The Shepherds

Ireland Part Three: ballykissthemen and the forty shades of green

Arriving in Killarney began an entirely different chapter in our journey.  Western Ireland is where we truly discovered the Irish countryside and saw with our own eyes that it's everything they say and more.  You can't possibly imagine how beautiful.  We arrived in the evening and didn't go exploring the countryside until the next day.  Lucy and I were on a live music mission that night in Killarney and found it at O'Conners.  We settled in with our Guinness pints and were treated to a mix of traditional Irish and Americana performed by a couple of young gents with incredible talent.  As I waited at the bar for our first round, I visited with a local woman.  Upon finding out I was American, she told me right away how much she loved Johnny Cash.  She wasn't alone.  It happened again later when I was visiting with some other locals, who said the same thing to me, "You're from America?  Ohhhhhh, I love Johnny Cash!"  Needless to say, that night's performance included more than one Johnny Cash song, and of course one of them was his famous tribute to the Emerald Isle,  "Forty Shades of Green".  Well, thank you Ireland, we love him too.  It was a great night in which we made some new friends from Germany and in which I made up for not kissing the Blarney Stone by kissing the Irishmen of Killarney.

The next day we took a bus tour around the Ring of Kerry, an extensive circular drive that takes you past beaches, the Atlantic Ocean with its little islands, medieval ruins, mountains, and lakes.  Your head rotates around and around on your neck as you try to absorb every beautiful sight crashing upon you like wave after wave.  It was amazing.  We stopped for lunch at a little spot called the Vista Bar & Restaurant which claims to have the best view in Ireland.  They might be right about the view. Sticking with the traditional dishes of Ireland, we ordered Shepherd's Pie and savored another comforting meal.

Our bus was driven by the fearless and seasoned John O'Connor, a natural-born storyteller with a perfect sense of humor.  He took to those little windy roads in that big bus like they were nothing but a lazy river under a yacht.  John and I hit it off, and in spite of our age difference, developed a little crush.  He told everyone on the bus that the last woman on had to kiss the driver, and well, John made sure I was the last woman on at every stop.  Killarney is the town to go to if you want to be kissed.  John tried to talk me into meeting him for a pint, but alas, Lucy and I needed to hit the road for our final destination, the castle.  

Ireland Part Two: the empress's new clothes & the reign of markets

Cork City Shopping

Waking up at the Imperial Hotel in Cork City with no clothes wasn't the result of a torrid love affair. Rather, it was waking up to deal with the fact my clothes were gone because they'd been stolen (see Ireland Part One).  Regardless of our predicament, The Imperial Hotel is beautiful and historic, in fact, Charles Dickens had once been a guest.  It's outfitted in dark wood, marble, and fresh flowers.  Regretfully, I didn't photograph it, but I was trying to conserve my camera battery until I could get a replacement charger.  

In Drogheda, I had managed to buy some knickers and toiletries, but still needed some clothes to see me through the rest of the trip.  The woman managing the front desk at The Imperial kindly recommended a store called Penneys which carries inexpensive knock-offs of current fashions.  It was near the hotel, so I went there directly and spent the next hour trying to figure out European sizes and squeezing myself into the trendy "super skinny jeans" which were the only jeans available at Penny's.  I had never before dared to put on a skinny jean, but I was cornered.  Much to my surprise, I liked the tight, stretchy Mick Jagger pants and bought four pairs in different colors.  I owe a huge debt to the thieves who took away my tired boot leg jeans and forced me, legs first, into becoming a nouveau hipster.  

Enough about skinny jeans, Cork City is actually about food.  It is in fact, the culinary mecca of Ireland.  The famous English Market is nestled in the heart of the downtown, and houses vendors selling seafood, produce, meat, poultry, spices, baked goods, and chocolates.  It reminds me of The Pike Place Market in Seattle, one of my other favorite places on Earth.  The name, English Market, seems odd in Ireland, but it goes back to the earlier history of the city.  It was established in 1788 as the Grand Parade market by a Protestant (English) corporation that controlled commerce in the city.  At that time, Catholics were not allowed to be vendors at the Grand Parade. In response, Catholic vendors established their own market in the city, named St. Peter's Market.  Eventually, the two markets came to be known simply as The English Market and The Irish Market.  In the long run, only The English Market survived.  However, by the time the Irish Market closed, Catholics had gained full membership to The English Market.  It still stands today as a home to all the regionally procured treasures that make Ireland special to food lovers.

The market is also home to the esteemed Farmgate Café.  The cafe is on the second floor of the market with a layout allowing diners to look down on all the goings-on of the market as they savor their meals.  Farmgate is revered for their take on simple, traditional Irish food prepared from locally sourced ingredients.  Lucy and I had lunch there, and we could have ordered anything off the chalkboard menu and been outrageously pleased.  We both ended up choosing the Irish Lamb Stew.  I wanted something classic and the fact that it was another chilly, rainy day beckoned for comfort food.  The stew came with a wonderful heaping of Irish mashers to go with.  

I can't write about Cork and not mention Darina Allen, one of Ireland's most famous chefs.  Darina has been referred to as the "Julia Child of Ireland" and that's probably because she is a pioneer in teaching other people to cook simple, traditional dishes using fresh local ingredients, not just in the Irish tradition, but with an emphasis on world cuisine.  She has her own cooking shows and is a renowned cookbook author. In 1983, she and her husband started the Ballymaloe Cookery School, which is located in County Cork.  The school has become one of the most famous cooking schools in Europe.  As if that weren't enough, Darina also founded the first farmer's market in Ireland.  A few years ago, I bought her cooking compendium, Forgotten Skills of Cooking, and it's become one of my all time favorite cookbooks.  Thanks to Darina, I finally learned the art of making a French Omelette.  If you love food and care about local food movements, then Darina Allen should be one of your heros.  

After Lucy and I enjoyed our comfort food, we went back to the hotel and begged the porter to draw us a map, illustrating the way out of Cork City.  We wanted an air-tight plan since getting to the hotel the night before nearly broke us emotionally, at least I was nearly broken.  The map did work.  This time we only made one wrong turn instead of several and soon we were on the N22 roller coaster towards Killarney.  I say roller coaster because this portion of the journey was our introduction to the more narrow, incredibly curvy roads of Ireland.  There had been steady, hard rains for the past couple days in Ireland causing flash floods so it was another white knuckle drive as I gripped the dashboard or anything else I could clench with my hands, listening to the side mirrors tap other cars.  Aside from the road warrior anxiety, crossing from Cork City to Killarney was a game changer for other reasons.  Ireland was already magical, but the magic takes on a whole new meaning in the western half. 

A porter's hand drawn map.  

Ireland Part One: Dublin's heart & thieves at the cemetery

I had three days notice I was going to Ireland.  My aunt called me on Wednesday evening, July 24, and asked if I would meet her in Dublin on Sunday.  Lucy had been traveling in England with a friend who had to return to the states suddenly because her husband was very ill.  The next leg of their journey was Ireland; they'd already paid for their accommodations and couldn't get their money back nor did Lucy want to go alone.  It took me about three seconds to decide.  I hadn't been to Europe since 1992 when I traveled to France as a high school student.  International travel, especially to Europe, has become a fantasy for me in recent years. Maybe my interest in Europe is related to food, but I also feel a connection to various countries because of ancestry, language study, and overall I feel like my life has been lacking in two major areas: adventure and love.  In my mind, I think I've developed the romantic notion that Europe is where it could all happen.  This time I would be going to Ireland and unlike my last trip to France, I wouldn't be wearing a fanny pack and tinted glasses.

Thankfully, I already had a passport.  I'd renewed mine in 2010, but hadn't had a reason to use it since.  So, of course, after tearing my desk apart looking for it and quickly searching the date of expiration, I nearly broke down in tears.  At first glance, I thought the small print stated it had expired in 2010.  No, not so, next line down:  expiration of 2020.  Deep breaths.  Early Sunday morning I left Minneapolis, flew to Chicago and boarded an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin.

You'll know when you start walking the streets of Dublin that you're in the presence of literary ghosts. Walking into the setting for many a writer's tale always gives me that spine tingle.  Dublin is colorful, alive, modern yet ancient, artistic, and there is food and drink to complement it all. Coming from a family of book lovers, my aunt and I both wanted to visit Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and the Old Library.  Being in the presence of such books in their ancient stacks aroused deep feelings of scholarly passion.  I wanted everyone in that library to clear out so I could be alone with the books, pouring over them, fingering their covers, and researching with total abandon.  However, you could only look, not touch.  Walking through St. Stephen's Green afterward helped cool me down and gave us a preview of the greens that were to come later, in the western half of Ireland.  More than once we stood with our map open, wondering which direction to head, when Dubliners kindly stopped and asked us if we needed help.  It doesn't take long to start falling in love with Ireland and its people.  

The food of Dublin is varied, like in any big city where traditional dishes mix with the worldly.  Our first night, we ate fish and chips at Leo Burdock, the oldest chipper in Dublin.  The hot fish is handed to you wrapped in news print.   When you find a spot to squat and and unwrap your present, the fish flakes apart in your fingers and melts in your mouth.  Our upscale Dublin dinner the next night was at Dylan McGrath's Fade St. Social which has both a gastro pub and a restaurant.  Dylan McGrath is a celebrity chef in Ireland and performs as one of the judges on Ireland's version of Masterchef.  We weren't seeking his restaurant on purpose, but stumbled upon Fade Street Social by chance and liked what we read on the menu. An order of tapas from the gastro pub and we were clapping excitedly to ourselves in celebration over our choice.  We were spooning dishes of shrimp tempura, sauteed spring cabbage, wild Irish mushrooms, and pumpkin macaroni.  It was delicious.

Dublin Pubs

"When I die Dublin will be written in my heart."  -James Joyce

The only cloud over my head was the anxiety I felt about the next leg of our journey which was going to be by car.  My aunt would be driving and I would be navigating because I don't know how to drive stick (most cars in Ireland are manual for fuel efficiency).  I have auto anxiety even in the states, so the thought of our taking to the road in a country where everything is the mirror opposite and round-a-bouting is constant, with my seniorish aunt at the wheel, was already heightening the need for Maalox and muscle relaxers, neither of which I had.  A few wrong turns in Dublin, but we did it. I figured out the maps and Lucy shifted gear effortlessly while keeping us in the right "left" lane.   Setting off, we were actually feeling pretty confident, maybe overly so, after our two days of navigating Dublin by foot, our mostly painless drive out of the city, and the great rapport we felt with everyone we met.  Little did we know what was to come.

Our next destination was the city of Cork, but we decided to include a sojourn that morning to the ruins of Monasterboice, an early monastic community.  The ruins include a round tower and the best preserved celtic crosses in Ireland.  The site is nestled in rolling green hills, on a one-lane road in the countryside near the town of Drogheda.  Monasterboice had at one time been captured by invading Vikings, and as we walked in the drizzling rain amongst the ruins and grave sites in this peaceful place, we were oblivious to the fact that our own belongings were being pillaged and captured at that very moment.     

"Your Charity Pray For The Souls Of..."  -grave marker at Monasterboice

When we returned to the car, nearly everything was gone.  My aunt's larger suitcase remained, but her bags containing her valuables & passport were gone.  I had my passport & valuables on me, but all my clothes and incidentals were taken.  Panic stricken, we were soon helped by the four older gentlemen who were working in the tourist booth at the cemetery.  They called the local garda for us, and two officers were dispatched to take a report and provide assistance.  In the end, my aunt's backpack was recovered by a garbage collector who found it tossed on the side of the road; it still had her passport and credit cards inside, which was great luck.  

We received wonderful help that day from all the people around us, including the garda.  Luckily, one of the officers working our case was a woman who kindly advised me on where I could at least get a new toothbrush and some underwear.  After we finished giving reports and collecting Lucy's found backpack, we got back in the car for the long, rainy drive to Cork.  It was a difficult drive, both of us having to concentrate that much harder as our minds kept wandering to the theft.  Evening was settling in as we came into Cork, the most challenging city to navigate on our entire journey.  We didn't have any maps that showed the street our hotel was on and the city itself was made up of a labyrinth of one-way streets, some of which were labeled and some which weren't.  In the end, the only thing that saved us from never finding the hotel, was stopping to ask a person for directions.  It took a few tries to find someone who was actually from Cork and knew where to go, but we made it.  After checking in, we went right to the pub for Jameson, straight and chips.   As we reflected on the day, I realized a tiny part of me might have been just a little bit thrilled something exciting had happened.  That's not to say I wasn't mourning the loss of my best bras and journals or feeling sad for my aunt's more expensive losses, but it was in fact an adventure.  

The Night Carnival

Goodnight Moon.

The Blueberry Crow's Nest: when the crust flies south

The Blueberry Crow's Nest was inspired by a recipe I came across in a vintage cookbook, The Lilly Wallace New American Cookbook, published in 1945.  When I was looking through it, I found something called an Apple Crow's Nest.  After reading the recipe, I realized it was an apple cobbler that had been flipped upside down after baking.  I decided to try it with blueberries instead, adding lemon juice and cornstarch.  For the crust, I decided to adapt a cornmeal biscuit recipe I found in a cookbook titled Rustic Fruit Desserts by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson.  To adapt their crust, I just omitted the turbinado sugar and installed the dough differently.  I love flipping the cobbler upside down to serve because the berries are so dark, shiny, and beautiful.  You wouldn't be able to admire them if they were under a crust!  

This was also how I used the blueberries from Taylor's Market and I was looking for something I could make and submit to a contest on Food52.  Making the Blueberry Crow's Nest is easier than you might think and it was delicious.  Great summertime dessert when blueberries are in season.  

Blueberry Crow's Nest

Filling

3 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. cornstarch

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. fine sea salt

1 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice


Crust/Nest

1 1/4 cup all-purpose unbleached flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. fine sea salt

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 cup cold heavy cream

2 tsp. sugar for sprinkling

Fresh whipping cream or ice cream and cinnamon-sugar for serving.

Preheat your oven to 375℉ and place top rack in the middle.  Grease an 8 1/2 to 9 inch pie pan with butter (I used a metal pie pan which worked great).  Make the filling first.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and sea salt.  Add the berries and using your hands, toss until coated.  Add the lemon juice and stir it in.  Pour the filling into the prepared pie pan and set aside.

For the crust:  combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and sea salt in a medium bowl and whisk together.  Cut up the butter and add it to the mixture.  Then, using a pastry blender, a fork, or your fingers, cut the butter into the mix working until the butter cubes are mixed in and broken down into a pea size.  Pour in the cream and stir until it's absorbed into the dough and the dough is sticking together.

It's easier to work with this sticky dough in small amounts.  Pick up hand-fulls of the dough and flatten them into a biscuit or patty shape and lay them on top of the berry filling in the pie pan.  As you lay each disk of dough onto the berries, spread it out a bit.  The idea is to top the filling with the dough and spread it around so there are no gaps.  You don't need the biscuit shapes to remain after you've laid them on.  Once your dough is covering all the berries, sprinkle with the extra 2 tsp. of sugar.

Place the pie pan onto the top rack in the oven with a baking sheet on the rack below to catch the drips. Bake for about 45 min., but start checking it when there are about 5 min. to go.  The crust should be golden brown and the juice from the filling is going to be bubbling up from below.  When it's ready, take it out and set on a rack to cool for about 10 minutes.

I like to top it with fresh whipped cream, so I would use this time as it's cooling to make the cream or you could serve it with vanilla ice cream.  After about 10 min. have gone by, find a serving platter bigger than the pie pan for turning the cobbler upside down.  Place the platter upside down over the cobbler and center it.  With both hands securely holding the two together, flip them around so the pie pan is now upside down on top of your serving platter.  Using a large serving spoon, tap the bottom of the pie pan to loosen the pan from the cobbler and also run the spoon along the crust edge sticking out from under the pie pan.  Ease the pie pan off of the cobbler which has now been transformed into a beautiful blueberry crow's nest!  Serve warm with the whipping cream or ice cream and sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar.

Caw!

Would You Like a Tastee-Freez?

"It happened on the way to the demolition derby" is my killer line this week.  After the Taylor's Market tryst, I stumbled upon the oldest Tastee Freez in America.  It was in the town of Aledo, IL, just a couple of miles from the Mercer County Fair Grounds, my target destination. It's hard to believe I've found the oldest soda fountain and the oldest Tastee Freez in America within the past month and that both are within an hour's drive of one another.  So, I couldn't not stop.  The owner's name is Lenny Bowlyou and we visited while I inhaled a pork tenderloin followed up with a rainbow crunch cone.  Lenny has owned the Tastee Freez for 23 years, but wants to sell it so he can retire and maybe move to a tropical location.  If you'd like to own a classic piece of Americana, then call the number on the sign.  One of the responsibilities that comes with the job is learning the names of everyone in town and keeping straight who's related to whom.  I fell in love with the ceramic cat and owl interior decor, so if you decide to buy the Tastee Freez, I insist you keep them.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my cousin's husband was making a demolition derby come-back and that's why I was making this trip.  The derby was out-of-this-world-fun!  I didn't expect to like it that much, but it turns out that car smashing is a riot.  Josh did great until his car caught on fire, and while I know he wasn't pleased with the outcome, it provided some crazy excitement for the rest of us.  When my Ford Escort is ready to leave this world, that's how I'm taking it out.