Food, Round Two

On a drive early in my stay here I noticed, on the Edenderry Road, a small sign, Organic Farm Shop, Friday 1-7.  It took me until today, three Fridays into my stay, to be able to go. I missed the turn on the way back from Ballinderry and got nearly to Edenderry before I realized I had done and made the always precarious u-turn back. The lane into the farm went under an archway of sheltering trees just coming into bud that were planted on both sides of the dirt track. At the end of the lane the drive opened onto a gravel yard. On the right was a small farmhouse painted white with the usual dark wood trim. Directly in front was the barn. The door of the narrow side room was open, and inside two young women were packing eggs. Across from the house on the third side of the rectangle was a second outbuilding; this one housed the shop.

The shed, a low-ceilinged windowless building with cement block walls, was about eight feet deep and maybe twice as wide. It was filled with food, fruits on the left, vegetables directly in front, whole free-range chickens and packages of spelt and other grains on the right. On the floor under the chickens were glass bottles of unhomogenized milk. The table in the center of the room held two huge wedges of cheese, which turned out to be a locally made Emmenthaler. Everything was organic.

            I had despaired of finding produce that wasn’t shrink-wrapped and shipped from Spain or China, and although everything at the shop was certainly not locally sourced (the pile of bananas on the fruit side was a dead giveaway) it was all fresh, healthy-looking and utterly appealing. Thinking of my tiny fridge and the fact that I had stupidly bought some produce at the Dunnes Stores the night before, I nonetheless filled my arms with broccoli, potatoes, an enormous head of red-leaf lettuce, cremini mushrooms, and some gorgeous parsley. Sadly, I had just missed the asparagus, a vegetable I haven’t laid eyes on since I got here and would have paid nearly anything to have.

 The wiry woman in a knit cap who runs the stand, clearly a great marketer, offered me a taste of the cheese; the complexity was intense, but I succumbed to only a tiny sliver, most of which I have already devoured. She of course talked me into eggs, and I couldn’t pass up the milk either; I’ll make some cream of broccoli soup for my cousins.

Tonight I had a short time to prepare dinner before heading off to a meeting of the Edenderry Historical Society. I found myself focusing on my usual fallback dinner when I’m in a hurry, scrambled eggs. This time the yolks of the eggs were thick and rich and orange when I whisked them. I sautéed the mushrooms

first, then stirred in the eggs and finished them off with lots of chopped parsley. With the eggs I had the red-leaf lettuce in a salad with red peppers and feta cheese, two purchases from the supermarket. Heaven.

This week I’ll buy some pans so I can cook some asparagus and one of the chickens, and I’ll be on the doorstep when the shop opens at 1 next Friday.

Food, Round One: A slight diversion

This post is for Owen, who was the first to ask me, not without a note of irony in his voice, How is the food?

I'm not sure what prompted me to order the steak and mushroom pie for lunch. It may have been the weather--the description on the forecast says 'periods of rain' which turns out to mean bone-shattering cold, showers that come down as if someone above is being playful with the on and off taps, and whipping winds. The day's productivity is somewhat hampered by the need to seek heat by any means possible. Although I know it won't,

 still it wouldn't entirely surprise me if it snowed.

I'm also at about the end of my rope with Indian takeaway or warmed-over prepared meals, which is the only food I am able to prepare in my little room except for the rare foray into scrambled eggs on the cooker. Last night I had a cold pasta salad from the Super-Valu. Two nights ago I went to the Trim Hotel for dinner, an act of pure desperation that resulted in an edible pasta bake and a very long one-sided conversation (his) with an American therapist here on a photographic vacation.

Today I headed back to Watson's, the first place I ate when I arrived in Trim. This was my third visit: my ordering at the other two was cautious: first, a plain omelette on the all-day breakfast menu, with brown bread toast. 'Sure you don't want chips with that?' the waitress asked. I'm fairly certain I am the only person who ever ate at Watson's who didn't order the chips. The second time  I ordered a chicken sandwich with salad, which means here a big mayonnaisey concoction that may or may not have something green in it.

 When I arrived the waitress, who recognizes me now, directed me toward the small balcony dining area; she gestured at the spot I sat in the other two times and said, it's freezing there. Maybe it was that friendly gesture that made me decide to order some real Irish food. 'I'll have the steak and mushroom pie, please.' 'Do you want chips or veg with that?' Veg, please, I answered. 'But you do want potatoes, yeah?' Sensing only one correct answer to this question, I said, Fine. The waitress looked a bit more satisfied at my response this time and went off to place the order.

The plate was enormous, easily the size of a small serving platter and nothing like the lunch plates I dine off at home. The wedge of pie must have been four inches wide at its widest point. Beside it were some boiled carrots,several stalks of boiled cauliflower, and one piece of broccoli. The rest of the plate was filled with potatoes, not one but three scoops of good Irish mashed. And everywhere there was gravy. Only the broccoli had escaped, or nearly escaped, being coated with it.

I peeled back the top crust of the pie and dug into the beef and mushrooms, both of which were delicious. Even gravy-drenched, the vegetables were not bad. As for the potatoes, I took a couple of bites but mostly pushed them around on the plate to disguise the fact that I wasn't eating them for the waitress' sake. 

At the table next to mine, four men polished off similar platters of food, then ordered dessert: huge slabs of chocolate cake with fist-sized globs of cream to accompany them.

Tonight I'll eat the leftover pilau rice from my last Indian takeaway. Tomorrow, in my new apartment, I'll cook a real dinner. 

Domhnach Cásca

By 11am the church was packed. I got there just as the bells finished ringing, and found a seat near the back of the nave. The pew had a couple of spots left because to get in there you had to squeeze between a pillar and a stand holding free copies of the Irish Catholic News. Just after I sat down I was joined by a young woman in tight jeans, a black jacket, and orange heels decorated with rhinestones. Her shoes were the pointiest I had ever seen. 

         As the service started people continued to pour in, so that within minutes there were at least 100 people standing in the aisles and across the back of the church. All ages were at Mass today, from babes in arms to primary school children to teenagers with blond mohawks to pensioners, some of the men having the look of someone who spends most of his time in the open air. Just in front of me stood two girls, ages about 5 and 7, both with the most beautiful hair, long and raven and slightly curly. I had to force myself not to stare at it.

The church is large and unremarkable, built around the turn of the twentieth century, with undistinguished stained glass windows, depictions of the stations of the cross in wood and ceramic ranged around the nave, and the usual Catholic tendency toward gaudy ornaments, including some mysterious red globes on the altar that looked exactly like Christmas balls from my considerable viewing distance. The elements of real beauty are the Celtic friezes that are painted on the stone at various points above and beside the altar.

 

          As we stood the first hymn, unfortunately one of the many, many hymns that I know from my childhood, I began to sing with the choir. It took a chorus of Christ the Lord is Risen Today for me to realize that I was the only one in the congregation singing. Here, evidently, is a major difference between Catholic and Protestant services. 

         I had planned to stand with the congregation but sit when they knelt, a sort of private rebellion against religion in general, but the first time I tried that the man behind me inadvertently stuck his folded hands, which were resting on the top of the pew in front of him, in my back, so I quickly slid off the pew and knelt with the others. When the priest asked the congregation to remember people in their prayers I realized that I had someone to remember: Claire's friend Brian Franklin. Brian committed suicide last December at the age of 21; his funeral mass was the last time I had been to a Catholic service. I said a sort of secular prayer for Brian, Justine and Bob, and was glad I had chosen to attend a Catholic service today. Brian’s death was one of the most difficult of the deaths of my children’s friends.        

         The music, once I realized that I was to listen, not sing, was impressive for a small parish, the choir balanced and soaring out over the organ. There was even a trumpet; the addition of the brass brought a sense of fullness to the singing that for once the organ didn't ruin.

         Father Andy Farrell could have been sent from central casting. Sixtyish, rotund, and with the florid face of someone who likes his whiskey of an evening, he spoke in front of this massive crowd with the confidence of someone who has done this more times than he could count, which he undoubtedly has. His sermon centered on Ireland's serious economic woes, and although the best he could offer, in the spirit of the day, was a better time in the hereafter, he did suggest that in this life these current hardships would pass, as they always do.

         The service was the third time I saw Father Farrell. The first was an encounter in the yard outside the church as I passed through a day or two ago. He was headed toward his quarters and greeted me fulsomely, undoubtedly assuming I was one of his more errant parishioners, the type who shows up only twice a year, at Easter and Christmas. This morning I nearly bumped into him as I entered the church for what I thought was the 10am service. What I faced was a starkly empty church and the good Father saying farewell to the last of

the worshipers for the 9am mass. Because I was an hour early I took the opportunity to walk along the River Boyne, which runs through Trim. The day was brilliantly bright and warm, and I realized again that for me this kind of gentle communing with the outdoors has always been my best form of Sunday worship.