Those of you in the US who are of a certain age, may remember the old Life cereal commercials where three kids are looking with wrinkled noses at their bowls of cereal and asking what it is and then one of them says, 'I'm not gonna try it! YOU try it.' Then they look at the littlest one and say, 'I know, let's get Mikey! He won't eat it, he hates everything!' Of course Mikey loves it, much to the surprise of the bigger kids who then start to shovel cereal into their own mouths. Well, I tried a couple new-to-me things this week, with mixed results.
The first thing was at lunch the other day. I was out with a friend for most of the day. She picked me up early and we went off to Letterkenny. We went into a couple of shops together and then went our separate ways, agreeing to meet back at the car in a couple hours. I popped into the charity shop across from the library and took my time looking at the books, coming out with a few for me and a few for Bill. I crossed the street and went into the library where I again took my time looking at books. I spotted one that I'd read about just the night before and was interested in, so that and another one came home with me. My backpack was getting heavy but as I was heading back to the car, I spotted another charity shop that hadn't been there when Bill and I were last down that way so I had to pop in. Two more books for Bill and one for me later, I went back to the car. I was just grabbing books by authors Bill likes but I wasn't sure if he'd read them or not. Happily, he hasn't read any of them.
After the errands were done my friend took me to lunch at a place she really likes--The Friar's Rest in the Glencar area. I'd never heard of it, but I was happy to go and experience it for myself. It was a great little place--unpretentious with excellent food, large portions, and reasonable prices. Here's where my Mikey moment comes in. Chicken curry features on many menus here, whether at sit-down restaurants or takeaways. It's always offered with a choice of rice, chips (chunky french fries) or half rice, half chips. Always the chips with all sorts of food--even lasagna is usually offered with coleslaw and chips. I continue to find this odd. Anyway, chips are always iffy. Some places serve excellent chips and some are soggy and very meh. I wondered about chips with curry, envisioning a plate with a pile of rice and chips mingled together and topped with a curry. And I'd never had that kind of curry here, only Thai red curry, which I love. This is more like an Indian style curry (although possibly not very authentic, but I don't know). So in all the years we've been here I've seen this on various menus in various places and always chosen something else. On this day, something felt appealing about the chicken curry and when the server asked me if I wanted half and half, I said yes. The platter came with a metal dish of curry on one side, a large pile of chips in another section, and a scoop of rice on one end. I started by picking up a chip and dipping it into the sauce. Delicious! She likes it, hey Shari! I scooped some rice into the curry. Yum! And that's how I continued to eat it--dipping the chips and scooping the rice--until I was full. There was plenty left of both our lunches so we asked for a container to take the rest home. My chips were gone and I dumped the rice and curry into the box. I ate it for lunch yesterday and it was just as delicious. So live and learn--I get the whole chips and curry thing now. 😀 I do think it's highly unlikely that I will ever try the lasagna/coleslaw/chips combo though.
Yesterday after coming home from another fun meeting of the yarn group at the library, I started a book I picked up this week called An Alternative Irish Christmas: Stories and Essays. When I picked it up, the librarian wasn't finding it right away so I told her the title and commented that I had no idea what would be alternative about the stories and essays, but I guess I'd find out. I certainly did and it wasn't pleasant. I was reading the first story with a growing sense of dread, feeling that there was some bad stuff coming. I should have stopped pretty early on and at least skipped that story because I could have done without the description of the puppy mill and the state of the surviving dogs and their dead brethren. And the description of what happened to the protagonist's dog when he was a child. Oh yeah, and the brief mention of the suicidal teenager. Happy Christmas! I set the book aside. This afternoon I decided to try the next story, but I was ready to stop reading if it appeared to be heading into equally gruesome territory. The next story had some humor but was also painful to read. I get it--this is real life, families are dysfunctional, people are suffering, and for some people, the Christmas season is a depressing and painful ordeal. This is the case for some of my best friends. This kind of thing just isn't what I'm looking for in a festive season story. I don't want them to be sickly sweet either. I guess I want something in between sugary fluff and misery. I remembered a book I read years ago before we came here--Christmas short stories by a single author--which was full of truly depressing stories, including one in which people at a holiday party were drunk so didn't notice the cat falling into the cauldron of stew cooking on the fire. I shall be wary of Irish Christmas stories from now on. And after the second story in the library book, I set it down on the return pile and picked up the book I got at the library the other day. I'm loving that one.
So a mixed bag as far as trying new things goes. Loved the curry and chips, really disliked the Christmas book. Such is life.
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