Eye Of The Storm

Hi there! Going to give this blogging lark another go after a few months of jotting down little ideas for posts, waiting for them to turn into bigger ideas and pour themselves onto the screen. We'll see how it goes.

In my absence I've done a little of everything and not much anything. Living a life, I suppose. Spent Christmas, New Year and my birthday in between home and work, in good company enjoying good food, some drinks and lots of laughs. Just what the doctor ordered.

I'm only working for four days a week now to use up my holidays from last year. The last few weeks I would've enjoyed my extra time off a bit more had it not been for the endless rain and gale force winds. Seems like the same rain I mentioned in the last post in October is still here.

Yesterday was meant to be spent in Galway, but after the city being hit by floods the day before, tackling road closures and even more torrential rain didn't sound too appealing. Opted for a quick run to the shops in Clifden and then curling up on the sofa by the fire with my Kindle and cat on my lap, sipping a cup of coffee. An infinitely better choice, if you ask me.

There isn't all that much to report, I basically just poked my head in here to say that I'm still here and planning on slowly increasing my blogging activity. Promise.

Hang in there.

Duvet Days

It's been raining heavy for what feel like weeks now. I'm sure it's not actually weeks but nonetheless, that's what it feels like. Outside everything is saturated, soggy, sopping wet. The rain is like a relentless morse code tapping on the roof, pausing every so often to catch its breath, showing a glimpse of a blue sky and a ray of sunlight coming through before picking up where it left off. It's the perfect weather for a duvet day.

I managed a solid eleven hours of sleep on Monday night. I woke up on Tuesday my body sore from spending too much time horizontally, but my head fantastically clear compared to my state of mind over the few days preceding that. I blame the full moon, I never sleep right for about a week and find myself wondering what the hell is wrong with me until I realise it's out lunar companion in the sky messing with my sleep pattern.

Lily having a duvet day

I didn't venture far yesterday. Only as far as the shops to pick up a few bits I needed to make butternut squash soup. That was after I had chased one of the cats around the house to give her a tablet. For the first few days I was able to stick the tablet in her mouth and wait for her to swallow it. She soon copped onto this and somehow developed an ability to hold onto the tablet until I let her go, after which she spat the tablet onto the floor by my feet and ran off. My next tactic was to wrap the tablet in some salami. his worked a treat until she realised what was going on, and ate the salami around the tablet and proceeded to bat the tablet around the kitchen floor until it ended up under the fridge out of reach to both human and feline paws. Currently I'm wrapping the tablets in ham. When she sniffs out this ruse, I'm at a loss. What next?

Soon-to-be soup

This weather is perfect for duvet days, lazy days, days spent on the sofa by the fire with a good book. I love cooking on days like this, too. The warmth in the kitchen wards off the rain, and cooking with no deadlines and no time limitations can be very therapeutic. It's proper me-time. Just me and my ingredients, hands in the mixing bowl, measuring ingredients, binding them together, feeding more than just hungry bellies. Yesterday it was meat loaf with hidden boiled eggs inside (I think I got that one from Nigella). Blueberry pie with custard for dessert. All gobbled up by the fire, under a blanket big enough for two. Bliss.

Blueberry pie

I haven't set foot outside today, still waiting for it to stop raining for long enough to put the bin down. The road outside looks more like a river right now, so I have no immediate plans to venture outside any time soon. I have a loaf of bread in the oven, the whole house smells beautiful. I'll make myself a cup of strawberry tea and curl up on the couch beside the cat and read another few chapters of The Fry Chronicles.

Happy, rainy days.

In Dublin

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I was heading up to Dublin for Hotel And Catering Review Gold Medal awards. The awards were on Tuesday night, so we headed up bright and early at 6am(!!) to catch the early train from Westport to Heuston. The time it takes to drive to Dublin from out here in the schticks, you're better off catching the train and sitting back and relaxing for three and something hours rather than booting it down the motorway.

We were staying in the Hilton, which is a short walk from Heuston. We only fired our bags into the rooms and headed out again to lunch at the Avoca in Monkstown. The food was beautiful and they have their interior design and product displays thought out down to a T. The very friendly maître d' showing us to our seats had an outrageously fantastic, twirly, Poirot-like moustache. We had between us crab meat salad, caesar salad with a half a rotisserie chicken and Spanish meatballs with couscous and pita bread. The food was bloody gorgeous. We had a quick snoop around the food market, as we do a lot of same kind of things for takeaway as they do, and came back home with plenty of ideas.

After a few more stops in foodie places, we headed back to the hotel to get ready. Our timing was perfect to allow a nice bath and time to put our faces on. It was a black tie event, so we did have to look the part. Moving from one four star location to another, the awards night was at the Burlington Hotel. Pulling up in the taxi, all you could see were people dressed to impress, huddled under the awning for a quick smoke.

We were ushered into the function room, which was set up to accommodate all 360 of us there for the awards. A few familiar faces in the crowd, quick hellos this way and that and then seated for dinner. I was positively surprised by the fact that there weren't a stream of speeches before dinner, or indeed, after it. The menu was as follows:

Cornets of Smoked Salmon with Red Onion Cream Cheese, Mini Blinis, drizzled with a Lemon Oil

Fillet of Beef, Dauphinoise Potatoes with Green Beans, Sauteéd Wild Mushrooms & Pearl Onions, Brandy Peppercorn Sauce

Strawberry Sorbet, Passion Fruit Bavarois, Strawberry Tart

I loved the smoked salmon, but the blinis were very bland. I wonder whether they had bought them in ready made or maybe used the wrong kind of flour to make them. I understand I am biased as my father makes amazing blinis, so maybe my expectations were too high. But then again, it was a Hotel and Catering event. My beef fillet was beautifully pink in the middle, and the wild mushrooms were presented in a filo pastry cup, but my colleague sitting beside me got her beef completely overcooked. 

The desserts were a platter of minis of all three listed above, and while they were perfectly tasty, they weren't anything out of the ordinary. Our pastry chef who was there with us, dissected each bite and came to the conclusion that the tart base and pastry case for the sorbet weren't proper pastry, rather than a ready mix you pour into pastry moulds and bake. 

The service ran like clockwork, I do find myself often paying attention to things like that, and I must say that for all of us to get our food more or less at the same time was down to great organisation. We were told at the start that they had fed hundreds of people on the Sunday before the awards after the Mayo-Donegal match. 

The wine, however was beautiful and it was the prefect lubricant to get the proceedings started. There were in total 17 categories and between three and nine finalists in each category. Each of the tables had a plaque for each of the finalists to take home, it was a honour to even be nominated, according to someone's maths we were in the top 3% in our field by just being up for an award. Not too shabby for a first time entry, I thought. 

Sadly, we didn't win out category, which was won by last year's winner in Co. Clare. I smell a road trip south in the horizon sometime soon, I want to know what they're doing to scoop up the award two years running. We'll try again next year, for sure. 

After a long day I was delighted to engage in my best impersonation of a starfish in the middle of my massive hotel bed. I think I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow. 

Coming Soon...

Wow. That summer came and swept me away with it like a tornado took Dorothy. It was a busy one, at work and otherwise. Main memories are of laughter, friends, great food and even better company. I will dig out some photos and tell you about some of it soon, I promise.

I'm just back from my brother's wedding. It was beautiful, the happy couple made the day their own and I can honestly say everyone enjoyed themselves. We cried, we laughed, we danced, we caught up with relatives and enjoyed the fabulous food. More on that later, too.

Our three kitties are still around, and even our poorly patient Molly, is getting slowly better. She has food allergies and after a lengthy stay at the vet's for tests and tlc, she is on the mend, noticeably so. Perseverance and lots of pets.

It's starting to feel like autumn now, dark evenings, movie nights, candle light and lit fires. Woolly socks and glasses of red wine in good company. I do quite like this time of the year.

Work is still keeping me busy. We've been shortlisted for a Gold Medal award and are heading to Dublin for the awards ceremony on Tuesday. I'll report back about that sometime next week.

So, all of this to come. Stick around, folks!

Last Day

It's the last day of my holiday today and I must say it's done me a world of good being off for a week and doing exactly as I pleased for seven glorious days. It's gone by quite fast, yet I saw a photo I posted on Facebook on my first day and it feels months away. The week started with sunshine and seems to be ending that way, too. Some drizzle and rain nicely bookended by sun.

I've walked on the beach, listened to the waves and felt really small. I've gotten pampered from head to toe only to emerge feeling so relaxed I could've been poured into a jug, that's how liquid I felt. Last night we had dinner at Mr. S's hotel, they had an Indian themed night and we ate until fit to burst. Food was delicious, and the company made it even better.

Off to work tomorrow, but I'll push that thought aside for today, I still have a whole glorious day to spend as I please. I had my morning caffeine fix out of a porcine mug, it is quite charming in it's on-the-nose-ness. Breakfast was a bacon sandwich and some sausages, after a walk on the beach.

The cats are sunbathing on the windowsill, sadly it is much warmer inside than it is outside, even with the sun out. I think I'll spread out at the dining room table now and catch up on my reading. I still haven't got through the weekend's Guardian, and of course I need to catch up on the local news from home with the latest issue of Pogostan Sanomat.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Home Cooking

I was reading this post by Johanna(it is in Finnish) about home cooking and baking, and it got me thinking. Johanna is a Finnish lady living in USA, and her daughter had come home from her friend's house asking if they could bake some cupcakes, she had gotten a great recipe for them. Johanna read the recipe, which read: "take a packet of cupacake mix. Bake the cupcakes. Decorate". To her, and to me, this doesn't count as baking. She had chosen to show her daughter how to make mocha squares. From scratch.

Sundried tomato loaf

I'm just wondering are there really that radical cultural differences when it comes to home cooking? When I was in school, home economics was taught to show us how to cook simple meals, how to clean, wash up and do laundry properly. I still have my old home ec book from year 1994 and I still consult it regularly to find out a basic recipe for something I want to put my own twist to.

Chicken pasta

A friend of mine, who spent a year in USA told me how the mother of the family would consult her vast cupboard of ready meal mixes, choose the one that hadn't been cooked the night before, added water, threw the whole thing into the oven and served it with shop-bought mixed salad. And that was home cooking. My friend went to make mac and cheese for the kids, from scratch and watched the kids' amazement when she went for an actual bag of macaroni, and grated some real cheese and made the sauce from scratch as well.

Scones

There seem to be two clans of home cooks. The ones, who are more than happy to stick a frozen pizza into the oven and call it a day, and the ones who are the Nigellas and Gordons of their own kitchens. The latter one whip up three course meals on a daily basis and up the ante to four or five courses when they're throwing a dinner party. Which is often. Where is the happy medium?

Breaded pork chops

You know, the nice, simple home cooked meal enjoyed by the whole family around the same table at the same time. I grew up on that, and maybe that's where my love for cooking stems from. My mother makes the best meatballs and mashed potato and macaroni & mince bake. I've yet to find someone to rival my dad's fishcakes and fillet of pikeperch with fried potatoes. The fish in our house was what dad would catch. We ate a whole lot of venison, as my dad would hunt moose, and at the christmas table the was always a pot roast of game birds. Tasty, simple and all the more appreciated when you knew the effort gone into making it for you. Not to mention the vegetables grown in our own garden.

Mince & rice pasties

That's what I'm calling out for. Normal, homecooked food where you're not left wondering what kind of E-numbers and other nice chemical surprises may lurk in your next meal.

All the photos above are my own creations. Homemade. From scratch.

Strange Searches

Checking the traffic stats of both of my blogs I noticed a couple of strange search keywords that had led people to my blogs. For example, someone searching "creepy smiling kitten" had been directed to this blog, while someone searching for graveyard on the southern town of Tuusula, in Finland had been directed to my Finnish blog. The mind boggles, indeed. I'd like to ask you to check your stats and let me know what kind of strange search words have directed people to your blog. It's silly little trivia like that I find infinitely fascinating.

PS. I'm officially on holiday now, and guess what? It's actually sunny here!!!