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Hello there!!
It's been a while!
I am back for my first post of 2022 which is ultimately just a catch up & a ramble.
At the end of my last post (Halloween). I said I was going to take time out to put a few miles on my mind, body & soul. Well I did exactly that!
I ended up taking a little road trip to Ireland and back, passing through Scotland and the north east of England on the way back.
I covered just under 2500 miles all in all, visiting places like Dublin, Derry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle & Sunderland. There are many more places to list but I didn't want to make a long list.
But a large chunk of my time was spent in county Donegal, a truly wonderous place.
As this is just a catch up, I will talk more about it all in separate posts, I have a few ideas!
But on my trip I tried some new food & drink like bacon wrapped chorizo pigs in blankets which were fatty but so out of this world! Ballymaloe relish, which I had in Ireland with a half pound burger & chips! It is basically made with tomato's and spices.
Speaking of relish, I also tried another type of condiment, A Peach & Cardamom chutney which was out of this world!
I ended up bringing some of the Peach and Cardamom chutney back with me, some flavoured rapeseed oil from Donegal that I was gifted and also some smoked sea salt and black pepper from the giants causeway in Northern Ireland. So I would like to think of some dishes, snacks & treats to make with these special ingredients.
I ate out at some great places too!
I had a couple of meals at a pub, a pizza & cocktail place and even a vegan restaurant! All of which were amazing.
I did end up trying a couple of cocktails on my travels, mainly the old fashioned and the espresso martini.
I think cocktail making is something I would like learn more about, so don't be surprised if you see content like that in the future.
I didn't make much for Christmas in content apart from a few Instagram posts.
I did indulge massively in my time away and over the Christmas period and its difficult at times to get back to 'reality'.
That includes the dinners I had on Christmas day & boxing day. Now this is the first time since I started cooking that I had Christmas day off, so naturally I took over the cooking of the dinner.
I want to stress I love working/cooking Christmas day as its one of the best days of the year to work and I think I missed it a lot this year.
I did however learn of a complaint though from a family member on boxing day about the Christmas dinner. I can take criticism if its constructive, anything else tends to rub me up the wrong way nowadays.
I learned he showed off to his little mates about the dinner with horrible comments and then bragged about it back to someone who helped make the dinner, ultimately giving their Christmas day to make and prepare that dinner.
I found this to be unacceptable and didn't reacted very well to this news when I found out. So after throwing my toys out the pram for a seething half hour I decided to alter the ungrateful so and so's boxing day dinner.
Now I know people around the UK have different traditions with dinner on boxing day but for me I have always had another roast turkey dinner, the same as the day before. So it was easy to alter.
It was all taken very lightly and nothing was said by anyone else to combat the comments, but the mood changed instantly when he was served his dinner. It wasn't treated as much as a joke then.
Now I am aware that whoever you are reading this, you may think it was a bit harsh or petty to react and retaliate in this way and I totally understand that. But if you let someone get away with something like that, then it escalates and escalates and pretty soon you're allowing dinners being thrown up the wall in tantrum (apparently something that is in the DNA somewhere as I've heard about.)
I wanted to use this experience just to remind people to appreciate people who give their time to cook for you, and all the other things in general your loved ones or friends do. Because people don't like the piss being taken and people have breaking points, even if they don't seem phased.
Moving on to a few lighter minor points.
As you know I love my music and picked up a few vinyl records on my travels to add to my collection. To name a few from many, I managed to get a Klaxons record from Dublin, Adele's new 30 album from Derry and a Sundra Karma record from Edinburgh.
I managed to get to a couple of gigs too! Seeing Fred Again in Dublin & Damon Albarn in Newcastle.
There are a few albums coming out within the next few weeks and months that I am looking forward too, with Miles Kane & White Lies being exciting standouts for me.
Speaking of Miles Kane I had seen on Instagram that he is doing a pop up chicken wing shop in Hackney on his album launch day which is pretty cool.
In my research to find the video tease I had seen, I made other discoveries! Which if I am lucky, will make a hell of a entry in later days!
I have a couple of records on my ever growing list, like Richard Ashcroft's acoustic hymns & the soundtrack from the recent Suicide Squad film.
Also on the list is a gaming soundtrack, the Guardians of the Galaxy score from the recent game is truly epic!
I am currently hooked on a game called Deep Rock Galactic, which is a sci-fi first person shooter that you can play in teams of 4 with people online or by yourself.
Basically its about mining space dwarfs on alien planets, kind of like Minecraft meets Starship Troopers type of thing.
I really don't do online games with other people as I get frustrated and gaming is meant to be a break away from reality or something to enjoy. So if there are any gamers out there reading this then I'd definitely recommend Deep Rock Galactic!
So I think my ramble has run its course for the time being.
I hope you're all keeping safe in these confusing and frustrating times.
I am wanting to follow this ramble up quickly with some new blog and Instagram posts and of course some new things to cook!
I have one eye on the upcoming Super Bowl & Royal Rumble for a few more Late Night Snack Attacks.
As well as tweaking one or two of my feature logos and doing some general updates and refining to things.
Thankyou all for reading!
I will talk to you all soon!
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