I am not in a position to complain. Factor in natural disasters and the shit economy, if you have a home (especially one in a temporary country), you are doing just fine. I will not waste time chucking a tanty (Australian lingo). However, I will waste time elaborating on how I have come to be bankrupt 25 days into my Ireland Exploration.
It all started this fine day that I recognized my sincere love for Guinness. A blessed, cursed day. Pint prices range from 3.50-7 Euros, depending on the bar (and the push up bra).I have spent more on alcohol than was expected, so I re-budgeted to cut out a bit of groceries. Which sounded reasonable (calories are calories, says the nutritionist). And yet by 4pm my stomach was twisted up inside, begging shamelessly for carbs, at any price.
I used to be a poor college student. Now, I am a poor traveler that has a bread/ Guinness fetish. And no one likes to deal with THAT person. SO, I have been buying overpriced, impulsive, street vendor homemade loaves of goodness.
Until today. Today, my magical plastic card was declined when I tried to buy a leather jacket. I thought the cashier was running the card wrong, just being an reckless Polish tween. After all, it had just worked when I bought that poinsettia the other day… And yet, the Poland immigrant was not at fault. I was. After visiting the ATM, and having it beep at me and spit my card in my face, I found myself out of cash, with 4.20 Euro in my wallet from last night. Again, not a coincidence.
So, what would you do with that amount of money to live on until an indefinite amount of time? Right. Buy bread. And I did. Ms. Marley and I ventured to the Temple Bar Markets, and I found a lovely garlic and rosemary loaf with little checkered squares on top. 3.50 Euro. Then, there was .70 cents. I pitched the rest in to buy my first ever crepe with the girls. It had nutella and shredded coconut stuffed inside. Crepes cannot be fully explained, but they can be devoured in 1.3 minutes flat.
Like I said, I’m in no position to complain. I have a full belly, chocolate smeared face, and leftovers for dinner. But this situation I find myself in does spur the question: Will the bread obsession survive when I am forced to re-budget my money for books, sour candy, and toilet paper?
One can only scrape up the crumbs and hope.
30 January, 2010
25 January, 2010
…But keep the old. Except when it turns moldy.
A long walk and a quick hop to a train by 9am led us out of Dublin. Strung out and eating banana after banana (cheap, not chimp), I sat facing my roommate as we raced closer to Killkenny.
Yes, it is an old town. No, it is not where the South Park writers were inspired to generate various ways of killing the bobble-head character. Most definitely, it is where my bread obsession lead to the inevitable and utterly gratifying feeling of being stuffed.
Not in the Irish sense, a euphemism for being vastly sexually satisfied (not available for comment). But rather in the American sense, the feeling one get’s when inertia takes over, and the stomach just surrenders to the curvatious carbs. After trying out 4 different breads, I have concluded the following:
1. Soda bread from the bakery in town tasted of corn bread, which makes me think of Mississippi.
2. Homemade brown bread slices in the Kitty Kafe resemble my grandma’s bread I once ate that had mold growing on it.
3. While eating the discount mound of bread for lunch, dinner, and breakfast, I haphazardly searched the loaf for green spots as I shoved it down my throat, because as we all know (or just a select few who have witnessed the spectacle); Elizabeth and mold do not mix well.
4. Mississippi is moist. And moldy. And so is Ireland. What am I doing here?
I am here trotting through fog. I am here doodling in my journal and walking down the wrong side of the sidewalk and wearing silly colorful clothes that make middle aged men think I am a street performer.
We met another American in the hostel we were staying in. She decided to take off for a month upon graduating from a school in San Francisco to tour Ireland by herself. She was eating dried fruit and seeded crackers on the bottom bunk, so I leaned down from my perch, and said, I bet you’d like some bread. I was right.
In a foggy little town, where stag parties ramp through narrow streets and pubs just try to keep the windows warm and lit, we broke bread with our Californian friend. 2 loaves, 2 slices, and umpteenth bananas later, I’m thanking St. Patrick we didn’t have to use the epipen.
P.S. I was inspired today. I was inspired to start cooking (correction: baking), but more to come of that later.
P.S.S. I was also inspired to find “the butter of my bread”. I think he has blue eyes and a saucy grin. He must be around here somewhere…
Yes, it is an old town. No, it is not where the South Park writers were inspired to generate various ways of killing the bobble-head character. Most definitely, it is where my bread obsession lead to the inevitable and utterly gratifying feeling of being stuffed.
Not in the Irish sense, a euphemism for being vastly sexually satisfied (not available for comment). But rather in the American sense, the feeling one get’s when inertia takes over, and the stomach just surrenders to the curvatious carbs. After trying out 4 different breads, I have concluded the following:
1. Soda bread from the bakery in town tasted of corn bread, which makes me think of Mississippi.
2. Homemade brown bread slices in the Kitty Kafe resemble my grandma’s bread I once ate that had mold growing on it.
3. While eating the discount mound of bread for lunch, dinner, and breakfast, I haphazardly searched the loaf for green spots as I shoved it down my throat, because as we all know (or just a select few who have witnessed the spectacle); Elizabeth and mold do not mix well.
4. Mississippi is moist. And moldy. And so is Ireland. What am I doing here?
I am here trotting through fog. I am here doodling in my journal and walking down the wrong side of the sidewalk and wearing silly colorful clothes that make middle aged men think I am a street performer.
We met another American in the hostel we were staying in. She decided to take off for a month upon graduating from a school in San Francisco to tour Ireland by herself. She was eating dried fruit and seeded crackers on the bottom bunk, so I leaned down from my perch, and said, I bet you’d like some bread. I was right.
In a foggy little town, where stag parties ramp through narrow streets and pubs just try to keep the windows warm and lit, we broke bread with our Californian friend. 2 loaves, 2 slices, and umpteenth bananas later, I’m thanking St. Patrick we didn’t have to use the epipen.
P.S. I was inspired today. I was inspired to start cooking (correction: baking), but more to come of that later.
P.S.S. I was also inspired to find “the butter of my bread”. I think he has blue eyes and a saucy grin. He must be around here somewhere…
20 January, 2010
Make new friends...
If heaven were a town, and the only way of arriving was to ride the train for 4.20 (coincidence, maybe) euro, where an aspiring pastry chef and his wife gave free samples of flapjacks, and rich men drove shiny Saabs with rich cappuccino’s riding shotgun, and young women pranced with cocker spaniels down the shoreline while pigeons ate a crumb off your sleeve, along a vast cliff facing eastward and eternity, with only the lapping waves and bobbing seals understanding where you have been, or where you are going, well my friends, I reached heaven on Sunday. Stairway not required.
I’m not over exaggerating. I would fess up if I was.
After coming down from an 18-month meat hiatus, I ate my first bite of fish in this little shore town. I was so inspired, I also had a bite of chips. You may have heard of this rather delectable platter, it’s quite catchy.
However, as the meal wore on, I did not feel fulfillment. I guess you could say I couldn’t gain satisfaction (without the double-negative). And it is my belief that, while in heaven, one should at least, be able to have that sense of warm, gooey, sometimes fruity, happy feeling. And so, obviously, I returned to the market to barter with the bread baker.
She was a stickler, that one. I tried everything I could think of to gain even an inch of bread for free. As she recognized me from before (this was the third time I came for samples), she kindly asked if I wanted to buy anything when I stopped at her stand. I told her, I’d like to buy a banana bread loaf, but needed at least one more sample to verify my decision. She looked skeptically at me, but obliged. The bread bit very well melted on my tongue, and I held true to my word.
I payed 6 euro for a ‘small by American standards’ loaf, which could have bought all produce and a chocolate bar for the week. But you know what? That woman was proud. And she damn well better be. Cause she won. I bought her beautifully crafted, walnut checkered, butter-swooned bread. I ate half the loaf right there at the market. I told her I’d be back though, and I’d bring my negotiating tactics and A-game.
I think I made a new friend.
I’m not over exaggerating. I would fess up if I was.
After coming down from an 18-month meat hiatus, I ate my first bite of fish in this little shore town. I was so inspired, I also had a bite of chips. You may have heard of this rather delectable platter, it’s quite catchy.
However, as the meal wore on, I did not feel fulfillment. I guess you could say I couldn’t gain satisfaction (without the double-negative). And it is my belief that, while in heaven, one should at least, be able to have that sense of warm, gooey, sometimes fruity, happy feeling. And so, obviously, I returned to the market to barter with the bread baker.
She was a stickler, that one. I tried everything I could think of to gain even an inch of bread for free. As she recognized me from before (this was the third time I came for samples), she kindly asked if I wanted to buy anything when I stopped at her stand. I told her, I’d like to buy a banana bread loaf, but needed at least one more sample to verify my decision. She looked skeptically at me, but obliged. The bread bit very well melted on my tongue, and I held true to my word.
I payed 6 euro for a ‘small by American standards’ loaf, which could have bought all produce and a chocolate bar for the week. But you know what? That woman was proud. And she damn well better be. Cause she won. I bought her beautifully crafted, walnut checkered, butter-swooned bread. I ate half the loaf right there at the market. I told her I’d be back though, and I’d bring my negotiating tactics and A-game.
I think I made a new friend.
15 January, 2010
Ferris Bueller You're My Hero
Today was a most peculiar day. Skipping class at Trinity College, before actual semester classes commence, may not be the smartest of thoughts I've had before. And yet, Intro to Women's Irish Lit was not all that alluring, and it was so sunny outside... I COULD NOT let time pass me by. So, I ran home from campus, threw on my Mizunos, and took off on my first run since my arrival in grand Ireland. I followed the Grand Canal (located conveniently 50 yards from my apartment).
I followed it for, maybe 2 miles. But that's not important. What IS important is what I saw.
No doubt, you can guess what I saw.
Apparently, while the young aristocracy of Europe is attending class in Trinity's cathedral halls and lecture stadiums, there is a quaint little market bustling along the canal. Not too much, just a few stands with people sitting on benches, talking, smoking, laughing, NOT working at 2pm on Thursday.
ANYWAYS, one of the stands had about 14 large, straw woven baskets lined up in rows, and each basket contained a different kind of loaf of bread.
And it was so beautiful, I was running and my iPod was shouting Tall Skirt and a Long Jacket to me, and I just had to smile and think about cake, which made me run in an odd-skip-like way, and a very attractive blue-eyed man crossed to the other side of the street before I reached where he was sitting...
But the best part isn't the cake, it's the icing. As I was awkwardly running zigzags on an already uneven cobblestone path, staring at this masterpiece of a market, a man appeared in line for the bread baskets, and he had THE dirtiest, greasiest, most-sausage-link-y dreadlocks I have ever seen. I felt home.
I am happy to report the hippies are alive and well in my neck of the woods here in Dublin 4, and that's just grand. Maybe I'll run again tomorrow. Maybe I'll find a dreadlock rasta and we'll form a baked goods bond, and have little dreadlock-bread-eating babies. But I doubt it.
Save ferris. And skip class more often.
I followed it for, maybe 2 miles. But that's not important. What IS important is what I saw.
No doubt, you can guess what I saw.
Apparently, while the young aristocracy of Europe is attending class in Trinity's cathedral halls and lecture stadiums, there is a quaint little market bustling along the canal. Not too much, just a few stands with people sitting on benches, talking, smoking, laughing, NOT working at 2pm on Thursday.
ANYWAYS, one of the stands had about 14 large, straw woven baskets lined up in rows, and each basket contained a different kind of loaf of bread.
And it was so beautiful, I was running and my iPod was shouting Tall Skirt and a Long Jacket to me, and I just had to smile and think about cake, which made me run in an odd-skip-like way, and a very attractive blue-eyed man crossed to the other side of the street before I reached where he was sitting...
But the best part isn't the cake, it's the icing. As I was awkwardly running zigzags on an already uneven cobblestone path, staring at this masterpiece of a market, a man appeared in line for the bread baskets, and he had THE dirtiest, greasiest, most-sausage-link-y dreadlocks I have ever seen. I felt home.
I am happy to report the hippies are alive and well in my neck of the woods here in Dublin 4, and that's just grand. Maybe I'll run again tomorrow. Maybe I'll find a dreadlock rasta and we'll form a baked goods bond, and have little dreadlock-bread-eating babies. But I doubt it.
Save ferris. And skip class more often.
11 January, 2010
More Wine. And Bread!
After buying a bottle of red wine for 4 euro, Allison and I made our way to our newly befriended American neighbors for dinner. This wouldn’t be a particularly difficult concept, except for the fact that Ireland is in severe panic due to the snowy conditions. With not a snow plow in the city, the 3 inches of snow in the streets make for slippery travel.
I saw a motorcyclist wipeout when he tried to take a turn. Luckily the car in front, behind, and the store cashier nearby stopped and came running to his aid. Though the country ran out of grit days ago (shutting down banks early, airports completely, and allowing many to skip work on Friday), a lot of people are still out and about, stocking up on food, chasing pretty French girls, etc. And Allison and I, well, we just wanted to eat. So we crossed the Grand Canal Bridge, and began shuffling along.
We found the oys apartment, and were greeted by the smell of gourmet college cooking. And bread!
The neighborhood grocer has about 25 kinds of bread. Wheat, rye, Wonder, sota, hotdog rolls (hotdogs are popular here, don’t ask why). Even a Tim Horton’s bakery. Obnoxious, yes, but they love it. Sota bread isn’t so bad really, when you’ve been fighting the tundra that is Ireland.
Things I have learned so far:
-The Irish language talks in circles, and rarely involves the simple response of ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
-Irish men cannot simply be friends with women. When Harry Met Sally, people. Look it up.
-As a country they are a very proud people, but individually they are quite humble. I had drinks with a multimillionaire lawyer from Britain last night, and didn’t realize it till his buddy pulled me aside to explain why he kept taking calls. This alarmed me, because I was involved in a street snowball fight with these gents, and nailed the rich one in the nose, leaving a bloody cut. Oh well.
-Though I am from a town where 2 feet of snow the norm is, the Irish will talk till they’re winded about how it’s STILL worse in Ireland with their 2 inches.
-I could live here easily, and be very, very happy. Assuming I stop ambushing lawyers and get a job.
I saw a motorcyclist wipeout when he tried to take a turn. Luckily the car in front, behind, and the store cashier nearby stopped and came running to his aid. Though the country ran out of grit days ago (shutting down banks early, airports completely, and allowing many to skip work on Friday), a lot of people are still out and about, stocking up on food, chasing pretty French girls, etc. And Allison and I, well, we just wanted to eat. So we crossed the Grand Canal Bridge, and began shuffling along.
We found the oys apartment, and were greeted by the smell of gourmet college cooking. And bread!
The neighborhood grocer has about 25 kinds of bread. Wheat, rye, Wonder, sota, hotdog rolls (hotdogs are popular here, don’t ask why). Even a Tim Horton’s bakery. Obnoxious, yes, but they love it. Sota bread isn’t so bad really, when you’ve been fighting the tundra that is Ireland.
Things I have learned so far:
-The Irish language talks in circles, and rarely involves the simple response of ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
-Irish men cannot simply be friends with women. When Harry Met Sally, people. Look it up.
-As a country they are a very proud people, but individually they are quite humble. I had drinks with a multimillionaire lawyer from Britain last night, and didn’t realize it till his buddy pulled me aside to explain why he kept taking calls. This alarmed me, because I was involved in a street snowball fight with these gents, and nailed the rich one in the nose, leaving a bloody cut. Oh well.
-Though I am from a town where 2 feet of snow the norm is, the Irish will talk till they’re winded about how it’s STILL worse in Ireland with their 2 inches.
-I could live here easily, and be very, very happy. Assuming I stop ambushing lawyers and get a job.
08 January, 2010
The Beginning. Kind of.
Who knew? I skipped the complementary muffin on this morning’s flight (3am NY time) for the complementary merlot.
For the opening of my bread blog, I will blog about wine. It came in a box and the flight attendant (you cannot call them stewardesses anymore) poured it into the mini plastic cup with more heartiness than needed, splashing a little on the cart and me. But I’m not complaining. She didn’t card me.
Onwards and Upwards.
We arrived in the Dublin airport, taxied to the apartment, ran thru the landlord’s upscale pad and thru the meticulously manicured garden behind it, tried the door to our supposed apartment, realized we were at the backdoor, realized we hadn’t a key, realized we were surrounded by stone walls, Kate (housemate) questioned jumping the wall, then our housemates saved us at the last minute.
Soon, we found ourselves in a quaint, lovely little convenient store called Spars. Similar to the American CVS. Except it had BREAD. I bought a baguette for .60 euro, or, with the despicable exchange rate, a dollar. We strolled along a channel around dusk, took a few spills on the ice (this is the first time it has been so cold/snowy/HAILING in Dublin in over 40 years), and I ate the whole loaf. And THUS begins the Bread Blog.
For the opening of my bread blog, I will blog about wine. It came in a box and the flight attendant (you cannot call them stewardesses anymore) poured it into the mini plastic cup with more heartiness than needed, splashing a little on the cart and me. But I’m not complaining. She didn’t card me.
Onwards and Upwards.
We arrived in the Dublin airport, taxied to the apartment, ran thru the landlord’s upscale pad and thru the meticulously manicured garden behind it, tried the door to our supposed apartment, realized we were at the backdoor, realized we hadn’t a key, realized we were surrounded by stone walls, Kate (housemate) questioned jumping the wall, then our housemates saved us at the last minute.
Soon, we found ourselves in a quaint, lovely little convenient store called Spars. Similar to the American CVS. Except it had BREAD. I bought a baguette for .60 euro, or, with the despicable exchange rate, a dollar. We strolled along a channel around dusk, took a few spills on the ice (this is the first time it has been so cold/snowy/HAILING in Dublin in over 40 years), and I ate the whole loaf. And THUS begins the Bread Blog.
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