Normal Service Shall Resume Shortly

When I came home from France,  I brought home a little extra thing that I wasn't expecting.  I had managed to hurt my back and was scuttling around like a crab, with a temperament to match.  I don't really like anything that interferes with my daily life so this was most unexpected.  When I couldn't get out of bed without swearing like a trooper, I knew I needed to visit the doctor.  He was pretty unhappy and sent me for an MRI (no, they didn't find a brain) which showed up the aftereffects of an injury from when I was 16. Stop counting back right now, it's just rude... I had broken a bone in my lower back which is pretty unbreakable and spent a few months in a haze of morphine injections into my spine (ouch) and was pretty much bedbound for that summer. But memories fade and I hadn't paid it much heed since. To quote Jim Steinman, It's All Coming Back To Me Now.  With a vengeance.  I've a lovely gap between my vertebrae where one should not be, hence the current crab status and dose of sciatica.

In The Name of Love : My Pride Rainbow Cake

Last weekend was the Dublin Pride 2013 festival where men and women from across Ireland came together to celebrate LGBT life.  It's actually the largest Pride festival in the country and has grown from a one-day event in 1983 to a ten-day festival with a huge arts, social and cultural content.  It's loud, it's proud and it's colourful.  Speaking of which, my work friend Ms. Katona (not her real name but we  know who she is) collared me back in January to make her a cake for a Pride party.  It had to be big, brash, bright and most of all, delicious.

 

I based it on the birthday cake I made for my niece Alicia last year but ramped up the flavours to suit an adult palate.  The actual cake mixture and method was identical, but I changed the icing to a white chocolate sour cream because it's more adult friendly.  Katona was ever so slightly happy with the cake and it was cut long in advance of the actual party.  Some people have no self-control!

Review : Clodagh's Kitchen Blackrock

Clodagh's Kitchen Blackrock is a new development for Clodagh McKenna, who has created a cosy niche in Arnotts on Henry Street in Dublin 1.  Located on the upper floor in the Blackrock Shopping Centre (on the same level as Superquinn) the restaurant is quite Avoca-esque in its decor, with comfortable banquettes and booths, marble topped tables and pretty cottage style flowers in water glasses.

Cooking on Holiday : My Experience

As you might have gathered, myself and The Hubs swanned off to France for our annual holidays at the start of June.  Most people go on holiday with the purpose of doing absolutely nothing in the cooking department apart from opening a packet of peanuts or a bottle of wine.  Not me.  I'm one of those odd people who actually likes to cook when we are away.  There's two reasons for this : I'm a big fan of wandering around the supermarkets and markets, picking up things, planning lunches and dinners and generally enjoying the experience.  The Hubs is usually enjoying his third snooze of the morning at this point, he's not a fan of shopping, just of eating.

The second reason is that we bring the car.  That means absolutely no space restrictions so I can pack whatever I like without some hatchet faced witch scowling at me over my big fat obese luggage.  I have a kitchen crate which fits everything I want to bring with me.  Despite promising to streamline it every year, the crate gets fuller and fuller.  This year it contained my newly sharpened kitchen knife (a blunt knife is a dangerous knife and I don't trust the ones in rented accom!), chopping board, frying pan, tongs, teatowel, condiments, ice bags, my trusty corkscrew, cleaning wipes, kitchen roll, a measuring jug and whatever else is to hand while I'm packing.  I know this sounds a bit excessive but I've been doing self catering in France for 10 years now and I've worked with some pretty dodgy kitchen equipment and appliances in the past.  So, I come prepared!

Our lovely apartment in Residence l'Estran

Roasted Butternut Squash Fritters

Last week, I was being very clever and not just using my oven for cooking one single thing.  I had a lemony garlicky chicken roasting for weekday lunches and I spied a Butternut Squash in the vegetable rack that had survived the pre-holiday cull.  It looked perfectly serviceable so I decided to roast it and do something with it later.  I just split it, scooped out the seeds, gave it a brush of olive oil and sprinkled it with a Romanian herb and spice mix called Mititei - a gift from Little Sis's other half and roasted it at 200c/Gas Mark 6 for an hour.  Mititei is traditionally used to make meatballs but I love it sprinkled over roasted vegetables so out it came.

Buttery Balsamic BBQ Asparagus

Home, home from the holidays and my word, I'm depressed.  The visa bill has already landed, leading to many "holy crap, what did I buy there" moments and to top it all, I'm absolutely and utterly crippled with sciatica.  Damn you, substandard apartment mattress.  Oh well, nothing that a cocktail of drugs and an MRI scan won't cure (hopefully).  Tonight I was feeling a little more mobile than in recent days so I decided to break out the BBQ and cook up some dinner.  Ribeye steak was the dish du jour, together with some delicious new potatoes.  But the part I was looking forward to most was a giant pile of green asparagus, anointed with butter and balsamic vinegar, cooking away alongside the steak.

Review : Les Trois Mâts, Les Sables d'Olonnes, France

We were hungry and the restaurant was busy, so we took it as a good sign that it was going to be a good evening.  Seeing a set menu for €14 per person sealed the deal - we were going to have dinner at Les Trois Mâts.  On the quay overlooking the river in Les Sables d'Olonne, this restaurant has a large sunny verandah which was crowded at 8pm on a quiet Tuesday evening.  We were shown to the last table on the verandah where we could watch the little ferryboat cross between the two harbour walls.

The set menu for €14 contained a host of what we would consider expensive luxury dishes : prawns, oysters, mussels, steak and fish and I was looking forward to a treat at a really reasonable price.

French Strawberry Pudding

I'm sitting on the patio outside our apartment in the very sunny Vendee in France. I've managed not just one but two visits to the supermarket even though we only got here 48 hours ago and I've had so much fun wandering the aisles with a trolley marvelling at the array of fresh fruit and vegetables.  It's strawberry season at home and I've still to buy my first punnet of ruby red Wexford strawberries but it's also the start of the season here and I discovered beautiful long and pointed Claudette strawberries, grown locally.  Their perfume stopped me in my tracks and I had to buy some.

Things I Loved In May

Wow, it's the end of the month again (that means payday and holidays for me, thank heavens) so that can only mean that I'll be telling you about what I loved in May... and April because I got a bit distracted in work with travelling and catching the Lurgy of All Lurgies.  Anyway, sit back, pour a large drink because it's nearly the weekend and read on.

Review : Mourne Seafood Bar, Belfast

Sometimes you get a feeling about a place before you've even sat down and looked at a menu.  Often, it's a "oh lord, I'm not liking the look of this place and everybody seems miserable and oh, what have I done".  And then there's the Mourne Seafood Bar in Belfast.  Tucked away on a very innocuous side street mere steps away from Castle Street and Royal Avenue, this restaurant appears remarkably unprepossessing from the outside.  Inside is entirely a different story.  You enter through a single doorway into what appears to be a fish shop, with empty, briny scented tanks to your left.  Another door takes you into a dining room, packed with happy customers but the journey isn't over.  There's more to see upstairs.  We were very lucky to get a little table just opposite the kitchen so we could see what everybody was ordering before we made our own decision.