Butter

 Well.  I've been saying it for years and I guess, finally, the world is listening.  Butter is AWESOME. And it appears to be having a moment on twitter - it is currently trending like nobody's business.

Not just any butter mind you.  Specifically, IRISH BUTTER.

When people ask me about Ireland, they also always say to me "rains a lot though doesn't it".  And when I hear this I say two things back to them:

1. Well, yes, but it is a very light rain, a constant drizzle if you will

2. And you know, all that rain, well that is why our grass is so green.  And then the cows eat that lovely green grass and that is why our dairy is so good. 

Dairy i.e. BUTTER!!!!

I just love about butter is that it is so natural, very unprocessed.  It is made of just two ingredients: cream and salt.  You take these two ingredients and you blend/beat/churn them until you get butter.  That's it! Oh and you also get buttermilk when you strain off the liquid around the butter.

Give yourself a treat this weekend! When you are doing your grocery shopping get yourself some pure Irish butter and then for Sunday morning breakfast/lunch have yourself either toast with butter or an english muffin with butter.  And some scrambled eggs with wild (Irish) smoked salmon to really make a meal of it. Heaven on a plate! Heck, why not have a Baileys coffee while you're at it!

Cold, windy weather

There is a small craft weather advisory in place so we won't be going out on the boat this weekend.  Add to that that it is cold and windy, it would be quite miserable out there anyway.  We did nip out at 7am earlier this week to check the crab traps and got a nice little haul of 5 good size ones (one a monster!) so good to have got that done.

So, we have had to arrange other activities for this weekend in place of boating and fishing.  Last night we went to the Tropic Cinema to see a nice little double feature of two 1970s films:  Tarpon and The Key West Picture Show.  Tarpon was lovely and atmospheric with great music (composed by Jimmy Buffett).  It didn't want me to take up Tarpon fishing but it did get me excited to go trolling again and catch a big mahi mahi or Spanish Mackeral or Tuna etc!  The KW Picture Show was as lovely as ever aside from crazy lady behind us with big attention seeking phony laugh....laughing constantly, really loud, at parts that were not funny included.  Lovely.  Lol.  Ah well.

Oh! I should mention, before the movie we went for dinner (ramen) in the newly opened Koijin on Eaton Street. It was excellent! Dinner and a movie. Check us out #grownups 

And today and tomorrow we have the Key West Seafood Festival.  Held in Bayview Park, really near us, it is one of our favourites.  We are going to have our neighbours over at about 5pm for an appetizer of stone crab claws and then walk over to the park.  We will then have dinner there and check out the stalls and the bands playing.  Tomorrow we will probably potter back for lunch,

Monday is MLK day so Patrick is off.  Hopefully we will get out for a spot of fishing in the morning on that day if the weather is better behaved,.

Have a great weekend friends!

New Years Resolutions 2023

 1. Buy secondhand or on sale only (I'm looking at you, Lily Pulitzer)

2. Drink two pints of water every morning when I wake up. And then continue drinking water throughout the day

3.  Eat low (to no) carb

4. Eat quinoa instead of rice

5. Read more

6. Blog more (last year's stats were deplorable!)

7. Beach more 

Bono, Surrender

 Am about 3/4 ways through. I just can't recommend this book enough.

His writing. In just two lines, or one paragraph; the stories he tells/what he captures and conveys, with his words alone, is extraordinary.

Reading it slowly because I keep putting it down.

- Sometimes there's just too much emotion, to feel or read, in one sitting

- I don't want it to end

10/10

Maith thú Bono

Strunk, Ace Hardware, Key West - my saviour!

Remember my tree and my cute little Peanuts characters that I was so delighted with?

Oops!

Well when these little guys were taken down, I am sad to report that they pulled chunks of the paint down with them too. Eek!

Am happy to report that these photos are "afters": after I fixed the problem!!! 

I really wish I had taken a photo before I patched things up....it was rather quite bad!!

And how did I sort this debacle out? 

I took a tiny sample/chip of the pain colour to my local Ace Hardware (Strunk on Eaton) and they matched it for me and gave me a little sample pot for just $6.

 

1953 bathroom

If you've been following my blog you will know that I'm terribly fond of my bathroom and it's 1953 tile work.  Well recently we had a bit of a shock when a pipe related to the sink completely disintegrated and there was talk of the whole wall/bathroom needing to be torn apart to fix it. 

So as much as I love the bathroom and didn't want to have to do all that work...I admit I did get a little caught up in the prospect of a new bathroom and did do some googling of modern styles etc.

It turned out to be an easier job (although still a little complex) and while it took time and labour, no major construction was needed. Phew.

So next thing I started thinking of, was to put a crazy patterned mid century wallpaper. Patrick wasn't entirely on board with the idea but he said he didn't mind too much either way also. In the heel of the hunt, I went off that idea and instead just decided to change out the mirror from a crazy parrot one that I disliked to something plain and simple, and vaguely 1960s.

And here it is:

 

Christmas Day food

Started the day off right with Christmas tradition of baileys coffee!!

Appetizers! Devilled eggs and a charcuterie board

Was very pleased how this came out. We had 4 cheeses (Brie, blue, manchego and Irish cheddar), Italian prosciutto, Spanish ham, Spanish sausage and French patê. 

And then the main! Stone crab claws!!!

Which everyone just loved!

Washed down by a bottle of veueve cliquot.

Patrick's mam's dessert - a French brandy, type of tiramisiu. Very nice indeed!

The eating continued when I went back to work and Paul made me a lovely Irish rasher sandwich for lunch:

Mmmm!!!