Strictly Text.

Okay. So there will be no pictures this blog. Who's fault is that? No particular person to blame, but there hasn't been any Internet here at the hotel in Ireland for a week now. Today is the first day that it has come back on. Can you imagine my excitement? But then can you imagine my dismay when I realized that I hadn't updated in over a week, and the blog was supposed to suffice as my journal I'm supposed to be keeping while I'm here. So now, I'm thrown off two weeks of my journal, and it needed to be 10 pages long. Upsetttinnngggggg.........

But anyway, because of this no Internet debacle, I am not posting any pictures in this blog entry. And I always have pictures. But really, with this slow, broken computer, slow Internet connection, and the fact that the letter "l" doesn't work and the fact that I have to copy and paste it into the text entry box all would make for an incredibly upsetting blogger experience. So this is what I am going to do; I've decided to wait until I got home to do a "Everything You Missed in Ireland Post Spectacular". I will continue to post each day while I'm here (two more weeks), and all the mundane details of my day will appear here. The things that I didn't post from this past week and a half will go up after I'm home, when my computer doesn't shut down for uploading more than four pictures. I'll start with today:

This morning I accidentally woke up late and had no time to shower as I rushed out of the cottage door. I surprisingly wasn't late for work, and we picked up more leaves from around the flower bed. Then we went with Nolene, the head of gardening at the hotel, to Pergola Nurseries to buy more tulip bulbs. While I was there, I took so many amazing pictures of flowers I didn't even know existed. They were quite nice; they will appear in the EYMIPS. Then we returned to the gardening shed at the hotel only to find that it was raining, and we could not plant the bulbs. Me, and unnamed student who also had gardening thus were allowed to return home from work as gardeners get off when it rains. Then I went back to my cottage where I used the Internet for a few hours, and later on I went into town and got chocolate muffins from Super Valu Mart; my new favorite place in the world! Then I used the Internet a bit more, and now I'm typing this; more tomorrow, with pictures ;D

Typing without the damn letter l

So yesterday was my last day of working in the hot foods kitchen. I guess I waited a bit too long to discuss this, but I'm going to do it now before I put it off any more days. I guess it was a good expirience overall; seeing as how i had never worked in an actual kitchen before, this was a step up from labs. In labs, it's okay to take your time and mosey around the kitchen a bit while working on something. In the kitchen here, it's either really busy or really slow. There didn't seem to be any in between. These past couple days I was either being shouted at for making club sandwhiches wrong or standing around waiting for a dirty dish to come in so I could clean it. It was also different from the 5 hour lab, usually only 3 1/2 hours of which are actually used for cooking; the 8 hour shift was diffiicult at first, but by the second day I was used to it. If there is anything I got out of all this, it's that I can now make amazing chicken picatta. It seemed to be the only thing I made besides fried Brie, and the first time I did it I made a sauce out of white wine vinegar instead of the actual wine. I got yelled at for that.

The making of Chicken Picatta, a recipe burned into my skull by the chefs at the Virginia Park Hotel. I will share it with all of you eventually, just give me a minute to have it stop coming out of my ears.

I might talk more about the cooking job later on in my trip, but as of right now I really don't feel like it because it was just yesterday that I stopped. Next week I work as a server in the mornings, so that should be fun.

Okay, this sounds super pathetic and petty, but it's so something I'd do (and I did): when I first recieved my schedule, I saw that I didn't have anything but cooking and labor. So I complained about it to the staff here only because I brought an all black outfit and I wanted to wear it. I know, completley unesscary but I did it anyway; besides, I was told that everyone had to have a shift in each division of the hotel while here. Mehh. I'll upload more tonight after I eat something.

My new favorite activity, dishwashing lehh.

They have blue sprite here lol.

More later guyss :DD ( Read Sam's Ireland Blog Here)

Welcome to Dublin

No, I haven't posted in a while. Yes I've fallen off the wagon, again, for the thousandth time. But it doesn't matter because I made it to Ireland! I got here Sunday and I decided that I should wait until I've had a few days of actual kitchen work complete because for the first three days of being here, it was nothing but orientation and meetings. After working in an actual kitchen for two days I can now say that this is the field I want to be in.

Last night I was tired and cold, I missed my family, and I had remnants of the five chicken piccattas i made splattered on my shoe, and I'm amazed that I don't care but it only makes sense not to. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, and instead of moping around and being upset that I'm away for so long, I'm going to enjoy myself (sure dominic, you say that now; wait until week 4 -.-). So as you all can see, i'm going to continue blogging while I'm here, but it might take a while longer that usual as on the laptop I've brought with me the letter "L" doesn't work. So all my blog entries will be typed from my iPhone and photos will be added from the computer. I don't usually have this much text in a typical entry, but I think it's good; BRANCH OUT!

So I've also noticed a few (petty) interesting differences between here and America. I'm going to list them:

1. The butter is SUPER yellow. Like rediculously vibrant in color.

2. They don't sell 20oz sodas regularly. I only see giant bottles in the grocery store.

3. The grocery carts in all the stores are all free wheeled, so they spin in every direction! You all have no idea how excited i was in the grocery store today when I found out you could spin the cart!!!

4. It is very difficult to find salt. When I went to the store this morning with Sam, I only saw two bottles of salt in the entire building.

5. I completly forgot the people drive on the wrong side of the road. Actually it's the "right" side (get it?!), but it makes crossing the street quite bothersome.

6. The people here are either super super polite or they're really rude. As far as I can tell there is no gray area. I'd say 85% - 90% of all the people here fall into the polite category, but it seems as though no matter where you go you'll always encounter that one person who slams into and keeps walking.

If I notice any other differences I will be sure to post them in tomorrows entry for sure. That entry will have pictures and will go over exactly where I'm staying, what my room looks like, and most importantly food. Unfortunatley we ran out of cereal so i had to go to the store today, and then I cleaned my cabin and my bedroom and stuff, so I didn't really have time to upload photos today. I can't really do it now because I have to be at work in an hour, and I'm amazed that I even had time to type this. More tomorrow, because it's 2 o'clock Ireland time right now :)

Goodbye

I have too many things to blog about. I could go on about my new found affinity for fruit carving, I could talk about how well the grand buffet project went. I could even talk about the amazing dinner I had at Bertucci's last night. But I'm not going to. I'm on my way to the airport right now; I'm leaving to stay in Ireland for five weeks. I will continue to blog; my posts will probably be 50 times more amazing because I'll be doing exciting things there. My next post will be up Monday night Ireland time...so that's like afternoon here. Goodbye :)

Sloppy Babies

I never plan these. I swear I always think I'm going to get up the next morning and blog all about the amazing food I ate yesterday. Then it occurs to me; I had Domino's pizza last night....and the night before last....the day before that I had ramen noodles...and before you know it, it's the weekend again and I've blogged about nothing. So today, I've decided to do something that I've never done, but probably already should have. Side note- remember how about a month ago I thought it would be a great idea to bleach my hair? Well the day before I did all that, I baked Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies. Yes, yes they got a small mention here, but I say those cookies deserve more recognition. So today, I'm doing my first ever "RecipeTorial"! Here we go!

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RecipeTorial - Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup butter, unsalted
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
4 tsp lemon zest + 1/2 tsp extra for topping
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 Tbsp poppy seeds + extra for topping

Step #1: Gather your ingredients! Yes, yes, dull lighting I know; pay attention to the cookies, I'm trying to get a real camera soon. Anyway, preheat your oven to 350F. Get your ingredients ready, along with a saucepan and two mixing bowls.

Egg. Focus on the egg lol.

Step #2: Pour the lemon juice into the saucepan. Turn it on. There really isn't much else to this step; since I forgot to take a picture of the dough; the next picture will have the description of that. So below, I've added half of the butter to the simmering lemon juice.

Step #3: Add the rest of the butter and the sugar together; mix until pale an creamy. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. We'll use this later.

Step #4: Once the butter melts in the simmering lemon juice, add it to the remaining butter and sugar. Stir with a rubber spatula as you pour it in, making sure to get everything off the sides of the bowl. *Tip- Try not to take pictures with your phone during this process; you could burn yourself like I did ;D

Step #5: Once butter/lemon mixture had been added to the butter/sugar mixture, whisk until a pale, off white color is achieved. Mix in one egg (seen above lol), stir, and add in the lemon zest, poppy seeds, and vanilla. *Tip- Instead of leaving the poppy seeds and vanilla separate, I decided to let the seeds soak in the amount of vanilla to let them impart their flavor into the cookies as opposed to just being a decoration.

Step #6: After step five is complete, gradually stir in flour, baking powder, and salt mixture with rubber spatula until the dough forms into a ball. I decided not to use my kitchen aid for this one (no idea why though), so a bit of elbow grease is needed here.

Step #7: Once the dough is mixed, make cookies out of one tablespoon measurements, topping them with sugar, zest, and more poppy seeds. Flatten the cookies with the bottom of a glass, not your hand, so that the toppings don't come off.

Step #8: Bake for 10-12 minutes, until a light, golden color shows on the cookie. As it seems, these cookies don't really grow much in size while in the oven; I'm guessing it's because they are more on the dry side when the dough is fully mixed; maybe next time I'll add a bit more lemon juice and perhaps 1-2oz more of butter to make them more malleable. Still, delicious.

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