Thanksgiving preparations have begun!

I love Thanksgiving! I actually love it more than Christmas! It's all about the food, hanging out with family and friends, and watching The Sound of Music which typically airs around this time of year. There's no stress and expense of gift giving. Last year we were in the US the week before Thanksgiving and my mom made all the deliciousness even though it was a week in advance. Other years I've spent the day with American friends in England. This year we're in Dublin and it will just be Wes and I. He's taking the day off, just like a real American holiday! :)

I guess my preparations technically began when I started hoarding cans of pumpkin. I told Wes last night that I need to start getting all the bits and pieces for the meal because we all know it's not one stop shopping around here! Sadly, there's no Giant in Ireland. Further complicating matters is our dorm size refrigerator that does not keep things chilled properly, with a freezer that's already tiny even when you don't count the frost that has built up in there again. I can't really make too much stuff ahead of time, but I do plan on doing some of the chopping the day before and I'll make my dessert since it doesn't need refrigerated.

As you can imagine the biggest pain is the turkey. We have no place to store a whole turkey. Plus, with it just being the two of us I'm not interested in eating turkey for a week after. There are, surprisingly, more turkeys here at this time of the year than there were when I was in England. Most people in England have to order their turkeys from the local butcher if they want a fresh one. You can find some frozen ones, but they're not very common. I picked up this turkey breast at Marks & Spencers. If you're looking for turkey in Dublin they have a large selection of various sizes and prices - stuffed/unstuffed, turkey crown, turkey breast, fresh/frozen. I'm not a huge fan of turkey, so I'm hoping we have enough for the day and some leftover for hot turkey sandwiches the next day. I've thrown it in the freezer and I decided I would check for something fresh the day before and if I can't find anything that's appropriate we'll have this one. I may also buy a turkey leg (I've seen some at Dunnes) because Wes likes dark meat and then we'll definitely have enough for leftovers.

I'm now on the lookout for turkey stock so I can make gravy. I'm thinking this will be pretty much impossible to find. M&S sells turkey gravy, but I'd rather make my own. Worst case scenario - I'll buy chicken stock and we'll have chicken gravy on our turkey. We do not have the culinary palate to truly tell the difference!

Let's be honest though...Thanksgiving to me is all about the side dishes! The turkey is ceremonial and makes the gravy necessary for the sides. This is where the crackers in the picture in to the scene. I asked Wes if he liked the cracker salad my mom made last year. He looked confused for a minute, then once I described it to him his eyes lit up! Great. One more thing for me to make! I like cracker salad when my mom makes it, but if I'm cooking for myself I wouldn't bother. It's an ol' Sproat Family Recipe and as far as I can tell it has saltine crackers that are broken up, hard boiled eggs, celery, and bits of the turkey in it. It's served at room temperature and you pour gravy over it. I've been told these Doriano crackers are similar to saltines, so we shall see! Other must-have side dishes are: green bean casserole, corn, mashed potatoes (of course!), and stuffing. If I have room in the oven I'll roast some brussel sprouts (I tried to introduce these to my family last year and they went over like a lead balloon) and I'll also make some deviled eggs. My mom makes candied sweet potatoes which I hate, so they will not make it to the menu. For dessert I'll make a pumpkin spiced bundt cake with buttermilk icing. I pretty much only like pumpkin pie that is completely covered in Cool Whip, but alas, no Cool Whip in Ireland.

So now I've just realized this is a very rambling post about what we're going to eat on Thanksgiving. I guess you can say I'm pretty excited! Next on the list of difficult things I need to find (in addition to the turkey stock) are french fried onions for the green bean casserole.

What are some of your must-haves on Thanksgiving!??

Honeymoon decisions

Between looking for a job and cleaning mold off our walls, I think about where the heck to go for our honeymoon. Yes, we were married in April and we still haven't gone on a honeymoon. With the cost of the wedding and my moving to Ireland we decided to hold off for when we'd have a bit more time and money. Wes wants to go to Italy. This is a GREAT idea! I'm totally on board for Italy. But what about Romania?? Or a Mediterranean cruise, we've never been on a cruise?? Or, ooo! Someplace warm and tropical!? We have considered every single country in the world and at this point, the only place vetoed is Canada. Sorry Canada. My only prerequisite is a spa. I want to hang out in a bathrobe. Wes said we could go to a spa in Kildare. Umm...no. I would like to go further than an hour away for our honeymoon. To further complicate matters Wes has signed up for the Boston Marathon which is April 19th. This is great since neither of us has ever been to Boston! The downside is that now 'Practical Kim' is on the scene. Yes, there is actually a practical side to me. Should we go to Boston for our honeymoon?? We could actually go to Cape Cod which would be lovely, but cold since it's April. On the plus side we would rent a car and I would be comfortable driving around. My internal conflict about spending our honeymoon in Massachusetts is 1.) I'm an east coast American who lives in Europe. Why am I going to the east coast of America for my honeymoon? and 2.) If we end up moving to America we could go to Boston any old time. It would be nice to go somewhere that we may not be able to go to again. Then we thought we could fly to say San Francisco or something and spend time in northern California, but the cost of internal US flights is ridiculous. We could just as easily (and probably more cheaply) fly from Dublin to somewhere on the Continent.

Sigh....

I'll go clean some mold now.

I totally stole this from Beth

Beth has been posting some commercials on her blog. For my friends and family in the US who don't get to see these commercials, I thought I would post my top three favorites. I had to do three, because I couldn't choose just one.



And Bob's your teapot! (makes me laugh every time!)





I'll never fit be able to fit into those! (Again...every time!)





This one isn't funny, I just love the music. I was even singing it in the shower this morning!

Wow, you live in Ireland!? You're sooooo lucky!!!!

Me: Apologies if I smell like tea tree oil.

Them (in unison): OOoooo!!! Did you just have a massage!!!???

Me: Uh, no. I've been cleaning mold off the walls all morning.

St Stephen's Green

It finally stopped raining on Sunday, so we went for a walk around St Stephen's Green. I haven't actually been there since I moved to Dublin. One time I suggested to Wes that we go and he took me to the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre. Smart man!

Look at the size of this leaf!

Beautiful!

Please forward all our mail to our new address in St Stephen's Green, Dublin

The sun is actually shining!

Running Widow

You've heard of golf widows, right?? Their husbands are always out on the course and their wives never see them. Well, I'm a running widow. My husband goes for runs at least 4 times a week. Sometimes the run is a short 40 minutes, other times it's a long 2.5 hours. I know my running-loving husband would LOVE if he could share this hobby with his wife, but she's a running-hater. Oh, I try. I THINK I could maybe do a 5K (~3 mi) right now, but that's about it and I'd be struggling. Oh, and running outside and running on a treadmill are not the same. I discovered this when I started bootcamp. I could run 5K on the treadmill no problem, but I couldn't run around the Papal Cross twice without feeling like I was going to die. Suffice it to say, I will forever be a running widow.

Wes ran in the Dublin Marathon on Monday. His reachable goal was to get a better time than he got at the Connemarathon which was 3:10:25. His super goal was to get a sub-3 hour time. He's been training like a fanatic (even though it's pointed out to me numerous times that there are guys out there with FAMILIES who run more miles than him per week), so I knew he had a pretty good shot with at least the reachable goal. The marathon started at 9am and the weather was really perfect - mostly cloudy skies and cool temps. The route took him up through Phibsborough which isn't far from our apartment, so I went up there to cheer him on. There was a bigger crowd than I had expected and even cars that were passing the runners would honk and cheer them on. It was pretty cool! Anyway, it was only mile 2.5 and I have to say, he looked like he was struggling a bit. I was kind of worried, but I figured they had just ran up a hill to get there and if it were me, I'd already be walking, so I just headed off and prayed that he made it all the way around! The route for this marathon wasn't the best in that it made a huge circle around Dublin. I prefer routes where you can easily hop over a river or something and see them a few miles later. So, I basically had two hours to kill until I could see him again in the city centre. I did this with my book, coffee, and window shopping. I ended up seeing him again around mile 25.5, which was by Grafton Street. There was a really good crowd there since it was close to the finish line. He came around the corner and I checked my watch and knew he had a really good chance of meeting his super goal! I thought he looked pretty good, but apparently, that was a ruse.

In the end, he ended up doing 3:00:25!!! Just 25 seconds from his super goal, but he shaved off 10 minutes from his last marathon. I'm really proud of him! He said that around mile 19 he had to stop and stretch because he was cramping up. He only stopped for about 20 seconds because he knew if he didn't get going again he never would. Then, unbeknownst to me, right after I saw him by Grafton Street he was passing the 26 mile marker and it felt like a knife was driven into his calf. Come hell or high water he was going to finish! And he did!

And we hobbled home.

Wes (in the blue shirt) around mile 25.5.

Restaurant Review - Gruel

I've never done one of these before and since we like to eat out, I figured I would start talking about the places we go. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures this time, but I won't make that same mistake again!

Wes needed to pick up his registration pack for the marathon, so we decided to walk to the RDS since it was such a nice day and we would get brunch on the way. I suggested we stop at Gruel because it was recommended to me when I was complaining about the quality of brunch in Ireland and I've heard from others it's pretty good.

The inside of the restaurant looks kind of like a 1950s dive diner in the US. It's very cute and kind of made me feel like I was eating in my great grandmother's kitchen with hip music playing and funky posters hanging around. There was only one other person eating in there at the time and he was reading a book called, 'Physics for Future Presidents'. Riiiiight....moving along.....They had a brunch menu which was nice and varied. I almost got a Mediterranean BLT which was an open faced BLT on foccacia bread with parmesean cheese. Instead, Wes got his old standby of eggs benedict, I had eggs florentine, and we each got a cup of coffee. Obviously, the coffee came out first. To say we were disappointed would be an understatement. It was the smallest cup of coffee ever. It tasted good, but 1950s dive diners would have had bottomless cups of coffee with refill after refill. So at 2.40 for the cup, we weren't too happy about that. Then our food came out. I'm am seriously kicking myself for not taking a picture. It was the biggest plate of food I have seen in a long time. Both dishes were two HUGE poached eggs each placed on a very thick piece of bread. Wes' had huge slabs of ham under the eggs (of which I was totally jealous) and mine had spinach, all slathered in hollandaise sauce. But, the kicker was they had a side of roasted potatoes. POTATOES!!! For a country that loves potatoes in all forms, they don't really seem to eat them for breakfast. This is a crying shame. There was also a bit of salad on the side, but whatever. At 8.95 for each of our breakfasts this was a great deal. It was so much food that I could only eat one of my eggs. Normally, Wes would have eaten the rest of my food, but he was stuffed from his own plate. Thankfully we had a long walk ahead of us so we could work some of this off!

All in all it was a GREAT place to go for brunch. My only recommendation would be that they would offer free refills on coffee. In addition to brunch, they also offer a supper menu in the evenings and I think we may have to try it out one night. The food was delicious!

Gruel
68 Dame Street
Dublin 2