Easter Weekend Holiday: Part 1

What an amazing Easter Weekend!!!  Myself and another intern (and Duck) Allie spent four days exploring Galway and all the major areas around the city in what can only be described as one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  I will start at the beginning

We caught a train for only one Euro from Heuston station in Dublin at 7:30 in the morning and arrived in Galway at about 10 am.  We dropped off our bags at Sleepzone hostel and then set out to explore the city for the day.  After a quick brunch/lunch at a local bakery we bought a ticket for a hop-on/ hop-off bus that showed us all around Galway.  The tour guide was an old man with a great sense of craic (irish humor/fun), and it was obvious that he had been doing this for quite awhile now.  After that we continued exploring on foot, wandering into several little shops, including a French bakery with amazing croissants and macaroons.  For dinner we found a nice Italian restaurant in the city center called Il Folletto, where I got Gnocchi in a pesto sauce that was to die for.  It would have been better with a nice glass of dry white wine to cut through the richness, but it was Good Friday so no one was selling alcohol.  Or so I thought, until Allie and I wandered down to the water front to a great restaurant called Ard Bia for dessert and surprisingly a glass of wine.  We got a lemon posset (which is a “custard” with a consistency somewhere between normal crème brulee and yogurt) with a mixed berry compote and sugar biscuits.  This dessert was so good that I want to live in it.  It was like a taste of summer and was perfectly balanced in every way.  It was the perfect dessert.  Our hostel was nice, but beds were not built for my height so I had to sleep either diagonally or on my side.  Also, I would recommend to anyone thinking about staying in a hostel to bring shades and ear plugs to help sleep through people waking up in the morning.

For the next three days, we explored the surrounding areas by purchasing a giant tour package through the Galway tour company, which also provided us with living accommodations in another hostel called Barnacles, located in the heart of the city.  Day one was The Burren/Cliffs of Moher.  Our bus left at 10 am and was quite full.  Our tour guide was pretty good, but I have a hard time remembering anything particular about him, so I guess pretty forgettable.  Leaving Galway was very scenic, very green.  Then we approached the Burren, climbing a barren hill that is emblematic of the area.  Upon entering the area I was amazed between the stark dichotomies of the landscape.  Luscious green pastures dotted with rocks quickly merged into completely barren yet stunning hills.  Cows are everywhere, which is fairly surprising given the amount of grass cows need and how rugged the area is.  We drove though the area, stopping a few times for picture opportunities and at significant landmarks, but usually for only 15 minutes.  We stopped for lunch in Doolin, an area renowned for its traditional music scene.  Allie and I had picked up amazing sandwiches in Galway before we left and enjoyed our lunch on a stone wall overlooking the ocean and the side of the Cliffs of Moher.  There was a wire fence close to our feet that I thought was benign but later learned was eclectic when it lightly jolted me (don’t worry, it was only a shock).     I would say that we had it much better than everyone else on the tours, who were paying a lot more at the pub were the bus stopped.  We then proceeded to the Cliffs of Moher, climbing a large mountain and gazing upon the incredibly gorgeous area we just had visited.  We arrived at the Cliffs where our tour guide told us we had 1 ½ hours.  After a slight upward walk I gazed upon the awe-some sight that is the Cliffs of Moher and when combined with the crystal blue skies and radiant sun, I thought I was in heaven.  It was hard to believe that this was all real and it took quite a while for it all to sink in.  With a limited it me frame we walked on the grass path to the right, rather than the paved one and proceeded to take everything in.  I even poked my head over the edge (crawling to the edge on my belly of course) to get a quick view and it was spectacular.  I still can’t believe how lucky I am to be here right now and to see this amazing country.  

Difficulties on commenting should be fixed

So I just checked and it turns out that the settings for my blog were set to only allow registered users to comment on my post.  Just changed that so there should be no problems now.  Sorry

Everyday I get a little better

So I am now in week 4 of my internship and I must say that right at week 3 I finally clicked with my job and things have been going amazing for me.  At first it seemed like everything I made turned out wrong; frittatas, cookies, scones, even soups, you name it.  But almost like magic, everything started coming out amazing at the beginning of week 3.  Now, scones are coming out of the oven beautifully golden brown and fluffy.  My brownies are insanely chocolaty and decadently moist.  Two soups (Tomato and Basil & Sweet potatoes with coconut and ginger) were possibly the best soups I have ever made.  I think I have finally gotten the hang of how to make really good brown soda bread after several less the amazing loaves.  While there are many other things coming out nice now, I think the one I am most proud of is a New-York style lemon-blueberry cheesecake.  Not only did I know that it came out perfect, but everyone else who works here thought it was amazing (one girl said it was the best thing ever made at the shop) and it sold out completely in two days.  I am currently working on making a recipe for a Baileys Cheesecake which will be featured in a magazine article about discovering Ireland.

Basically, the first two weeks were me getting the hang of a new kitchen and now I feel as if all the stuff I have learned as a home cook is allowing me to make some pretty great food.  However, I am still playing it pretty safe by cooking things I am familiar with.  My plan as of right now is to continue doing this for at least another week and a half until I reach the half-way point.  Then for the second half I really want to push myself technically and creatively by making things I have never done before.  I still need to make some food items for the lunch menu and I think my first one is going to be a grilled cheese with ham and sun-dried tomato pesto.  While that might seem really basic back home, people here don't eat grilled cheese so I am hoping to introduce them to an American classic with my own twist and using really good Irish cheddar.  I will let you all know what people think.

Coffee lovers both rejoice and despair

So I know that when I left for Ireland I was under the notion that everyone here just drank a lot of tea.  While this is actually true, I was quite surprised to find out that certain kinds of coffee are actually really popular in Ireland.  In general, it appears that espresso drinks are actually really big in Dublin, with people going out for coffee more often than tea.  Coffee drinks generally consist of espresso, macchiato, cappuccino, americano and latte.  Mocha's are usually offered but very few people order them.  Don't expect to find any over the top drinks like you would at say Dutch brothers of Starbucks (white chocolate mocha, pumpkin spice latte).  So I guess if you love coffee shops you should get along splendidly in Ireland.

However, coffee does have a dark-side here.  If you just like a black cup of drip coffee in the morning or during the day you are in the wrong place.  Almost nowhere serves black coffee and people don't make it at home.  Instead they use instant coffee like Americans did a long time ago (some people might have a french press but very few own coffee machines).  The main reason for this is probably because the Irish really do like tea and they can make it easily at home in place of a cup of black coffee.  However, they can't make espresso so they go out to cafes to get their coffee fix in a way similar to how we do.  

This is both bad and good for me.  It is bad because back home I usually just like to get a cup of coffee and add a little sugar and milk to it, so at the beginning this difference in coffee really sucked.  However, now it is amazing because my work makes amazing coffee drinks to help set them apart from other cafes and I basically get free coffee drinks all day long whenever I want them.  I like a cappuccino or macchiato when I am casually working during the day and a shot of espresso really helps during the busy shifts.  So while I might not be getting paid, the job definitely has its perks. 

So the first thing I miss from home is.... beer!? Really?

While although the Irish are both loved and notorious for being big drinkers of beer (especially Guinness), that doesn't mean they have a very extensive selection.  After going to multiple pubs in the suburbs and a few in the city, I think I can make a pretty accurate statement when I say that pubs in Ireland really only have a limited selection of beer on draft.  The standards are Guinness (of course), Smithwicks, Bulmers, Carlsberg, Heineken/Becks and weirdly enough Budweiser.  In fact, a lot of places also carry Miller and Coors as well.  You might get a few others here and there but for the most part those are your options at the pub.  Bottled beer is available to (and for some reason is quite popular at pubs too, even when you can get the same beer on tap.  And some people drink their beer with ice in the glass, which is blasphemy to me) but you pay more for less.  This is really difficult for me to handle, being from the land of micro-brew beervana, where if you can think it, you can brew it.  Guinness is good and all, but I find myself really thirsting for an IPA or even an ale to break up the monotony of the stouts and lagers.  Side note: Heineken on tap actually tastes pretty good here, unlike the skunky taste it has in bottle back home.  I will have to try it from the tap back in the States.  German beers in the stores are the closest thing to micro-brews, but they just aren't the same.  I would like to get into cider, but after a while even the dry ones get too sweet.

Luckily, there is an oasis for a beer lover like myself and its called The Porterhouse. It is located in the heart of Dublin and they have about 10 home-brewed beers that they serve everyday, a lot of which even use cascade hops.  They don't even serve Guinness at their two pubs because they claim its no longer an Irish beer (it is internationally owned now).  I only wish it were closer and/or their bottled beers didn't cost so much.

Rush Shifts: It kinda a love/hate relationship

Let me first of all say that I after this entry I promise to make my entires shortes

So while my first two days of work where very laid back and casual in pace, Friday and Sunday both had very definitive rush shifts.  Friday gets very busy during lunch because Friday just in America is the beginning of the weekend and people like to go out and get lunch to "celebrate".  As the tickets began to come in much faster, I quickly began to feel overwhelmed.  I was basically put in charge of making the sandwiches (which are by far the  biggest attraction for lunch).  While although it might not seem like that difficult of a thing when there are not many orders, it quickly becomes more complicated once multiple orders come in with several items on each ticket.  At first I made a lot of mistakes and it was fairly frustrating because they all came one right after the other.  However, you learn quickly from your mistakes and after about an hour I got into the groove of the rush and things went smoother (but not perfect).  The two most popular sandwiches are by far the roasted chicken with basil mayo and a classic BLT.  The bacon that we use though is very different, almost more like a small piece of pork crossed with bacon and you don't cook it crispy unless asked for (and even then it is never really crispy).  I personally don't think I could ever get used to it knowing American style bacon.  There is also a lentil, roasted veg and goat cheese salad that is quite popular and quite delicious.

Sunday was absolutely crazy.  Not only are Sundays normally the busiest day but it was also Mother's Day in Ireland.  (Side note... it was really cute to see dozens of young men caring around flowers Saturday night before going home).  I tried to mentally prepare myself for the rush, which helped a little bit but it was still really hard.  Brunch was the main feature of the day and menu items include a full irish breakfast (sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, black and white pudding, creamy mushrooms, roasted tomatoes and toast), eggy bread (basically french toast without any milk, vanilla or cinnamon in the batter) with sauted bananas and honey, a brunch salad (spring greens with black pudding, bacon, cherry tomatoes and balsamic dressing), scrambled eggs with soda bread and some sandwiches that are available during the week.  I basically had to learn how to do everything again and like before made lots of mistakes with the orders and it seemed like the orders would never stop coming.  At one point I just wished that no one else would come in.  But like before, I eventually got the hang of things and Fabi and I cranked out the last orders of the rush just around 3:30 pm.  I didn't get to eat lunch until 4:00 pm (I started my shift at 9:30 am).  One of the best experiences today happened when quite a few people at first ordered poached eggs even though they weren't an option on the menu.  Fabi didn't really know how to make them, but i had been working on preparing eggs in different ways before I left the states, including poached eggs.  Because of this I was able to step up and really help out in a way like never before and felt quite proud of myself.  

After the rush ended, all of us in the back relaxed a lot and joked about how mad everything just was.  Sitting down to eat my sandwich never felt so good.  I would say that today's shift was pretty much a love/hate kinda thing.  At first I felt embarrassed and stupid because I was making so many mistakes that I felt as if I had never even cooked before.  But by the end, I felt much more like a well oilded machine that quickly knew how to react when an order came in.  I am actually really looking forward to my next Sunday shift now that I know how things work and really want to knock it out of the park.  I still have a lot to learn and I can still get MUCH better, but after today I feel confident in my abilities to improve everyday and help make Urbun an even better restaurant than it already is.