Archive for September, 2005
Dammit, now I’ll never have a shoe phone. Maxwell Smart dies.
Posted on September 28, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Humour.
Now listen carefully. Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in one of the best shows of my youth has died aged 82. The show actually aired from 1965 to 1970 in the US but I didn’t see it until well into the 70’s. A very very silly series which I will never forget.
I cannot walk through any building with more than two swing doors in sequence without that tune starting in my head "duh duh duh duuuuuuh, duh duh duh duuuuh…"
Shocking Update: My wife has no idea what I am talking about. I thought everyone of our generation got their first taste of Mel Brooks via Agent 99? And we lived in 2-channel hell for most of the 70’s!
[tags]getsmart, maxwellsmart, donadams, shoephone[/tags]
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Scoozi’s - Good for a Friday night bash
Posted on September 26, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Restaurants, Reviews.
Maria, our summer student, finished up on Friday. We bounced around a few ideas for nosh and settled on something we figured everyone would like - Scoozi’s on Winthrop Ave just near the GPO in Cork.
Great buzz in the place on arrival and no delay getting seated (well it was 5.30 on a Friday). A bit disappointed that there was no beer on the menu - I had imagined big jugs of the stuff in the middle of the table. A few bottles of Chianti did the trick and the hard-liquor-drinkers just had to wait for the pub. Most people has the bruschetta for starters. I have read one review of the place and the comment on the bruschetta was that it is not what you expect but it is tasty. I have to second that. I’m a sun-blush tomato addict and they were covered in em. Having said that, it was really just door-stopper toast with melted cheese!
I had a pizza whose name evades me (Ciprioconi, Ciccatori, I dunno) - anyway, olives, cheese, pepperoni and anchvoies. Not bad at all but I did think the base was bought in rather than cooked on the premises. And I was stuffed after it.
The others had a variety of pizzas, pasta and burgers. The pasta looked only ok but the burgers looked fantastic - particularly the buns used. I couldn’t fit dessert and had a top-notch double espresso. The others loved what they got - and again huge portions.
The best part of the night? Meal for 6 with 2 bottles of wine - €168. That is just great value for what we received. Service was top notch and the tip reflected that.
So if you want something that is fast, tasty and great value then check them out.
p.s. pints afterwards in The Long Valley. A Cork institution I’m told. Loved it, my kind of pub - old, not jammed, music not blaring, good pints, "interesting" loos. Definitely going back.
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Mmm, spicy
Posted on September 26, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Family, Food.
The parents are in Spain and my mother gave me a shout to see if I wanted anything whilst she was there. The last time she got me a fab selection of Chorizo and Salami which I am still working through. So I just asked for the same again. But I also asked her if she would keep her eye out for Smoked Paprika - the main flavour in Chorizo. Fiona failed to find it on her last trip and I’m beginning to think that someone will have to find a "spice emporium" over there. Bit of a coincidence that one of the foodie blogs that I read (Chocolate and Zucchini - a great read if a little high-falutin) has a full post on Pimentón de la Vera which is exactly what I asked my Ma to look out for. Fingers crossed.
On a vaguely related note, anyone know if you can buy the Weber Bullet BBQ Smoker in Ireland? Some day I am going to try to BBQ a full Brisket (14lbs of it!) just like this: Brisket Midnight Cook
Last year on a business trip to Austin TX, I was brought to The Salt Lick by Tim Dell. I can still remember the taste of the BBQ Brisket, and the smoked turkey, and the sausage. Oh, I think I need to lie down for a second. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
After I came back I tried to BBQ a small "Irish" brisket of 2 lbs or so. I utterly incinerated it but it was bloody tasty!
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Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
Posted on September 19, 2005, by Conor, under Cooking, Family, Food.
Update 19/09/2005: I had left out a few steps on this originally, so I’m re-publishing.
I have a recipe for Meatballs with Tomato Sauce which is based mainly on Sophie Grigson’s recipe in her "Meat Course" Book. That is one of the best Cookbooks of the past few years but sadly is out of print now. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s "River Cottage Meat Book" is a pretty good alternative for carnivores. My family rave about this meal when I cook it and I have to admit to being partial to it myself. All of the amounts are approximate (use your judgement).
For the Meatballs:
2 lbs minced beef
1 lb sausages
3 tbs milk
1 egg
2 slices white pan (crusts removed)
parsley to taste (couple of tbs chopped)
6 cloves garlic minced (or more if you like)
For the sauce:
5 cans plum tomatoes
basil to taste (loads!)
parsley to taste (couple of tbs chopped)
3 cloves garlic minced (or more if you like)
1 tbs red wine vinegar
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I prefer Filippo Berrio)
To make the sauce:
Cover the bottom of a medium pan with the oil and put on medium heat
Add 3 cloves of the garlic. Cook gently for a few moments but do not let it get brown
Add all of the tomatoes
Cook down gently for 20-30 mins breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon
Add parsley about half way
When it is well broken down, add red wine vinegar
cook a few minutes more
Check acidity - add sugar to taste to soften it. This varies with every can of tomatoes.
Meanwhile
To make the meatballs:
Add bread to milk in a bowl and soak for a few mins
Peel sausages (or use sausagemeat) and add to a large bowl
Add minced beef, soaked bread and egg
Add the rest of the garlic
Add a good pile of parsley
Season well with salt and pepper
If you are very anal, cook a bit of this mix in a pan, check the seasoning and adjust.
Mix together very well by hand
Make the balls from this to whatever size you like (golf-ball is a good compromise).
Add oil to a frying pan and apply medium to high heat
Brown the meatballs well in batches so that they are well cooked on the outside.
Do not over-fill the pan or the meatballs will not get a nice dark colour
Add cooked meatballs to the tomato sauce and cook for another fifteen minutes or so.
Add water if sauce has gone too thick
A few minutes before the end, add tons of basil and then add salt/pepper to taste.
Serve with spaghetti and loads of freshly grated parmesan.
Notes:
There are a million tomato sauce recipes. Use whatever you prefer e.g. add onion or oregano or red wine or whatever. I just like this simple one in this case.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something above so don’t blame me if it is kak.
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Quack Quack Quack. Homeopathy doesn’t work shocker
Posted on September 18, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Health.
The BBC has an article on the most recent study of Homeopathy showing, yet again, that it is no better than placebo.
Whilst I consider most alternative therapies to be rubbish being pushed by idiots and charlatans, Homeopathy has managed to inhabit that grey zone where one doesn’t want to completely dismiss it. This was down to a few factors - the fact that it has been around for a long time, the fact that they do seem to get some form of results and finally the desire of those who have followed a formal course of study to be officially recognised and to not allow actual charlatans to calls themselves homeopaths.
A friend of ours is a qualified homeopath By ‘qualified’, I mean that she followed a formal course for several years and was subject to examinations etc. As opposed to someone who "read a book about it once".. She genuinely believes that homeopathy works. We had a great night a few years back where I had a few drinks and decided to "have a go". We argued back and forth. My main point was that the recent (at the time) James Randi programme had done a proper double-blind test and homeopathy had failed miserably. Her response to this was that she thought there were some "subtleties in succussion" which caused it to fail. This is another way of saying "they shook the water wrong".
Her belief in the efficacy of the treatment in general unfortunately came across as faith-based rather than fact-based. I was accused of having science as my religion. My point was that science is based around hypothesis, analysis and correction. Homeopathy is based around a set of theories which they refuse to test and validate.
To be fair, she has treated a lot of people and has seen lots of success. Success of course is very subjective in the world of alternative medicine. To quote the brother of a friend of mine who is a consultant in Vincents - "Alternative medicine that works is just called medicine".
Belief in Homeopathy is one thing, but our friend was also unwilling to criticise any other form of alternative medicine. I guess once you are in the gang you don’t want to rock the boat. This includes not accepting criticism of crystal therapy or those morons who hold vials of substances over your belly and can tell if you are allergic to them by how your body reacts to the presence of the vial.
But, to prove how "open-minded" I am, I agreed that I would attend a homeopath to see what they could do for my disastrous stomach which has pumped excess acid every day since I was 16 years old. Only one drug has ever stopped it completely and that is Nexium which you get as part of the triple-treatment for H-Pylori. Sadly, the symptoms returned as soon as the course was over. To keep the test fair, I went to another homeopath instead of my friend.
The session went exactly how I expected it to go. Immediate focus on "do you worry much", "are you protective of your family" etc etc. It went on a for a good hour or two and of course I ended up with a warm fuzzy feeling that the homeopath "cares". She prescribed a course of X, Y and Z. Several variations of diluted water in fact. I took the course - outcome: zero change in symptoms. Re-visit, another set of water vials prescribed - outcome: zero change in symptoms. At this point my patience with happy clappy water had run out and I declined any further "treatments".
Now to provide a balanced picture, we also brought Oscar to have his dry skin and (non-severe) eczema looked at around the same time. In his case there was a definite improvement in symptoms over several months. A score for homeopathy possibly? Well, all the other kids had similar dry skin and they all grew out of it too without treatment. The fact the the treatment also occurred as we moved from spring to summer means we did not have a solid baseline in terms of clothes, heat and sunshine.
As I said, I don’t totally dismiss homeopathy, but until the apply proper scientific analysis to what they are doing, it will always remain outside of the mainstream. The final quote in the BBC article from the homeopathy movement is very telling: "It has been established beyond doubt and accepted by many researchers, that the placebo-controlled randomised controlled trial is not a fitting research tool with which to test homeopathy." i.e. we’re special, we don’t obey the laws of physics and repeatable action-reaction. As long as they think like this, they shall continue to be called quacks.
I have a theory on why is works sometimes. It is the same reason I think Chiropractic worked for me. Chiropractic has two sides to it - the bone manipulation to solve back problems and the "medicine" side. I had great results with sorting out a very sore back that I was suffering from. I did a re-visit in the new year (around 2002) and the guy started messing with this new hammer like thing on various parts of my body. After analysis, he decided that I was dehydrated. An amazing diagnosis considering I had been drinking all christmas. Even more amazingly, several others I know who went to him around the same time were also dehydrated. Must have been an epidemic! He then started doing other diagnoses and at that point I’m afraid I had to stop seeing him. I’m not paying good money for someone to press one finger against my heart and one against my liver and say "oh you are dehydrated".
John Diamond wrote a great book on alternative medicine (sadly unfinished) called "Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations", as he was dying from throat cancer. There is a great quote in there from the chiropractors "double-blind? Oh yeah, we always fail those". Give me patience with charlatans.
So why did Chiropractic work for me? Because it pushed me to fix myself. After a session I would walk down the street slightly sore but erect of posture. For the entire treatment I was making huge efforts to improve how I sat in work, how my chair was adjusted and how I set up my PC. These are things I would not have bothered with unless I had gone to have my back seen. So I have no issue with handing over cash to those guys for my back because in an indirect way, they did fix me. The reverse was true with homeopathy. If I had taken it seriously at all and got caught up in the whole "holistic vibe", then you can be sure I would have given up coffee, spicy food and excess alcohol and I would have seen a major improvement in the state of my stomach and thus homeopathy would have "cured me".
If it was just well intentioned quackery for non-serious ailments then we should leave them be. But as long as savages like that wan in the West (who should be in jail for manslaughter) are out there telling seriously ill people to avoid real medicine, then we must formalise the control of all forms of alternative medicine in this country.
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Stormhoek not quite stonking but pretty damned good
Posted on September 13, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Drink, Reviews.
My bottle of Stormhoek Sauvignon Blanc 2005 from the gapingvoid freebie arrived by courier this evening. I was going to wait until tomorrow to review but one dead linux server has fast-tracked the opening.
It uses a screw-cap which I support 100% for Sauvignons. I am sick to the back teeth of getting ruined bottles of Sancerre and Pouilly Fumé with their crappy corks.
On opening, a bit of a sniff tells me that it is along the same lines as other South African Sauvignons and not like the Marlborough ones. So it’s pleasant but without the nose punch you get off a Villa Maria.
A few mouthfuls and I am well happy. Very decent wine. I am no Jilly or Oz, so comparisons to cut grass or mongolian ecky-ecky ftang flowers shall have to be left to others who are more knowledgeable. This is the type of wine I put in the eminently quaffable category. It’s not blow-my-socks off fantastic but it beats all Chilean Sauvignons I have drunk in the past two years. Besting the Chilean giants at their own game is something to be proud of. It is also the best South African Sauvignon I have tried to date.
Negative points? A bit thin and lacking in depth so maybe not brilliant for skulling back whilst watching Green Wing on a friday night but an absolutely perfect partner for food.
I’d love to know what the price point for this is. Most of the Chilean/South African Sauvignons come in at €10 to €12 in Ireland. The New Zealand ones are more €12 to €16 (apart from over-rated Cloudy Bay at €26). If this is at the same level as it’s peers then I think Stormhoek will have a very strong seller on their hands.
You Orbital boys have a distie yet in Ireland? Maybe it is time for me to diversify the company into wine.
Now back to deciphering the arcane mysteries of fsck with two glasses of wine inside me.
UPDATE: I am an ungrateful pup. At no point above did I say thanks to Stormhoek, Orbital and Hugh for the lovely bottle of free wine. Thanks all.
[tags]stormhoek, sauvignon, gapingvoid, wine, review[/tags]
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Knife Sharpening Fetish
Posted on September 11, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Cooking, Gadgets, Humour.
I have a small obsession with getting my knives very sharp. I think it goes back to my uncle Frank who is a carpenter and who showed me how he sharpened his chisels on a wet-stone when I was a very small kid. From that point on, I was always trying to sharpen knives. I think my first attempt was using Frank’s wet-stone on a butter knife. The outcome on that one was very predictable.
Then, as a cub and scout for eight years, I tried everything to get my Swiss Army sharp to no avail. I mainly tried using stones. Total waste of time. I did actually buy a wet-stone in my early teens but had no idea how to use it:
As I got older and into my twenties, the obsession moved to kitchen knives. I tried and failed to use a standard steel a bit like this Wusthof:
Then I got the classic Kitchen Devils “mini crossed steels” sharpener. I think this was the first one where I actually got a result. The knives were never razor sharp but they were always able to do a reasonable job.
Then I hit the motherlode with the rotating disk sharpener (also from Kitchen Devils I think). This baby finally gave me what I was looking for - bloody sharp knives (in every sense of bloody). The only down-side was that it didn’t seem to sharpen all knives and after a while it stopped sharpening altogether (later I would discover that this is due to the build up of metal on the ceramic which can be cleaned off):
So things were on the up-and-up but of course I was never satisfied. Then a few years back I was in the Ballymaloe shop and found this beauty:
I’ve been using it for three or four years now. The big advantage it has is the presence of two grades of ceramic. The rough one to create a basic edge on something very blunt and a finer one to hone a knife that has just lost sharpness. It’s always worked well but suffered the same metal build-up and it was nigh on impossible to scrub off the metal due to its shape. But there were two bigger problems - firstly it was getting more and more difficult to keep an edge on knives even for a day or two and secondly it seemed to be creating very rough pitted edges on the knives.
Recently I decided to do a bit of further reading and discovered this excellent foodie web-site:
eG Forums (The eGullet Society for Culinary Arts and Letters).
They have a fantastic guide to knife sharpening and cover all the issues involved. The ideal for them is a sharpening-stone but that requires too much skill for my liking. The best alternatives are the angled ceramic sharpeners. The rotating disk ones that I had used are like crude mini-versions of these but damage the blade too much.
One that seemed to get good recommendations was the Spyderco Sharpmaker 204. I took a browse over to New Graham Knives in the US who were also recommended. They were selling it for $46.81 including instructional DVD. How could I pass up a bargain like that? A quick check to see that they would ship to Ireland and I put in my order. They shipped the following day and I got it in less than a week. Well impressed!
I did grin when I opened the package as out fell a box of plasters with the byline “because you’ll need them”.
I did the first few knives without watching the DVD and was happy with the results but not blown away. Then I watched the DVD and saw where I was making a few mistakes. I took my favourite chef’s knife (actually a cheap all-metal one from Marks and Sparks) and ran it through the four-stage 160 stroke process. I pressed the edge of it with my thumb and goddammed cut myself! I could not believe it. I’ve only ever cut myself by running a knife along flesh.This thing is now literally razor-sharp. When done right, the resulting knife will cut paper without any pressure.
So after a long, emotional and spiritual journey of over thirty years, I have now reached nirvana and will be happily slicing soft tomatoes with my lethal weapons until my hands no longer work.
Finally, some pictures of my pride and joy:
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Otto’s Creative Catering - One of our top 5 meals of all time
Posted on September 11, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Food, Restaurants, Reviews.
I’m not going to be able to put into proper words how fantastic the meal in OCC in Dunworley was last night. We just can’t stop talking about it. Perfection from start to finish. But first some history:
When we moved to Bandon two years ago, I asked around about good restaurants in the area. The general consensus was that none of the ones in Bandon were great but that Otto’s in Dunworley was fantastic. A few months later I did a foray down there to see where it was and to check out the beach. I thought the road would never end. Finally, just as we arrived exactly in the middle of nowhere, I saw the entrance. We kept going and went down to the beach which is fabulous - small, rocky, interesting, fantastic views.
So for the next 18 months, we said “we must we must” but the drive down that twisty road late at night was putting us off. Then last christmas C&T gave us a voucher for a meal for two there as a thank-you. We continued on with “we must we must”. A few weeks back, Catherine and her sis Paula decided to have a day of pampering in Inchydoney (they left 30 minutes ago and all 4 children are still alive - even if Sibéal’s lip is bleeding). Paula, the saint, offered to mind our darlings last night so we could head out. One problem is the cost of cabs to get anywhere. Cork is €40, Clon is €25, Kilbrittain is €20 and Dunworley is €30 - all of those are each way! We initially went for Casino house but they were booked out. Then we copped ourselves on and realised that if we did Otto’s then we were only paying for the taxi (and booze). So off we went.
The restaurant is up a rutted track through their organic farm. Being on a headland, they have wind-breaks everywhere to help with growing all the produce they use in the restaurant. I’m guessing they have had lots of chats with Joy Larkom, the famous vegetable gardening writer who moved down to the same area in the past few years to retire. She has written several articles since on her wind-break efforts.
The house is beautiful. Looks old and stonewashed but you realise pretty quickly that it is a modern house with (as Hilda put it herself) “not a straight line in the building). The welcome was really friendly with Otto himself taking the order. I noticed a copy of the Bridgestone Guide on the coffee table in the waiting area. I don’t think they should leave it there. The review of their restaurant is the greatest pile of “right-on” horseshite I have read in years. At least they did actually mention the food towards the end.
They encourage people to bring their own wine and they don’t charge corkage - how many other places do that? I guessed they might have a few organic wines available so we didn’t bring any. They had a very short list of cheap (€20) organic and bio-dynamic ones. We went with bio-dynamic Riesling and it was fabulous (both bottles :-)).
On to the menu. Exactly the kind of thing I was expecting - good simple dishes made with their own produce. Lots of salads in the starters and then steaks, pork, fish, offal in the mains. I’d have been happy to eat anything on the menu.
For starters Catherine had a smoked Gubbeen salad and I had a selection of salamis made from their own animals in the Gubbeen smokehouse. As I said at the start, words fail me in trying to describe how fabulous these dishes were. Every single mouthful was an explosion of different intense flavours. The salami was the best I have ever tasted (beating Gubbeen’s own offerings in Urru). The salads and the dressing should win awards for perfection. Hilda said we could lick our plates if we liked. I pretty much did that by mopping up every single dribble on the plate with the bread. There is simply no comparison between the quality and flavour of their ingredients straight from the garden and the sort of chlorine-doused salad we now all buy in a supermarket.
We were worried initially that we were going to be the only diners for the night but there was only one free table by the end. The only slightly grating note was the preponderance of Dublin accents (including our own mangled Cork-Cavan-Kilkenny-Wicklow-Meath-Dublin accents).
Catherine skipped the soup course but I had the consommé. I was half-expecting it to be pretty insipid like every other one I have ever had. But this thing had a taste kick like the bullock it came from. Wow. I heard them tell another table that it takes four days to make. I’m not surprised.
Whilst waiting for the mains, I noticed the lovely vine-like plant which covered the entire ceiling of the dining area, which we now realised was a conservatory. Then my eyes refocused across the room - “oh my god, there are grapes hanging from those vines”. Without a doubt the coolest thing I have ever seen in a restaurant. We had some of them later in our dessert.
Onto the main courses - Catherine had monkfish and sole with a crab cream and I had braised ox-tongue. Both utterly gorgeous. I had been concerned that I was trying to be he-man by going for the tongue but it just melted in the mouth (there is some sort of weird double entendre in that sentence). And for the first time ever in a restaurant, we both kept shoveling into the veg which was a meal in its own right. This is in comparison to most places with their poxy side dish of microwaved mange-tout and other scrag-ends.
Catherine had a selection of ice-creams and a fruit salad mix for desert. Mine was similar - sorbet with fruit salad. Again, the intensity of the flavours was just joyous. Lip-smacking all the way through.
Throughout all of this, the service was wonderfully friendly and attentive but without that horrible obsequiousness that you get in upper-end restaurants in Dublin. We were already planning what we were going to eat on the next visit before we left.
The menu is a fixed price €50 per head. If they were doing food of this quality in Dublin it would easily (and rightly) be double that. They do offer the restaurant for functions and they also do B&B. I’m already thinking about our 10th Wedding Anniversary in two years and my 40th in (oh dear god no) two and three quarter years.
We have two Nokia-crap-cam pictures. One is of the vines which I’ll post when I get Catherine’s phone off her. The other is the bannister down to the loos - perfection in house design.
UPDATE: Got vine piccie from Catherine
The title of this post was “Otto’s Creative Catering - One of our top 5 meals of all time”. The locations of the others were (in no particular order):
Roscoff
Peacock Alley
One Pico
The Commons
The Tannery
Otto leaps in and I now just have to decide who drops out.
[tags]occ, otto, dunworley, cork, bandon, restaurants[/tags]
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Categories vs Tags
Posted on September 9, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Blogging, Wordpress.
I’ve been using Wordpress Categories as sort of generic Technorati tags. When I remember, I add some post-specific actual tags. I haven’t really been that clear on the difference to be honest.
Lorelle has a big posting on it. And I’m still confused!
Top-tip: Don’t try reading anything technical after spending your lunchtime installing Oracle and testing ETL tools. Maybe I shouldn’t try setting up an automated backup of a subversion repository this afternoon after all.
I think I’ll just continue to make it up as I go along on this tagging mularky (malarky, malarchi, mullerky???)
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Yeah, I know it’s totally anal but…
Posted on September 9, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Food, Politics.
I’ve always found the name of “Cafe Mao” offensive. I ate there once - mediocre at best. They are probably as good at cooking food as Mao was at growing it. In my little fantasy world, I’d love to set up a little stall outside of the Cafe and sell Pol Pot Noodles. Wonder how long before someone would complain?
As ever, someone else expresses this thought so much better than I can.
From Prickly City:
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