I stand in the sheep shed kitchen and stare at the bloody venison roast, trying to figure out how on earth I'm going to make this for tonight's dinner. The roast was a present from Aiden's uncle, and I should make it before the uncle leaves tomorrow. The uncle is an avid hunter, I hear, an expensive sport in Ireland, and I'm betting this venison roast is a real prize, and I don't want to mess this up. Aiden (name changed) was the first Irish boy to become a camper at Comeragh Wilderness Camp, … [Read more...] about Sheep Shed Kitchen- Memories of the Emerald Isle II
Travel
How to Catch a Bus—Memories of the Emerald Isle I
Comeragh Wilderness Camp was little more than a muddy meadow with a few trailers in those days, and even catching the bus didn't go like we planned. I was the cook, and Naomi was the secretary, both of us American volunteers in the southern part of Ireland. I had been there only a few months when Naomi asked me if I could drive her to the bus stop, so she could catch the bus to the Dublin airport. She had booked a flight to visit her family. "There's just one catch," Naomi added. "It will … [Read more...] about How to Catch a Bus—Memories of the Emerald Isle I
Pizza, Pottery Works, and Puffing up the Mountain!
The quiet domestic life — the excitement of urban life— a grueling mountain hike— it's not often I get to experience it all in one weekend. Pizza Loaves I spent Saturday morning making one of my favorite recipes, Peppery Pizza Loaves. Mom has a scrapbook cookbook with the recipe clipped from an old issue of Quick Cooking. You can get the recipe from Taste of Home here. The pizza loaves are quick, delicious, and freeze well. I also made a couple of Frosty Chocolate Pies (pie recipe here). … [Read more...] about Pizza, Pottery Works, and Puffing up the Mountain!
Alaska Summer 2019
This post is mainly photos from a trip to Alaska I took earlier this summer. I helped at a mission base in Healy for two weeks, in the interior of Alaska. Apparently Alaska is large enough to have an "interior" like the continents of Africa and Australia. These photos were taken during our time off. (My job was primarily cooking, which looks the same in Alaska as it does in Pennsylvania. The most exotic thing we cooked was ground moose, which looks and tastes just like ground beef). What … [Read more...] about Alaska Summer 2019
Getting Ready for Alaska
Many years ago, I had a co-worker who was an Alaskan living in Pennsylvania, and she would tell me stories from Alaska— how her parents had driven to Alaska in a school bus and proceeded to raise their family of 18 children in the land of the long winters, permafrost, and grizzly bears. As fascinated as I was by tales of such an exotic frozen land, I didn't dream of actually visiting Alaska. I'm not particularly fond of winter, and visiting Alaska didn't seem likely. More than a dozen … [Read more...] about Getting Ready for Alaska