Musings

We had a last drive across the countryside in eastern Ireland, first Northern then Republic. AVS on this truck stands for Ace Vegetable Suppliers. The left promotional phrase is: Suppliers of the best quality chipping potatoes. I was ready to leave chipped potatoes behind (for a while only; potatoes are sacred food to me). And, in the process, leaving Guinness. Sigh.

Along our drive we saw this pedestrian bridge just before we crossed the vehicle bridge…our last crossing of the Boyne.

Once on the ground in GB, we took the train into London from the airport and unwound for a bit, deciding to eat our evening meal in a “good” place. Turns out we went for super-fine. We picked three courses and we were presented with seven different food offerings, several with multiple tastes. This was the palate cleanser after the main course. It had a soft cucumber sorbet (I think) on the bottom, with gin and tonic foam on top. I don’t know what kind of leaf decorated it.

I even splurged and had a glass of Moscato with dessert. Yum. Yup, we changed our dining style!

We walked down to pay homage to the Thames after we ate, and to let our courses and not-courses settle.

We caught the 9pm ringing of Big Ben, as it turned out. This was a few minutes later, after we’d admired the river and communed with a perfect light breeze.

These are the towers of Westminster Abbey. They seem creamier/lighter-colored than I remember, but that’s probably just my lousy memory. [I have spared you many photos of the upper bits of buildings silhouetted against the sky; I’ve been rather obsessed with them this trip.]

Posted at 5:20 PM | Comments Off on Gin and tonic foam

One way to look at today is that there were pairs…of medieval monastic/church complexes and harbor-cities.

These first two photos are of Kells priory. This one was founded in the 12th C by Anglo-Normans—some of the ruins inside the wall. Then, the wall was added in the 15th C, and the whole thing was attacked in the Dissolution in the 16th C. Anyway, the ritual architectural core is next to River Kings, and the adjacent settlement was on the slope above and the hill to the south.

Here’s another 12th-C cathedral complex in ruins. It was sacked a bit later, in the 17th C, and some well-meaning??? Englishman had the roof removed in the 18th C. You can guess my take on that.

This one, however, is atop a limestone outcrop, very dramatic. It also has a wall, but mostly the defensiveness is due to the bedrock it is built upon. Here’s the view of town from just a few feet from the cathedral ruin.

Such different choices…next to the water and the riverine transportation network vs atop a defensible peak. Supply lines are different. These aren’t far apart in space, and the surviving architecture overlaps temporally….

Here’s a view of Cobh harbor. This was the last port of call of the doomed “Titanic,” in 1912. Uncounted Irish set sail from here for the New World, hoping, as is often said, for a better life. I think of Cobh as the outer harbor area in the same estuary as Cork, which is in a more protected location farther inland–but doesn’t have the deep draft for larger “modern” ocean-going vessels.

This is the estuary between Cobh and Cork, and there’s a car ferry that goes between the two cities traversing the River Lee in the shot. Notice how the overcast has set in; we have lost the sunshine we’ve had since we arrived (where’s my raincoat gotten to?).

We’re headed south over the bridge that is where the bridge was in medieval times, exiting Cork to the south. The plan of walled medieval Cork survives as narrow streets and bottle-necked traffic. Charming layout, slightly gritty city (or is the overcast skewing my perceptions?).

Ponder these two cities. One (Cobh) is nearer the open ocean and has a deep harbor, an advantage in “modern” times. The other is farther inland, at the farthest downstream that crossing the rivers that forked around the city was relatively easy. Cork was a Viking stronghold far later than most Viking cities in Ireland; the Vikings liked to be inland of the river-mouth, with the security the protected location offered. Archaeologists have found another Viking settlement with ironworking and other crafting even farther upstream, which was unanticipated and suggests that, at least here, the Vikings located activities that required expensive materials even farther inland in an even safer location.

We kept rolling south to Kinsale. I like that this shop offers bibliotherapy. Maybe you’ve heard of it, but I haven’t.

We even had a fancy fish dinner in Kinsale. Delightful and tasty. For dessert, I swooned over my crème brûlée, and the Guru’s pavlova and strawberries was gorgeous and seductive.

And score another fine B&B for us. This is the view from our room—ignore the overcast….

Posted at 4:29 PM | 3 Comments »

Well now, Old Man Time escaped the bounds of…time, and I must do a late-post. My alternate-reality self is in Paris (trust me), and I revere it with this time-shifting plant….

Happy Sattidy night!

For no apparent reason, let me note here that when my fingers learned to type the exclamation point, it was a far different key-stroke-combo than it is now. And there’s no reason to allot blog-space to that observation. Or I could do something totally different, and address recent settlement pattern studies…(I advise:) don’t turn me loose on this….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Ah, bœuf bourguignon

This is Nepalese bheda ko ledho thali. Lamb stew with wee bowls of veggies, pickles, bean stoups, and rice and naan chaperones.

The accompaniment you don’t see: a lesson in blue-dot navigation.

Posted at 10:54 PM | Comments Off on Show stopper

Today was cold and windy. The cold is relative…but the wind is unarguable.

Prescription: mmmmmm pasta mini-raviolis and tomato sauce. Topped with fresh basil (splurge) and fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (another splurge). Mmmmmm.

Tomorrow is to be more cold and windy. It’ll be short-lived; next week: in the 80s.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Compensating

These vegetal gems were labeled “junior bok choy.” Turns out that this is a vegetal vendor category; the store I was in didn’t make it up. I would have called them mini bok choy, or perhaps age-challenged bok choy. Nah.

Anyway, quite tasty in the corruption of stir-fry we had on Saturday night, and tonight, too. (Skipped a night, there.) If WikiPee is correct, bok choy (a phrase that makes my spell-check blotto even though it’s in my standard digital dictionary) is a subspecies of Brassica rapa L., along with bomdong (put on your Korean hat?), napa cabbage (from a Japanese term, not the valley in Cali), and turnip.

Posted at 9:48 PM | Comments Off on Not baby bok choy

Like many groc stores, the Buford Highway Farmers Market (without a single farmer in sight) puts flowers right by the front door. I think these MUST be dyed.

These, no. This is “their” color.

Sardines. No can.

Marinated apples. I wondered what the marinade was. Sugary and sweet? Sharp and vinegary? Wine?

Maybe next time I’ll buy one and see. They are in what I call the Eastern European section, but I may have my geography wrong. The Cyrillic script kinda gives it away.

Posted at 8:18 PM | Comments Off on BHFM goodies

Is this special for Lent? Rather strange to find it here in the ATL. Also unexpected that this Old World baked good is…New World flavored—pecan.

Posted at 10:18 PM | 1 Comment »

Here’s a scene for a short story, or to fit into a longer narrative: streetcar brought to a halt by an abandoned police car left in a well-marked don’t-park-here spot. No police action anywhere around; I couldn’t even guess where the driver went. Result: incessant honking by the streetcar driver, first beep-beep-beep, then beeeeeeeeeeeeee (without letup). No one had shown up by four minutes later when we departed from our very legal parking spot down the block. It’s not like the streetcar can drive around!

We have honored and celebrated π day by dining this evening on pies. Three dinner pies and two teeny sweet pies. The flavors: chicken-bacon, steak-stout, and chicken-mushroom. Dessert: apple and peach. I didn’t make them, but I did reheat them.

Posted at 8:00 PM | 2 Comments »

(Probably) jealous of family just returning after a week in Paris (rainy, but still: Paris!), I ogled these lovely French-style pastries, displayed here in the ATL. Dreaming….

Now macarons (not macaroons)…the fanciest display of them I have ever noticed was in Florence (multicolored, tall tower with ribbons and gold leaf—or perhaps my memory embroiders). Italy, not South Carolina. [Is Florence, SC, still “the place” to go for false teeth? Apologies for the mental jump….]

Posted at 9:56 PM | Comments Off on Mouthwatering offerings