Posts filed under 'On the road'
Well Hello! I know its been a while but I have been out of town…like a lot. Christmas Day we flew to Dublin so I’ll start there…
We spent a week driving around Ireland, it was exactly like you imagine it! Gorgeous green rolling hills, tons of sheep, little seaside towns, completely adorable. We went with Michelle and Gary and had an amazing time. We spent 2 days in Dublin, 1 in Galway, 1 in a small town on the west coast and 2 in Cork.
Throughout the whole trip we were a little bit shocked at the quality and taste of the food. We happened upon more than 1 fabulous meal and my new obsession, the carvery. The first night we were there we walked past a pub that had a number of signs proclaiming it ‘Best dining Pub 2007″ also 2006. 2005, 2004, etc etc. Since it was only a 2 block walk from our hotel we decided to have dinner there on our first night. The carvery is basically like a buffet of carved meats – you choose what you want (Roast Beef for me!) and then you choose from about 10 different sides, 4 of which were potato, no joke. When I said I only wanted mashed potatoes to go with my peas and cabbage the cute Irish guy behind the counter was sort of offended and said “only ONE kind of potato???” That is apparently unheard of in those parts.
The drive from Dublin to Galway was great, Matthew just about mastered driving on the wrong side of the road by saying “Keep Left!” to himself every time he turned. He was such a great driver! It was a beautiful, sunny day which was quite unexpected and took us about 2 hours.
We explored Galway and had a bite to eat for lunch. It was there that I discovered the veg soup. Pureed vegetables, a bit of cream and spices. It was delicious and perfect on the cold wintery day, and every single day after. Seriously, every restaurant had a veg soup. There was definitely a day I had it twice. Galway was cute and we were very close to the adorable cobble stoned shopping district that every city in Ireland has. We learned in Dublin just to follow the Christmas decorations hanging above and you will find shopping. In the evening we decided to go to a movie just because.
The next day was the day I was most excited about – we were driving to the Cliffs of Moher, a really amazing sight and something I was most looking forward to. On the way there we randomly passed a castle on the side of the road. It was just gorgeous.
Another beautiful, sunny day but the cliffs were FREEZING. I’m not sure what we expected 200+ meters above the ocean but wow, we couldn’t handle it for long. Unfortunately the position of the sun wasn’t the best for photo ops but they DID have a number of funny signs. And I really love funny signs.
After the experience at the cliffs we drove to a tiny town called Doolin and went into the only restaurant open on a sunday afternoon, the pub. From the second we got out of the car it just smelled good. I got the veg soup, everyone else got fish and chips. The second I saw the fish and chips i regretted my decision, they were the freshest, lightest fillets and besides chips there was a real, honest to goodness salad on the plate! Everyone gave me a taste of theirs to hold me over from ordering my own but it was the most surprisingly delicous meal in all of Ireland.
That night we stayed sort of in the middle of nowhere at my favorite hotel of the trip. It was really modern and clean, free internet, free breakfast and only 99 euro.
The next day (day 4 if you are counting) we drove down to Cork - about an hour or so south. On the way there Matthew let Gary drive and well…
Maybe that was a mistake. Everyone was fine and besides the 2 pregos in our car, the other car involved had 3 small children in it! We had insurance through the rental car company so after a bit of form filling off we went. With Matthew driving of course!
On the way into Cork we stopped at Blarney Castle, home of the Blarney Stone. It was enough for me to go to the top of a castle, there was no way I was leaning over backwards to kiss the stupid thing once we got up there. Its not just like sitting on the side of the road – you have to climb to the top of this castle and do gymnastics to earn the gift of eloquence. I passed.
Matthew kissing the Blarney Stone
Blarney Stone from below
Cork was great, definitely my favorite town in Ireland. It was really beautiful, there were tons of interesting people and shopping, and it happens to be the culinary capitol of Ireland. Yum!
They have a great shopping district and a farmers market called English Market that has food stalls and cooked food and chocolates and lots of other stuff. We walked over (5 minutes from the hotel) on our second day there and stopped in for lunch.
Matthew and Gary had sausages
The last day there we drove back to Dublin, the longest drive of the trip - about 3 hours or so. On the way back we stopped at the Rock of Cashel, a cathedral and priory built around 1100. It was a pretty amazing place.
That’s pretty much it. We got back to Dublin for New Years Eve, had Indian food for dinner (sooo sick of pub food) then packed up and got ready for our 6am trip to the airport. We waited for the stroke of midnight and watched the fireworks in London and Scotland on TV before passing out.
Where We Stayed
Dublin:Westin Dublin
SAS Royal Hotel
Galway: Park House Hotel
Between Limerick and Cork: Bunratty Castle Hotel
Cork: Jurys Cork
Where We Ate (reccomendations)
Dublin:O’Neills Bar
Jaipur
Galway: Galway Baking Company
Cork: Fenn’s Quay
Liberty Grill
Ambassador Chinese Restaurant
Doolin: O’Connor’s Pub
January 24th, 2009
Hope you had a great holiday! We are in Ireland, Be back soon.
Tags: travel
December 27th, 2008
Friday night we went down to DC for the Coldplay concert with Gary and Michelle. Surprisingly very few of the concertgoers were dressed up for halloween but the few that were, wow. They kind of stuck out, I’ll just say that.
The mood in DC was very festive all around, lots of sexy cops, sexy nurses and people dressed as bananas. It was quite a mix. The concert was really fun, and I even had the opportunity to enjoy a crystal light slurpee on the way home. Who knew they existed? Refreshing and delicious, and sugarfree.
Since Gary and MIchelle live in a Virginia suburb we were all set to visit the boy museum near their house on Saturday. When we woke up and headed out for breakfast it was about 65 degrees so we changed our plans and decided to go to Great Falls Park instead. The park was Great! there were Falls! It was GREAT! FALLS!
It was super cool, and the weather was unbelievable although none of us were dressed for hiking we still had fun.
My favorite part was the sign in the ladies room that said “Do not fall over the edge, You will DIE!” There was a whole bunch of people so I didn’t take a pic, but now I really wish I did.
We hiked around all up and down and all over the place, Michelle in her leisure suit and everything. Poor thing thought we were going to Eggspectation!
Whie Gary was busy pondering life on a tiny rock
And Matthew was busy climbing up to the top of mountains
Michelle and I sat here for a while, just enjoying the day without trying to get ourselves killed
*and also really irritating the shit out of that chick who was trying to meditate on the rock next to us.
What did I tell ya, good times had by all!
Tags: fun, travel
November 5th, 2008
I am aware that my posting has been a bit lax since I went back to work at the office. I seriously don’t understand how people do it 5 days a week and then have a life on top of that. It is exhausting! All the talking to people all day, and the matching outfits to shoes, and the subway. It’s enough to make a girl want to get in bed at 8 every night.
So that’s what I’ve been doing. Pretty much eating dinner and getting right into bed. Matthew was here all week but worked until midnight so I didn’t really see him, and then he left for Maryland. I’m free to do whatever I want all the time and that happens to be catching up on Pushing Daisies and Top Model.
Wha? Is anyone surprised?
Last weekend we did actually leave the house and drove to Montreal for my niece Liliane’s first birthday.
As expected there was quite a bit of this:
There was a also a bunch of this:
of COURSE some of this:
All leading up to this:
ahhhh,
“The Return of the Homemade Skillet Pizza – Francophone Version. Pizza Takes Montreal”
If only they made a really huge circular cast iron pizza skillet thingy we would really be in business. The teeny skillet is a little scary, well…for some people.
It took about 9 hours to make a bunch of mini pizzas that we all split when it came out of the oven, so you’d get 2 bites every 15 minutes. Thankfully we had some wine chilling for Liliane’s party. (Sorry that you didn’t get any delicious rosé Theresa’s friends, we had to wait a long time between pizzas!) All we did all night was make teeny tiny pizzas, wait the 10 minutes for the oven to heat back up and then 2 minutes for them to cook, shove them down and repeat, repeat, repeat. Lucky for us we had the idea to make a salad to go with it. Oh the salad. THE SALAD as it is now known. We did not get pictures of THE SALAD because we were too busy enjoying the act of taking multiple bites in a row but it was so amazing I have made it 2x since we’ve been home. Oh, its just a salad you say? Well you are wrong, its THE SALAD!
Don’t worry, I took some pics when I made it last night.
You’ll just have to wait.
Tags: nuggets, pizza, travel
October 27th, 2008
Since I had a show in Miami last Thursday I decided to celebrate 5769 at my parents house in South Florida. While perusing the internets I came across this recipe for a homemade honey cake and was thinking maybe I’d make my first ever cake from scratch.
What’s that?
Oh. 32 in March, why do you ask?
Yes I have a kitchen.
Um, yes, of course I like cake.
I DO SO have self-respect!
My family just doesn’t really bake, we always have carvel cakes for birthdays. I just never got into it, I don’t know. Also, I dislike using machines and I foolishly thought you needed to use mixers and stuff to make a cake, likely because my husband is the family baker and he is way into gadgets.
Now I knew the cake was going to be good because besides all the rave reviews on Smitten I got a real life review from my friend Jessica who was on the Miami show with me. A fellow chosen person, we were chatting about family traditions for the holidays and I sent her the link to the cake. She made it Sunday and called me Monday morning on her way to work saying that it was delicious and smells amazing. Then she sent me an email to follow up. Seriously! They loved this cake!
We ALWAYS have honey cake on the holiday, but its ALWAYS packaged and dry and boring and tasteless so making a cake from scratch (!) seemed kind of exciting. Plus the recipe looked super easy and its all stuff we usually have on hand at my house.
The Honey Cake Experiment
Step 1 – Make sure we have all the ingredients.
We have none of the ingredients. Except the honey. We have tons of honey.
Off to Target to pick up a cake pan because we didn’t have that either. Mom and I decided on a bundt for fun and smartly I asked if she had measuring cups and spoons. Good thing.
Then I loaded up the cart at Publix with every single ingredient on the list. My mother was apalled that I put cinnamon in the cart because OF COURSE WE HAVE CINNAMON!
Once we had all of the exotic hard to find ingredients we were good to go.
Step 2 – Mix all the stuff in a bowl. With a whisk! You don’t need a fancy mixer for honey cake people!
Step 3- Put it in the oven and make your house smell like a yankee candle
Step 4 – take it out and make sure it doesn’t all stick to the top. Whoops.
I really don’t know what happened. It was a non-stick pan with PAM. I served it anyway of course, we are not a family of Martha Stewarts.
The reviews:
Mom – “It’s delicious! Really delicious!”
Dad – “Its delicious! But maybe too much cinnamon? But delicious!”
Grandma – “You MADE this cake?”
Poppy – “Why isn’t it a loaf? Cut me another slice”
Me – There was too much cinnamon. I didn’t love the bundt.
Thanks for the good times honey cake! See you in 5770!
Tags: recipe
October 3rd, 2008
I’ve been pretty out of it the past few weeks. 10 days were spent in Vegas working many, many hours. I got home Friday night and caught up on TV all weekend. Feel free to talk to me about the following:
True Blood
Weeds
Gossip Girl
90210
Project Runway
Mad Men
Supernatural
and, um, Tabatha’s Salon Makeover.
I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but thought I’d share some of my highlights…
My awesome suite at the Venetian
Spending time with out-of-town friends
Dinners at David Burke. 2 words. Wedge Salad.
Stupid private jokes brought on by lack of sleep (rubber chicken microphones, having a conference, calling pedro back)
Post show massage at Canyon Ranch
So I know it seems like I didn’t leave the hotel. That’s because I didn’t. We got there Wednesday night and walked to the Wynn for dinner. After that we just grabbed dinner at the hotel after work, or went directly to bed.
Here is the single photo I took while there – It’s a pic of my friend Carolyn at Woo on our last night in Vegas. Shortly after ordering this drink we left because it was too hard to understand the menu.
Attn Woo: Your food is delicious but overpriced and confusing. CHEERS!
Tags: travel
September 21st, 2008
Making the Republicans look pretty on teevee is the reason Matthew had to leave for a month
Matthew and Immie.
I won’t tell anyone if you “accidentally” bump into a light or something.
Hope you run into NPH!
Tags: husbandry
August 30th, 2008
This is frightening
Come home soon! Don’t shoot anybody!
Tags: husbandry
August 20th, 2008
My mom flew in Friday night which gave us the perfect opportunity to do something we’ve been meaning to do for a while – take a ride up to Tarrytown and visit the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.
About a month ago we had dinner at the restaurant there, Blue Hill at Stone Barns and ooooooooh it was probably the best meal I have ever had. The menu is unique in a way that most of the food is produced on the farm and that instead of a set menu there is just a list of ingredients. You tell your server what you like and dislike and they work with the chef to craft a menu just for you. My menu was no game meats, organ meats or caviar. Matthew agreed to eat anything and everything. They did a really nice job giving us similar but not exactly the same meals, it was just awesome.
This is a photo of the Tisane service. They have a tea garden out back where they pick the herbs and then cut them at your table and make the tea right there. Our server also happened to tend the tea garden and sensing my intense enthusiasm (2 glasses of wine!) invited us out back to check it out but it was pouring. Maybe next time!
During the day they have a bunch of tours (pick your own eggs, anyone?) but us city folk were slightly more interested in the farm market, shop and cafe so thats where we headed.
The farm market is fairly small and a bit pricey but still pretty cool
We picked up the carrots and beets, salad greens, onion and garlic for dinner plans that night. We also got a jar of the fresh honey. Its the summer honey from the apiary they have at the farm and its delicious. Matthew has been eating toast and honey for breakfast everyday so its worth it. I hope there’s something left when he gets home…
After the market we cruised over to the cafe and had some lunch.
So that’s an open faced tuna sandwich, goat cheese and tomato sandwich, a veggie fritatta, and 2 plates of the salad bar thing which included roasted corn salad, tomato salad, some chic peas with broccoli stems that was…interesting and a farro salad. The 3 of us shared and it was all really, really fresh and tasty once you got over the broccoli stems. All that bounty for only $47. Wait, did you say $47. Hmm. That can’t be right. Well I did get the jar of pickles that are a bit pricey…Oh! Mom’s paying?!. Nevermind.
We stopped at the store on the way out. Although there was nothing I wanted at the moment I snapped a few shots of things to save for later, when I have room for them and stuff.
We headed home mid afternoon and picked up a chicken to roast for dinner. Here is the recipe Matthew’s been using for years:
Clean chicken and place in pan (he uses that one because its easier to make gravy)
1/2 green apple cut up
1/2 onion cut up
garlic
thyme
Salt and Pepper the chicken inside and out. Stuff the garlic, onion, apple, and half the thyme into the big chicken hole. Take the rest of the thyme and place it under the skin.
Make a mixture of paprika and olive oil and baste the chicken
Roast in oven at 350 until done (based on weight)
In the meantime: take all the odds and ends and throw it into a pot for gravy stock
Before
After
Gravy Makin
I put together a salad with the greens from the farm, a little goat cheese and beets that Matthew’s Aunt pickled herself (Thanks Auntie Jean!)
Dinner
Dessert? Spumoni. Adoy.
Tags: pretty things, recipe
August 13th, 2008
On our second day in Seattle we went downtown to take part in a culinary walking tour of Pike Place Market with Savor Seattle Food Tours. I knew we wanted to do some kind of walking tour in Seattle and our hosts were definitely up for it. We did a bit of research (and recon – Jess saw the tour walking through the market one day) and found out that this company uses earphones so the guide doesn’t have to shout. I was slightly concerned at the geek factor but so excited to do it that I decided it didn’t really matter.
I don’t know what kind of insanity I was expecting but it was all very civilized. We met at a coffee place to pick up our headset thingies and headed out. The tour guide was adorable and funny but for some reason the rest of our tour didn’t seem to think so. Before we even walked into the market she made a crack at Mark (apple is not a vegetable) and I knew we would be friends. I think the rest of the group had zero sense of humor and were only in it for the food and because their wives made them go. I mean we were only in it for the food too but come on now, they made no effort to have even a little fun which was kind of a drag. Anyway, first stop – Donuts.
Watch as Matthew makes it look like he is paying attention so people don’t notice he is going in for donut #2 or maybe #3. I don’t blame him! They were tiny, hot and sugary. Deeeelicious!
Of course we saw the place where they throw fish. It was loud and there were tons of people there but we did try some smoked salmon. I didn’t take any pictures because there were 500 people there taking pictures.
One of the rare vacation photos of me and I’m jamming a peach into my mouth. Luckily the fruit was already cut up because I’m the messiest fruit cutter ever. I think it is because of the shape of fruit. I can’t imagine its me.
Jess and Mark perfecting the LWC – Listening while chewing. We had to do alot of that.
There was of course a ton more walking/eating. We had some outrageously good clam chowder and I never thought I would say that. I’m still shocked! I dislike clams AND creamy soup but I didn’t want to look like a loser in front of the losers on the tour so I tried it. I guess if you are going to try it for the first time, you might as well try award winning hall of fame chowder. It was great in a teeny sample cup but I don’t know if I could eat a whole bowl. Other highlights included piroshkys (meh), cheese (amazing), and this ridiculous cherry and peach salsa that we ended up going back for after the tour ended.
It was a beautiful day and the tour was fun and informative about the history of the market. I’d definitely do another tour with them, possibly the Downtown Seattle one that started 3 days after we left…grrr. The group (of deadbeats) was a little bigger than I like but hey, that’s what we get for doing something touristy on a Sunday morning.
Tags: seattle, travel
July 28th, 2008
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