Rumex acetosa - Say what?

Sorrel. Have you ever heard of it? Eaten it? If not, you've got to learn more about it, try growing it, and experiment with it in the kitchen! It's a fabulous addition to any garden. In the US, most "foodies" have heard of French sorrel, but there is another beautiful variety called bloody sorrel or blood-veined sorrel. The veins of these leaves of this variety are deep red, making the plant very visually interesting. The red color does not affect the flavor, however. Sorrel has a lemony/citrusy, tangy flavor that brightens salads and pairs well with arugula and spinach and with sweet vegetables like roasted beets and caramelized onions. Toss sorrel leaves into soups or add to scrambled eggs or omelettes. Sorrel can also be juiced along with your favorite fruits and veggies to make a healthy and nutritious juice, or toss some into your green smoothies along with a bit of fresh ginger for some real zing. There are many variations of sorrel soup, too, most involving cream and egg yolks as thickening agents, but lighter versions can be made as well. It's incredibly versatile and so darned easy to grow. It's perennial, so once planted, there's very little maintenance, and it reappears faithfully each spring, providing edible foliage from early spring right through early to mid winter. What does all this have to do with Ireland? Well, sorrel grows wild all over Ireland and is typically found in grasslands, woodlands, and even roadside ditches (or so I've read). In Ireland, it's known as sheep's sorrel, and it is distinctly different from another type of sorrel called wood sorrel, the plant that we recognize as the shamrock. Since we'll be in Ireland during the springtime, riding our bikes on roads that pass through grasslands and woodlands, I plan to do some sorrel-hunting. I'll post pictures if I find any! For additional information and recipes, you might like to visit these sites: http://www.ireland-guide.com/article/sorrel.10206.html http://wildandslow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/WILD_SORREL_FINAL.pdf PS If any of you know why I can no longer get paragraphs and indenting to show up in my blog posts, I'd love to hear your thoughts. It's frustrating to see these giant uni-paragraphs on my blog.

Since We're On the Subject of Potatoes...

 

 

 



Potato culture just fascinates me.  Why do some nightshades, like eggplants and peppers, produce their fruits above ground while potatoes produce theirs in the form of tubers underground?  I did see some fruit-like growths on top of my potato plants one year, but it's the only year out of the over 15 years I've been cultivating potatoes that I'd ever seen those non-edible fruits form from the flowers.  Very odd. 

In any event, it thrills me to look at the lush growth above the soil and, once the plants have flowered, to imagine the tubers underneath the surface pushing the soil out of their way as they grow larger and larger.  This photo shows some of my "Warba-Pink Eye" potatoes that I harvested in September 2012 (hover over photo and click to see larger).  I had robbed every plant of some tubers before this point in the harvest, so the photo shows what was left of the plant's tubers once I'd already robbed several over the preceding weeks.  The summer of 2012 saw my most productive potato harvest ever - 44 pounds from my 9' x 4' plot in a raised bed.  Forty-four pounds of potatoes would have kept an Irish man fed for only 4 days during the 1800s in Ireland, when the average person consumed about 10 to 14 pounds of potatoes per day - and nothing else.  Of course, potatoes are only one source of many types of food for us, so we still have over 10 pounds of last summer's harvest left in storage.  They're starting to sprout, so I'm using them more frequently. 

This is a basket of Warba Pink Eye potatoes harvested in September 2012.  As of February 10, 2013, we still have some left, and they're still looking pretty good!


The varieties I grew this past summer were Warba-Pink Eyes, Chieftains, Yukon Gems and Purple Vikings, along with one experimental tuber - the bright red ones pictured below in the pan grew from an organic potato that I bought at Whole Foods and that had started to sprout on the kitchen counter.  I figured it couldn't hurt (too much) to plant it, and it turned out to be very productive! 

The tubers I actually purchased for planting were in excellent shape when they arrived from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds (www.irisheyesgardenseeds.com), and they produced a sizeable and healthy harvest.  This week, I'll be selecting next season's varieties, which will surely include a golden-fleshed type, a white-fleshed type, and varieties with different skin colors.  I try to select all-around potatoes that can be used for boiling, mashing or roasting, because I'm not very good at remembering which ones are best for which method of cooking.  My intentions are always to remember these details, but as the summer wears on, my memory wears out :-)

One recent experiment with my potato supply was an effort at cabbage and potato soup.  The only cabbage-like plant that I had in the garden in late November was a mature Portuguese kale, which is very much like a collard and which had formed a large head like a cabbage (they're all brassicas and are often interchangeable in recipes). 

 

 

 



Once the veggies were cooked and tender, I used my immersion blender to achieve a smooth texture and seasoned the soup with salt and pepper.  I was a little disappointed to find the taste quite bland and unappealing, though, so I ventured into my snow-covered backyard and harvested a nice bunch of French sorrel.  I quickly sauteed the sorrel in some butter and added that to the pot, using my immersion blender again to mix it in.  The sorrel made all the difference in terms of brightening up the flavor and adding that subtle lemony kick that sorrel is known for.  Here is the final result, topped with a dollop of creme fraiche:

 

Not a bad soup, given its humble beginnings as Portuguese kale and potatoes!

 



Thanks to Frank McCourt for these Dublin pub recommendations!

I can't wait to surprise my husband by bringing to him to several of the pubs featured in Frank McCourt's PBS special, "Historic Pubs of Dublin."  Here's a link to the trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGnmYIePYeg

McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, takes the viewer on a walking tour of Dublin, stopping in 13 of Dublin's oldest and most famous pubs, some of which he frequented when he was a grad student at Trinity College.  He also visits the Jameson Distillery and the Guinness Factory/Store, walks across the Ha'Penny Bridge and meanders through St. Stephen's Green.  The video packs a lot into its 55 minutes, moves at a good pace and keeps things entertaining with traditional Irish pub music. 

 from connect-123.com

The pubs I'm most excited to visit in our one evening in Dublin are the Brazen Head (the oldest pub in Dublin!), Kehoe's (pictured above- this place hasn't changed much since it opened in 1803, except that women are now allowed to order Guinness and they're not required to sit in a "snug" - more on that later), and The Stag's Head - complete with its mosaic sign built into the sidewalk out front.  An interior shot of The Stag's Head, borrowed from their website, is shown here.  Note the stag's head in the stained glass windows.  The stag features prominently in the decor, apparently!    Below is an exterior shot of the Brazen Head, which opened for business in 1198 AD.  The walls of the Brazen Head have overheard the conversations of Ireland's major literary figures and their most famous political revolutionaries who gathered here to plot insurrections against the British government.  We don't plan to do anything so dramatic.. just enjoy a good pint and feel the spirit of the place.

www.brazenhead.com photo

 

After we visit these three pubs, assuming time permits, and if we can keep drinking more Guinness, we'll check out some of the other pubs featured in the documentary.  They're all amazing, with too much history to wrap one's head around.

I really enjoyed this video.  If you're looking for some good armchair travel, pour yourself a pint and rent this video on Netflix!

A Foodie In Ireland

Delicious, healthy food isn't really what came to mind when I first thought of traveling to Ireland.  During my Irish-American childhood, I ate lots of meat and potatoes, and occasionally we mixed things up by having potatoes and meat.  Throughout most of the year, we ate canned vegetables with our meat and potatoes (or potatoes and meat), so I was always excited when summer arrived, because it meant that the farm down the road would be opening their fruit stand.  Luckily for me, my mom enjoyed shopping there and teaching me how to prepare fresh fruits and vegetables.  Overall, though, our diet was very basic, flavored only with salt and pepper (herbs? spices?  Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what are they?), and I didn't learn to really "cook" until my late 20s.  Cooking has become one of my true passions, and since I'm now also an avid grower of food, there's plenty of home-grown fresh, frozen, and canned produce to supply us year-round. 

So, the food in Ireland wasn't really a big draw.  Rather, it was something I knew we'd have to consume over there to survive for two weeks and that it might not be too bad as long we could find some good stew.  I wondered at one point how many variations of meat and potatoes we would try and whether or not we would find any (good) salad.  It's not like going to Italy, for heaven's sake, where the food - glorious Italian food - is one of the main attractions.

The first book I ordered to learn more about the type of food we might encounter was, "The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook."  The recipes reinforced the idea that we'd be eating the meals of my childhood, featuring none other than meat and potatoes:  colcannon (mashed potatoes with cooked greens throughout), beef stew, lamb stew, and that sort of fare.  Hearty and sustaining, and probably quite tasty, but not exactly heavy on fresh, leafy greens, curcurbits, or cruciferous vegetables.  That said, there were some recipes in the book that surprised me - Buttered Kale with Chives and Lemon, for instance.  Well, that sounds almost... Italian!  This is sounding promising, I thought.  So I explored further.

Then I was fortunate enough to have discovered Georgina Campbell's "Ireland for Food Lovers." It's a lovely book, and there is also an incredibly detailed, easy-to-use iPad app that I've downloaded for the trip.    Campbell provides county-by-county recommendations on artisanal food producers, places to shop or visit, places to eat & stay, farmers' markets, and food festivals.  The app includes links to any of these places that you desire to read more about, which is very handy. 

The most exciting part - for me - about the resources Campbell has put together is that they identify gems such as local jam makers and cheese producers, organic farm-to-table restaurants and places that serve and sell additive-free, organically-produced wine.  For example, here's an excerpt of a desription of what's grown specifically to be served at a restaurant on one of the Aran Islands:  "Potatoes, vegetables, fruit and herbs are home-grown on this restaurant site - an amazing range including spinach, braod beans, peas, scallions and onions, carrots, parsnips and radishes, fennel bulbs, rocket, lollo rosso, masses of herbs, rhubarb, pears and soft fruits like raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and blackberries - and even the elderflower cordial is handmade in Cork by Marie-Therese's mother, Breda Leahy."  We're not talking basic meat and potatoes here, my friend.  This is a veritable symphony of produce, not just the same old chord!  Alas, this place isn't on our itinerary, but it's representative of the vibrant food scene that's taken hold in Ireland.

I wanted to share this, because I just wasn't aware until I found Georgina Campbell's book and iPad app that there would be so many amazing food opportunities in Ireland.  This is, in part, why my travel philosophy includes doing pre-trip research (but more on that later).  I've since found that there's even an Edible Ireland website (www.edible-ireland.com), chock-full of links to local food producers, shops, festivals, and markets, as well as restaurants that serve organic and locally-sourced fresh foods.  On the "About" page of the Edible Ireland website, the author writes, "As Colman Andrews says in The Country Cooking of Ireland, “Ireland — for its superlative raw materials, its immensely satisfying traditional home cooking, and its new wave of artisanal producers and imaginative but well-grounded chefs — [is] simply one of the most exciting food stories in the world today.”  Wow.

Here is a link to Campbell's website:  http://www.ireland-guide.com/shop/product.php?item_id=8901.  And to order the book on Amazon, go to this link: http://www.amazon.com/Ireland-Food-Lovers-Georgina-Campaperbackell/dp/190316429X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357332132&sr=8-1&keywords=ireland+for+food+lovers
I think you'll enjoy!!

Update:  I just learned about the most amazing restaurant that's right around the corner from our hotel in Dublin:  http://www.cornucopia.ie/  I saw it on www.happycow.net, which I've found to be a great resource for traveling within the US.  Didn't realize they included destinations across the pond.  So excited!