how putting the clothespin on only one side of the sock makes it dry more quickly. But how delicious to rediscover the quiet meditative quality of hanging laundry on a cool morning, listening to exuberant birdsong while we plan our day in our minds. And how lovely it is to snuggle into sheets that smell like sunshine and takes us to pleasant dreamscapes. Like crafts of old, the wisdom of the generation was nearly lost. Nearly.

Idle driving

I recently returned from another business trip to the States, this time to Florida, land of the artificial. Everything, from the plastic lawn flamingos to the fan-generated breezes (I’m not even going to talk about the giant Lego sea serpent in the man-made lagoon), was artificial. I found myself longing to get back to the authentic mud and puddles that characterize the Emerald Isle in the wet season.

After landing, a bus from the airport took me as far as South Dublin, where Darling Husband had spotted my car, so I could make pickup time at Little One’s school (about as muddy and authentic as can be). And as I slid in behind my right-hand drive wheel, it felt comfortable, even with my jet lag-induced grogginess.

The day before leaving, I had been stressed, especially about dealing with immigration authorities. Having sailed through, thanks to a friendly Garda down the road, I realized I was actually enjoying the drive over the hills and dales of County Kildare. The windy-twisty three-track roads demand a certain skill and attention, not unlike those Driver’s Ed movies of our youth. But the ever-changing scenery (snow on the mountains today, neighbor finally finished his fence, oh, look, three sheep on the road today) keeps things interesting.

Once a week, Darling Husband’s work schedule means that I need to trek into Dublin and pick up Number One Son from his school. The path takes me over the hill at Bohernabreena and drops me into Dublin’s south suburbs. The older roads are dotted with roundabouts; the newer ones with signals and right-turn pockets. Not surprisingly, the roundabouts move, while the signals back up. I am thrust back into American Mode, twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the light to change.

And then it hits me: I enjoy the break from driving that Ireland and my business trips give me. American transit systems are built up around business travelers, who can easily get from the airport to the everything-you-could-ever-need hotel; often at the expense of infrastructure for the everyday masses. And yet here I was, looking forward to driving, even comforted by it. Little One notes that there is only one stop sign between home and school, one place of rest on the 20-minute drive. And there it was: most of my driving here is driving, not waiting to drive. Most of my driving in the States is waiting, not driving.

Every now and then, I see a Prius in the city, and think maybe I should have got one of those. And then I am reminded: in the city, where waiting is the game, having a car that does not idle is a huge advantage. But out here in the sticks, we do not idle (except when we meet someone we know in town), and there is only one Prius around here (and I have met the driver--she's American). The rest of us drive, efficient small cars, covered in mud. Because we drive rather than wait.

Boiled egg, anyone?

Imagine if you will, a nation of Irishmen waking up late on a very frosty Sunday morning, with just a wee bit of a hangover from a company Christmas party that went until three in the morning. The smart ones--that is most of them--booked a room at the hotel, both to enjoy a night away from the kids as well as to not have to worry about driving after far too much Guinness.

Our Irishman and his wife both emerge from the shower feeling a bit better, and head downstairs to that staple of Irish luxury, the full Irish breakfast. Their mouths are salivating at the thought of a plate piled high with eggs, back rashers, sausage, black and white pudding (well, maybe she moves the black pudding to his plate), and a token tomato, all washed down with some strong black coffee. Imagine their disappointment, then, when their waitress explains that there is a nationwide recall of pork, and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) is asking everyone, from merchants to housewives to restaurateurs, to destroy all pork and pork products produced in Ireland since September 1 of this year.

Like those fellow partygoers, I awoke to a headache and the same headline, and though pork was not on the menu for Sunday, I do have a pricey organic loin roast in my freezer, purchased a few weeks ago from a local farm stand. An email to my friendly contact at the farm stand gets her on the phone with her farmers and her inspector. It's a blanket recall so she can't tell me it's OK to eat, but reading between the lines, I think I should wait before chucking it, as it is likely that over the next few days many farms will be declared clean. As a postscript, she notes that Dominic makes his own pig feed, and expects the "pro organic/anti-cheap food debate" to rage for a few days. She sounds happy about this bit, because it can only be good for business.

As an American, food recalls are nothing new to me. The last major one, of over 20 million pounds of tainted beef, is an order of magnitude larger than this one, which, though it encompasses all pork produced in this island nation for two months, is inherently different, and not just because of its size.

How so? First up, the wording in yesterday's refreshingly concise press release: "The FSAI is requiring the food industry to recall from the market all Irish pork products produced from pigs slaughtered in Ireland." Imagine, a government agency requiring industry to do something without asking. What's more, they extended the recall to all farms and immediately banned the transfer of pigs between farms, even though they suspect that the feed has only contaminated about 10% of the island's pork. But they want to be sure. The contaminant, dioxin, was detected last week; the ban came down Sunday, "as a precautionary measure." By Monday, they had named the source of contamination, and warned that some beef may be affected. They will be out testing in the next few days, and as farms show themselves to be free of the contaminant, they'll be allowed back into the supply stream.

Contrast this to the massive recall of American ground beef last September: USDA inspectors detected the E. coli O157:H7 pathogen. The initial press release lists products with production dates in June and July of 2007; the recall came nearly two months later. Note also that the USDA cannot actually enact a recall themselves, which is why we see the wording 'XYZ Company is voluntarily recalling so-and-so-many-thousand pounds of meat.' By the time the USDA released more information, nearly two weeks later, the recall had been expanded to meat produced at one factory for an entire year--21 million pounds.

Now, dioxin is a bad thing for people to eat, but small quantities eaten over the short term don’t usually have serious consequences. But a trace of E. coli, ingested even once, can make people extremely ill, and can even kill those with weaker immune systems. And yet, US government inspectors had to prove--not just suspect--that meat was tainted before they could ask the business to pull the meat. Given that both the FDA and USDA are chock a block with representatives from agribusiness, it's amazing that recalls ever happen at all.

I ducked into the market today, and there is an empty case both at the butcher's counter and where the bacon and sausage live around the corner. They will likely begin filling in the days to come, as FSAI gives producers a clean bill of health. The huge display of Christmas hams is equally void, and is likely to stay that way, as there isn't enough time to cure new hams.

That doesn't mean all is perfect in Europe, as industrial animal production is alive and well here: Sunday's front page article of the Irish Times appends the customary listing of similar outbreaks at the bottom of the page, and I have to read it twice to make sure I got it right: "In 1998 dioxin-contaminated citrus pulp from Brazil was used in feed for dairy animals in France and resulted in contaminated milk." Mention of just how ridiculous it seems to be shipping citrus pulp from Brazil to France is absent.

I reflect on how food waste recycling has only come to Dublin this year (and certainly not out here), and how I and millions of French housewives are scraping their plates into the garbage. I wonder, why do they have no local food waste to feed their cochons? The thought of making the food stream run both ways crosses my mind briefly.

I wonder if Dominic would like my kitchen scraps for his pigs?

Yellow bowl

For many years, we have used a rotation diet in our household to help us balance between foods that act as allergens and eating what most people call "normally." A rotation gives us the chance to have lasagna and ice cream cones--but not every day. And the knowledge gained from learning to think and cook a different way makes it possible to adjust our diet to the stresses and illness that ebb and flow through our days.

Over the years, the rotation was honed to the rhythm of our lives: a lighter breakfast for those early dismissal days, wheat and diary allowed on Sundays when we were all home for tea and cake. Loads of spaghetti (spelt pasta with sheep's milk romano) on Wednesday, golden waffles on Sunday morning. When we were sick, we could use dairy substitutes even on "dairy" days; when traveling, we can choose the days to "blow the diet." The goal is to maintain our health in the long-term, and the method was not to deprive ourselves of things we loved to eat every single day of every week, of every month, for years or forever.

We bought the waffle iron six years ago, at a school auction. It was a whim, and we have used it almost every Sunday since then. There are exceptions: muffins when there were fresh blueberries; buttery hot cross buns for Easter morning, pancakes when camping. Over the years, we found a waffle mix we liked a lot, and it was sheer luck that it was based on a rice flour.

During our first weeks on the Emerald Isle, I acquired a few items that I knew we would need: a drying rack (two actually, since jeans and towels take two days to dry), a printer/scanner/copier (the scanner part to be paperless, and the printer part because paperless is still a distant dream), a good sized stockpot (pasta in teenage-sized portions), and a yellow mixing bowl. I couldn't bring the waffle iron with because of the voltage thing, but I figured I could still make pancakes from scratch.

I had read that Ireland, like many northern European nations, has a fairly high rate of celiac sprue, so I was expecting that gluten free products would be relatively easy to find. There are three different types of GF flour made by Odlums (the Irish equivalent of Pillsbury) in the supermarket, but they contain egg albumen as a binder, which means I can't use them. Luckily, the health food store in town had a little bag of rice-based bread flour, and the Internet had several GF pancake recipes to choose from.

The first pancakes out of the pan were pale and flavorless. I added some salt and sugar, and they started to taste better, especially when slathered with jam and yogurt. But they were still pale, and I knew I was in trouble when Number One used the term gelatinous when referring to them the second weekend.

So yesterday in Tesco, I bought what they call a sandwich pan. It looks a bit like a shallow pie pan, almost like a cake pan. What it does hold nicely is scones. Before kids, I had perfected buttery oat scones; this morning, my yellow bowl served to mix up some GF scones laced with chunks of green apples from the neighbor's tree. It may be that waffles will have to wait until we're home again.

Oatey Scones (GF)

1 3/4 c GF flour mix (I used Doves Farm White Bread mix, a base of white rice flour with potato starch, tapioca starch, and xantham gum)
1/4 t salt
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/4 c butter
2 T sugar
2 T brown sugar
1/4 c porridge oats
1/4 c apples, chopped
1/4 t cinnamon

1/4 c (soy) yogurt
3/4 c (soy) milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Cut in the butter. Mix in liquids as gently as possible. Dough should be moist & slightly sticky so add more if necessary, a little at a time.
Turn mixture into buttered pan, shape roughly, score in quarters (or eighths) with a floured knife. Bake 20-25 minutes. Serve warm with more butter and jam.

Plain brown wrapper

It has been blustery since yesterday, great gusts that sneak in unsealed windows and blow open the hatch to the attic. And yet the towering oaks and chestnuts around us remain largely intact, and only a few leaves have made drifts of gold and brown by the side of the road. Trees here grow in thick stands, and the people of the land know that these stands both provide shelter and protect the soil.

The way of life here is different, some would say backwards. There's plenty of business opportunity, but I doubt people would avail themselves of it. If you need something, you need to let someone know: they'll chat with someone else (I swear Main Street looks like something from a Hollywood musical, with people stopping and chatting every 20 feet), and before you know it, someone will hear about something that just may be what you were looking for. Imagine a place where people identify their needs and then seek it out, instead of the marketing machine telling them what they want.

Our hilltop neighbor told us of the tale of finding their extraordinary home. Scouring listings in the paper and on the Internet, despairing of finding something beautiful where they could raise their family, they told their tale of woe to another school parent. On her way home, the classmate's mother noticed that someone was moving out. She stopped her car (yes, in the middle of the road), and asked the fellow what was happening to the house (yes, it is acceptable for total strangers to ask such questions) and learned that he was planning to rent it, but what with this and that, hadn't got around to it. Well, she says, let me put you in touch with this nice family that's looking for just such a place.

For the average American, coming around a sharp turn on a one-and-a-half lane road to find a car blocking it and folks chatting would be cause for becoming angry, rolling down the window and yelling at people in a not terribly civilized fashion to move their ____. But this is the way this country works, and most (not all, sigh) folks realize that it could well be an exchange like the one that found or will find them their job, their car, their house or even the love of their life. Or butter.

When we drop off Little One at his rural school, there are always a few parking lot conversations. The first few days, when Darling Husband was with, he bonded with the men folk, comparing things like cell phone reception (discovered the two places with the best reception at school), the best ways to get from here to there (learned of an excellent route over the hills and picked up an occasional rider); I concentrated on the domestic: where might I find good vegetables, butter, meat, maybe even some yarn. I learned that our little town has a health food store, which just happens to be run by another parent at the school, and that she's happy to order any product your heart desires (case of soy milk, please!); that there's an organic farm stand south of school (yup, another parent); that there's a pink building up north of Eadestown where there's a nice couple that sell yarn; that that there's another organic farm stand with meats (not another parent, but one parent knew of it); and that if I waited around at pickup time for the dairy farmer's wife, I might be able to score some fresh butter.

And here it is in my hands, heavy, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. A parking lot chat, transformed into a block of real, fresh, very local butter (from 15 minutes away).

It is an unspoken contract between neighbors that the trees will not be cut or damaged, say to unblock a view or such frivolity. We, as the trees, rely on each other to withstand the strong winds.

In the bag

When I first followed my heart to Germany, all these many years ago, I encountered my future husband's first scorn when I went shopping for the first time. No, I had not bought the wrong cheese or overspent my budget. Nope, I had said, "Ja" when offered a bag. He explained that that plastic bag had set me back 20 Pfennig (less than 10 cents at the time). In response to my dumbfounded look, he explained that plastic bags were expensive to manufacture and polluted terribly, and they were only for thoughtless people who had forgotten to bring their own bags like everyone should.

I was quickly indoctrinated, and had problems when I returned to the states three years later, and showed up at the supermarket with my cheerful wicker basket. Cashiers gathered around to admire this oddity, even stranger than the Birkenstock crowd's ugly canvas or burlap sacks.

While I was in Germany this summer, I read online that the city of Seattle recently introduced a 20-cent tax on plastic grocery bags. Uproar ensued, people resent being told what to do, it's a nanny state, I have a right to a plastic bag, they scream.

The irony is not lost on me: for I had brought shopping bags with me to Europe. They are everywhere in my life: in the trunk of my car, by the front door, and yes, in my suitcase when I venture away from home. Here in Ireland, I actually had to buy garbage bags, as I have yet to receive a single plastic bag during my many shopping excursions.

Here, bringing your own bags is the norm. This past weekend, a man was at the checkout stand next to us at the supermarket. The clerk was not alone in clucking as she sold him four plastic bags. It is the first time I have seen anyone buy bags in the four weeks I have been here.

Darling Husband took out the garbage last night (in one of our purchased biodegradable bags), and came back in with his first dumpster treasure: a new sturdy shopping bag from Tesco Ireland. I shall add it to my collection of purple co-op bags from home.

Bambi

On the windy-twisty road to Little One's rural school this morning, there was a deer in the road. It was lying on the asphalt, struggling to get up, panicked brown eyes begging me to not run it over. I wasn't sure how badly it was hurt, but it was clearly suffering. The adult voice in me told me that I should put it out of its suffering, and if I'd been a true country woman with a gun rack in the back of my rental car, I suppose I could have done just that, and bagged dinner in the process.

If this were home, there wouldn't be a deer in the road, because they've all been run out or run over long since. But if, for the sake of argument, there was one, I would call animal control, because it's dangerous to take care of these things yourself: wild animals, disease, you don't know where it's been, etc. We are a nation of people abdicating our authority to institutions. Not so the Irish.

I think the Irish would simply laugh at me, and tell me to call someone to put it out of its misery, cut it up and put it in the freeze, how often does dinner just land on your plate? They would not recoil in horror at the thought of dealing with a wild animal. Indeed one of our new neighbors, a self-proclaimed semi-retired Doctor (who seems to paint and walk his dog around the lake more than work), asked if we'd like to help him work his way through some venison he received last fall; the new season is upon us, and he needs to make room in the freeze. Yup, the butcher's window on Main Street (honestly, it's called that) has a new hand-painted poster that proclaims that they now have fresh venison.

When I drove back, after promising Little One that I would find out about Animal Control, the deer was gone. A friend reports that some folks who knew what to do had moved it to the side of the road. Whether it then left of its own accord, or became someone's supper, I have no way of knowing.

Doorstep?

Upon our arrival, jetlaggy and tired, the relocation firm hired by Darling Husband's ushered us into a temporary "self-catering" apartment. To get us started, someone had brought in a "welcome pack," a selection of foods that would see us through until we could do a proper shop. The milk and cold cuts were wasted on us, though we did graze on the fruit and make good use of the butter. But can you blame us if the foreign-looking white loaf found another use? Perhaps I was still bleary-eyed from the overnight flight.

Just a chicken

Our quest for good food is ongoing, but we made a giant leap forward this weekend with the discovery of the farmer’s market in Naas. Small, but fine, fresh vegetables to be sure, but also bread piled high, meats, cheeses, the olive lady and even a few home bakers and a gourmet chocolate man. We did the first round, and then started buying: beets, avocado, onion bread, potatoes, strawberries, green onion, even back rashers and sausage. And then I stopped at the butcher’s cart.

I took a deep breathe, and launched into my well-rehearsed query on the kind of life the beasts, both great and small, live before they reach our table, in particular, whether they are fed antibiotics. We are learning that just as the Irish language has a tense that doesn’t correspond to anything we are familiar with, and the gift of Blarney extends to not really answering a question. The fellow couldn’t say for sure whether these particular beasts here had never had an infection or been treated. But, chimes in the neighbor fellow who is holding down his own stool, the chickens, they wouldna have any. Indeed, agrees the butcher, and launches into his own beef, the state of what the Americans do to their poor animals, puttin’ them on huge concrete pads in the desert and not even feeding them grass like we do our creatures. It’s no wonder they have to pump them full of medications. And hormones, well, now just don’t get him stared on that.

Sensing a lull, I nod, and tell him I’ll take a chicken. He bags it, places it on the counter, and tells me it is twelve Euro. A fair price.

As I dig in my wallet, the Stool Sitter asks me who I think will win the election, and that can of worms spilled onto the ground. More discussion and head-shaking. “Don’t the Americans care what the rest of the world thinks?” “I think that it’s not that Americans don’t care, it’s that they’re unaware that the rest of the world thinks differently.” “Ach, an insular attitude. Dangerous, that.”

And so on. The price of the chicken magically drops two Euro, the bill changes hands, and I finally make my escape. The chicken has already been roasted and curried, and the bones will make a healing soup for our common head colds. But I will be back to this market. The discussion will continue, and besides, I didn’t even get to the chocolate man yet.

The quest for dill

As we speed past on our way between work and schools, Little One notes that the green hillsides are covered with little white dots: they are fuzzy sheep, their collars turned up against the rain. It is no surprise then, that lamb features prominently on the meat shelves in Irish supermarkets.

Our first day here, we dragged our weary selves to Dunnes, where we found some lovely looking lamb chops, both Irish and organic, to my delight. I thought I could sauté them with a bit of garlic and dill and serve them up on a bed of brown rice. The garlic was right where you’d expect it to be, and I even found organic brown rice, but there was not a spot of dill to be found. Perhaps my mind is muddled from jetlag, I thought, and started reading again back at the upper left hand corner of the spice rack: Anise, bay, chives, fennel, nope, no dill. I look again, perhaps there’s a mix: I spot one for lamb. Alas, it contains garlic, onion, lemon peel, rosemary, salt and pepper, but no dill. I sigh, and toss some herbes de Provence in the trolley and head to the checkout. The chops are delicious and tender, even dill-less. Even if our minds are muddled, our bellies are well-filled.

The next day, undaunted, I aim for a larger supermarket, this time a Tesco. The Safeway-like aisles scream low prices to me, but that’s not what matters. I want organic meats, the measure of a true selection in my book. And I stop by the spice aisle, just to check, for dill has been added to my report card. They carry the same brand of spices (a British one, with a German name, go figure). Same selection, same absence of dill. I turn to Darling Husband—could this perhaps be a cultural issue, maybe the Irish don’t like the taste?

And then it happened. With the help of my sometimes trustworthy GPS and reliable map-reading Number One, I find downtown Naas, and a Superquinn, the most Irish of the supermarkets. The teeny parking spaces prove a challenge, but the mountains of fresh baked goods look promising, even if I’m not in the market for bread. They have a real butcher’s counter (sigh, no organics here), as well as the ubiquitous plastic wrapped meats (four free range chicken breasts and an organic beef roast). And then, wonder of wonders, between chives and fennel, dill weed!

A parking lot conversation at Little One’s school reveals a bit of information I have been hoping for: in the next town over (Blessington, if you have a really good map), there is a little health store with the creative moniker of Harvest Fare. There, perched on wooden shelves, are the bags and packages we seek: gluten-free rice noodles, organic local cheeses, shampoos and soap. A chat with the lady behind the counter reveals that she’s happy to order up a case of our favorite soy milk. It should be in Friday. Oh, and she has some lovely organic dill right next to the counter.

At some point, staring at the shelves of spices and food, it becomes apparent that this is not really about the availability of a certain herb or spice, but it was a reminder of why we are here in the first place: to live here. In the past, when we have visited a place for a few days or even a few weeks, the challenge is buying only what we can use in that short period. There is no comparison shopping, no buying things on sale an freezing them for later.

But we are here to live, and I am looking not for the smallest bottle of olive oil, but the right olive oil. I am not looking for a single herb or spice that I can use in every dish: I am looking to buy not only dill, but a whole collection of mismatched bottles and jars to a usable palate of spices. For just as we cannot live by bread alone, we need more than a single jar of dill to see us through.

Default vegetable

When I needed to choose a name for this blog, I reached back into my childhood, to the weekend morning when the toaster was broken and I hit upon the idea of laying the bread onto the electric coil stovetop directly. Unable to find tongs quickly, the bread became charred on one side, and my father promptly dubbed me the Irish Chef, even as he scraped it back to brown for breakfast. That “Irish” cookery of his childhood has given way to respectable cuisine, even for my Californian-French refined (read snobby) palate. Little did I know when I reclaimed the moniker a year and a half ago that I would find myself back in the old country today (“why on earth would you want to go back?” questions my father from the grave). But here I am, surrounded by golf courses, tiny terraced houses, and the misty Wicklow Mountains (they sure look like hills to me) in the background.

We have begun the cultural shift along with the time shift, with our first forays out into the countryside. It used to be that we used two maps to navigate the quaint, variable-width lanes outside the city; we now know that if the GPS (called SatNav here) knows the name of the town, it can guide you, but unfortunately, it only seems to be aware of about half of them. We still have the two maps as backup. But we do not feel singled out, indeed, the spiral pattern we and the multitude before us have followed to reach a destination is often featured in early Celtic art (check out Newgrange). No mystery there.

And then it came to pass that we needed food for our first night here. We dragged our weary bodies to the closest shopping centre (following the traditional spiral route) and found a Dunnes store, a sort of Irish Albertson’s: pretty wrappers, not much substance. Organic produce was limited to four baskets (onions, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and an empty spot where strawberries had been); the meat selection was even more limited: lamb chops or beef stew meat. We found one shelf of soy milk and about 3 feet of gluten free products, which contained a pitiful selection of pasta (rotini or spaghetti), but a bounty of biscuits (Jaffa cakes, chocolate-covered digestives and delightful lemon zest biscuits). And to our amazement, we learned that carrots are the default vegetable.

Little One had a wonderful first day of Scoil (that’s school in Irish) today, and learned and promptly forgot how to say hello in Irish. He has promised to try harder to remember the magic word tomorrow, but has set himself the realistic goal of knowing how to greet his teacher in Irish by the end of the week. It may take me a wee bit longer to adjust.

A perfect storm

Every Wednesday morning, Mama Duck drags me out of bed to help her make breakfast, usually from a chicken egg (though once I used duck eggs, not hers). This morning, cool and clear, came far too early, punctuated by visits from the Tooth Fairy and a perambulating Little One, as well as my new phone reminding me that I forgot to turn off the reminder alarm.

It was me who had to drag Mama Duck from her nest this morning, to make pancakes, since that’s what needs to be used up. Bacon was also on the menu for the same reason, as well as the fact that it would be positively un-American to not have bacon with pancakes. And this is an election year.

There is a Russian proverb that says that you always have to throw out the first pancake, so I nearly always plan on it. But this morning was different. Perhaps it was Mama Duck’s gentle coaching, perhaps I’m just better than I think I am, but there were no dud pancakes. And the bacon came out, well, perfectly.

We’ve been watching the weather forecast for Dublin intently, noting the differences and the sameness; today is the first day that the three day forecast includes a day that we will see there. Met Éireann, the Irish national weather service, is predicting a fair day, with a bit of sun and 66 degrees, about as good as it gets. This is a good thing, as Hanna (not our Hannah, but the one that pummeled the Gulf) has followed the jet stream all the way to Dublin, and is getting the last drops out of her system as I write.

We are down to one pot of soup for tonight, and snacks for the plane tomorrow. The adventure begins, on a full tummy of a full American breakfast.

Chill farewell

Our last day in Dublin dawned cloudy and cold, just barely above the freezing mark. The chill breeze seems at odds with all the cheery daffodils everywhere we turn, along with the summery dresses and shoes in the shop windows. We decided to play tourist (since that’s what we are) and hopped onto a double-decker tour bus that took us around town, letting us off wherever we wanted. Only a few brave souls dared sit in the open top, ourselves among them.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon poking around the countryside, discovering a little corner we’ve never visited before just the other side of the Wicklow mountains. We found an exceedingly picturesque town called Moone, that has not only a 17^th century mill and manor house, but a thousand year-old high cross. When we finally located the cross (on the other side of the bridge with the swans swimming below), it was absolutely pouring rain, so we huddled in the car and read aloud about the Master of Moone, who took course granite and created delightful renderings of biblical stories and a bestiary to make a monk proud.

On both outings, we needed to warm up afterwards. With our fill of Celtic carvings, we headed up the road, stopping short of the Dublin suburbs and found an Edwardian-era pub, complete with (fake) peat fire, where we filled our bellies with pub grub and cider. Number One Son decided he wanted some meat, and ordered a cheeseburger—nothing like the McWhatever, this one was a hefty patty of Wicklow County beef, with real local cheddar melted on top. Little One’s fish and chips (malt vinegar on the side) were more fish than chips, and it wasn’t a small portion of chips. I enjoyed a “salad” of smoked salmon and shrimp (what they call prawns), while Darling Husband swapped me his chips for my brown bread and Kerry butter.

This afternoon, our cheeks reddened from the upper bus deck, we alit in Phoenix Park and found a tiny tea house, where a frothy cup of Cadbury cocoa and toffee biscuit cake made our noses run as they thawed.

We’ll have supper in tonight, and polish off our own breaded haddock and brown rice with Bullmer’s cider. Unfortunately, real lettuce could not be found, so it’s salad from a bag, and designer peas from Marks and Spencer (“petit pois and baby onions”). Our (very) early breakfast tomorrow will already be continental; pain au chocolat and orange juice eaten on the airport shuttle bus.

In search of spuds

As I peeled potatoes this evening (using what one gourmet friend of mine would term an ‘old-fashioned’ potato peeler), I reflected on the source of the foods we were eating. We started our adventure in Irish shopping this morning with a visit to the convenience store around the corner, since we woke hungry to the grey day and the larder was completely empty. We downed a lovely light breakfast of thick back rashers, hot cross buns (from Cuisine de France) and orange juice. We demolished the whole litre of orange juice, clearly still dehydrated from the long flights.

So after polishing off the breakfast, and waking up with a nice cup of cocoa, we threw a load of laundry in the machine (once we figured out which of the 12 programs the Italian combined washer/dryer would do what we wanted), and walked across the street to the Luas, the light rail. Two stops up the tracks took us to Dundrum Shopping Centre, billed as the largest mall in Europe. The first store that greeted us was Starbuck’s, which we immediately passed by. We were looking for a light lunch, to get our stomachs accustomed to the time change, and found a smoothie bar. We had some berry and juice concoction and planned our attack. First a phone card, then some food.

After a quick pit stop, we took care of the phone cards in record time (it’s a real time-saver to not to have to spell my name out!). Then on to the food. We trundled down sloping travelators (like escalators, only flat so you can push a shopping cart or a buggy—sorry, stroller) to Marks & Spencer, where their designer food is as lovely as ever. There are huge signs everywhere touting Plan A (because there is no plan B), which in the most immediately visible terms meant that the old plastic sandwich boxes are gone, replaced with thin cardboard with cornstarch cellophane windows. The sandwiches inside are still some of the best, and they disappeared quickly.

The other constant, and really only downside, is the pricing: my ten items cost over 40 Euro—more than $45 for supper ) a tiny lamb roast (the name of the farmer is on the package!), some peas and asparagus and salad (yes, in a bag, sigh), the two aforementioned sandwiches, some Irish cheddar and two very cute chocolate ducks for Easter.

But back to provenance: I was having a devil of a time finding Irish potatoes. There was one item in the extensive and fetching spud section that came from Ireland, but it was sweet potatoes! The small buttery yellow potatoes that tempted me were from Israel, not the Emerald Isle. I just couldn’t stomach that.

So on to Tesco, another British import (what happened to Irish supermarkets?) where prices were a tad more reasonable, but still cost me over 50 Euro for two bags of groceries. I found their potato section—an entire aisle—and started reading. Still lots of pretty spuds from Israel, and a couple organic offerings. But all in packages (10 lbs.!) or from the UK, Israel or France. Finally, down at the end cap, one bin of loose rooster (red) potatoes, including dirt, from County Wexford. Four went into my cart, which got peeled (not organic, sigh), and made into mashed potatoes with a generous chunk of sweet cream butter (County Kerry). It sat next to some steamed spinach, asparagus and peas with white wine butter (from Northern Ireland), some fresh lamb (Ireland) and salad (lettuce from the UK, avocado from California, leftover from my in-flight stash). Sweet (dessert to you and me) was yogurt, but not just any old strawberry, nope: this was chocolate and hazelnut, with a nice chocolate covered hobnob. All washed down with some chilled Bullmer’s cider.

We’re off tomorrow to visit vegan friends in England for a long weekend, so will have less say in what we eat, but know that it will be selected with care. After spending hours looking at all these American brand names in a huge mall, I am anxious to find a real, local store, where I can buy real, local food.

Just like Mom used to make

When I was a young girl, my republican-born parents went through a weird period that I now recognize as midlife crisis. No red cars or mistresses here, though, nope, my Dad, a mild-mannered mechanical engineer by day, spent his evenings poring over publications like the Whole Earth Catalog and seemingly endless volumes of the Foxfire Book.

One weekend, I came across my father stirring a foul-smelling pot suspended over the barbecue in the backyard. It seems he had bargained with someone at church for the fat from their 4-H project pig, and armed with lye from the hardware store, he was cooking up a batch of soap. He proudly informed us that not only would we be able to bathe with it, but we could grate it for use as laundry soap! My 13-year old self recoiled in horror at the thought, and my sympathetic friends made sure I got lots of overly-scented soaps for my birthday. The experiment was only a mild success: the hard water in Redding made it all but impossible to lather with, so we figured he had set us up with camping soap for life.

Another chapter in this midlife adventure was devoted to corning beef. My mother and father must have spent hours hatching this plan, for one Friday my mother came home with an earthenware crock from an antique store and a rather large cut of beef. She and my dad spent most of the following day concocting the brine that was to transform this lowly rump into authentic corned beef.

For three months, the hunk of meat soaked in the corner of the breakfast room, in its crock covered by a board, held down by a brick (to keep the dog out). Every now and then Mom would let us lift the lid and we would make sure it was still submerged. It endured much speculation and levity concerning its future edibility, and my brother and I rushed our friends past it, hoping they wouldn't notice.

Finally, my parents pronounced it ready (not sure how they could tell). It spent half a day in the dutch oven making the house smell heavenly, and we had no problem overcoming the gross factor to consume the fork-tender flesh. Indeed, we demolished it in one sitting.

Emboldened by their taste success (it tasted a gazillion times better than anything from the store), and the fact that no one had been poisoned, my folks immediately set about making a second one. Mom even picked up a second crock so we wouldn't have to wait two months between them, and Daddy fitted them with round plywood lids.

But after a week, it was clear that something was horribly wrong: it smelled suspect, and it was clear we had failed. The remains were carried out to the curb at arms' length, and the house was aired out. We only ever ate the pink corned beef from the supermarket after that.

Nowadays, though, I can buy uncured ("grey") corned beef at the co-op, made the same way Mom used to (though I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to endure snide remarks like my family made). This year, I'm giving it the slow roast treatment in the Römertopf with a splash of hard cider. I'll add some wedges of Savoy cabbage when the time is right. And after supper, we shall head over to our Irish neighbors to raise a glass to St. Paddy.

All things Irish and chocolate

‘Tis the season to run around madly, trying to get everything done before we leave—nothing major, just a remodel and the taxes. And then there are the 1001 items to tick off our list, answering questions like, “where can I get a SIM card for my mobile phone?” “Where’s the nearest off-license?” and my personal favorite, “where will we buy our food?”

I took some time today with a map, trying to figure out just where we’re staying (and how to get there from the airport), and discovered it’s just two stops up the tram line from the Dundrum Shopping Centre, which, I learn from their Website, is open extra hours for St. Patrick’s Day. I also note, with some disappointment, that I can eat at McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, or (gasp!) TGIFriday’s, after stimulating the economy at The Body Shop, Tommy Hilfiger or even Build-a-Bear. When I can’t go any further, I can always grab a mocha at Starbuck’s.

But all is not American here: the anchor stores are Tesco and Marks & Spencers, along with one I’ve never visited before called Harvey Nichols. While Tesco and M&S are UK ‘imports,’ they do well with providing local produce and products (see my musings about flown food); however, The upscale Irish store’s marketing copy focuses on the local.

To wit: Harvey is featuring carrageen moss, traditionally used as a remedy for colds and flu, but that can also act as an alternative to gelatin for desserts and savoury dishes. Since I’m trying to fight off a cold on the eve of flying, I am sorely tempted. But then I read on, and my knees go weak: artisan chocolate bars created in Limerick, with “slightly left-field flavour combinations” such as Gin & Tonic, Sea Salt, Wild Flower, Lime & Black Pepper and Star Anise & Ginger. But wait, that’s not all: a chocolate truffle tribute to that very Irish cocktail, the Black Velvet (made from equal measures of champagne and Irish stout).

******

With chocolate on my mind, Number One Son reminded me that we needed to make a cake for Darling Husband’s birthday. Since we’ve both been trying to stick to very healthy fare before our departure (in anticipation of blowing the rotation diet in a huge way), I thought I would try the chocolate cardamom combination on a GF cake base. We took it with to the school community gathering this evening, and amazingly, there was some left, but only because the kids decamped to the carousel before we pulled the cake out of hiding!

Chocolate Cardmom Cake

1½ cups GF flour (Bob’s Red Mill, contains garbanzo flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, ‘sweet’ white sorghum flour and fava flour)
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process; I used Green & Black)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. xanthan gum
¾ tsp. salt
1¼ cup milk (cow, soy, rice, almond, etc.)
1/3 cup butter, margarine or shortening
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
½ tsp. ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 350°F; grease an 11”x7” pan, set aside. Blend all ingredients with food processor or mixer until thoroughly blended. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool, then garnish with melted chocolate, chopped smoked almonds and chopped hard toffee.

Ireland on my mind

With St. Patrick's day fast approaching, it's no surprise that the press is trying to find an Irish angle in their living sections. And it's of interest personally, as the Emerald Isle is our first destination--we'll be eating in County Dublin a short week from now.

Hard-hitting news purveyor CNN informs me that Guinness sales in Ireland are declining, as younger drinkers are favoring things that taste better (not bitter) and--get this--don't take two minutes to pour. Stout, that deep, creamy brew, must be poured slowly and allowed to settle for a minute or two before it can be drunk, and today's youth don't want to wait that long. Rural pubs are closing, offset by the opening of non-Irish Irish pubs elsewhere.

This isn't news to us, as sensible legislation banning things like driving drunk naturally changed people's drinking habits. Since no one with any amount of self-respect in Ireland would dream of drinking stout from a bottle or can, a half-pint at the pub is pretty much the limit. Since we're living on the Luas (light rail) line, we plan to take ample advantage of the smoke-free pubs to indulge in fine local brews on tap (Yes, I've tried stout, but still prefer some of the drier apple ciders, an incredible-tasting local product). Plus, I know that wherever I can find a supermarket, there will be an off-license, the Irish equivalent of a liquor store, nearby, and I'll be stocking up on some hard cider and Bailey's.

The San Francisco Chronicle, with its Alice Watersian perspective on all things food, takes a more upbeat look at Irish cuisine. Yup, it appears that young Irish chefs took their training in France and California and then reversed tradition and returned home to celebrate their local goodness. Gone is boiled beef and cabbage, replaced by scallop and cockle (alive, alive-o) risotto and pots de crème laced with Bailey's. As one chef cited note, "The sea is just minutes away, why use imported products when there are so many excellent traditional producers nearby?"

Oh, I am truly looking forward to the local bounty-there are no factory farms in Ireland, the cows really do graze on grass. The sea is just minutes away, and the dairy products are absolutely out of this world. We shall eat local; just as we will eat locally for St. Paddy's: 'grey' corned beef from Oregon, Savoy cabbage and fingerling potatoes from Washington. And maybe I'll try that pot de crème recipe to use up some eggs and Bailey's.

********
Bailey's Pots de Crème

Makes 8

Made with one of Ireland's famous spirits, Baileys Irish Cream, these take just minutes to prepare and make a tasty finish to any meal. Serve them with homemade shortbread cookies, if desired. Adapted from "Full On Irish," by Kevin Dundon (Epicure Press, 2005).

INGREDIENTS:

2 2/3 cups heavy cream

10 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream

1/2 cup freshly brewed espresso

18 ounces mascarpone

5 tablespoons powdered sugar

INSTRUCTIONS:

Instructions: Whip the cream in a bowl until soft peaks have formed. Place the Baileys Irish cream in a bowl with the espresso, mascarpone cheese and sugar. Beat until well combined, then fold in the cream. Divide among cups or ramekins of scant 1-cup size and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight before serving. Serve chilled.