Excuses

It could be that I’ve been incredibly busy. After all, I’ve travelled hundreds of miles, acquired a passel of stamps in my passport and receipts from airport restaurants. I have a stack of wedding programs and menus, from a high mass to civil union, garden party to formal buffet for one hundred—and we still have the highpoint of the trip in front of us, my Darling In-laws’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. So it might be that I could say I have a good excuse.

But the real reason I haven’t posted to the blog is simply that I haven’t written. I have started several essays in my mind: about my like-minded Scottish friend (to be entitled Two peas in a pod); something to celebrate witnessing the birth of a cria (that’s a baby alpaca to thee and me); possibly something about being chased by small children armed with latex balloons at not one but two weddings (summarily dismissed to not offend the brides.) There might even be a short ode to having long fingernails on my left hand because I’ve been away from my violin for so long.

I wanted to pour out words of joy about our whirlwind day trip to France, where we filled our pantry and travel wine cellar; lament how much I missed hearing Number One’s cello and even his whining (the former much more than the latter). Somewhere in my heart is a soaring ode to the German breakfast (worthy of a king) and Käsespätzle (the Swabian equivalent of mac ‘n cheese). I actually started a drafted a pretty good piece where I dissected this trip by the numbers (I think I may finish it some quiet morning on my return).

But I seem unable to write about what is occupying a large slice of my mind share these days. Even if it the gift of Blarney isn’t flowing, Ireland weighs on my mind—and not just because that Limerick wedding is shaping up to be one of the more pleasant of this trip (thought the one we stumbled on today in the town square was awfully sweet, with the bride and her policeman groom handcuffed together and serenaded by incongruous Swiss Alp horns.) The reason is simple: we will be living there for a year, beginning in September. Darling Husband’s employer made us a good offer, and the adventuresome spirit that led us to each other in the first place moved us to accept it.

Our handful of days in the west of the Emerald Isle gave us a wee taste, as we strolled mehodically and attentively through supermarkets, trying to envision a yearful of meals. For we recognize that even though the relocation agency assigned to our “case” will help us with finding schools and keeping stamp-happy bureaucrats content, the task of sourcing our nourishment falls to us, and will likely be our most immediate of needs. And so, in addition to long lists of broadband providers, car rental options and furnished apartments south of Dublin (with decent guest quarters), I scour the Internet and solicit referrals for farmer’s markets and good rice noodles.

So it seems that I have picked a good name for the blog, as we will be living the Irish life for the year to come. We may not eat the full Irish every morning, but we will find a way to weave it into the fabric of our lives.

Peas and potatoes

Tucked behind a brick house in the heaving metropolis that is Carlisle is a tiny vegetable garden, fastidiously tended by the husband of my bridesmaid of oh-so many years ago. He is a number cruncher by trade, she has meandered into insurance. They are seemingly normal people, but if you scratch the surface, you find thinking, delightfully quixotic folk. When not writing policies to protect cows from death by lightning (actually it reimburses the farmer for his loss, for there is simply no way to protect a cow in a thunderstorm), she works arduously to obtain and maintain fairtrade town status for her hometown. Her accounting spouse loves planting the beans more than counting them, and has decided to leave his high-powered post go back to university to pursue a degree in environmental studies.

It was at their table in their as-yet unpainted breakfast room that we shared the bounty of their garden, from courgettes (that’s zucchini to thee and me) to yellow chard, to fragrant heritage sweet peas and classic English shelling peas. Little One delighted in hunting for the plump pods, and we all dug into the ensuing risotto with gusto.

Nestled in a vale near the English west coast live the parents of Number One son’s first crush. Lest he blush, I should remind the reader that he was but four years old at the time, but must also note that she has not lost her charm, though it is currently crowned with blue hair. I am tucked into a cozy stone cottage across the garden from the main house on their alpaca farm, where we are awaiting the appearance of Flossie’s cria (that’s a baby alpaca to thee and me). My Little One and their smallest headed out to the potato patch with a basket, and came back lugging grubby new potatoes and fat broad beans (not just for broads, mind you). We scrubbed and shelled and chopped and roasted and feasted on these, and a few more handfuls dug this morning also graced a lovely vegetable stew at lunchtime. They are gentle folk, who quietly lead by example, and have chose quiet, gentle beasts to populate their fields. There are no other animals, not even a chicken, for they keep a vegan household and would have no use for eggs. Aside from the fresh-baked bread, I can relax about the food on the table, for I know it will be healthy and delicious.

Perched on a rocky hillside just inside Bavaria, we gathered for the weekend joining of two soul mates. The menu was predictable, and predictably unsuitable for our travel-weary bodies and thinking lifestyle. Bookended between the visits to our other two friends in England, it stands out, sore-thumb like. Prepared products, conventionally grown and highly-processed offerings were the rule here, and champagne, consumed in quantity, was likely the most traditional and purest consumable. Vaguely aware that we ate outside the mainstream, our hostess provided us with Ökotest margarine; similar to the American Good Housekeeping symbol, its name implies some sort of awareness, but the hydrogenated oil in the product belies corporate emptiness.

The weeks of peas and potatoes serve as healing times, inbreaths between the weighty weekend ceremonies, and I am thankful for the good food as much as the good company. I suspect that in the long run, I shall recall the tendrils and the mud with at least as much fondness as the toasts and vows.

Limerick

I shall resist the temptation to break into a Learesque poem as I announce that we are firmly ensconced in student hosing at the University of Limerick. We are here for the first of three weddings this trip, but have chosen this little refuge to recover from our weariness and jet lag. As I write on the first morning here, it is morning, and I am the only one awake, having chosen to drag myself out of bed at a respectable hour; no worries, there are 10 solid hours of snoozing behind me.

We did a little shopping before our early bedtime yesterday, enough to put together a simple supper of organic chicken breast, snow peas and rice, the latter two being leftovers from our in-trip stores. Earlier, we had had a good midday meal at Ciaran’s café, the little hole-in-the wall across the way. Absolutely delicious, organic and vegetarian, it was the perfect kind of healing food our travel-weary bodies needed.

***

I find I am missing Number One Son, and it surprises me. I always look for four chairs at a table instead of the three we need. I know there are certain moments when he would just roll his eyes, but then there are special ones, like Wednesday. We spent much of the afternoon (we got up late) tooling around south of Limerick, near a place called Lough Gur. It's a lake, like its name implies, but surrounded by a huge concentration of ancient sites—the largest stone circle (like a short Stonehenge) in Ireland is in some farmer's field, but he's opened it up for all to see, and there was a small passage grave. His neighbor though, has an electric fence around some 4,000 year-old stone ring forts, and there was a sign in front of the 15th century castle that said, "No Trespassing, Cross Dog" so we didn’t venture in there.

So we headed to some ruins of an unpronounceable Cistercian Abbey that looked very inviting from the road. We were thinking we'd hit another locked fence, but then Little One spotted a stile next to it. So we parked the car (a black Ford Focus, ugh), and climbed over. There were ruins to a smaller chapel and churchyard on the way to the Abbey, so we poked around. Then we headed toward the little bridge to take us over to the Abbey. The farmer had very thoughtfully put the electrified cow wire on a bungee, and rigged it so there were two to make sure the beasts didn't get out, but when we met the herd, they were led by a rather large bull who was drooling and grunting rather loudly. He didn't seem terribly friendly, and we realized that there were far too many of them, and they seemed hungry. The reader may or may not be glad to hear that we didn't throw Little One to the bulls as a distraction to get to the abbey (we would have needed a second distraction to get back to the car, and we didn't have Number One with).

On the way back to the car, Little One started talking about the Aer Lingus symbol, and we explained that the shamrock, or clover, was a symbol for things Irish. He wanted to know what they looked like, so we pointed down--they were everywhere. I was thinking about what his widow had said at a classmate’s father’s funeral, about how he always found four-leaf clovers, and mentioned to Little One how it was considered good luck to find one. He told me to find one, and of course, I had to tell him that in all my years of looking (and I have looked), I'd never found one. But here they were, hundreds of them, so we set to looking. We looked for a while, and were giving up, when I took two steps—you know how it is, you don't really want to stop looking—and looked down. There it was, a four-leaf clover! I picked it, still not believing it. Darling Husband took a couple dozen pictures, and then turned around and looked down—and he found one, too! At this point, Little One couldn't believe his bad luck, and started to cry. So we hunted for one for him, but of course, there are none to be found when you really need them. So I consoled him with the knowledge that he had found the stile that led us to this magical field, and that was far more useful.

***

And here it is Saturday and we are packing again, a musing half-written, our hangovers still fresh. The first wedding, that of an Irish colleague, was terrific, done in typical Irish style. Just as they can't work long stretches, they can't seem to party without frequent breaks, which means that everyone headed to the bar (at least two rounds of Guinness) between the ceremony and the dinner. The ceremony was high mass, meaning the priest was long-winded (his assistant priest actually fell asleep during the homily), and everyone took communion. There was live, Irish music in the church (the recessional was "Haste to the Wedding"), and then during the break between the three-course dinner and live band for dancing (another two rounds of Guinness or Bailey's on the rocks, since it was after dinner), a few people produced instruments and played a mini-session: two banjoes, a fiddle, and spoons from the table.

Little One sat through the entire mass ceremony (and is very proud of the fact), and we all made it until around 11 pm, when we decided it would be wiser to go home and sleep a bit than be completely wiped the next day. It's taken until now for my head to clear a bit (a hot shower and cocoa helped).

Fireflies

I saw my first fireflies two evenings ago. Magical, as if someone gave cameras to bugs, and they were taking flash pictures of the impatiens. We were coming back from a delicious Board dinner at New Heights in Washington, D.C. (the other Washington), a Zagat-rated restaurant that would have been pretty close to sublime in many ways if they could lose the attitude.

The next night saw us hot and sweaty from heavy-duty way too many monumements touristing, in the Lebanese Taverna across the street. We adults grazed on scruptious mezze, while Little One stuffed fresh-baked pita with chunks of the butter that our gracious server—no attitude here—provided him. I realized I had asked for a table for four: my mother brain seems to have forgotten that Number One was lodged with the Mistress of Indulgence, and is probably too busy cruising the mall with her minions to have time to miss us.

We were sorely tempted by signs and awnings reading Petits Plats, Murphy’s Pub, and Organic Chinese Food among others, but there are only so many meals we can eat in a 24-hour period, and the friction economy is alive and well, gobbling up far too much of our time, and forcing us to resort to grab and go meals far too often.

But this city seems to be at odds with itself: L’Enfant’s sweeping views and allées, heavily influenced by his contemporary Haussmann’s Paris, has been filled with enough concrete barriers to sink an island the size of Manhattan. Bollards and fences everywhere ignore the meandering nature of nineteenth century pathways, forcing tourists into TSA-like cattle chutes. A folly tucked into the woods is inaccessible from the reflecting pool on the Mall.

It is easy to see the magic that this city once hold, and perhaps I am jaded by travel and extremely muggy weather, but I can’t help but feel that the spirit and history of the city is being stifled in the name of security.

Green thumbs up, green thumbs down

Our trek down to Oregon meant that we could indulge in relatively responsible fast food at Burgerville. Their commitment to local was delicious, as I ignored my allergies for a Tillamook cheeseburger, and washed it down with a fresh strawberry milkshake. The flavor and texture reminded me of a shake we picked up at a roadside shack a few years back, with real, tasty strawberry chunks that clogged the straw. Darling Husband was disappointed in his vanilla shake, but the rest of us were too busy slurping to offer him any of ours.

But one of the neatest things was the kid’s meal: this was the first time I didn’t have to remove anything from the bag before I handed it over to Little one. Burger: Oregon Country Beef, check; Fries: Oregon potatoes, check; Shake: fresh local strawberries and Tillamook ice cream, check; toy; seed packet and pot, check. Yes, you heard right, a packet of cucumber seeds and a little rice fiber pot to plant them in. Granted, the pot was made in China, but here was a freebie that we could actually use: Little One planted it all by himself (all 23 seeds, we’re going to have to transplant!) and it sits in the middle of our summer dining table on the deck.

Little One is a happy gardener, always joining me in my morning puttering, helping weeding, planting and watering. Lettuce was on today’s agenda, together with a replant of beans that fell victim to early morning slugs. I had picked up a seed packet at the coop for some green leaf lettuce from Seeds of Change, and change they have. The little paper packet has been replaced by “Exciting New” plastic envelopes that they say take less energy to produce and use up less space in the landfill. Okay, I absolutely buy the energy statement, but must take issue with the statement about landfill. In my garden, the envelope is not wasted: emptied packets sit on a stick at the end of the row (I’m forgetful, so it’s nice to remember what I planted), and a paper envelope, if it even makes it to the end of the season intact, gets collected in the fall cleanup and dumped on our very own compost heap. I may come around, but for now, I’ll remain a stick in the mud. With a paper seed packet on top, thank you.

The smell is free

My shopping list today is pretty boring: lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, avocado, butter. Because my car does not have air conditioning, it has to be a pretty compelling reason to get me to drive anywhere in the afternoon. And I’m trying to empty the fridge a bit, since our summer trek to the olde country is but ten days away. But Little One had a coupon for a one dollar token at the Crossroads Farmers’ Market, and I missed the Redmond Saturday market for camping last weekend, and just can’t face the wilted stuff in the crisper, so off we went.

It is a small market, but still had plenty of flavor, from the Laotian and Mexican farmers bringing fresh cherries over the mountains (1 pound of Rainier cherries go in the bag after begging from Number One, even if they aren’t organic), to the woman who tapes up the seed packets from seeds that I can’t get to grow, but which she has started (one Mammoth sunflower for Little One, who gets two quarters from me in addition to his token), and the Russian woman haggling over the price of a bunch of beets with the preteen who has been left to tend the till (many thanks to the woman who was quick with two quarters to save the poor lad).

I find my old friends from Full Circle Farm, and indeed, they are the only organic farmer represented, and the most local. I’ve been watching their selection turn from dark leafy winter greens to tender baby lettuces, and now it’s glorious summer, and the big heads of fresh lettuce are three for $5. One red sail, one green leaf, one romaine for tomorrow night’s Caesar salad. A farmer from Yakima has the only potatoes at the market, and they’re cheap: a dollar a pound. I find eight nice red potatoes for a salad; if they are nice, I may be back another time.

But it is the strawberries that are the stars of this market day: flats, half-flats, pints, all resplendently red, and one farmer is offering an heirloom variety that sells itself from the smell alone. Two overflowing pints tops off the bag and will tuck themselves into scones this evening.

There are no tomatoes here, but I know I will find them on Saturday in Redmond. I’ll swing by Trader Joe’s on the way home for avocados and butter, and make sure to get a little cream, for those fragrant berries are well on their way to overshadowing dinner.

Salmon finale

It’s hot. There’s no other word for it, just plain hot. Coming down the high rise on the bridge, lake Washington looked like a giant bathtub full of toy boats. Cyclists in Ballard wore more skin than anything else, and the shady English Gardens at the locks were a cool spot to play the final concert of the season.

I had not planned to play in this concert, since we had reservations to be camping in a cool evergreen glade at Cannon Beach with friends. Haystack Rock, pretty as a picture postcard, gave us two lovely sunsets, and we went through two packages of Trader Joe’s new vanilla marshmallows before the inevitable happened: the dread Bad Camping Neighbor Blight. Along with Lost Luggage Syndrome, Darling Husband carries this curse, whereby the most pleasant and idyllic spot can be transformed into camping hell in a flash—and usually in the middle of the night when most people are sound asleep.

This time, we had our bellies full of white bratwurst, pan-fried potatoes and corn on the cob, chased by slushy margaritas and a diabetes-inducing number of riffs on s’mores (with macaroons, milk vs. dark chocolate, one-marshmallow/two/three, etc.). We had capped off the tasty meal with a delicious sunset over the Tillamook lighthouse, and tumbled into bed, grubby, tired and happy, and looking forward to sunny weather and grilled salmon for our final day at the beach.

Alas, it was not to be: the sound of crunching metal woke every adult with title to a car in the campground who feared it might be their fender, but it was only someone trying to back a dented trailer into the campsite the farthest from the entrance. At two in the morning. Did I happen to mention our tent was pitched in the campsite the second-farthest from the entrance? The half hour of painfully haphazard backing and filling was capped by the raucous lighting of a campfire and a celebratory round of beer to mark only denting their own vehicle. A head count made with bleary eyes the next morning revealed an even dozen denizens viewing our chocolate-pancake-and-bacon breakfast the next morning (while they munched on and discussed the virtues of vinegar-flavored potato chips). Darling Husband, a firm believer in order and rules, in this case the one that says only six people per site, spoke to the owner, who flummoxed us by flatly refusing to remedy the situation. Given the choice between spending another sleepless night fuming in our tent, we decided to trek home, with our salmon filets still icy in our Coleman cooler.

In spite of the hot weather, our downstairs was still cool, and the cat was very happy to see us. A quick glance at the calendar showed that we had plenty of other things to do this Sunday instead of dancing on the singing sands of Cannon Beach: the orchestra concert was high on my list, and Darling Husband could indulge in the first half of the European Cup final, pitting his Fatherland against the Spaniards. He will have to wait until our neighbors come home to watch the tape of the second half, where Berliners weep and Spaniards dance in the street, but none of us had to wait for the grilled salmon, cool cucumbers and buttery rice that we enjoyed al fresco, in the cool evergreen glade that we call our backyard.