I love the idea of pop up shops and restaurants. And I’m so excited that Industry is involved in another one since I missed their last one in Dun Laoighaire!
I’m pretty sure it’s open through July so I’ll be able to pop in when I get back to Dublin!
While you read this I”ll either be sitting in Charles de Gaulle airport (heart-breaking layover – not quite long enough for a quick trip into Paris!) or somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean!
I”m looking forward to a few weeks with family, friends, sun and soaking spielautomaten up all things Maine.
I wonder if this perfume smells like home? I”m so intrigued and definitely have to order some!
Michael and I are finishing last-minute packing after a few whirlwind days back in Dublin. We have a super early flight tomorrow and a long journey ahead of us, but by tomorrow evening we’ll be in Maine!
While I was procrastinating last night (you should see the state of our house…dreadful) I came upon this pretty site, Driftliving, with lots of pretty bits. These Danish birdfeeders are so pretty. Since we have a kitty who doesn’t really leave the back garden much, it wouldn’t be too fair to birds to lure them in. So sad since this would be so lovely hanging in our garden!
{image from here}Hello everyone! I hope you had a lovely time last week with those great guest posts! I had a wonderful, relaxing week in the Spanish sun. We had no internet access which turned out to be the nicest detox! Although I have to say I was a little nervous to find out if those posts I scheduled before I left actually got to you! Looks like everything went off without a hitch. Phew!
Now I’m back to reality for two days before an early morning flight on Wednesday for three weeks in Maine. But not to worry, I’m not leaving you again. I have lots of fun posts planned for my trip to the States including a few great recipes I’ll be teaching my kid brother! You might even get a few videos! Fun!
While I crash my way through Monday, here are a few great links I found when I caught up with the interwebs yesterday (while doing about 5 loads of laundry!).
Apartment Therapy’s food site The Kitchn picked up Jenna’s recipe for Savory Southwestern Oatmeal that she shared over here last Monday. What a fun surprise to come back to!
How fun are these citrus coasters pictured above?
Since I’m in charge of snacks on our flights, I’m loving this New York Times article with great tips and tricks for packing food for flights.
Ireland had their first citizenship ceremony last week. Although it’s a while off, I already can’t wait for mine!
Another addition to my kitchen want list – recycled glass counter tops. Love the back story, love the look.
I’m hoping strawberry season will hit Maine while we’re there. I’m dying to make this jam recipe in perfect little Mason jars and then bring a whole batch home on the plane!
And in other news, huge congrats to my husband who handed in his master’s thesis today! Yippee!!
We’re finishing off the week with a lovely, thoughtful post from my darling sister-in-law, Angie. She moved to Dublin at the end of last summer after she married my brother-in-law and we thought that might be their only year. But we just found out last week that she (and her husband, of course, can’t forget him!) are staying for another three years! Yipee!!
She has the cutest blog called Cartwheeling Around the World, and yes, that is Angie herself cartwheeling across her blog banner! Thanks, Ang!
{cacá milis is Irish for cake!}Hello From China Village readers,
As an avid reader myself, I feel honored to share my thoughts with you all. I am the lucky one who gets to taste the many delicious treats you drool over on the pages of this blog, admire the adorable craft projects and occasionally be the sounding board for ideas and series’, and I am the even luckier one that gets to call this amazing woman behind From China Village, sister.
Em and I are kind of in the same boat, we both married into this large family of basketball playing, big shoe wearing, Irish men. We both left our careers, our families, our favorite meals, our sunshine to move to Dublin with our husbands. We both have overcome challenges and homesickness along the way, but I was lucky enough to have an older sister to help me through.
So I am here, writing to you, ready to share one of my adventures of the packing up, leaving it all behind and moving to the island of green. It’s been an interesting journey: coping with the rain, figuring out what a press was, learning to pour a ‘perfect pint,’ adjusting to hours of darkness, and exploring an entirely new city. During one of my explorations I stumbled across a peaceful getaway, my own secret garden, complete with inspiring surroundings, cozy lattes and mouth watering treats, all inside the Cake Café.
This adorable, quirky establishment is a feast for the mouth, the eyes and especially the soul. The fabulously rich chocolate cake, the perfectly mismatched china, and the masterpieces of trinkets create a perfect hideaway. One cannot escape the joy that radiates from the walls, the people and the food itself. I was so struck by the charming demeanor of the oh-so-busy staff, particularly the lovely owner, who without training or experience left her previous job and decided it was time to risk it all and live her dream. I’m very glad she did.
On my visit, the setting paired with this incredible cup of Chai made me oddly reflective. My mind couldn’t help but wander to the collection of trinkets that perfectly compliment the Cake Cafe – the Blue Willow china atop vintage vinyl tablecloths, the assortment of buttons displayed in a mosaic of blues and yellows, the old manuscripts mysteriously ascending up the wall, the cloth bunting brightening the ceiling.
It’s a striking collection of simple oddities: bits, pieces, junk somehow transformed into beauty. From the artwork on the walls, to the dishes on the tables, even the simple ingredients of the food are all mundane, even annoying on their own. Yet together, they create something wonderful. The bottle caps that deviously hide themselves all over my house and litter the sidewalk on my way to work someone else saw as potential for beauty. The chain on a bike that catches my pant leg and leaves a permanent grease stain inspired someone else to create a masterpiece.
As I gazed around the Cake Cafe, I was reminded of life itself, of the many messy pieces that litter our lives. I found myself thinking that perhaps if we examined them a little deeper, if we dared to allow ourselves the brave optimism maybe, just maybe we would see a masterpiece. The boring everyday tasks, the long Dart rides, the foreign country we unexpectedly landed in and don’t entirely understand, the solitude of loneliness, the chatty taxi driver, the sore throat that forces us to spend a day listening and not speaking, the peace of a rainy day, the strength of overcoming another denial, the many ideas that plague sleepless nights, the energy of busy-ness…maybe if we turned all these odds and ends a different way, viewed them with a new eye, we too could see something beautiful.
Today I hope you dare yourself to have the artistic vision to transform even the mundane, the normal, the messy bits, the random pieces into a masterpiece.
And may I add that this is generally best done while enjoying a warm tea and piece of cacá milis!
I”m so excited to share today”s guest post with you this morning! Rachael is half of the duo behind the blog Gastronomics. I met her a few months ago at this blogger function and now I count her as one of my closest blogger friends – she”s this dynamo mix of intelligence, wit and worldliness. Seriously interesting to talk to, that chick.
She and her mom post great recipes, budget grocery finds around Dublin, and lots of funny tidbits from their lives. I always crack up reading Rachael”s posts. You”ll see why below! Isn”t she just a hoot?! Thanks, Rachael!
We’re in the process of buying a house. Yep, I know, utterly crazy. The market’s going to drop more, we know. The variable rate’s going to sky-rocket, we know. House insurance, life insurance and general recession-insurance are going up. We know. But we all have to grow up sometime!
And so, having undertaken a grueling twelve-week round of negotiations the likes of which would not even be found at a Camp David summit, we’ve managed to persuade the bank to part with ‘their’ cash and are now buying a beautiful 150 year old town house.
Which means that having left home nine years ago and lived in fifteen houses across four countries, I finally, finally get a proper kitchen. So in a nod to the old Celtic Tiger spirit of coveting items well outside of our budget, I’ve been drawing up a list of ‘wants’ for my kitchen, which unfortunately will not turn into ‘haves’ until we win the lottery. Hey, a girl can dream, right?
Plus, I recently whetted my appetite for all things house-y at the Interior Design Fair in Dublin with the lovely Emily, who has kindly allowed me to blather all over her blog this week. Apologies guys, normal, relaxed and smooth service will resume next week.
This is probably the most practical kitchen gadget thingie I’ve ever come across. It is literally a tap from which boiling water pours when you flick a switch. So when you want to blanche those asparagus tips? Stick ‘em under the tap. You want to sterilise the baby dishes? Under the tap. You’d like a cup of tea now, not in five minutes when the kettle’s finished boiling? Done. There are various different brands providing this including Quooker and Zip, and they all come with safety features to protect curious little hands.
{image from here}I want. But nope, can’t have, as it’s currently retailing at approximately €700 plus. Which makes it a feckin’ expensive kettle. Although the nice and remarkably well-dressed kitchen man did assure us that we would get this back in saved energy over, er, twenty years. Even the bank probably gives better interest than that.
2. Wall-Mounted BBQ
Ok it’s not technically kitchen, but it’s for my outdoor kitchen. The outdoor kitchen that resides firmly in my imagination. In our new house we have a large front garden and a side patio, but no back garden, meaning that the chiminey-bbq-drinks table combo that will have to do as my ‘outdoor kitchen’ has to be very carefully planned. Needless to say, the BBQ needs to be easily packed away and hidden after the annual three days of Irish sunshine are over.
While researching I found this French-designed wall-mounted BBQ and fell for it. Hard. And got bruised badly when I discovered the price, which is approximately €1600. So, blogosphere people, does anybody have an extremely handy other half who knows how to knock one of these things up, for oh, a quarter of the price? If so, pleeeeease get in touch!
3. Vorwerk Bimby / Thermomix
I saw this on that great authority on all things culinary, ‘Come Dine With Me’ (skip to 4:12). I watched, cynical hat firmly in place while the talkative Aussie cooked her entire Italian three course meal using this innocuous-looking countertop machine. She threw in a load of vegetables, for example, which I expected to be blended and come out as brown mush. Not so, they simply popped out neatly chopped. She then wanted polenta, so simply dropped in the ingredients and a few minutes later it was cooked, silky and resolutely lump-less, having been stirred by the machine as it cooked. It steams, blends, kneads, grind, simmers, grates, mills, weighs, cooks, chops, crushes, emulsifies, whips, and mixes. Hear me now and her me well. This thing is voodoo.
{image from here}However, you know something’s going to be scarily expensive when the price isn’t to casino deutschland be found on the website and they offer payment plans…. prices begin at about €1000 from what I can garner on the big old interwebs.
While I want it very, very badly, I think this one definitely is going to have to wait until I’m grown up and have more money than time. Instead of neither, like now.
4. Super Duper Fridge
We’re having a bit of an argument over this at the moment in Casa Gastronomics. While we’re shaving off sums here and there to try and get the best possible finish on the house, the other half has a little bee in his lush bonnet. A wine fridge. Yes, we enjoy our wine like the rest of the recession-riddled middle class soaks out there, but seriously? An entire fridge dedicated to bottles of Lidl and Aldi plonk? I’m not so sure. If I had my way my fridge would instead look like this;
How utterly frickin’ cool, right? Pardon the pun! The Meneghini. It even sounds mythical. The cost, however is very real indeed. Approximately €16,000. The same price as my masters degree. Which I’d very happily swap now!
5. AGA Cooker
To be honest, my eyes start to glaze over when I read through the cooker brochures. All this palaver about optimum temperature, ionic cores, induction heating, blah blah blah. I would just like gas, six rings and two ovens please. However, there is something just impossibly beautiful about traditional Aga cookers. Although with newfangled switches and timers and the likes – modern women aren’t locked in the kitchen next to them all day anymore, thank goodness.
So ridiculously good-looking are these kitchen stalwarts that the advertising actually depicts them alongside a piano and a guitar. What do these items have in common? Absolutely nothing except that they’re all beautiful to look at. Don Draper would be so proud.
These swanky new versions retail at approximately €12-15,000. Right. What’s the going rate for a kidney these days?
{image from here}P.S. – while Googling my dream cooker, I came across this hilarious blast from the past; a manual for the effective sales of Aga cookers, from 1935. It includes some gems such as “Dress quietly and shave well. Do not wear a bowler hat.” And my personal favourite, “Go to the back door (most salesmen go to the front door, a manoeuvre always resented by maid and mistress alike).” What different times we live in!
I could go on and on forever, talking about height-adjustable kitchens, waterproof TVs, and all the rest, but I’m interested in hearing from you – have I left out any must-haves or dream additions to the modern (mostly unattainable) kitchen? If you won the lottery in the morning what would you buy?
Today’s guest post is from the talented Mandi from DesignBirdie. She’s an illustrator with a fantastic Etsy shop (here’s my fave print) and she just started a blog! Mandi also happens to be a dear friend to me – she’s always been such a creative encourager to me and I’m so grateful!
She’s been nice enough to send over a lovely woodland picnic post for today. Enjoy!
If you go down to the woods today..
It’s a perfect Irish day for a woodland picnic!
{Image from here}Soft hazy sun, not too much breeze, and time to sit and listen to the pure Rye Stream make it’s merry way to the River Liffey.
Here are few woodlandish favourites of mine at the moment!
You could paint the woodland, like the most talented Holly Ward Bimba, of Golly Bard…
or bottle it like Mai McKemy from WoodlandBelle…
or sew it, like Jenny from Seapinks…
or eat it (Emily would like this one!) like Andie Specialty Sweets…
or wear it, like me, at Designbirdie!
or… just take time to enjoy it, like sensible people!
I am so thrilled to have Brandi from Not Your Average Ordinary here with a guest post today! I have been following her blog for ages. She always writes the loveliest words and finds the prettiest images. And, if you’re looking for a little tasty treat inspiration, she writes a food blog too!
In honor of my trip to Spain, she’s put together a mini trip for you to an absolutely clever spot in Spain!
As you read this, she’s heading off on a big road trip across America so safe travels, Brandi!
In the south of Spain, there’s a farm. Canals were once built on the land to pump the water out of it, for cattle to graze. The farm was a failure.
The farm changed hands and water was pumped back onto the land. A new experiment began, one to create a fish farm. The farm did not just do well; it thrived.
Water entering the farm comes from the cities to the north. It is dirty and polluted. It leaves the farm clean.
The caretakers don’t feed the fish: the ecosystem is completely self-sustaining. They pride themselves on fishing extensively rather than intensively.
The farm is also the largest bird preserve in Europe.
There are some places on this planet that give me hope for the future, that assure me that we can care for our world and that it can care for us. Places like Veta La Palma are just the beginning.
{all images from Veta La Palma}
Happy Monday, friends! I’m heading to the airport in a few minutes, but I wanted to introduce the first, fabulous guest poster of the week! Jenna from Eat Drink Pretty has an awesome recipe to share with you today. Have you been over to visit Eat Drink Pretty? Such great inspiration for all types of parties, large or small! Thanks for kicking off the week, Jenna!
First, I want to say thank you to Emily for inviting me to guest post today. I hope you are enjoying your “sun holiday”!
For those of you who don’t know me, I write a blog called Eat Drink Pretty that’s full of food, baking and parties. One of my favorite things to do is spend the morning baking in my kitchen with my kitty, Kody, perched on a chair to keep me company and a mug of coffee on hand.
Please keep an open mind for the recipe today and don’t run away too soon. I assure you, savory oatmeal may sound like a strange idea, but it is really lovely and a new favorite of mine.
I love breakfast/brunch. It’s one of my favorite meals, but sometimes I tire of quiche and hash browns. So recently I’ve been eating a lot of steel-cut oatmeal. It’s hearty, easy to whip up and super healthy. I’m actually not a huge fan of sweets in the morning, though, and oatmeal is typically accompanied with sweet ingredients. So I decided to convert my oatmeal with yogurt and fruit to oatmeal with beans and avocado. Still with me? Good!
The inspiration for this oatmeal came from the classic breakfast burrito (one of my faves, but not super healthy). I thought, why not take that and transform it into a savory oatmeal dish? I promise you, it worked.
I am now officially obsessed with this dish. It takes breakfast to an entirely new level. I’m also convinced that avocado tastes good with absolutely everything (check out my avocado toast recipe here). And it’s especially good in oatmeal.
Ingredients
4 cups water
1 cup steel-cut oats
1/2 cup black beans
1/2 cup tomatoes
1/2 avocado
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Salsa (optional)
Shredded cheddar (optional)
Directions
1.In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the oats and simmer over low heat for about 35 minutes, until the oats are tender. Add the olive oil and stir.
Spoon the oatmeal into bowls and top with tomatoes, black beans and avocado. Season with salt and pepper. Add salsa and cheddar (optional).
Makes 4 servings.
Enjoy!
Here we are, friends, Friday again!
What a busy week, as usual! There’s still a long to-do list standing between me and a week of vacation, but it’s getting closer!
While I work away checking things off my to-do list, here’s a whole bunch of fun stuff to cheer up your Friday!
This is a great idea for less-than-tomatoey tomatoes! Slow roast them! I made these last week and they’re so yum in sandwiches.
I’m thinking of picking up a pair of these eyelashes. I wonder how easy they are to use?
Would you check out this genius craft table? I so needed this before I had my studio!
Is it wrong that I’ve been collecting a few Christmas ideas this week? Perhaps because it is so darn cold and un-summery! I filed this and this away to make in a few months!
Now how clever is this pin cushion in a tea cup! And no sewing involved – although I suppose it’s a little ironic to be excited that there’s no sewing involved in making a pin cushion. Ha!
And this is just the sweetest way to dress up paperclips to make awesome bookmarks.
I hope you all have a lovely week with my amazing guest-posters! See you all after my little vacation!
