Blackberry picking - a Recession-Busting Sentimental Journey

The weather has been lovely for the past few weeks, and we are all grateful for this Indian Summer after three wet and dreary months of supposed summer . One of the bounties of this late good spell has been a fantastic crop of blackberries in those hedgerows that have escaped the ravages of the industrial hedge-cutters that have transformed our highways and byways into regimented straight-edged bordered roadways.

I guess it is good and safer to have some control over our wild roadside borders, but the downside of all the traffic and road improvements is that it is a bit of a gamble with your life to go for a stroll down any road where there are no footpaths (pavements), and also the dearth of any wild fruit like blackberries in the ditches. (I use that term advisedly - it means a hedge to me, though Dutch hubby assures me a ditch is a water-filled drain or moat in Holland! We agree to differ on the semantics, I always called hedges ditches so I will hardly change now!)

Anyway, blackberry picking and foraging in the hedgerows for the lucious black fruit that ruins your hands and dyes clothes a deep purple generally beyond redemption has fallen foul of two things since my childhood halcyon days - traffic and pollution on the roads and also the hedge-cutting machines. I spent hours blackberry-picking as a child out the roads along with all the other kids in the town, and we fought for the best bushes, as we could sell our fruit to a local shopkeeper who presumably made jam or sold them on - I remember getting 6d (old pence from pre-decimalisation 1972 days) a pound so there was a great incentive to get bucketloads. My mother didn't get much of a look-in for her jam unless I was feeling very generous.

Imagine my delight then this year when I was in a remote part of my work area one day and coming out of a house I saw the brambles heavy with ripe blackberries on a narrow country lane where there were few houses, no agriculture and fields with undisturbed hedges where a cutter could hardly get by. There were a few cows and horses in the nearby fields, and I made sure that I came to work armed with some plastic containers the next day.

I spent a few lunchbreaks this week picking pounds of fruit, and the pickings were so rich I managed to fill two containers with about 1-2 pounds of berries each in the space of about a half-hour, leaving me enough time to have a sandwich overlooking the beautiful sea views you see in the top photo.

I made jam over the course of this week about 4 times, and a few tarts with apples and blackberries, while I gave away a couple of pots of jam and still have over a half-dozen.

The recipe for the Blackberry Jam is here and it is simplicity itself - and delicious!

BLACKBERRY JAM

• 2 pounds or a Kilo of Blackberries - wash in a colander and pick over for any blemishes and little bugs that can get on them.
• 300ml water.
• One Pound sugar for every pound of fruit.

Method

• Boil the blackberries and water in a covered pot until fruit is soft.
• Add sugar and mix wel.
• Boil and skim off any foam that rises to surface.
• Turn down heat to a steady simmer.
• Simmer/boil gently till setting point reached (wrinkles when dripped onto a clean plate)
• Warm jars in oven and pot jam when it stops bubbling
• Cover jars immediately with metal caps or jampot cellophane covers and rubber bands.
• When you hear lid pop closed it has sealed and jam will stay fresh for a year or more until opened.

It is delicious on oven-fresh baked bread and with rice pudding or yoghurt, ice cream or with a number of desserts - you can use it with other fruit in summer puddings for added flavour as it is so intensely flavoured.

The tart you see in the photos is similar to my earlier post on Apple Tart but with the addition of about a cupful of blackberries along with the sliced apples and sugar. No need to add cloves or cinnamon as the flavours blend wonderfully and should stand alone. Delicious with whipped cream or ice cream!

At any rate, enjoy yourself! It is a real labour of love and a great sense of achievement to have such wonderful food from free stuff - a real recession-buster in the "current economic climate"!

Lismore Castle Arts - a challenging encounter with installation art

Last Saturday I paid a visit to Lismore Castle Arts, to see the collection of installation art United Technologies which is the Summer 2009 exhibition and has been in place since late April, shortly after the Sotheby's Irish Sale show which I wrote about earlier this year. This exhibition showcases different artistic installations from renowned contemporary artists, though I confess ignorance in that I hadn't heard of most of them. It has a guest curator from Berlin's Kunsthalle, Philippe Pirotte.

I took some photos and will share them with you in a sidebar slide show, and some here on the blogpost. I know some of the followers of this blog are artists already (you know who you are!) and may enjoy seeing this art. I am an already self-confessed art virgin when it comes to knowledge of contemporary artists outside the well-known (read notorious) artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, and probably Graham Knuttel and Banksy. So my take on this exhibition must be seen in that context, and not that of a knowledgeable art critic!

I always feel a bit of a fraud at these exhibitions, as I think all the other punters look so earnest and informed and they look at the artworks as if they are really appraising them, whereas I just look and wonder what exactly is the artist trying to convey. I guess a lot of contemporary art goes right over my head and I just don't "get" it, and even reading the guide in the gallery doesn't enlighten as it is often couched in language so flowery and convoluted that it seems to speak to other artists and not to the common man - or woman.

So that's probably why I have a somewhat cynical view of a lot of installation art in particular. Tracey Emin's Bed for example - I can well understand why one lady so felt the urge to tidy it up and throw away the detritus in which it is embedded that she took cleaning materials along to the Tate. Nor do I quite get what's so wonderful about Francis Bacon's horrendously messy studio that warranted replication in Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery. Oh well, maybe one of the artistic readers will be able to educate me accordingly!

Well, I had some idea that this exhibition would be "different" having heard from hubby who was at the launch back when he was still Mayor, (I missed it as I was at something dull and worthy like a union meeting that night) and sons who work there butlering part-time. So I knew there were ceramic oil spill blobs randomly around the gallery, and a ton of tea in a cube, and some dandelion wine in its early stages that would be there right to the bottling (and maybe drinking!) stage.

I knew there was some scaffolding and a room full of quasi-erotic neon lighting, and a photo of a stone wall, and a collage wall made up of photos of a real garden shot from above and arranged like a cartographer would make a map. There were some gold-leaf sticks, which were very pretty if not very functional, and the staff were hard-pressed to keep the visitors from touching the exhibits, particularly the tea cube, which was crying out to be touched as it looked so tea-like you wondered how did it stay stuck together and not get all mouldy like tea-leaves you forget to rinse out of the pot, or teabags in the compost bin!

The whole gallery was wallpapered in this amazing silvery wallpaper with the words Conceptual Decoration in black printed all over, and it will all be removed (presumably scraped unceremoniously off like you would any old wallpaper!) when the exhibition is over at the end of September.

The artists were people I had never heard of, although one of the gallery guides informed me the Ton of Tea and Oil Spills guy was Ai Weiwei also designed the Bird's Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics, which he boycotted. I hadn't heard of him but his stadium is certainly beautiful. I wonder why he did it if he had such difficulty with the regime, it would seem to be contradictory in my eyes, and diminish whatever boycott he might decide on after the job was done (and paid for.) I must read up more on the whole issue, seems like there's a lot of articles about it and the answers are probably in there somewhere.

Jason Rhoades died of a heart failure from accidental drug intoxication at age 41, and his controversial art is included here, with his erotic neon signs with international slang words for vagina certainly raising eyebrows among any visitors with a penchant for Irish Catholic Guilt after a convent sex education (which is a pretty oxymoronic concept!). He also did the scaffolding and the wall garden collage, an aerial scaled down view of his dad's garden which he seemingly reproduced in life-size at another exhibition. It's made up of a lot of 4"x6" photos which don't all align so it doesn't quite make a jigsaw picture but close up you see all the elements - courgette plants and fencing and grass. He stuck tiny rugs on it to represent magic carpets flying over the garden. It would take ages to see it all in detail but the overall effect is pleasing - I can't imagine the patience required but then he seems to have been very much an alternative kind of guy.

Corey McCorkle was the dandelion wine guy, although this was at the fermentation-stopping stage and not on display; we could see the glass bottles it will eventually be decanted to out in the Paxton greenhouse, and they were cut-and-paste bottles which I hope won't leak. He also made the gold-leaf walking sticks, more style than substance for any hill-walkers with a fancy for a bit of bling!

Rita McBride must have Irish roots, though she is American based in Dusseldorf. She did these intriguingly titled Mae West Templates - steel stencils, curvy cutout shapes which reminded me of African drums. She did the relief rock wall, which is a bit optical illusiony as it is partly mirror-imaged, and sits nicely in the gallery, leaning against one wall.

Stefan Bruggemann is the decorator guy - he designed the wallpaper that covers all the gallery walls and he must have no difficulty with the transience of his art given that it all goes in a few weeks when the gallery is returned to its pristine white walled state. Looking at his website he has plenty of rolls of this design as it featured frequently elsewhere!

I went to this with an open mind, and prepared to be surprised. Maybe I have learnt something new, certainly about the artists, and despite my skepticism on installations, I admire the tenacity of people who go to such lengths for their art, and to me much of it seems to have more merit than a lot of the better known Britart, which aims to shock rather than please the general public.

I also enjoyed seeing the gardens in their summer glory on a rare sunny September day, as I spent last year squelching around in wet shoes on a filthy day when I visited the gardens and the gallery with a friend.

You should be able to match the photos with the artists from the descriptions - and there are plenty of links to various sites to satisfy the connoisseur in you!
I will also post a sidebar slide show for all the photos of that day.

The Irish Indian Summer - at last

After what must be the worst summer in Ireland on record we are finally having a break. The weather for the past few days has been sunny and warm, and while the nights are cool, I can live with that if we have such beautiful days.

It must seem bizarre to those of you living with normal weather with a fairly predictable seasonal pattern, but in Ireland we can get very exercised over a fine spell, especially after what seems like months of unrelenting rainfall.

Ireland isn't called the Emerald Isle for nothing you know, there's a price to pay for all the greenery, it's called the Irish Summer!

It makes a day's work more productive and enjoyable when I don't have to dodge the showers and duck in and out of the car on my calls around my work area of Ring and Old Parish. We get extreme fog when the weather is bad and as a large part is upland moor and forestry commission plantation it can disappear in the fog in a heartbeat, leading to disorientation for those unfamiliar with the area. When I was a student public health nurse I got so lost that my preceptor had to guide me by mobile phone from house to house using whatever landmarks we could identify in the fog.

You can see what it's like in good and bad weather from these photos, and I included two contrasting views of my health centre - in sun (last week) and snow (last February) - weather extremes that we rarely seem to see these years!

I had to go to Dublin for a meeting yesterday, so I took some photos of the Vee - the mountain pass about 8 miles north of Lismore which is one of the most beautiful scenic spots in Ireland and is unsurpassed when the weather is like this. Of course it begged to be photographed and I duly obliged - even the sheep were co-operative! It looks great now as the heather is in full purple bloom, and I love that when I leave home within 10 minutes drive through thickly wooded roads I am in the heart of the open mountain wilderness.

A bit of trivia for film buffs - Kubrick's adaptation of Thackeray's Barry Lyndon with Ryan O'Neal had a battle scene filmed on location in the Knockmealdown Mountains you see here, near the sheep! The area is covered in gorse and heather and is very wild and sparse, open treeless moorland, and any rhododendrons there were planted in the colonial era and have become a nuisance invader, a bit like giant rhubarb (Gunnera) which has become a real Triffid in some parts of the West of Ireland.

The only shame about the bounty of our Indian Summer is that it's dark by half eight most evenings now and autumn chill is in the air, so evening BBQs are probably not an option. Unless of course you have one of those patio heaters that are so global-warming inducing - something that's very tempting if you live in Ireland of the noughties, where the long hot summer is a distant memory and we dream of a spell of warm weather on our too-green island.

Top photos show the Vee - a gap on the Knockmealdown Mountains between Waterford and Tipperary where 4 or 5 counties can be seen from the lookout points. Sunset and daytime view of same spot.


Bottom photos show Old Parish and Ring in fog and sunshine (except for the snow, all taken in the past month!)

On being a Spectator at The Tour of Waterford - and Ireland

Yesterday hubby Jan completed a charity cycle of 100km or 60 miles ( you can convert it accurately on my little converter widget at the sidebar!). It was his second year doing the Seán Kelly Tour of Waterford Charity Fun Cycle, and last year he also did the 100km. He loves cycling and as there is no cycling club in Lismore he goes it alone and times his journeys and can compare past and present times.

He raised €140 for the designated charity, the Irish Cancer Society (ICS), and last year over €100 for the National Council for the Blind in Ireland (NCBI). By today the ICS had taken over €30,000 in sponsorship raised through this cycle tour, and I think it is one of their biggest single fundraisers.

It is also the biggest Fun Cycle in Ireland, with 3,480 cyclists taking part in the three distances, the 50km, the 100km, and the 160km for the real pros. This takes in a number of challenging mountain passes across the Comeragh mountains, and hubby didn't even consider doing it. He is in it for the fun and the exercise and fitness is a welcome by-product, not the end in itself. We are all proud of him for doing this and he is delighted with his achievement.

His route took him from Dungarvan - start and endpoint for all three routes - to Carrick-on-Suir (home town of Seán Kelly of the Tour of Waterford and one of Ireland's best-known cyclists who was on the international circuit for years) and Clonmel, and back to Dungarvan. It was a filthy day, with lashing driving rain for a large part of the day, and an Irish mist for the rest, to ensure a thorough drenching, and yet the spirit of the cyclists never seemed to flag. I waited by the finish line for an hour or so watching the straggle of cyclists coming back in high spirits to the cheers of the onlookers, and there was a great buzz.

Being a fun cycle the only rules were that helmets had to be worn, and there was a motley crew of machines from top-class racers to tandems (including a blind cyclist with a buddy)and mountain bikes to high nellies with wicker baskets on the handlebars, more befitting a sunny country lane and floral frocks than splashing on Irish roads in the driving rain. Plenty of kids took part and there were cycling club members from all over Ireland and a number of cyclists from overseas, looking at the number of foreign registered camper vans and cars with bike racks.

The WLR-FM blastercaster was there with commentary and music and there was a huge backup crew in the sport hall in Dungarvan providing tea and soup and sandwiches for the returning heroes and heroines. The last time I was in this hall was at the Local and European Elections (see the blogpost) back in June, when it was transformed into the Count Centre and was full of high drama and tension. Today it was thronged with a different melée but equally colourful and noisy. Jan collected his Certificate of Achievement here before we went home.

The first few photos show Jan after the Tour, with another Labour Party Councillor, Ger Barron, and also with his Certificate.

The more high-profile Tour of Ireland was held over three days in August and came to Lismore on Day 2. There were over 100 cyclists from the well-known international teams that take part in the famous European tours like the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Spain's La Vuelta. The Peloton whizzed by Lismore Castle and didn't go through the town and a crowd gathered to cheer them on. As Lance Armstrong was taking part in the race there was a buzz of celebrity around, though unless you knew his colours you would be challenged to pick him out! I managed to get a few photos but they are a Jackson Pollock-like blur of colour and individual identification is impossible.


You can see the Tour of Ireland Peloton in these photos, and Lance Armstrong's Astana Team car with spare bikes was the next best thing to getting his photo!

There is a nice photo of Lismore Castle on a rare sunny summer's day, as the Tour of Ireland passed by. It is nice to see it surrounded by lush trees compared to the starkness of the winter photos I took in earlier posts like here.

So we have had quite a bit of cycling around here lately, and maybe it will inspire the government to promote cycling by providing more realistic cycling lanes in urban areas. Currently they are a joke, going nowhere and many that stop suddenly at a traffic light and that are shared with the bus lane. Cycling is a bit of a Russian Roulette activity, it is so dangerous as the urban cyclist is often seen as a nuisance by motorists and there are a number of fatal accidents every year.

Compared to our fellow-Europeans like the Dutch and Danes, who seem to accord cyclists great respect and services, we have a long way to go. Despite having Green biking ministers in government, there doesn't seem to be much happening on that front, but then they are so hapless in every undertaking and have lost so much credibility since joining the Coalition, that they probably would make a total mess of any new venture, even promoting cycling.

I guess we're on our own here, I don't have a bike any more after years of cycling in Dublin as a student when it was my mode of transport, I haven't been persuaded since returning to Ireland twelve years ago. Now I enjoy my onlooker cheerleader status.

Chocolate Chip and Pecan Cookies

These are delicious - crunchy and chewy all at once (a bit like that old Harry Enfield comedy sketch on Armadillos for the Dime bar ad - crunchy on the outside, smooth on the inside!) Although these are a little bit crunchy on the inside too from the addition of the nuts! Here's the video clip for those who remember Harry Enfield's classic sketches and even for those who don't!




Back to serious stuff now
This recipe is an amalgamation of a few different choc chip recipes I have in various books, and my variation is the addition of chopped pecan nuts.
Walnuts are another alternative. In either case, they are delicious cookies and much nicer than any shop-bought ones. But then what cookies can beat good home-baked ones?



Ingredients

• 6 oz/175g plain flour
• 6 oz/175g sugar - I use 4 oz dark brown and 2 oz white mixed
• 4 oz/125g butter -soft, room temperature
• 1 egg - optional
• half-teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (bread soda)
• quarter-teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 6 oz/175g chocolate - milk or dark - in chips or chopped up good quality chocolate - not cheap cooking chocolate
• 2 oz/50g chopped pecan nuts - lightly roasted in oven for about 5-10 mins at 100 degrees centigrade - careful now - don't burn them!

Method

• Simplicity itself - just bung all the ingredients - except the chocolate and pecans - into a bowl and mix them well with an electric mixer.
• (I use the hand mixer for these as it's faster than setting up the Kenwood, but that's irrelevant once the mix isn't too heavy for your machine. Why, you can do it by hand if you prefer the creaming-butter-and-sugar method, but that's too labour intensive for a lazy slob like me!)
• Then add the chocolate chips and nuts and mix in well, preferably with a spoon or knife as the mixer can chop them up too finely.
• Bake in the top of the oven for about 15 mins until golden brown, being careful not to burn them.
• Cool on a wire rack
• Sit down, and enjoy with that essential cuppa tea - or even coffee - and a good book or blog to read!

Mugs and a Milestone - my 50th Blog Post

I just realised that I have posted 50 times to this blog since I started just after Christmas last year, this being my 51st post!

I didn't think when I started that I would keep going as regularly as this and even find stuff that I would like to write about. What's more, I didn't really expect that anyone would be remotely interested in reading my rambling streams of consciousness. So it is very nice to have come this far, without any pressure to meet deadlines or targets, and to just write on whatever is of interest to me, whenever the notion takes me.

Blogging has opened up a fascinating new world, with new virtual friends in the blogosphere among the readers and commentators, and those of you who follow the blog. It is always fun to get comments and feedback on the various posts, whether they are recipes, politics, or social commentary, or just travel and events in my life that I enjoy sharing with you. I am amazed at the quality of most of the blogs I read and the humour and pathos that is evident in much of the writing.

It's great to see the maps dotted with visitors from every corner of the globe, and to see the diverse origins of my visitors. Having lived in a number of far-flung places in my life, it is fascinating to see how much of the world is totally unknown to me, and then it is especially nice to connect with people in the countries I know and love, particularly Tanzania - Lynda's was one of the first blogs I read, as the Africa theme caught my eye.

So to mark this momentous occasion, I will share the photos of the eclectic collection of Barcelona mugs brought home from the Costa Brava and Barcelona in recent holidays. They are inspired primarily by the weird and wonderful architect and designer, Antoni Gaudí.

I know the ones in my previous post were wacky enough to grab attention, so these may whet your appetite even more. I love the asymmetrical one, it is totally wacky, and has stood on a shelf more as an objet d'art than a functional cup since I brought it as a present for hubby. Mind you, he prefers a more substantial coffee cup - but then this is aesthetically in a league of its own.

As I write this it is quite late at night, and I am sitting at my laptop with a nice cuppa tea and a choc chip and pecan cookie -recipe to follow soon! - while toasting and thanking all my blogging friends for the camaraderie and commentary you have provided in the past 8 months.

I really appreciate all the time you take to read and comment and generate debate in so many areas. So don't forget - keep in touch and keep on blogging!







The Gaudí Mug Collection - cups, mugs and a tankard - highlighting places in Barcelona linked with Gaudí like Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia, and Casa Batllo. The chimneys of La Pedrera (Casa Mila) are on one mug, and the recurring theme of mosaic tiling characteristic of Gaudí's Parc Guell features heavily.