Mental distress…..

I am a creature of habit, most of the time. My Saturday morning usually involves a trip to Lidl to buy the vegetables followed by a visit to the guys in John’s Meat Co for the red meat and then a call to George’s Fish Shop, both in Monkstown Farm, (it has not been a farm since before I was born), in south County Dublin. Last weekend, I blew it by staying in bed drinking tea for an extra hour. I abandoned the Lidl trip on the grounds that the place would be full of ‘oul wans’ fussing over the fennel and cribbing about the cabbage. When I got to George’s, I was greeted with cries of “We thought you weren’t coming.” and “Why are you so late?” This threw me off my stride and rather than choosing from the range of wonderful fish on offer, I succumbed to suggestion and left with the last 9 fresh scallops and a big bag of frozen 8/12 size prawns.

What goes round…..

A cold Autumn day in Dublin. Tomorrow, I have to do the shopping. Today, I have to cook a meal for the other half and myself. The fridge is providing little inspiration. With the shopping not due until the following day, I had little to work with as you see from the list below.  I decide to do something very simple and deploy my secret weapon, the pastry cutter.

Wisdom? It’s my middle name.

Irish folklore has it that the Salmon of Knowledge, named Fintan, learned everything that he knew by eating the 9 hazelnuts that had fallen from the nine hazel trees above the Well of Wisdom in which he lived. The poet Finn Eces spent seven long years trying to catch the elusive fish. When he did eventually land it, he asked his servant, Fionn McCumhaill, to cook the fish but not to eat any of it.

That’s a bit Irish! – Beef and Guinness Stew

Despite the reputation that we Irish have earned for being hard-drinking, hard fighting and being, mentally, a couple of sandwiches short of a decent picnic, I don’t fit the stereotype. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a few pints every now and then. When I was younger, I enjoyed a few more pints more often. Now, I only fight when there is no other reasonable option and I believe that my lift still goes all the way to the top floor.

Now speaking of a couple of pints….

“Who the hell is Lord Paddington?”

Not my usual way to start a post but circumstance has forced my hand. My two grown-up (in age only) daughters were having a conversation in the way that only the female of the species can. L (the elder) looks up from typing on her computer and says “It’s great that Laura and Paddy are coming to dinner on Sunday.” Without lifting her head from deep study of Facebook, S (the younger) replies; “Who the hell is Lord Paddington?” Now, just over a week hence, my nurse niece Laura and her fireman boyfriend Paddy have become forever the single entity “Lord Paddington”.