Obsessed with Watermelon

I'm still here in the States and because of the hot weather we've been having light suppers as no one really feels like eating anything. The last two nights we have been having watermelon salad for dinner - I am absolutely hooked at this stage. I know it sounds like an odd combination but I can assure you that it is absolutely without a doubt one of the most delicious and nutritious salads I've had in a long time. The recipe we've been using is from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer cookbook and it is so simple and easy - I encourage you to take advantage of being able to get watermelon's and try this out.

All you need is watermelon, feta, 1 red onion, 2 limes, black olives, mint leaves (actually Nigella's recipe calls for cilantro but I prefer mint) and pepper.

First, slice up a red onion into fine slices - put in a bowl and put the juice of two limes over the onion to marinate for at least 2 hours or longer. When they are finished marinating - cut up half a watermelon into generous chunks.

Cut up a block of feta into half inch squares and add to the watermelon. Chop up a handful of mint leaves and then add the onion with all the lime juice into the bowl. Toss gently all the ingredients around - add some fresh ground pepper and serve.

Before I headed over to the States I bought some delicious watermelon at Lidl in Ireland so they are available and were fresh and flavourful. If you don't make a salad with it, just slice up the watermelon and put on a platter - it makes for a wonderful snack when the temperature heats up. Kids love them - at a recent BBQ we had in Ireland the slices disappeared in seconds.

House Beautiful's Kitchen of the Month - February 2010

I'm back in Connecticut this week so have had a chance to catch up on old issues of House Beautiful which my mother keeps for me - I can't get them in Ireland. Every issue they do a Kitchen of the Month and the one featured in the February 2010 issue really caught my eye. It was designed by Jonathan King and James Stott, the owners of Stonewall Kitchen - where all those yummy concoctions made for their company come to life. Photographed by Gridley & Graves, who do wonderful simple styling especially of kitchens, I love lots of the details around in the space.

As you can see here in this shot, the kitchen in fact has two islands which have been separated by a 5 foot gap. Of course, if you have a kitchen that is 47 feet long you can fit two islands along with loads of other great things. Viking appliances are used throughout the kitchen - the big pendant lamps are perfect for shedding just enough light onto the work spaces - they come from Urban Archeology. I personally love the wide floorboards which is reclaimed pumpkin pine and the boards are eight inches wide.

This open shelved area is down to the left at the end of the kitchen - the shelves store everyday dishes which are easily accessible for everyone. I also love the white subway tiles that extend all the way up to the beams.

In the seating area, there are more open shelves displaying beautiful collections of antique English ironstone or Burleigh ware - both which I love.

An American yellowware bowl, holds onions on the Carrara marble counter - the yellowware being another passion. A line of copper pans that are allowed to age gracefully hang above a sink.

There is so much light and space to work in this kitchen - and what I love is that both owners can work in the kitchen without getting in each other's way. That would work really well in our house.

Do check out House Beautiful's website for more Kitchen of the Month features - if this one doesn't inspire you, I'm sure you'll find one that does.

Recycling and the New Brown Bin

This pamphlet came through our letter box before I headed off on my hols announcing a new brown bin policy. Honestly I'm delighted to hear this news - although I know we will probably have to pay a bit more on our rubbish pick up. Having come from the US three years ago where recycling was mandatory - I've been slightly irritated by the laisse faire attitude in Ireland about recycling in general.
Since returning from the states recently, Mr. Ryan Brothers (our bin man) stopped by to collect payment for bin collection and I chatted with him about the new brown bin policy - excited to find out when ours would be delivered. He already thinks I'm nutters as I'm "American" and we are all obsessed with recycling - after all he has quoted to me in the past " what real damage can a small island like Ireland do anyway to the environment."
Don't get me started! It's a disgrace the way we don't' recycle here and yes, we had to in New York and the bins were collected for "free" but of course it all came out of our taxes. I'm not asking for more taxes but if bin collection was incorporated into taxes we wouldn't have this nightmare situation where people only pay for one green bin and toss everything they possibly can into that.
So the idea with this brown bin is that you can but pretty much anything that decomposes into this bin - egg shells, cooked and raw meat, vegetable scrapings, even soiled paper towels - of course you can't put things like old cooking oil, anything that belongs in your recycling bin - so thinking that our bin collection might go up - I realized that our current general bin or green bin would be significantly reduced with waste - so we could order an even smaller bin for the few things that can't be recycled and can't be put in the brown bin.
Upon chatting further with Mr. Ryan Brothers in regards to when my coveted brown bin would arrive - he said that while this has become policy for homeowners - the government has not yet figured out where all this brown bin material is going to go.....ah, fantastic thinking don't' you think? Hmmm - why not create the proper facility, then launch the brown bin policy and then get out there and start picking them up.
I'm going to dig into this a bit more because it is something I'm interested in and I'd be happy to get rid of my compost with a clear conscience. I have not found a great deal of information out there when googling it and certainly have not seen the brown bins out yet throughout town.
If anyone knows more about this and could direct me towards further information - I'd greatly appreciate it.

Gardens at The Lakeside Hotel, Ballina

As I travel around the south west region for work, I stop off for coffee or a small bite to eat where ever I can. Recently I was at The Lakeside Hotel in Ballina at the perfect time to view their lovely garden. They were given an overhaul some years ago - I'd say at least 4 or 5 years ago and they've now matured and are really quite spectacular.

They over look the picturesque bridge that crosses the Shannon River into Killaloe and provide a wonderful setting for couples, who have their wedding at the hotel, to have beautiful photographs taken to commemorate the day.

There are roses and lupines and wonderful wooden towers, seen here in white, to hold clematis.

This path leads alongside the river's edge and the yellow lupines are larger than the regular plants - really kind of a bush or shrub lupine that I had never seen before.

I thought they were wonderful as they really give a big show of colour and add height and some drama to a garden.

Be sure to stop by in early to mid June when the garden should be in full bloom. Stop in for lunch at the Lakeside Hotel and then stroll through the garden and down into Ballina and across the river into Killaloe - make a day or an afternoon of it.

The Donkey Sanctuary, Cork

Anyone who really knows me, knows I have an incredible soft spot for animals of all kinds. I often dreamt of working in a zoo - and still do! I actually have to suppress my mad passion for them as I think people might find me a little mad - but there you have it - I'm just a bit mad over animals.

Sophia with a wee little baby at the sanctuary - so soft and fuzzy.
Their welfare is very important to me and if I had more land and more space, I'd love to set up some kind of animal rescue or fostering program. As one might expect, animals are suffering even more in the recession - if humans are, you can only imagine where animals fall in order of preference - unfortunately, they too often become expendable and not worthy of care and there have been extreme cases of neglect not only of donkeys but horses, dogs, cats etc.

Ever since moving to Ireland three years ago I'd heard about the Donkey Sanctuary in Cork and finally a few weekends ago, Sophia and I decided to head down there on a Saturday afternoon. From Nenagh, it took us just over and hour - it is near Charleville and Mallow in Liscarroll so a pretty easy ride.

Surprisingly there is no entrance fee and we were greeted by a few donkeys in the open enclosure - donkeys are extremely friendly and need human contact.

They all have big collars around their necks with their names on them - this white one seemed to have ears that were permanently back and although he looked cross - was not.

Further out are big paddocks with more donkeys and you can take a lovely walk up a hill with fantastic views of the surrounding countryside - there are benches along the route and certainly worth bringing along a picnic on a fine day.

Sophia did have a little biting encounter (although not with this one) but I successfully pried it's teeth off her fingers and she survived! But just look at these sweet faces.

The fuzziest face of all!

There is a tiny but really good gift shop where you can buy all kinds of really nice donkey paraphernalia - you can also adopt a donkey for a year for only €20. You can choose from 5 different donkeys and the money goes to keeping all the donkeys fed throughout the year. Sophia choose to adopt Richie - you get a lovely bag with his photo on it and and certificate of adoption plus information about his history.

Do make the trip to the sanctuary - the donkeys are sweet and it will do your heart some good to know you've given back to them in some way - the sanctuary has over 1000 donkeys in it's care at this stage - not all right there but all in their care. They need our help.

Out in the Bog

Back in late May, my husband James had the opportunity to buy a few rows in a bog. The turf was already cut (now done by machines, unlike these early photos above) but he had to stack it, dry it and haul it out of there. No easy feat as it ended up being about three big trailer loads.

One beautiful Friday evening, I returned from work and was told to meet my husband and daughter out at our plot. They had been out there since she got out of school that day stacking our turf - which allows it to dry.

I find bogs quite beautiful and yet odd in their own way. These bogs are what are known as raised bogs unlike really boggy wetlands we might be familiar with both in the US and Ireland. The turf or peat is just decomposed plant materials- mostly mosses that contain a lot of water but when dried they become a great source of fuel for burning in the colder months. Believe it or not, we actually had a fire last night as it was a chilly rainy evening and we burned our first bit of our turf . It burned very well and gave off a good bit of heat.

Anyway, I headed out to the bog and in my usual fashion found the light that evening so inspiring and being still so open to new experiences in Ireland - I just wanted to capture this unique moment. I'm sure the locals were wondering what I was like....as I traipsed out into the bog in my dress and shoes from work snapping photos and generally acting like a total tourist!

Oh well, if you can relish and enjoy all these new experiences - what's the point?

Here are some rows that have been stacked on either side of rows cut cut waiting to be stacked.

There's Sophia way down our row, stacking her own little piles.

The team.

Sophia was covered in peat marks literally everywhere - she needed a major hosing down after I got her home. But she looks happy - big change from the city life in NYC.

As we left, my husband was deligently continuing in his duties - armed with knee pads to make the task a little less taxing.