Tag: food

Nice Little Things

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Christmas time is full of nice little things that make it real and enjoyable. You just have to notice them and that’s why I wanted to write some of them here.

file_000-1The first time in my Dublin Christmas I had an opportunity to go to the Carol Service – unbelievable, that I didn’t do it before, especially in Dublin but somehow we just have missed it. Even this time it didn’t come up as a plan but we just found it on our way to the Christmas Market when Sean took me to see the church where he had sung as a school kid. It was a nice big Cathedral, very near to us and just on our way to the Christmas Market – St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral at Marlborough Street. When we entered the Cathedral a Boys’ Choir were rehearsing for their concert and they were so cute and nice that we changed our plans and stayed for the Carol Service which was just to begin after an hour. It was the best choice because the service was so nice and it was so good to listen to a Boys’ Choir  – a real Christmas feeling with Carols. After the service, I had a chance to shake hands with the priest and say thank you. It was really one of these nice small things and I am so happy that we both enjoyed it – we both have been singing in choirs, so why not 🙂

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After the service, we went to M&S to treat ourselves with some nice posh food and bought a big jar of partridge pateé with pear chutney which I named “The Partridge on a Pear Tree”, and which was really delicious. M&S Food Shop is among My Little Nice things without any questions asked and I am looking forward what kind of delicatessen we will find for our New Years Eve.

And one more nice thing is to get Christmas Cards as a couple – probably something that you never think about if you have been a couple for a long time but still so nice to me. And actually, nowadays you don’t get too many Christmas Cards in envelopes any more.

My first home-made pasta

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When you have got a pasta machine and it has been lonely for a while and almost forgotten that it’s meant for making pasta, it seems to be the right time to take it out and give it a try. Especially if there’s someone around who has never done it.

Pasta making has always seemed to me as a lot of mess, a kitchen full of flower and hours of spending doing a hard work and after that ou will get just pasta. But as we both like cooking and I like especially cooking together, then I was quite interested and really wanted to try to make a real home-made pasta. It came out that it wasn’t such a mess at all and it was a great fun to see how these narrow spaghetti came through the holes of the pasta machine and the result was tasty. Even that we put too much lemon into the avocado sauce couldn’t ruin it and our home-made pasta was grand 🙂

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It’s Sushi time

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This was the first time for both of us to make sushi at home but it was also something that we had wanted to try for a long time. At first, we went through several different videos on Youtube and picked out the tips and tricks we loved the most. Then we planned to go to the Asian shop, which is also one of my favourite places here in Dublin but on our way, we couldn’t help but popped into the most favourite place – The Chapters – my favourite bookshop and without any planning bought a nice book about making sushi. After that of course, we went to the Asian shop, bought the sushi mat, some pickled ginger, rice vinegar (which was a totally new thing for me), and the seaweed sheets and came back to start with the best part – making sushi.

We used smoked salmon, fish sticks, shrimps, avocado, cucumber and mango slices, also some cream cheese and of course rice, that was mixed with the rice vinegar which gave the rice the right taste. The most interesting part was the rolling, and it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it could be, actually it was not difficult at all because the mat really helps to keep it all together and as the rice is sticky, it all stays well and tight.

Baking bread in Dublin

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All the Estonians say that the thing they miss more than anything else when they are abroad is rye bread. Actually, I have to admit that I don’t miss rye bread so much because usually, I eat more wholemeal bread at home and so it’s funny that one of the first things that we did together, this time, was baking a rye bread 🙂

That’s because there was a bread baking machine which had been never used and it was just exciting to try it and the smell of the freshly baked rye bread is one of the best things that I know. But I have to say that it tasted as good as it smelled and it was so easy to do it with this machine. We just had to put all the ingredients into the machine and that was it – nothing else because everything was done by the machine and we just had to wait when it all got ready. The next time we are going to try the wholemeal bread and then we can make up our minds which of these was these best one.

A cheerful look makes a dish a feast.

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That’s so true, that I couldn’t help myself to write it down here. It could be understood in two ways, at least for me it gives two gorgeous meanings. It’s really nice to have your dish to look cheerful, or colourful or full of life and art, but it’s always nice to get a cheerful or friendly look or a look that’s full of love when you share your dish with your loved one and that makes it always a real feast for me.

Here I would like to keep some of our little feasts, just to have them in order to remind me some wonderful moments that we have shared 🙂

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The most haunted house in Ireland

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1-IMG_7701With a rainy day, we visited the most haunted house in Ireland – the Loftushall. It is said that the Devil himself had visited that place and put a hex on a daughter so that her ghost hasn’t found peace till now and haunts in the house. In the 90-s one boldfaced man started to run a hotel in the house but on one night all the guests and staff ran away without any explanations and left all their belongings into the house and never came back to take away a thing. After that, the house has been abandoned and no one had wanted to come to live there. Nowadays it’s a tourist place, where they make guided tours with ghosts jumping from around the corners and spooking the poor tourists who have willingly paid for getting scared. But it is said that the house decides on its own who can stay there and for how long time. It seemed that our stay was quite accepted because we didn’t meet any real ghosts but of course, we did our tour and went quickly away. Maybe the ghost has got used to the crowds and stays still in some hidden place 🙂

After the spooky afternoon, we stopped at Templer’s Pub and had an early dinner. I ordered fish and chips because the fish that they offered was monkfish and that has become my favourite here. And sometimes you just feel like fish and chips, especially when you have been visiting some spooky house with ghosts on a rainy day.

For desert I got a jar of jam, ok they had also sprinkled a bit of crushed gingerbread  on it and a glass of sticky cream to eat with it. By the way, it was called Fruit Crumble 🙂

 

Easter time in Dublin

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This year our Easter time was the time of computer nerds 🙂 But a lot of work got done and a lot of pieces were fixed, just to the places where they were supposed to fit and they did. And the peace that was in my mind settled down there and started to feel itself like at home. I love that feeling.

Anyway, I walked around here and there and for my surprise found the Big Easter Event just some steps from my home. OK, I knew that it was there, but somehow I had forgotten it, or just it didn’t fit into the computer nerds’ world.

I guess it was interesting because it woke up a bit of historical Dublin and definitely I will go and see it on some other Easter, but this time I just got some pieces and a lot of crowds all around that.

Here are some pieces of Easter just some steps from my home.

Life is like a Merry-go-round – and we watched Mary Poppins just a day before
Besides being a computer nerd we also watched a lot of movies
Looks nice and red 😉
Votes for Women – the topic was 1900-s
An old steam engine on O’Connell Street

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I had also a good opportunity to meet some new cousins from England and we had a nice family dinner on Sunday. I think that there are so many cousins whom I have never met and I cannot even imagine if I can remember them all by name. But the best part was that I could understand them all quite well and after being shy for a while I even started to talk. Unfortunately, every time when that happens and I feel that I am confident enough to talk, my time is done and I have to fly back. But one day it will change and I will skip this being shy period.

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Of course, I couldn’t leave without scrambled eggs, I never do that. Here are my personal scrambled eggs and I have never got anything better. And the asparagus was delicious.