We’re on holidays!! The temperature outside balmy, the ocean breezes are warm, and we’re all relaxing. Of course, it helped that we went to a lovely wedding last night…one of my bestest friends married the woman of his dreams last night. (Cue: awwwwwwww) She was so beautiful, and he was just glowing with love. Our boys were the ring bearers (well, one actually carried the rings, the other one stopped halfway up the aisle and chucked the pillow down on the ground…he had the fake rings tho), and looked so cute in their purple boy’s ties!

Next up is Nashville tomorrow, to see B’s brother and sister-in-law. V excited about this. We also will be going to the water park, since P has learned how to swim. I think we’ll need it, in hot humid Nashville!

So far here, P’s been playing tennis and enjoying the ocean wildlife (pics and video to follow). Eoin’s meeting the ocean, enjoying the pool and checking out the playground. So it’s all good, and all nice. Bit sandy, but hey, it’s the good with the bad!

If you cover up their nose, no one can recognize them. I’m sure the Independent didn’t mean to have this on their FRONT PAGE.

Last Sunday, I headed up to Blackrock to This Is Knit…not just for knitting stuff, no.  I was asked if I would like to try to dye my own yarn!  This freaking ROCKED.  I love doing it!  Aileen talks about her bit (and there’s a bit of me in a pic), and I am sitting on my hands to make sure that I don’t go sniff the (still slightly damp) yarn in the Pope room.  Sniff?  Well, I tried a bit of KoolAid dyeing, which is amazingly fun.

I wasn’t fully prepared (my wool wasn’t pre-soaked for one) but they took pity on me and shared.  I left some of my wool (some luscious Craftspun Homespun–there’s a picture on my Ravelry page) and hope to do more soon.

Lisa’s put up some of the classes coming up…dyeing is one of them!  I hope some of you come to it.  I can’t believe how much fun (and how easy!) it is.

Why do some companies, trying to be edgy, get some god-awful fonts for their logo?  Cause I just drove past a car for (I think) a t-shirt company, but I almost got in an accident cause the logo was CRAP and you couldn’t read the name of the company at all!

However, fair play to naming this delivery company:  Pass The Parcel.  Class!

I finished the body of P’s jumper.  Amazing.  I do love knitting in the round, nice and mindless.  It took forever, it seems, but it’s cause I only knit at night or on Thursdays.  Next stop, short rows for the tops of the sleeves…eep!!  I stopped by This Is Knit today, to double check what I was planning on doing with the sleeves made sense.  Thankfully, Aileen and Lisa said “Um…nice, but…no.” :-)  WAAAAY too many stitches. So I have now picked up my stitches, put my markers in for short rows…and I’m too scared to do it in magic loop!!  I’m going to look around the house for some short circulars, cause all I have are long ones in this size (5, I think?).

Someday, the jumper will be done.  And he might still be able to wear it

Nope, not a typo.

In a Twitterchat with Mulley the other day, I mentioned the beanis. That I would whip one up for him. Well, I guess I need to now.

Must find the right wool for this…or maybe cotton? Bummer, it’s not on Ravelry. That would start an interesting discussion, I’m sure. Must mention it at Knit Night.

I don’t understand why people in Ireland, when they get bad service, don’t complain about it.  Most people I know have worked in the service industry in some form; I was a waitress as well as the person who shut the doors on the trams at Universal Studios Hollywood.  We were taught at Universal that if someone has a good experience, they tell 1 person; if they have a bad experience, they tell 10 people.  But apparently not the person in charge, or the manager.

A couple weeks ago, we ordered a take-away from Aya.  I ordered it at home, and the husband, dropping someone off at Heuston, was going to collect and bring it home for us all. He had no idea what we ended up ordering, he just collected what he was told was our order and jumped back in the car.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t really what we ordered.  Well, it was, but maybe only half of it.  We had written down what we were going to order, and compared it to what he brought home…just about half.  It was extremely odd for us, since we go to Aya a lot (it’s a safe restaurant for us to eat out in, somewhere I don’t have to worry about wheat or raw carrots or or or).  I wrote a letter to the owner, explaining what happened, and included copies of the receipt and our notes on what to order.

Today I got a letter with a check in it, refunding the cost of our order.  The letter said they were sorry to hear about our problem, and that they were looking into it with the staff who were on duty that night.

When we complain, it is because we like the place (or we wouldn’t be there) and we’d like to see it come off better than it is.  Or that service that is normally stellar is a little off, and that it should be caught and fixed.  We don’t complain to be jerks.  We’re trying to help, that’s basically it.

So, hurrah on the customer service at Aya.  And hurrah for being a bit different, and helping people out.

I saw a post on Hippyshopper about a gadget that is a visual display of your energy usage.  I’ve been thinking about this since my friends showed me the same type of gizmo for electricity.

The only issue?  Those silly people at Ewgeco have no links to WHERE to buy it.

Apparently we’ve been on a chicken kick lately.  We use a lot of chicken thighs, because they’re cheap (3 euros for a kilo!), nutritious, and can be used for pretty much anything.

Last night was another Jamie Oliver recipe, Special Chicken Stew.  We use a lot of Jamie’s recipes because they’re good, easy overall, and in a study done on a bunch of celeb cookbooks, his was top rated for clarity, ease of cooking, and how the dish looked when someone else did it, compared to the cookbook.  Some of them, we don’t have to look at the recipe anymore, we know it by heart.

Something about the tarragon, mustard and grapes in this makes me call it the Spring stew, cause it’s just so bright and flavorful.

Special Chicken Stew, from Jamie’s Dinners:

Special Chicken Stew

2 spring chickens of poussins
1 bunch parsley, leaves picked, stalks reserved
1 bunch tarragon, leaves picked, stalks reserved
4 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
2 heaped tablespoons plain white flour
extra virigin olive oil
1 while onions, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
1/2 celery heart, trimmed back and finely sliced
2 good knobs of butter
2 wineglasses of crisp white wine
1 pint stock
3 gem lettuces, quartered
1 small bunch of seedless grapes, washed an halved

Preheat oven to 180/350.  Season your chicken inside and out and stuff each with the parsley and tarragon stalks.  Using your forefinger, carefully part the skin from the breast meat and smear a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard into each bird.  Rub the flour all over the chickens so they are covered in a thin layer.  Keep any flour that falls off.

In a snug-fitting casserole type pan, fry your chickens in 3 good lugs of olive oil on all sides for 10 minutes until golden.  Remove them to a plate and then fry off the onion, garlic an celery in the pan.  Add the butter and spare flour an continue to fry for about 4 minutes, scraping off any goodness that is on the bottom of the pan.  Add your 2 glasses of wine and allow the liquid to reduce by half, then put the chicken back into the pan.  Now pour in your stock, it should come to about half-way up the chickens.  Make yourself a cartouche .  Wet it so it’s flexible then tuck this in and around the pan.

Place in the oven and cook for around 50 minutes to an hour until the chickens have crisp skin and the thigh meat falls off the bone.  Remove the chicken to some nice serving bowls, ones that can hold a bit of sauce, and place your pan back on the hob.  Add the lettuces, grapes, parsley and tarragon leaves and simmer for a couple more minutes.  Correct the seasoning carefully and spoon this sauce next to the chicken.

A fricassee can also be made with white fish.

We’ve just moved this to a new host, so if you see any issues with the blog, please let me know. I’ve been going through trying to find problems, and haven’t.

Regular posting will continue soon (well, as regular as I’ve been).