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.

First day of Spring
The first day of February
St Bridget’s day

St Bridget’s day on the first of February was an important day in our growing up. St Bridget was the patron saint of Kildare and I was from that county. I remember trying to make St Bridget’s crosses from rushes at school. The crosses were then hung at home and their purpose was to get the help of St Briget in warding off sickness.

The tradition of making St Bridget’s crosses was the inspiration for a great sculpture on the M7 near Kildare.

It brings to mind the words of the Irish poet Ó Raifteirí which we learned at school

Anois teacht an Earraigh
beidh an lá dúl chun shíneadh,
Is tar eis na féil Bríde
ardóigh mé mo sheol.
Go Coillte Mach rachad
ní stopfaidh me choíche
Go seasfaidh mé síos
i lár Chondae Mhaigh Eo.

Translated as

Now with the springtime
The days will grow longer
And after St. Bride’s day’
My sail I’ll let go
I put my mind to it,
And I never will linger
Till I find myself back
In the County Mayo

Maybe Patrick had thoughts like Ó Raifteirí who lived from 1784 to 1835. He put his mind to it and didn’t linger to fly a small plane from Vancouver to San Francisco this weekend. Like me, Antaine Ó Raifteirí’s mother was probably also worrying about her son’s journey back then too.

Though she didn’t have twitter then to keep up with his progress back then. Twitter told me that Patrick touched down in Palo Alto 7 hours ago.

So on this St Bridget’s day, wishing everyone good health and safe journeys for the year ahead.

Blogging has been haphazard over Christmas owing to the buachailly bó being home, and lots of family and friends visiting. Recipes and saucepans have been well-used, all great fun.

Yesterday, (New Year’s Day), the said buchailly bó left from Dublin airport. I love the arrivals. I hate the departures.

It appears that the East of the country has had worse weather than the Mid-West since Christmas. Below are some photographs of yesterday on the M7. I was really surprised to see that this motorway had not been gritted.

Near Kildare town

A little further on

Near Kill (my home village )

It didn’t appear to me that we were at all prepared for this cold weather if primary routes weren’t kept clear.

Paul Cullen reported in today’s Irish Times:
Transport companies and local authorities have defended their preparedness for the extended spell of cold weather after snow and ice caused widespread disruption to services on New Year’s Day … Dublin airport was closed for up to four hours, at least 14 flights were cancelled … and thousands of air passengers endured lengthy delays yesterday after snow disrupted services.

The boys got away with just a few hours delay. I was envious of them going to sunnier climes.

The weather was so bad that in order to visit various family, we decided to stay over rather than risk the N7 after dark. My sister, an A&E nurse told us they are inundated with fractures. This concurs with a report in last Tuesday’s Irish Times:
Emergency departments are trying to cope with between five and 10 times the usual demand for treatment of broken bones as the cold weather continues into another week.

This fella is also feeling the cold

Happy New Year everybody.

So I count out the twelve days of Christmas and look up the lyrics to make sure I’ve got today’s correct.

Today is ‘Four colly birds’.

I always (badly) sang ‘four calling birds’.

So then I go to look up what a colly bird actually is. Seems I’m okay singing ‘calling bird’, because that’s what it’s also known as. In truth what it really is, is a plain old blackbird.

Colly bird sounds better though.

I’m not sure what one would do with four blackbirds today but then none of the presents in that song were particularly useful.

‘My true love’ is much more sensible.

Anyway this post was where I was going to tumble in my Christmas reflections not debate the merits/demerits of the presents for the twelve days of Christmas.

Blogging has been scarce over the past few days owing to plenty of family (and extended), friends and food. A lot of cooking of food for the previous two. A lot done and more to do.

It really has been a great few days and there’s still more to come. Eldest and middle mice are here until Friday so Christmas festivities will certainly continue until then.

I feel Christmas is such a mixture of extremes, really good for some people but not so good for others. One never can afford an ounce of smugness if Christmas is good, because one never knows what the next year will bring. I’m thinking of a number of people I know, who have had the death of a spouse to deal with. I’m thinking of a close friend who has just had major surgery in the week leading up to Christmas. She is putting up a great fight. Her husband is keeping an online diary updated which allows us to get daily updates. I’m thinking of an online friend who got bad news on Christmas day. That family’s turkey remained uncooked in the fridge on Christmas day.

So when Christmas is good, I think one should really appreciate it … as well as enjoy it.

Our house is going twenty four hours these days. The elder lemons are keeping reasonable hours but eldest and middle mouse are still on US time. No need to lock any doors – there’s always someone up.

I’m celebrating my first blogging anniversary at this time. My first post was here.

Now a year later, I’m getting afraid of myself again. Over the last year, I’ve got interested in learning to program. In fact Patrick’s present is to teach me for a full day this week. I know me. Once I start something …

Maybe after all, four colly birds would have been a better present.

Middle mouse sent an email yesterday with a photograph of campus covered in snow. As I read it, gmail had a sponsored link for college applications down the side.

That brought back memories of him spending last Christmas filling out college applications.

In fact for the last six years, Christmas has been spent under paper mountains. Mice doing Young Scientist projects. Mice applying to colleges.

Six Christmases of paper mountains.

Six white Christmases.

I have had a very responsible job then – I was Chief photocopier, Chief envelope filler, Chief putter onner of stamps, Chief tea/coffee Maker, Chief mouse PA. I’m an authority now as to which US college doesn’t want one to staple anything, which college needs everything in individual envelopes with their own special labels. Where in Limerick one can print and laminate A1 posters for the Young Scientist …

One of my earliest blog posts was on this said subject.

What do you know, this year will be no different.

Mouse number three has another Young Scientist project. A mountain of returned, completed questionnaires is forming in his room. Nearly 2,000 and counting.

Photo owned by myuibe (cc)

So this year we will be having another white Christmas.

This is my simple letter to Santa.

Dear Santa

Love Lily

I wrote this post last night, but now it seems it will be a white Christmas this year, in more ways than one.

Limerick early this morning …

Later on and after Barack and Charlie had done some test rums!

I spent a few days with the boys in Boston. Their two colleges are two stops apart on the T, the Boston underground.

Here are some photographs from the trip.

Where I was staying was a lovely walk, by the Charles River, into Harvard Square. The weather was sunny and dry but extremely cold. It was interesting that the internet said the hotel was 0.5 miles from Harvard Sq, but in reality it was a good bit more. I wasn’t complaining though as it really was a lovely walk.

John has taken up rowing since he came over. Training is serious, six days per week. On Saturday morning, John’s training session was at 8am, but that was a lie-in for him. His room-mate had left for his, even earlier!

Crema Cafe is a popular place.

But even here serious study is done, seriously. The ‘homework’ system at their colleges contrasts hugely with that of third-level in Ireland. Here, even though it’s third-level, there’s lots of work for each subject, that has to be handed in, for correction.

John doing his Chinese work, the night I arrived.

Patrick’s in the background doing some work with one of his class-mates.

Later him studying before we went for dinner.

John took me on a tour of Harvard. (I’d previously been around MIT with P.) The buildings are just amazing.

A building on campus from a different era. This was funded by the Polaroid company.

The entrance to the Widener Library

The library consists of six floors above ground, four below.

Their own book binding.

It was lovely to meet up with their friends

From chatting with them and their friends, I was really struck by how hard they all really work.

So the new camera. While in the US I bought a camera with Patrick advising me. I started using it for the pictures in this post. No marks for guessing which were taken by the camera-phone and which with the new camera.

However the camera-phone has served me well! It has taken all the photographs to date on my blog. A trusted friend.

Finally while I was in Boston, it appears that Denis and youngest mouse were emulating me, emulating Julie, emulating …

It appears that … Tommy and Patrick are needed,

but not John.

According to a recent Guardian article ‘there are fears that gingers may be extinct by 2060 because only 2% of the world’s population are gingers, and that number is shrinking. There are campaigns to save the ginger, and to encourage gingers to replicate themselves (both parents have to carry the ginger gene to have a chance of producing a ginger child).’

Patrick and Tommy, ye know what ye have to do now to save the planet …

Well the future of red-heads anyhow!

Red hair occurs in people with two copies of a recessive gene on chromosome 16.

Thinking about it, John, you could be carrying one copy of the recessive gene for red hair on yer chromosome 16, so on second thoughts, stick around, you may be needed too!

British author Hilary Mantel was named last night as the winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for ‘Wolf Hall’, a historical novel set in Tudor England.

I’d say she is a happy camper this morning.

But I do know one person who is definitely a very happy camper this morning.

Quoting from the National Dairy Council website;

Ireland’s top dairy farmer for 2009 is Brochan Cocoman from Kilwarden, Kill, Naas, Co Kildare. Brochan is the winner of the National Dairy Council Quality Milk Awards. A supplier of liquid milk to Glanbia, he was presented with the NDC Perpetual Cup and a cheque for €5,000 by MEP Mairead McGuinness at a national awards ceremony in Citywest, Co Dublin today (Tuesday 6th October 2009).

The brother won!

He hasn’t yet stopped smiling!

Photo owned by Amy Loves Yah (cc)

Today is Denis’s birthday, x years young!

We’ve been married for 22 years. Soon we will have lived more years together than apart.

However we have set a bad standard for our kids. We were engaged exactly 12 weeks after meeting and married within 6 months. I emphasise to them that we were a lot older, forget about the wiser!

We’re still together. Even Julie & Julia haven’t come between us …

Yet.

Though he is beginning to complain a little about cold salads on cold evenings …

I tell him to be positive – we’re almost half way through the book!

Happy birthday D

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One for each year

Photo owned by idleman (cc)

I know that sounds a bit like an oxymoron. Farming is currently experiencing a lot of difficulties. Brian Cowan got a taste of farmers’ anger at last week’s Ploughing Championship.

Anyway despite all this, the brother is a very happy farmer at the moment. The National Dairy Council website states,

Six farmers have been short-listed as finalists in the National Dairy Council Quality Milk Awards – the national competition which sets out to identify and reward our top dairy farmer.

The brother was one of the six short-listed. The overall winner will be announced in early October.

Fingers crossed for the brother and all his good looking, sweet-tempered cows!