dent-de-lion

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Posted by wendy | Posted in Cooking, expat life, Irish Cooking | Posted on 14-06-2010

Most people think dent-de-lion (aka dandelions) is just some weedy plant that are blithe to their gardens. Our land lord certainly think so for he gave us three bottles of dandelion killers. They used to be under the stairs, but I moved them to the annex (yes we have an annex!).

My sister in law gave me a Irish cook book when we moved here. The book had all sorts of recipes Irish. I was particular drawn to dandelions. I didn’t know they were editable! Apparently the leaves can be used for salad and flowers can be eaten. I was fascinated by the fried flower recipe. Any recipe with the word ‘FRIED’ is by default is delicious in my book!

So today we went out to gather dandelions. I wonder if our neighbors think we are insane!

Surprisingly it was hard to find. I guess people really hate them!

Anyway, feast your eyes on these wonderful dent-de-lions!

Before :

Dandelion Flowers

After:

Fried Dandelion Flowers

Mr said they taste like bland fried vegetable. I will have to tweak the recipe next time to see if I should change the herbs or more salt. It smelled delicious as I was cooking them!

If you want to try it out, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 20 to 30 dandelion – or how ever much you can find in the garden
  • Vegetable Oil for frying (you can use olive oil I just had vegetable oil handy
  • 2 tablespoon of flour (you can use cormeal if you want)
  • Pinch of salt
  • Pinch of black pepper
  • Pinch of dried thyme
  • pinch of dried oregano
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions:

  • Rinse the flowers and dry them gently. I left them on a plate on top of some paper towels.
  • Mix the flour, salt, black pepper, dried thyme, and dried oregano.
  • Heat frying pan over medium heat with the vegetable oil. You don’t need that much just enough to cover the flowers.
  • Dip the flower in the beaten egg and then in the seasoned flour mixture.
  • Fry the little flowers in batches, stalk side up until golden.
  • Serve

You really want to cut as much as stalk off as possible without breaking up the flower. It’s pretty tricky, but if you cut too deep you just end up with petals. It’s kind of cool but hard to fry.

Malahide Station

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Posted by wendy | Posted in expat life | Posted on 04-06-2010

I hate to admit this but being a Lady of Leisure is kind of dull. There’s a Malahide Ladies Club but they don’t have a website and I have no idea where they meet.

So I decided to strike out on my own and do a little of Dublin tour by DART. Once a week, weather permitting, I’ll take the DART to a station and walk around the station and see the sights. One thing I noticed about these stations is that at each station there’s a little sign that says 15 min to blah, 10 min to blah, so this should be fun.

So today, I am starting with the Malahide Station. Why you ask? Because this is where I live and I am too lazy to hop on the DART today. The weather is pretty overcast today so this is what you all get today!

L1030452

The Malahide Station was built in 1844. That’s pretty darn old! The top of each station column has these decorative writing. Mr says it has something to do with the Royal Family. I don’t know, I can’t read it. If you can let me know what you think it says.

L1030453

The station also has a waiting room. I took a peek inside, it looked like it once had a working fireplace in it! But I didn’t take a picture. Next time I go there I’ll fill it in here.

Malahide is a nice working village. I took some photos but I can’t seem to find them. It’s got a butcher, few grocery stores, clothing stores, etc. Of course there are lots of pubs as well. In addition, the people of Malahide must really like Chinese food here because I counted 4 Chinese restaurants!

The main attraction here would be the Malahide Castle. I have not been there for many many years now. I probably will hit the castle when my brother comes here for a visit in a few weeks. The land around here used to all own by the castle dude. We saw a fantastic apartment next to the castle grounds, but it was not meant to be because Mr didn’t want apartment living. (It WAS nice though.)

One thing that’s a bit scary here is the lack of parking space. Case in point, the following picture shows a car in the correct parking space. But like it’s in the middle of the street!

Irish Parking Space

By the way that’s not a one way street!

The drivers here are like nutty too. This morning I almost got ran over by a old dude driving an SUV. He was making a turn and didn’t use his indicator and maybe I am invisible here or whatever he just like ran through in front of me. If I get hit I would get money, but seeing I don’t have health insurance right now, getting hit is probably a bad idea. And plus if I get hit I won’t be able to get on this little DART adventure. So I think I did the right thing by not getting hit.

It’s the little things in life!

Where The Streets Have No Sign

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Posted by wendy | Posted in expat life, travel | Posted on 01-06-2010

Today I decided to go solo to the city centre. I did all my research, figured out which station to get off (Tara Station) and the directions from Google Maps. I was all proud of myself because it’s my first solo trip in the big city! Well, that’s quite true, when I worked here for a few weeks back in the early 2000 I had a lot of fun exploring the city by myself. But that was different, I was here for work and when I say explore I mean walking 5 minute from my hotel to the O2 Irish office. Those were fun and crazy times!

I got off the Tara Station and the Mr (he was there to meet his brother for lunch) pointed out where south is and off I go. I never understood why directions say south, north, or whatever. What happened to good old turn left on the street. How does one know where south is? At least you will always know where left is because you can always look at your left hand!

Anyway, the journey started out pretty badly. I went the wrong way, though it was south it was south on the wrong street. I was able to correct myself and find the right streets.

Dublin should coin itself as where the street have no sign because the street signs are pretty scarce. I guess it’s the American in me where every street corner has a sign that tells you ‘hey you are here!’ like the giant red X on a treasure map.

I was able to successfully navigated myself to the 3rd street (College Street), and I was able to go no further. The street just ends, there is College Greens Street, but no Sutton Street (the 4th Street). I know I could have asked someone, but what fun would that be? That would be admitting that I have failed! I will not let Dublin be my Waterloo!

After a few hours (it seems like a few hours it’s probably like only 40 min or so) I waved my little white flag in defeat and pray that I still remember how to get back to the station.

The lack of street signs threw me off once again, I went in to the wrong entrance. It seem like a legit entrance because it said ‘Entrance to Tara Station.’ But it also said it was closed at certain times, and it should have been open! I read another sign and it said to go to Charles Quay Entrance but it doesn’t tell you how to get there. After some trial and error I found the station and got on the train and headed out of the city centre! I end up taking the train until the end of the line and came back just to see what’s out there.

You might think from reading all that I had a horrible day, but I really enjoyed my day. It was nice to get out of the house and look at the people. Dublin has gotten very diverse since I was first here in 1999. You hear all different type of accent and language being spoken or maybe I still can’t Irish accents.

Anyway, best thing heard on the train today:
High School Girl 1 : .. like War of the Worlds.
High School Girl 2 : What’s that?
High School Girl 1 : You know, the Tom Cruise movie.

Orson Welles probably is rolling in his grave.