Lily’s Blog

This post is about a long tradition chez Collison of Denis making pizza on Friday night. I’m reminded of the song from Fiddler on the Roof

Tradition, tradition! Tradition!
Tradition, tradition! Tradition!

Who, day and night, must scramble for a living,
Feed a wife and children, say his daily prayers?
And who has the right, as master of the house,
To have the final word at home?

The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.
The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.

All above is correct chez Collison other than atheist Papa says no prayers, daily or otherwise.

Friday pizza making chez Collison has a number of origins.

First about thirteen years ago Denis and I stayed for a few days at the Arbutus Lodge in Cork. At some stage over our stay, I commented on the great breads. The person serving us was the owner. We had a good chat about bread baking and she said that her husband, Declan, gets up early every morning to bake. She recognised that I was interested and asked if I wanted to get up the following morning to watch him. That night we were meeting friends. I excused myself early as I had to be up with the birds … and the baker.

At 5am the following morning, leaving sleeping beauty in bed, I quietly crept down to the kitchen. There things weren’t so quiet. Declan was already up and the ovens were going. For a few hours he made different breads, sourdough, yeast, soda, ciabatta, focaccia and finally ending with pizza. Much of what he made that morning was for sale at the English Market. I helped, learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed my lesson with a master.

A number of years later I read in the paper that the Ryans sold the Arbutus Lodge and Declan set up a multi-award winning bakery, Arbutus Bread Ltd.

Here’s what the Bridgestone Guide said

Declan Ryan’s pioneering bakery is one of the most important artisan businesses in Ireland …

Another source of our inspiration into making pizza from scratch at home was a fantastic restaurant in Sligo called Truffles, run by Bernadette O’Shea. Alas this restaurant is no more. Here’s a review of this restaurant from the New York Times in 1994. I love Bernadette O’Shea’s book Pizza Defined.

I can’t really remember how ’sleeping beauty’ rather than ‘keen pupil’ became chez Collison’s chief pizza maker. But he did. And I’m so glad he did. I do most of the cooking at home so love when it comes to pizza night. It’s part of the ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ feeling.

Over the years various mice helped with pizza making. I remember middle-mouse entering chez Collison’s pizza recipe in a children’s cookery competition.

Here’s a pizza making picture essay.

First up getting the tomato sauce on, basically lots of garlic and tomato

Pizza Chef at work

Chat is important

I was away for the early dough stages and just arrived home for kneading the dough

Pizza shovel needed

Table ready

Nyom nyom

The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.
The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.

When does spring actually begin?

According to the calendar, it’s the first of February. In the US it’s the 21st March, the spring equinox. According to nature it’s beginning to happen around now.

Lambs are appearing

Photo owned by rs-foto (cc)

The hedgerows are beginning to green up

Snowdrops are plentiful

Tulip bulbs are bursting forth

Even some early daffodils have appeared

I think we can say spring has sprung … or at least is certainly springing.

I’d been mulling over the idea of including restaurant reviews on the blog for a while. One of the biggest problem with doing so is that I’m a creature of habit, when I find somewhere I like, I tend to go there frequently. That wouldn’t be much use if doing reviews. Secondly I tend to have a preference for healthy, well prepared food, good value for money rather than glitz. Thirdly reviews can sometimes be boring. I could go on with the list against …

But I won’t. I’m going to include the occasional review. Who knows I might even discover new places

The ‘rents, as youngest mouse calls us, dropped said mouse to friends in Rosslare to go to see the other RENT, RENT the musical on Saturday night.

Lower case ‘rents decided to visit Kelly’s in Rosslare. This is a hotel I’ve heard lots about but had never visited. Its restaurant is one of those included in Zest cookery book. We hadn’t booked ahead as we were unsure of our exact plans and felt we wouldn’t have too much trouble in February, on the weekend after (the madness of) Valentine’s Day.

An article in yesterday’s Irish Times quotes Bill Kelly, the fourth generation of his family to run the hotel, who said they had a successful year last year and made a profit. This is good to hear in these tough economic times for hotels.

The only dinner bookings available were the first (6.30pm) sitting in “la Marine”, which they describe as a modern style French Bistro, tastefully decorated with an Open Wine Cellar serving traditional French and European dishes or the second sitting in Beaches restaurant, an elegant diningroom with a relaxing atmosphere surrounded by many paintings by Leading Artists.

Who says the recession is in Rosslare on a cold February evening. We opted for the later sitting among the paintings.

The bedroom was really nice and clean with all the usual. We didn’t come equipped so didn’t try out the leisure facilities.

The hotel is very family friendly. I love children but must admit that even I got a little bit tired of children running up and down the corridor outside our bedroom before dinner. Mental note made not to come here in peak season. I was almost glad that children were not allowed in Beaches restaurant.

Beaches restaurant was a big L-shaped open room. Oh yes there were paintings on the walls but it didn’t take from the canteen feel. Later I found out it can sit 250 – 300, the biggest dining room in Ireland apparently.

A look around at the clientele made me feel that I was at a Bank of Ireland or AIB AGM. I nearly expected someone to start giving out about the savaging their shares had taken. They didn’t though the shares did!

We were immediately seated. Menus were brought. We were asked what we would like to drink. Drinks were brought and then my next quibble. We were asked for our room number and sign for the pre-dinner drinks. Why could they not have been added to our food order?

With all the earlier talk of two sittings, with all the staff moving fast, with the sheer size of the room, I was beginning to feel like I was in a production process and that feeling never left me all night. An efficient production process but nevertheless a production process. As we looked at the menu, the table beside us was cleared. We were in a line of five tables for two, close together. I said to myself, great, now I’ll have a bit of breathing space. I shouldn’t have bothered. Within about five minutes, that table was re-set and two new operators were soon perusing menus.

We chose our food and menus were efficiently put back in a menu holder on the wall. I glanced around and saw another holder near the next set of tables.

I was beginning to want to jump off the conveyor.

The evening’s dinner menu consisted of a choice of eight starters, eight main courses and seven desserts including a selection of farm house cheeses. We had:

Crab Crème Brûlée with Picked Cucumber

Warm Mediterannean Style Bruschetta with Goats Cheese

Steamed Fillet of Hake with Shrimps and Bonne Femme Sauce

Roast Stuffed Saddle of Lamb with Mint Gravy, with vegetables in between!

Selection of Farm House Cheeses

I forgot to take a picture. As we often do, one of us had cheese and shared.

Golden Raisin Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce

Denis was really selfish here. He wouldn’t eat his share of dessert, poor me

Overall the food was good, good but not exceptional. The dinner menu cost €45. The high point was the Crab Crème Brûlée. The low points were poor bread selection, poor vegetable selection and they were served in cold dishes so cooled quickly. The three dishes of vegetables were 1) baton carrots and parsnips with three sugar snaps, 2) potatoes gratin dauphinois (lovely) and 3) mashed potatoes. If I’m to be really picky, the fish main course was described as ‘Steamed Fillet of Hake with Shrimps and Bonne Femme Sauce’. The stuffing included lots of crab meat, which hadn’t been included in the description. Since I had a crab starter, I would have chosen a different main course had I known.

By now you’ve guessed service was very efficient. So efficient that while we were eating main course, another chit, this time for bottle of wine, was brought to himself again looking for room number and signature. Said bottle of wine was lovely. A south African Pinotage, made from organic grapes, chosen by himself. Their wine list was very extensive, strong on French wines.

I watched the manager ‘work’ the room like a good politician.

By the end of the night I was longing to be in Fawlty Towers. I felt Bill Kelly (the owner) has the process so ship shape here, he should go and run the health service. I’m being harsh but …

Tea and coffee were served in the Ivy Lounge. I would normally hate this if I were enjoying a meal. It’s done to increase table turnover but since I wasn’t enjoying the ambience of the restaurant, I didn’t much mind moving down the conveyor to the Ivy Lounge.

I tried to have a word in this lady’s ear when passing. She just wouldn’t listen.

The Ivy Lounge had live music going. We ran out of the place.

Breakfast next morning was good, but again not exceptional. At the end of breakfast the chit comes again, ‘What’s your room number … can you please sign here’. This time it was for the Americano coffees we had ordered with breakfast. I queried this on grounds that I felt the rate we had paid for Dinner, Bed and Breakfast, (see below), surely could have accommodated this, plus no one mentioned an extra charge. The waitress looked unconvinced so I said don’t worry, I’d say it to the guy who looked and behaved like the Restaurant Manager. He said no problem.

After breakfast, I had a look at the art. Reception had a listing which was really useful, even if it was a bit out of date. The hotel has an amazing art collection numbering a few hundred pieces, displayed over walls in many rooms of the hotel. Paintings by Pauline Bewick, Louis Le Brocquy, Anne Madden, Charles Lambe, Maurice McGonigal, Andy Warhol, Graham Knuttle, pieces of sculpture by Rowan Gillespie and John Behan to just name a few. I was really sorry not to have had more time to have a better look.

I’ve had read lots of good reviews of Kelly’s hence why I wanted to come. I was underwhelmed. I sometimes think that one’s strengths can become one’s weaknesses. I feel this hotel has mastered the art of good food and service in volume. Therein lies the problem, To do volume one has to have a very efficient process. That very efficiency was the undoing of me. I won’t be back but I can guarantee you, Kellys needn’t worry about that because lots will.

Dinner (drinks not included), Bed and Breakfast for one night cost €275 and that was a special rate. Not good value in my book. Interestingly the €8.80 for the Americano coffees was on the bill, though we’d never signed the chit. Needless to say they removed it, once I pointed it out.

Despite the above, ‘rents enjoyed their short visit to Rosslare and youngest mouse had a great night at RENT.

Has anyone been to Kelly’s?

This recipe from Roly’s Café & Bakery was again simplicity itself. I thought it was very suitable to eat while watching France play Ireland last Saturday.

Well maybe far less playing and much more trouncing.

Four onions were finely sliced. My slicing may not have been fine enough, I was in a rush – the early part of the match was worth watching. The onions were added to melted butter and cooked slowly for 20 minutes. The heat was then increased to brown the onions while stirring all the time. Sugar was added and cooked for one minute. Chicken stock was then added and the soup was simmered for … three times the length Cian Healy spent in the Sin Bin.

A slice of bread was put into each bowl, the soup poured over and grated Gruyère cheese added. I actually used cheddar cheese. The soup was then put into a hot oven to melt the cheese.

The soup was gorgeous, definitely to be repeated.

The match was awful, a performance not to be repeated … please.

I did very little last weekend except read this second book in the trilogy.

The three of the books together add up to 1704 pages, 1.6kg in weight. (And they’re only paperback).

Just some light reading!

I really loved but also complained about this second book.

Though the story continues from the first book, it took a while to get started into the second book’s plot. Having finished it, I’m not sure the real relevance of the first section of the book – Salander’s time in Grenada. The book is long. I felt it could have been edited a bit more.

Another quibble is there was a little too much coincidence for my liking. Examples. Though not in contact, Blomkvist just happens to be outside Lisbeth’s apartment at 2am just when Lisbeth emerges and just happens to be attacked. Lisbeth and Blomkvitz, both just happen to independently visit an apartment (visiting people whom they weren’t in a habit of visiting) on the exact night before (Lisbeth) and after (Blomkvitz), a murder is committed.

One would want a strong constitution for some of the detail. Graphic description of rape, murder are all normal copy. No shrinking violets need apply read. I’m no shrinking violet but found myself beginning to shrink. I found myself saying to myself sometimes, ’spare me the detail please’.

By comparison, Scarpetta seems almost a romantic novelist.

Sometimes I felt I needed a pen and paper beside me when reading to keep track of all the characters. Blomkvist, Salander, Björck, Sandström, Zala, Bublanski, Bjurman, Nesser, Modig, Erkström, Svensson, Wu, Andersson, Faste, Bohman, Hedström, Roberto, Lundin, Nieminen. Nineteen and counting. Try keeping track of all them and that’s a very incomplete list!

My children used accuse me that if I ever went shopping, the first thing I had to do was ‘have a cup of coffee’. I think Sweden would suit me. They always seemed to be drinking coffee.

I finished this book late Sunday night. Despite all my protestations above, there was nothing I would have liked better than if Monday didn’t follow Sunday and that I could have stayed in bed all day and read the third book. Sadly work beckoned.

Today is Wednesday. I still haven’t started the third book but am guessing that once I do, there again won’t be much else done.

Husband and youngest mouse look out!

I’d thoroughly recommend ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’

Hearts made by a certain mouse a number of years ago

Quoting the lines from the song …

What the world needs now,
Is love, sweet love,
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.
What the world needs now,
Is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone.

And I’d add the line …

‘No, not just today but for every day’

Dionne Warwick sang this song beautifully on the Late Late on Friday night. At 70, this lady can still sing. Here is an old recording …

Happy Valentine’s for today and for everyday

Niamh left a comment on my recent chocolate cake post, mentioning that her daughter had tried a chocolate cake recipe from the ‘Green & Black’s Chocolate recipes’ cookbook, which was perfect for celiacs. I dug out my copy of the book and tried the recipe. It was an interesting recipe – a flour-less, fat-less chocolate cake. The recipe is actually here on Nigella’s website.

Clementines were simmered for 2 hours, cooled, cut, pips removed and liquidized.The recipe called for eggs to be beaten and then sugar, almonds and baking powder to be added. The pulped clementines were then mixed in and the mixture put into a springform cake tin. How simple does it get! I took a shortcut by first beating the eggs and sugar. I then added in the very roughly chopped clementines and used a hand blender to blend them in. (Saves on the washing up!) I then mixed in the other ingredients and it worked perfectly. The cake was baked for an hour. The Green & Black version of this recipe called for a bar of Maya Gold Chocolate to be grated over the hot cake in the tin. Nigella’s recipe doesn’t include this.

If ‘life’s too short for stuffing mushroom’s’, then I’ve now decided that it also is too short for grating a bar of chocolate! This was a slow job and I don’t have sufficient patience. It was also interesting that when the chocolate was grated onto a plate, something like static built up because the grated chocolate behaved like sand-flies when I tried to spread it over the cake.

Next time I will melt the bar of chocolate to spread it.

The recipe at one point states; Remove the cake from the tin and store in an airtight container and at another point; Don’t be tempted to serve this cake warm. It must only be eaten once it has cooled as the texture becomes moist and the flavours of the almonds and oranges have taken hold. It is best served the day after it is made.

We ignored these ‘hands off on the day it’s made’ instructions and proceeded to try the cake a few hours after it came out of the oven. Well Denis had arrived home late from Hungary so we had to sample it with him. Tommy’s opinion of the cake was ‘meh’. Denis’s opinion was ‘it’s okay’. (Lacking true enthusiasm). I liked it. Next day when we had ‘official permission’, Tommy tried it but still considered it ‘meh ‘. Denis upped his opinion and put it in the ‘definitely repeat category’. I agreed with Denis

I would repeat it because as well as being lovely, it was also relatively healthy and so easy to make.

I just have to get the timing right for when we attack the next one!

This book is the first of the Millenium trilogy written by Stieg Larsson. The trilogy was part of D’s Christmas present from moi. He has read the three books and enjoyed them.

Sadly, Stieg Larsson died in 2004, aged 50 before the trilogy was published. I read the wikipedia article on him after I had read this book. It gave interesting background information.

I liked the book but almost expected to like it more from all I had heard about it from a number of people who have read it.

There are three main characters; Michael Blomkvist, a journalist, Lisbeth Salander, an angry, young computer hacker, after whom the book is named and Henrik Vanger, a wealthy, Swedish Industrialist.

Forty years earlier, Harriet Vanger, a niece of Henrik’s, disappeared from the family’s island. Nobody could tell what happened to her and no corpse was ever found. Henrik Vanger, now elderly, has been tormented all his life by her loss and is convinced that a family member murdered her.

The journalist Blomkvist has recently lost a libel case concerning his reportage of a financial scandal, and is now ‘lying low’. Vanger commissions him to research this unsolved mystery. Early on, Blomkvitst sees a link with a number of other murders committed around the same time. Blomkvist seeks the assistance of Salander, this genius hacker. Blomkvitst and Salander, though an unlikely pairing, work well together to eventually solve the mystery. The book is somewhat a love story.

I read with interest an article in last Saturday’s Irish Times that the Larsson’s authorship of these books is questioned.

Quoting from the article:

Lately, however, most talk of Larsson’s work in Sweden has centred on public criticism of his reporting methods and his talent as a writer, as well as allegations that his life partner of 32 years could actually have written much of the trilogy … Hellberg, now a journalist for Sweden’s top-selling morning paper, wrote that while Larsson was a masterful researcher … he was an awkward writer who had probably called on his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, to do much of the writing for the trilogy.

This is interesting because Wikipedia’s article on Larsson states:

In May 2008 it was announced that Larsson’s 1977 will, found soon after his death, declared his wish to leave his assets to the Umeå branch of the Communist Workers League (now the Socialist Party). As the will was unwitnessed, it was not valid under Swedish law, with the result that all of Larsson’s estate, including future royalties from book sales, went to his father and brother. His long term partner Eva Gabrielsson, who found the will, has no legal right to the inheritance, sparking controversy between her and his father and brother. The two never married because, under Swedish law, couples entering into marriage are to make their addresses (at the time) publicly available; marrying would have been a security risk. Owing to his reporting on extremist groups and the death threats he had received, the couple had sought and been granted masking of their addresses, personal data and identity numbers from public records, to make it harder for e.g. stalkers to trace them; this kind of “identity cover” was integral to his work as a journalist and would have been difficult to bypass if the two had married or become registered partners.

It further states Gabrielsson claims the author had little contact with his father and brother and requests the rights to control his work so it may be presented in the way he would have wanted.

Ouch!

This recipe came from Roly’s Café and Bakery cookbook. The recipe called for pork loin. I used pork fillet since that was what I had and it worked perfectly. I slit the fillet and pounded it reasonably flat with a rolling pin. I then stuffed it with Clonakilty black pudding and tied it up with string. The recipe then shocked me. ‘Pour over the vegetable oil’, i.e., 200ml. I used a fraction of that amount and actually used olive oil. I started the meat in a hot oven and then transferred it to a slow oven until fully cooked. I then prepared the vegetables. The ‘burnt looking’ carrots are actually purple carrots. Yet again the recipe shocked me. ‘Pour over the olive oil’. This time the recipe called for 300ml of olive oil. Again I used far less.

The apple sauce was simply cooking apple, water and sugar. I didn’t bother puréeing as the recipe suggested

I’m now guessing that Roly’s have shares in some oil refinery and weight-watchers!

But the recipe will still go into the ‘definitely repeat’ category. It was gorgeous.

500ml of oil to roast the meat and vegetables for a dinner for 4? What do you think?

On Sunday Kati from Hungary wrote,

‘Traditional Hungarian winter weather has returned from Ireland to its homeland again …’

She sent the following photographs.

Having checked the temperature in Budapest, Denis packed appropriately. We Irish are very well up on snowy weather now.

Denis emailed this photograph from Budapest last night.

Amn’t I glad spring has arrived in Ireland.

I’m definitely spring keeping!