What is considered American food?

Written by:  Amy listening to Devan, Abigail and Colleen “play” Minecraft “together”.

What does Ireland think is American cuisine?  We’ve been to several places that claim to have American food.  What we see is typically burgers and fries with the usual Irish cuisine thrown in for local familiarity.  When we see Mexican food, it typically tastes like barbeque.  Barbeque sauce does not taste like it is supposed to here so I’m not counting that as American Cuisine.  Tex-Mex in Ireland is a bizarre combination of foods with none of the spice.  It’s not good.

So, what would be typical American cuisine?  More specifically, what would you find in an American restaurant that you wouldn’t find anywhere else? I can tell you it’s not steak.  Or potatoes.  Those are both found all over the world.  It’s not seafood or it’s many preparations because that’s found all over the world as well.  It’s not pork chops, pulled pork, or turkey. It’s not even the hamburgers since most locations have cows and have discovered how to mince the meat up for patties.  There are hot dogs and buns, but they are usually found in the Slavic section. 

Instead, we do not see foods like jambalaya, collard greens, hush puppies, black-eyed peas, and gumbo.  So, the American south is not represented.  Weirdly enough, there is no root beer here.  It’s kinda weird.  The grocery stores lack staples like dried beans (split pea, lentils, pinto and the like), chicken broth, vegetable broth, cornmeal, dried bread, to name a few.  However, there is a make it yourself mentality so with broth, I bet they just pull a DIY on that.

We have been into some stores that claim to cater to the American ex-pat crowd living in Ireland.  What we found there was certainly an eye opener.  There was: Captain Crunch cereal, Lucky Charms cereal (so embarrassing!), Nerds, Cheetos, Marshmallow “Fluff”, Pumpkin Pie filling, Twinkies, Hawaiian Punch, Arizona Sweet Tea, Fanta Grape soda, Wonka Chocolate bars, and a whole host of candy that I have never seen before in my life. Eek.  This is American? 

So, what do you do all day? Huh?

Written by:  Amy making chicken stock from because they don’t sell it here.

I’ve had many people wondering what we do all week here.  I’ll try and take you through a typical week from my perspective.

Monday through Friday we wake up in time to roust the girls out of bed.  Abby is usually already up or close to it.  However, Colleen ALWAYS needs a nudge to start her day.  She doesn’t like leaving her cozy warm bed.  It is usually choose-your-own-adventure breakfast but we eat together in the kitchen at the small table that only has 2 chairs.  How do 4 people eat breakfast with only 2 chairs?  By using sneaky take-the-nearest-chair-first rules.  The suckers that don’t get a chair have to stand. 

I insist the girls be dressed, fed, teeth brushed before they start school at 9 am sharp.  They do not always appreciate this as they feel that since they go to school online, they should be able to go when they want in whatever attire they want.  On this, I get to have my way because I’m the parent and in charge.  I have relented and allowed Casual Friday to be PJ Friday.  But, the 9 am start time is set in stone.  I have a deal with them that if they get straight A’s, then they can have school in bed.  They are close, but no bed-time school sessions have happened yet.  You wouldn’t believe how motivated this makes them to get straight A’s.  It works even better than a trip to Disneyland.

Once they are set up and into the groove of school, Ker and I head to the fitness and leisure center in Bettystown.  It’s a tiny facility attached to the Neptune Hotel with some treadmills, elliptical and stationary bikes.  It offers classes—like spin—for 30 minutes a couple of times a week. I have attended 2 spin classes and even though they were only 30 minutes (the ones at home are 60), I got my ass handed to me both times.  I could barely walk after the last one.  I haven’t been back to the classes since because I’m a wimp. 

The gym offers several perks that are missing in my gym experience in Portland.  First, the people are some of the nicest fitness trainers I’ve ever had. They are completely approachable.  I pissed one of them off early on and she isn’t my biggest fan, but the other people are very kind and interested in stopping for a chat.  It’s nice because they are not super models, fitness zealots, or Barbies.. They are real people who sincerely want you to get the most out of your gym experience.

I go to the gym for fitness, but I also go because the gym offers my only chance at a decent shower.  The water pressure is so bad at the house that I have extra motivation to go to the gym.  And, while I’m there, I work up a sweat so I can justify using their showers.  It’s a win-win situation.

If we don’t go to the gym, Ker and I run other errands or just go exploring in the morning.  Ker’s got to work at noon-ish till 9 pm and the morning represents his free time.  So, we make it a point to go somewhere so he doesn’t feel housebound.  Also, the kids need some parent-free time and the morning is a good time to let them learn in peace.

Once we come home, it’s time to make lunch and Ker goes to work.  Abby is generally finished with her lessons for the day so she has free time.  Depending on the day, Colleen may or may not be done with her lessons.  If they are done, I drag them off for adventures.  And, I never know what those will be.  It could be a library day, or a beach walk day, or who knows.  We spend a lot of time getting groceries and meal planning.

I have a lot of time on my hands.  So, I fill it with books and I now watch TV shows on Netflix.  I find that I don’t have the stamina to sit through a lot of TV.  I start to get twitchy.  But, the upside of all this time is that my house is clean ALL THE TIME, my girls get my undivided attentions, Ker gets my undivided attention, and I can think.

Sooner than I expect, it’s time for me to cook dinner.  One of the girls is “cooker’s helper” depending on the day (odd days for Abby and even for Colleen), Ker takes his “lunch” at dinner time.  We eat and depending on the day (even days for Abby and odd for Colleen), one of the girls does the dishes while the other cleans off the table and does laundry.

Around 9 pm, Ker is done with work and is ready for some chill time.  The girls have LiveLessons week nights at 9 pm, but some are at 5 pm and 7 pm for Abby.  Since the school is based in Oregon, all times run on Oregon time.  Once LiveLessons are done, we hit the sack to do it all over again.

Weekends we try to go and explore Ireland.  I always look for a hike we can do.  I just love it.  Otherwise, we head to explore castles, historic landmarks, good tours or craft breweries. 

I gotta tell ya, it’s kind of awesome.

Dingle (bells) and Cork

By Abigail Cakebread

Come one, come all! Freshly written (but we're going to pretend it's not, like we've totally had this for a while but haven't gotten around to posting it) and late (again), this adventure is gonna knock your socks off.

So what adventure doesn't start out with waking up at 4 am on a Thursday? No good story ever starts with “I woke up at 10 am”. Instead, it's this: I woke up at 4 freaking am and, half asleep, saw a figure looming over me. Now, since I was like 90% still asleep, I figured I had a 50/50 chance of dying if I hugged it. Who knows, it could just be a lonely monkey in need of companionship. Or it could be a bear. Like I said, 50/50. Then I realized what it actually was, and wished it was a bear. It was Dad, telling me to get up because we had an exciting four hour car ride to “look forward to”. Yay. Can't wait. So I get dressed (kind of. See, I can't remember if more than half of the clothes I was wearing was dirty, but it's a good bet to say yes) and ready (mentally and physically) and lugged out the clothes and stuff I had packed the night before. Plopping into my “comfy” car seat, I remembered that we were in an enclosed space with Mom. Unfortunately, I hadn't convinced them to invest in gas masks, so we were all in danger of death by suffocation.

Skipping the boring car ride listening to music and our book on tape, we arrived in Dingle (bells) and checked into our bed and breakfast place. Outside the B&B, there was a large Mickey Mouse in the water, almost looking like he was measuring the water level. I have a pic of him on my phone. The weather outside was windy and rainy and windy and windy (did I mention windy?). We all went to lunch at a bar near the B&B at Murphy's. I had pizza, but it was a letdown. All cheese, no sauce. Dad went back to the B&B to work, and Mom, Colleen, and I went shopping. Yay. Oh, how I love walking aimlessly into stores while the weather outside was just getting worse. After like two hours, we went to the B&B to chill and “enrich ourselves with the cultural audiovisual experience”, basically watch Brits do Brit things. We had dinner in town. Guess what? They had pizza, too. I was so excited, I might get a redo of lunch! This pizza was probably better! Guess what Mom said? No. Guess what Dad did? Tormented me. Of course. Because this is a loving, caring, supportive family.

Friday was cold. We had breakfast at the B&B. Then we decided to drive around the Dingle(bells) peninsula. We saw an old fort that had been used in the early 1100s and beyond. They cared a lot about their sheep. We saw some Celtic crosses and ancient beehive huts. There was no tour for the huts, so it was up to our imagination to figure out what they were used for. Best guess is houses.  We continued along, finding two loose sheep, and going to an early Christian church called the Something Oratory. Of course there were rainbows along the way. We also went to a ceramic gallery and picked up Gma's Christmas gift. We went back to the B&B to pack up and head to Cork. After more driving, we found a hotel and repeated yesterday, lunch and then shopping. There were a lot of lights. Unfortunately, my knee started hurting again. My knee has been hurting on and off for a few months now. Presently, it hasn't acted up any, but I'm keeping a wary eye on it. After walking around (and around and around and around), Dad met us for dinner, then we headed to our hotel.

Saturday was cold (when isn't it?). We had breakfast in Kinsale where we went to the Lemon Leaf Cafe. They surved the best shortbread I have ever had in all of my existence. Know what I didn't grab? The recipe. Of course. We walked around Kinsale, then decided to walk to Charles Fort. It was a pretty cool fort, but there was nothing that really jumped out at me. We walked back and wandered around Kinsale, then headed back to Cork.

Sunday we had Breakfast in Cobh (what kind of name is that??) and went to St. Colman's Cathedral. It was very big. Mom and I attended mass. Then we headed home for another fifty thousand hours.

This is Abigail Cakebread, signing off.

Hunter's Visit Day #7

It was hard saying goodbye to the Hunter’s.  But, today was the day they had to go home.  As Crystal reminded me over and over, the months will just fly by and we will be living with them soon enough.  I know she is right, but it was such fun having them here.

I hope they had a good time.  I hope we balanced visiting time with exploring time.  I hope we were able to show them interesting things about Ireland without it being boring or Cakebread centered.  I worried that we were deluging them with history and culture.  I hope they were able to see how grateful we are that they came over and visited us. 

March is both too close and too far away right now.

Oh, and after we dropped them off at the airport, we went to Ikea and then had a long nap at home.  Even I was exhausted.

Hunter's Visit Day #6

For their last full day (ack!!! The time went so fast!!) we took them to the south part of the Republic.  We hit the Rock of Cashel and then onto Kilkenny and Kytler’s. 

We were 10 minutes late for the last tour, which sucked because I really wanted Crys and Bry to have the Cashel experience.  But, we soldiered on.  In Kilkenny, we were too late to get into Kilkenny Castle.  But, we did see the astonishingly beautiful outside.  We were caught in traffic, so once again, I got out of the car to do some window-shopping in Kilkenny.

Once Ker found parking we headed to Kytler’s to have dinner.  Interestingly, Kytler’s at 6:30 pm is not the same place as the Kytler’s at 9 pm.  At 9 there is live traditional music, the bar is open and the food is fresh.  Also, the place is packed and the menu is larger. Unfortunately, we were there at 6:30.  There was no music, no bar open and the menu consisted of 4 items, which came out less than 10 minutes after we ordered it.  What a bummer!

Hunter's Visit Day #5

It’s Belfast time!  Bryan expressed interest in the Titanic and we happen to know a place where he can get all of his questions answered—the place where the Titanic was built.  This works out perfectly because Ker and I wanted to show them Northern Ireland.  It’s hard to explain to eople from home how different it is in the North.  It’s hard to imagine that with an island so small, that it can contain two distinct countries with such a turbulent history.  It’s better to experience it in person.  So, off to Belfast we went.

Now, I have been trying to get a picture of the Welcome to Northern Ireland sign for a while.  Even though I got my phone out miles before the sign, I still missed it!  Grr.  The border between the two countries is not well marked and the sign comes up so fast without any warning that I’ve missed getting the picture EVERY time I’ve gon up.  Well, I live to try another time.

Abby, Colleen and I have already had as much of the Titanic Experience as we can handle, so we decided to do a little Christmas Shopping in downtown Belfast while Ker took Bry and Crys through the museum.  We had Ker set the GPS to a shopping center downtown.  The problem is that Belfast is full of traffic and streets that don’t make any sense.  Eventually, after waiting in horrendous traffic for 30 minutes, I deemed us “close enough” to the shopping center.  Since we weren’t moving anyway, the girls and I hopped out of the car to find our shops on foot.  This allowed Ker to maneuver the car out of the heavy traffic and to head toward the docks.   It was a win-win situation.

Our first shop was a cute early education boutique.  It was chock full of stickers, learning games, toys and gadgets.  We really wanted to buy one of everything!  I know that my elementary teacher friends would be itching to try out all the goodies.  I love little shops like this one! It was a fun time.

We meandered through several shops.  We even found an exotic food shop that had many of our favorite American foods.  It’s fun to think that American food and products are considered “ethnic” here.

Belfast is a large city, but it is not as pretty or picturesque as most of Ireland.  The city is primarily been an industrial powerhouse throughout the centuries.  This might explain the downtrodden and sometimes dirty feel of the place.  Also, the people aren’t as nice as what we encounter down in the Republic, but they are nice enough.  There’s an impression that Belfast is a serious place where serious people do serious work.  I can tell that the city is trying to attract tourism though.  The shopping center is new and very well decorated and there are many tourist friendly places to stop and chat.  These are very new and modern—they even still smell of fresh paint.

The girls and I stumbled on a Christmas Market right in front of the magnificent City Hall building.  It was filled with all the treats you can imagine.  It reminded us of the Portland Saturday Market minus the weirdos and overly patoulli scent if you know what I mean. I forgot to bring my Northern Irish money so we couldn’t buy anything at the cute little shops even though we saw some CUTE stuff.  Even with that, it well worth the stop.

After a couple of hours shopping, it was heading on lunchtime so I decided we should hop into a cab and meet up at the Titanic Experience.  It was perfect timing because Ker, Crys and Bry were about to order lunch at one of the restaurants inside Titanic Experience.  We ate there—I had the vegetarian option complete with the you-must-be-crazy look.

After lunch we headed back to the house to rest a little and get in touch with the people at “home” to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving.  It’s a little surreal to know that today we are usually cleaning, cooking and getting everything ready for a celebration of food and family.

Once sufficiently rested, we hooked the girls up with pizza and unlimited internet privileges.  This made them exceedingly happy and they were practically pushing us out the door so we could have an adult only night on the town exploring the Temple Bar area of Dublin.  Confusingly, Temple Bar refers to both an area of town and a specific pub in downtown Dublin.  So, when people ask to go to Temple Bar, we kind of look at them and have to figure out if they mean the pub or something else.

We arrived at 8:30 pm when people are just beginning to want to leave their house for a good time.  So, the pubs weren’t so crowded with drunkards quite yet.  I find that pleasant because loads of drunken people are not my kind of thing.  I find them kinda pathetic.  Since I was the designated driver, I only had one pint at the first place we stopped in.  I am much more entertained by the live music offered at these locations.  We were in the audience for some great local talent.  I really liked the banjo/guitar duo.  But, what was even more fun was to see Bryan try and sing with the street band outside the pubs.  That was hilarious.

We rounded the evening off with a stop at The Porterhouse Brewing Company.  This is a must see for any beer lover visiting Ireland.  Lots of taps with an awesome guitar player who is skilled at getting the crowd involved and singing.  The building has many cozy corners and funky seating so you don’t feel hemmed in.  Ker and I will definitely be back.  This might be the only incentive that will convince Ker to come Christmas shopping with me this year.