Sunday, August 2, 2009 | by nathan

Hot Mess

This right here is a whole mess of red, ripe Aurora Peppers. They’re just the best things ever, and in my garden they are going insane. They are insanely hot; so much so that Brian and I have taken to calling them "Insanity Peppers," because the first time we found a couple of them ripe, we just cut them open and ate them raw. And then, four days later when our sense of taste returned, we vowed never to do that again. They’re searing hot and smoky; we were determined to find something to do with them.

One of the coolest things about these peppers – other than their amazing taste – is what they look like on the vine. They start off purple, then turn yellow, orange, and then red. They’re gorgeous:

Really, really pretty, right? They add a great splash of color to my garden. And let me just say, if you don’t have a backyard, these things do great in pots, so you really don’t have any excuse not to grow them. And after our raw-tasting of them went south, I was determined to make something out of these suckers. Then it came to me. We went out and harvested a whole bunch of these guys:

These are Beam’s Yellow Pear tomatoes, and they are growing like crazy. So we picked a whole huge mess of them, with some peppers:

We went to the store and got some fresh pineapple, some cilantro and a red onion, some salt and vinegar, and we stuck it all in a food processor, and we made THE MOST AMAZING SALSA HOLY CRAP SERIOUSLY? And the smoky, searing flavor of the Aurora Peppers were the perfect bit of spice and the perfect complement to the tomatoes. You guys, it was seriously delicious. Now there are so many of these peppers coming ripe that it’s getting a little out of control. I’ve got to find some people to take some of these, give them my salsa recipe, and then hand them a legal waiver, you know, just in case. There’s nothing like fresh food you’ve made yourself to remind you that it’s summertime. I’m going to try to make a huge batch of this stuff and jar it up and save it for winter, when it’s cold, nothing’s fresh, and I can sit back with some blue corn tortilla chips and just pretend.

Friday, July 31, 2009 | by nathan

Rock of Cashel

We were driving back to Dublin so Brian and I could catch our plane home, and so Jayson & Laurie could spend a couple more days there before getting their flight to Prague. After Killarney and Muckross House we made one more stop at the Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary. J&L came over last night – they’re just back from the Czech Republic this week – and we all agreed that though we were miserable the entire time we were at the Rock of Cashel, the visit did produce some of the best pictures from the trip. It rained – hard – the entire time we were there, and by the time we began the tour we were completely soaked.

I wish I could tell you all about the Rock of Cashel, because it really is a beautiful, fascinating place, but look: I was soaked head-to-toe, I was freezing, and I spent most of our time there either trying to protect my slightly-expensive camera from the rain or quickly, quickly snap photographs. I want to go back sometime when it’s sunny because it really was cool.

And the location – I mean, wow – you couldn’t ask for a more gorgeous, panoramic view of the Irish countryside.

But listen, as beautiful as it was, and as sad as I was for the trip to be ending, my ass was ready to get back in the car and put the heaters on my feet, as the rain had soaked my jeans, through my shoes and socks and I was freezing. After the tour ended we basically just bolted for the car.

Thursday, July 30, 2009 | by nathan

Muckross House

On the last day of our vacation we drove from Kenmare back to Dublin, making a few stops along the way in pure spite of the rain. The first of our stops was Muckross House in Killarney National Park, which is a beautiful manor house built in the 19th century. Taking photos on the inside of the house is prohibited, which is a shame because it’s gorgeous. Read more about the house here.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 | by nathan

Kenmare

Kenmare is a fantastic town. It’s colorful and busy, and somewhat touristy but in a really charming and quiet kind of way. We did a fair bit of shopping while we were there, because Kenmare’s main road is lined with shops, great places to stay, and pubs featuring excellent pints of Murphy’s and authentic Irish music. Kenmare is famous for its lace:

But my favorite thing that we found was this hat, which I made Brian buy for himself:

There’s so much to do in Kenmare, it being situated at the meeting place of the Ring of Kerry and the Beara Peninsula and a totally reasonable drive from Cork city, that one could make Kenmare the base for at least a week’s worth of traveling. We’re thinking about doing it next year; want to come along?

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 | by nathan

Lamb Fries

So, look. What with having Fridays off throughout the summer I’ve tried to keep my freelance load fairly heavy. This is to keep me out of trouble, and also rolling in green, because it turns out? YOU CAN GET PAID FOR WRITING. I know, right?

So last year I conceived of this loopty idea wherein we traipse all over the state of Oklahoma seeing and trying things that we never had before. It has taken us to a great number of fabulous locales, and earlier this year I pitched it as an ongoing travel series to my wonderful editor over at that kablamo publication I get to write for for some reason. He’s let me sort of go nuts and run with it, so we’ve had a great opportunity to repeat the trip this year.

I took a small exception for this month’s article, which was that I’d been to the small mining town of Krebs before, but I’d never eaten at either of the Italian restaurants we went to, and I’d never tried their signature dish, Lamb Fries. The article is coming out next week, so I won’t give away too much, except to say that that photo above, there, is me, a Choc beer, a local Oklahoma brew:

in one hand, a lamb fry on a fork in the other. For the uninitiated, lamb fries are just lamb testicles, skinned, rolled in batter and fried, and when we got to our first stop on our Tour of Krebs, I decided I’d feel like a huge fraud writing this article without trying lamb fries. The regular plate was $12.99, and thank God my inherent cheapness kicked in and we ordered the kids’ plate, which had 5 testicles. I thought about counting them aloud like the Count on Sesame Street, but.

Now, look. There are a lot of really, really bawdy things I could say about having testicles in my mouth, but my family and coworkers, as well as some of my spiritual peers and heroes, read this website and so I’ll just go ahead and point out that this wasn’t the first time. You were thinking it. Let’s not pretend we’re classier than we are, internet. Feel free to chime in on the comments with more jokes or condemnation.

So I forked a fry, raised it to my mouth, and was prepared to go the distance when Brian, perfectly apropros, quoted one of my favorite Simpsons lines:

"Lisa, this is lamb. Not a lamb."

He wins.

Oh, and we not only each tried fries, we finished the plate. Because I was getting paid for this article, dammit, and one can’t be picky when there’s a buck to be made.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 | by nathan

Beara Sights

The drive around the Beara Peninsula is fraught with peril, at least if you’re in the passenger seat of a Renault and your husband is learning not only how to drive on the left side of the road, BUT TO DO LIKE JAMES BOND. At any rate, there are no shortage of hairpin curves over long, rocky drops into the Atlantic Ocean and all I’m saying is bring a clean pair of boxer briefs. As we came around one such curve, this guy was waiting for us, just kind of staring, watching us go past. It was raining pretty hard by this time, so I leapt out only long enough to snap his photo and then was back in the car like a flash, and we kept driving, seeing most of Beara through the window, through the rain.

We did make a stop when we came across a very old Irish cemetery and ruined church.

In the three or so minutes we walked around the cemetery it began to get unbearably cold and to rain harder than ever, so we raced back to the car, by this time soaked from head to toe and freezing. So, we decided to take Ken and Denise’s advice and stop at McCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere for some of their delicious seafood chowder, a shot of Paddy and a pint of Murphy’s. It was POURING down rain by this time, and Castletownbere was crowded, so we were completely drenched both going to and coming from the pub. We continued around the Peninsula, stopping only for a few minutes at a time to see something interesting or take a photo. Finally, though, we sorta gave up, drenched to the bone and craving some tea and Jaffa Cakes. So we headed back up the Peninsula to Kenmare, stopping only to take this picture:

Which, according to legend, is where this happened:

Monday, July 27, 2009 | by nathan

Sea Cave

When we got to Kenmare we had planned to tour the Ring of Kerry, sailing around the Skelligs and enjoying the scenic Irish towns along the way. Ken and Denise, our gracious hosts, recommended that we give the Beara Peninsula a whirl instead, as it’s every bit as scenic and quite devoid of tourists, and also littered with the most hilarious road signs.

So, in the rain, we pointed our Reunault Laguna down along the Beara Peninsula. I believe Jayson’s exact words were, "The Ring of Kerry can suck it." Suffice it to say, Beara’s great; one of the many things we came across was a place to pull off and hike down to these sea caves, where the ocean comes through the holes in the rock at high tide and washes up kelp and jellyfish.

You also can hike up above the cliffs for a breathtaking view of the Atlantic Ocean:

Monday, July 27, 2009 | by nathan

Weekly Reader – 27 July 2009

Match the NPR Face
If you’re as much of a public broadcasting geek as I am, you will know all of these names from NPR; if you’re a HUUUUGE public broadcasting geek, you’ll love this quiz.

W. Frequent Presence at Dallas Mall
"Every weekday at noon inside a North Dallas shopping mall, the 43rd president of the United States of America sits down at his usual table in the food court and settles in for lunch with a jumbo Mello Yello, two plates of magic fries and a grande chimichanga. “When he first starting showin’ up at the mall, people would always come over and ask for his autograph or whatever,” said Daryl Vanderveen, a 19-year-old cashier at Sbarro Pizza. “But now he’s here so much that nobody even looks up from their lunch."

The Brand Graveyard: Crocs
One of my favorite recession-era blogs, Salon’s The Brand Graveyard, rings the death knell for the ugliest shoes ever mass-produced, Crocs.

Good Night, Kitty
Sanrio has now officially branded itself on EVERYTHING.

Thursday, July 23, 2009 | by nathan

29

I’m twenty-nine years old today. It seems weird to me that almost three decades should have gone by since my birth, because I spend so much of my time feeling very young, in general. Still, though I am generally very healthy and I still feel that my best, most productive and creative years are ahead of me, I have become, over the last year, increasingly aware of the odd nature of time, and have realized that mine is not unlimited in this world. My chances and choices no longer feel as infinite as they did in high school, college, or even my early twenties.

I remember that feeling of limitless possibility eventually becoming, around about the age of 20 or 21, less a field of endless freedom and more a prison whose bars were the infinity of things I’d be leaving behind to choose one single path in life, and all my fears of failure, of taking the wrong path and ending up unhappy. If I could tell then-me something it would be not to fear failure but to remember that we always live through it and, if we pray for wisdom and discernment, we come out of it better and healthier than we went in. I know this because the first half of my twenties were marked by some wild flailing about, getting my heart broken, dropping out of Yale, then coming home and just kinda partying for a couple years, sewing my wild oats. I think of the day I turned 19, how terrified that guy would be to see how the next ten years would go – getting married to a man, for God’s sake.

I’ve felt, for the past year really, that things have really been changing a lot for me; this seems to happen every seven to eight years. The last one was the major transformation and healing I experienced after spending six months traipsing around Europe and that eventually led to my coming out. This one, I’m not sure; I do know I’m learning a lot about my creative self, the part of me that has to write, that is compelled to put words to paper and feels he must read them aloud, as terrifying as that seems. This part of me isn’t new; he’s been around since I learned to read at 3.

I will probably take some time later today and journal some goals for myself, some things I’d like to accomplish before I reach my 30s, because I find that doing this helps me, as against my right-brained tendencies as it is, to hold myself to account. I’d like, for instance, to greet my thirties in the best physical shape of my life, and I’d really, really like to attend the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in February, completed manuscript in hand, ready to meet some agents. (Anyone wanna come along?)

Mostly, this year, I’m praying for the only things I ever know to pray for – a little more wisdom, a little more compassion, a little more courage. I have everything I could possibly need right now and more; I think it’s going to be an incredible year. I’m grateful for this, so all I can say is – Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

Thursday, July 23, 2009 | by nathan

Scallops

After Cork we drove on to Kenmare, where we got to stay at one of the neatest B&Bs in the world. The folks there were so helpful, and among Kenmare’s wealth of delicious food, they sent us to probably what is the best one, where Jayson and I each had this: scallops in cream sauce with eggplant & arugula with mashed potatoes. Probably the single best meal of my entire life. I mean; I mean. I felt like Jodie Foster in Contact, when she exclaims – "No words. Should’ve sent a poet." Also, I learned something interesting – see that orange thing on the scallops? Turns out we don’t really get that in America, because most of our scallops are imported (big freaking shock, eh?) So they remove those before importing them because they go rotten and fall off quickly. But when you have scallops that were caught literally feet from where you eat them, they’re still on, like shrimp tails. Seriously, getting to have this meal was worth the entire cost of the trip.