For the Love of Food

If I haven’t been clear enough in my previous blog posts: Ireland is EXPENSIVE.

Accommodations, while pricey, can still be found at decent prices – especially in the off season (Fall/Winter).  But, food is another story.  Food is expensive.  Fancy a salad for your main meal?  Be ready to fork out up to €15 at a local pub.  Want some Irish Stew?  The same type of simple meal can run you anywhere from €9-€25 depending on what town you’re in and how touristy it is.  And, unlike many other countries, in Ireland (usually) the smaller the location the more touristy it is – aka – more expensive.

After many days of eating in restaurants, we soon got tired of this, and moved on to more hostels and “self-catered” meals.  Continue Reading »

We all have to have the fact that sometimes we only think of ourselves when we plan our vacations and forget to account the little ones in our planning. who would think that they would get bored spending 14 days in a car traveling around a huge Island?? – any logically thinking parent.

I have to say that I, as most parents probably are who are booking their next get-away, are only thinking about their extreme need to get away from the daily routine that is stressing us out.

It wasn’t until my son kept asking to go “ome” (home) every single day that I realized how terribly board he was. That is when we started to plan our vacation more around him and less around all the “cool” places we could see that we just couldn’t enjoy because we felt we had to rush.

A castle is just a big boring rock you can’t pick up and throw to a little kid.

To top it off, many hotels or bed and breakfasts and even some hostels are not young-child friendly.

So, for those of you parents with young children planning your next trip to Ireland, I have some great tips for you. For those of you planning on going somewhere else on your next vacation, I have some good tips for you as well. Continue Reading »

I thought I’d share some really interesting things with you about Ireland. Some of these things were obvious to us before we arrived there, but many were surprising.

1. It’s really really green there. There is green grass and shamrocks in every corner of the country and the name Emerald Isle is no exaggeration. Continue Reading »

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Well, I am back from my 2 week vacation in Ireland, and I have to say that I have come back refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to get more things done around here.

When we have so much to do in our lives and feel that there just aren’t enough hours in a day, it’s really important to just stop and take a break.  You will be able to handle it much better after you are recharged.  Go take a realy vacation.

We had a great time and got to see so much more than we had planned.  I will be telling you about it all over the next few days.

So, what did I think of Ireland (both the Republic and the North)?

• It was nothing like what I expected
• the geography was mind blowing
• it was like traveling to old world America (USA)
• the people were so very friendly
• it is more expensive than you can imagine (Lonely Plant was not as accurate as we would have hoped – both online or in print)

Happy Friday to you all, and I will be back on Monday with more great tips, information, and lots of pictures from my Irlish vacation!

Meet Efthimia, blogger at Saffron Gatherer.  Efthimia is the winner of my Help Me Name This Drink Contest with her entry of Samoan Beach and the description of

“Seems so simple and wet intriguing. Seems so peaceful and yet so appealing, so ready to blow your top. Like a Samoan Beach.”

The “prize” for winning the contest is to be featured on my blog for all you out there to read about.  So, I thought it would be great to post this while on vacation (greetings from Ireland by the way) so that the winner would get the longest time possible as the top post.

Let me tell you a little about what Efthimia shared with me about herself:

• she’s 33
• studied geology and geographic information systems
• works in a gas supply company
• she loves 2 things in her life: books and eating
• she has 2 blogs (a third will be coming out soon)
• One of her blogs is on books and her writing adventures
• she is a published fantasy novel writer (no wonder she is so good with words!)
• she started blogging about cooking because:

“there are so many things I wanted to share with other people, like what it tastes to be in a loving family, or what it tastes when you need someone to love, or even what should my fantasy heroes be eating in order to keep fit for their adventures. It’s a little what-mood-I’m-in-right-now, when it comes to picking a them to post.”

The Saffron Gatherer, Efthimia’s cooking blog is mainly in Greek, but, every once in a while, she posts in both Greek and English so that those of us who don’t read Greek can get a glimpse of what the yummy pictures are made of.  Of course, there is always Google Translate or other similar free online translating sites that will easily tell you what is in a recipe.  I tested it out with great success on Google Translate.

So, for those of you who enjoy Greek food or who love to try new things, go over to The Saffron Gatherer and try out some of Efthimia’s dishes.

And, again, thank you to Efthimia for naming giving my new drink the great name of Samoan Beach!

Samoan Beach recipe here.

So, I am back, kind of. I finally have a tiny bit of time to share with my blog, and I really want to address this contest.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who participated! And, thank you for your patience for waiting until now for my answer. It has been a rough last 3 weeks – I have a cold again – but I am back to my blog until Thursday when I go on vacation to Ireland! I am very excited!

So…before I tell you who the winner is, I’d like to tell you what I thought about all 39 suggestions that came in: Continue Reading »