If you ever visit the Emerald Isle, you'll probably want to include a trip to Cork in your plans. Very cool town. It's alot like Dublin, only on a much smaller scale. We ended up with just six hours to spend in the city (it is a three hour train ride from the Capitol) so we spent the day looking around city center. If shopping is your bag, then book yourself a few days here. The shopping district goes on and on (in seemingly typical Irish fashion). When you turn down one street or alley, there is always another one. And another, and another...But my subject here is food.

I'm still not sure how Cork ended up the reputed epicurean capital of Ireland (other than the fact that there is a large cooking school there), but it could hold its own as far as some of the restaurants you'll find there. They're like the shops- Too many to count. If there's one, there's five hundred more right around the corner. More notably still, there's what is known as "The English Market". If ever there were a juggernaut of a farmer's market, this is it. An old church restored as an all season bazaar, this must be the godfather of open air produce markets. If meat is your thing, there are countless butchers on hand selling everything from ribeyes to sirloins, tounges and tripe...I even found gator filets, osritch and emu meat, quail, pheasant, duck, deer, you name it. There were vendors selling locally grown and roasted coffee, wines and spirits. Not to mention the upstairs in the place has been converted into a cafe' that draws almost every ingredient on the menu from right downstairs.

We weren't hungry yet, so we promised ourselves that we would come back when we were. Didn't happen. We had gotten so turned around ducking hither and yon between this alley and that street, poking into this store only to tumble out the back into yet another thoroughfare crammed to the hilt with things to see, that we decided to call on a place called "Amicus". Though we had stumbled across it by chance, it was one that one of our hostesses back in Dublin had suggested we go to. Very good, but not the best (Regina and I make a whole wheat naan bread pizza that, quite frankly, put the one she ordered to shame).

Anyway, too much minutiae. This entry is like looking over somebody else's vacation pictures and trying to feign interest. Suffice it to say that my stay here in Ireland was fantastic, and having a new way to enjoy this beautiful country (through my newly appreciative culinary eyes) added just that much more depth to the experience. Early tomorrow morning we will leave (with a second chance to have a look at Paris) and it will be back to the grindstone come Monday. Back to the states and back to my project with a renewed purpose and alot of catching up to do.



 

No Madleen. She either got busy or her friends talked her out of going out on the town with two strangers (understandable). Jet lag had taken it's toll and we got a late start, so we took to the streets of Dublin proper. One highlight was a place called "The Farm" on Grafton Street, I think. What a find! Their whole schtick was local and organic fare. It was fantastic stuff: the cheese plate, the wild mushroom soup, roast duck/butternut squash, all the way to the final push, rhubarb pie and organic local ale. Ideas for our Thanksgiving feast came on like wildfire (that rhubarb pie not the least among them).

We returned to the hotel late and spent a couple of hours booking our Cork trip for the following day. It ought to be fun. Catch the early morning train, then the LUAS to the main rail station, the 0900 out of the city, and finally, the culinary capital of Ireland is at hand (we coaxed a few places of interest out of one of our pub waitresses who happened to be from there). I'm curious to see how it got the honor, seeing how in my experience, Dublin is a world class city foodwise.

We shall see.