"It is in the nature of tourism to seek pleasure, not truth; to look for beauty, not mundanity." - Matthew Fort, our professor, and author of "Eating Up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa"

Sevilla was the last stop on our Spain Stage itinerary. We had (mostly) free time (and school time) to: 

 to make friends with the bartenders and drink incredibly cheap glasses of Spanish Riojas....

 to explore the nightlife...

to eat our fair share of tapas....hamburger style and egg....

 to eat our fair share of tapas....mushrooms....

to eat our fair share of tapas....boquerones y espinaca con garbanzo

 to go dancing...

to eat churros for breakfast (second best only to pan con tomato)...

 to eat organic solmorejo (with beets, no bread)...

to eat in a 0 km organic, andalusian-local vegetarian restaurant...

 to not afford to see a bull fight stadium via tour prices, but able to pretend we did...

 to see the beautiful sights around the city...

 to drink homemade martini rosso's and hang out in a tiny religious-themed bar

 to have a belly-aching-from-laughing good time with friends, speaking fluent Spanish of course.

Organic Cartoons II

marriedtothesea.com


www.nataliedee.com

"I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm." — Robert Farrar Capon

locally caught that day.

i'm quite handy with a hammer.

sheep culling check. we were supposed to see the cows being milked. we were supposed to see some bee hives in action - suits and all. we were supposed to chat with a guy who has an oyster farm. we were supposed to go out on the boat around horn head to catch some lobster and crab. 

it's good to know the locals in a small town where everyone knows everyone. 

however, we didn't do any of the above. luckily though, the fisherman had gone out that morning before the rain and had caught some lobster and crab which he cooked and shared. so, we had a feast. check.

 dilled courgette soup. just caught atlantic sea lobster and crab. melted kerry gold butter with tonsa herbs for dipping. buttload of organic garden vegetable salad. fluffy-floury irish potatoes from the farmer's market with capers and lil' red wine vinegar. 

Rutabaga Fries. Also known as Swede Chips.

what to do with a giant rutabaga? also known here as the swede. i had no idea. it’s supposed to be the low-carb version of the potato, so naturally i made one of my favourite foods: fries. also known here as chips. since they were baked instead of fried, they weren’t as crispy as a good french fry is, but it was still pretty tasty. 

burnt.

preheat the oven to 200C. scrub and peel the swede/rutabaga with a sharp knife - carefully. cut it into 1/2 inch discs following the shape of the base. then cut those into fry-sized pieces. place in a roasting pan. coat with extra virgin olive oil dust with paprika and hot chili powder, then mix around to coat evenly. (throw in some whole unpeeled garlic cloves, because whenever something is roasting, it’s always a good chance to roast some garlic!) cook for about 15 minutes until starting to get crisp  and darker around the edges and give a good mix about with a spatula. then cook for another 5 minutes. but don’t forget to reset the timer before you go off and do something completely different like i did. otherwise they’ll be a little burnt - but still good! the smaller garlic cloves will probably be burnt to an solid-ash-charcoal crisp. peel two of the other larger garlic cloves and mash with a fork in a small dish. add some ketchup and some hot red chili pepper flakes and blend as a chip dip. maybe i just love eating hot food right out of the oven with my fingers, and finger foods with dips especially, but despite it being burnt, it was still good enough to try again!  

...follow up to previous post.

I thought it might have sounded a bit odd when I said previously that I was surprised that such an abundant array of vegetables could be grown in one garden in Ireland. I guess I assumed there was, but I was disappointingly surprised by the lack of local foods in the local store - yes, it is a chain and does have a good amount of Irish produce, but the more-organic store, The Green Man up the road doesn't have any fresh produce besides wild lettuce (but it does have some gorgeous Irish cheeses that I lustfully fancy). If there were such farms and gardens hidden in all these fields of green that not only characterize but cover the island, they should be for sale! Sharing my same thoughts, or at least confirming that my thoughts were not so odd, an article from the WSJ writes that chefs, particularly the ones voted best in the world, yay, are moving away from the molecular gastronomy trend and moving towards promoting the local movement - using more vegetables, less red meat, from the surrounding areas. WSJ writes, "Magnus Ek, 44 years old, the chef-proprietor of Oaxen Krog, believes the terroir approach to cuisine emerged after Scandinavian chefs worked and traveled abroad. "When we returned, we looked at our environment in a different way and suddenly discovered what we had on our doorstep, like fantastic wild berries and mushrooms," he says." 

If you could see all the beautiful produce that could be, and is, grown locally - why would you want to buy the rather tasteless tomatoes from Holland just for the sake of including a tomato in a salad? (sorry, Holland). 

and yes, the article uses the word terroir a lot, and in interesting ways - "terroiriste" - and after our terroir class, i will never be able to hear that word with a complex misunderstanding and slight distaste for the word. 

"There is great produce everywhere -- we have created a unique kitchen in the middle of nowhere, but if you just open your eyes and look, you can find local herbs, plants and berries," he says. "Every day there is something new popping up." Belgium chef Kobe Desramaults., WSJ.

Read also the WSJ interview with Michael Pollen, who understands that it's not so easy for everyone to eat locally given the changing seasons in different parts of the world. 

Two quotes to share:

WSJ: Does eating local, sustainable food have to be a lifestyle priority, or can people do it casually?

Mr. Pollan: People can do it casually. There are people who go [to a farmer's market] every week, and there are people who go when the mood strikes them. To eat well takes a little bit more time and effort and money. But so does reading well; so does watching television well. Doing anything with attention to quality takes effort. It's either rewarding to you or it's not. It happens to be very rewarding to me. But I understand people who can't be bothered, and they're going to eat with less care.

WSJ: What do you wish people here understood about their food that they don't now?

Mr. Pollan: We've been conditioned by artificially cheap food to be shocked when a box of strawberries costs $3.

But it's important to know that farmers aren't getting wealthy. When you see strawberries being sold for $1 a box, picture the kind of labor it takes to pick those strawberries and the kind of chemicals it takes to produce those kinds of strawberries without hand weeding.

Eight dollars for a dozen eggs sounds outrageous, but when you think that you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, that's $1.50. It's really not that much when we think of how we waste money in our lives.

Fairway's Garden.

after seeing the Campbell's beautiful and abundant garden which proved to me that many vegetables and herbs could be grown and eaten locally in this rainy island - not just sheep and cows grazing on the lush green fields and after experiencing home grown carrots to be much more rewarding than a 1 euro bagful - i was inspired to see what we could grow in our own garden. a quick stop to the local florist in Creeslough, i rummaged around the pots and plants and couldn't help but smile at all the possibilities. luckily for the wallet, it's the end of the summer aka the end of the season so many of the pots were on sale. if my hands could've have carried more i would have, but i managed to pick up thyme, mint, rosemary and a gooseberry tree - much to my delight. i couldn't wait to get home to plant them! i needed, though, something that could be grown and pretty much looked after on it's own since we're only here maaayyybee twice a year, mum sometimes more. i would love to find some leveled land where i could actually cultivate a garden - would definitely require me to spend more time here (shucks) and maybe start up that B&B where i could cook with ingredients grown in the back yard. well, wishful thinking. maybe we will be back again in time to see the fruit of the gooseberry bush. maybe my 4 plants will survive until i'm back again. maybe i'll cook with them before they even get a chance to flourish...

rosemary, mint, and thyme.

my gooseberry tree!

they have a nice view.

and some company while i'm away.

and some encouraging flowery neighbours.

“A lot of people are wanting to see something done the old way,” Jere said. “They’re tired of plastic and modern things and modern food. People just want to taste what an old vegetable used to taste like when people developed them for flavor versus shipping.”

mum just sent me this nytimes mag article about a couple with a seed company of all sorts of wordly varieties who are trying to bring disappearing vegetables back to the table and encouraging people to eat non-modified foods. i'll see what idigmygarden.com has to offer for Fairway!

Chasing Sheep Video.

don't watch if you get motion sickness.

it's funny that something as simple as a just-hatched lightly poached egg could make one so happy.

throw in:
a salad of completely organic and picked from the vine/dirt into my hands veggies from the garden just up the hill
a beautiful sky of pinks and blues setting over the ocean in front of me
a table set for one (actually made me smile)
and the iPod on shuffle keeping me company.

the tender skins split after the first ripened tomatoes off the vine were picked as the juices were ready to burst. so soft. i literally couldn't wait to bite into. 

happy.

Garden Food.

fresh.from.the.garden.

Labels. Location. What's the Difference?

I wanted to see what the difference was between my 1 euro bag of carrots from Centra and the carrots given to me from the Campbell's backyard garden.

Store Bought:
really crispy with a loud sharp crunchy smack when bitten into. it's very juicy but sort of a watery taste that filled the mouth. it's more noisy than it is flavourful.

Rustic Backyard:
it's harder to bite into, not so sharp and you can feel the woodier layers break. it's still crunchy but not as crisp and the juices fill the mouth with the more-required chewing rather than immediately. it definitely has a heartier carrot flavor that lingers longer.

i'm not very good at describing things. point is: there's a difference. 

duh?

i should probably do the same thing with the three different types of eggs i currently have: organic, free range, and from the Campbell's. but i just can't get my mind around cooking three eggs...and then what? eat them all? i think poached would be the best way to taste and try, but poached eggs - i couldn't take a bite of each, have the yoke run out and save them for later....could i?

the Greenfield Foods organic eggs say "organic hens are fed a premium vegetarian diet and are free to nest, forage, perch, and roam over fresh pastures." I guess that means they are free-range if they are free to do all those things. perch. they are stamped with the Approved Organic Standard IOFGA label. Packed for Greenfield Foods in Co. Monaghan.
the Free Range Eggs say "free range eggs are laid by hens that have freedom to roam in a natural environment. carton 100% recycled board. allergen information: contains eggs." ha. what does natural mean? Packed for Centra in Belfast.
Both have a sticker that says Quality Assurance Scheme Board Bia - Irish Food Board approved Quality Process.
Campell's eggs arrived at my doorstep in a plastic bag and wrapped in a couple paper towels, no labels.

all are from ireland. co. monaghan is further away than belfast. i could walk to the campbell's. so, after all this, what IS the difference? which one is best? why do i think about this stuff?? does it matter? i'm not even in class right now!

ps the store bought carrot is the one on the right. 

Organic Cartoons.

toothpaste for dinner.

I had this printed out at my desk when I worked at the Food Network and kept the .jpg on my desktop...but looking around on the site years later I found some other amusing cartoons to share.