Thanksgiving

That time of year again to kick of the holiday season - which means Thanksgiving.

I think we have the holiday down to a science now, where we have it at my sister's house, and then head over to Patrick's sister's later in the night. Besides the usual stuff, I did make this simple pureed broccoli dish with mint leaves (had to do something to get rid of them). Other than that it was a pretty mellow day . . . thankfully.

Wine Tasting in Southern Indiana

I realize that wine tasting and Southern Indiana is a bit of an oxymoron, but hey, any excuse to drink and spend time with friends.

Patrick and I headed down to Nashville, Indiana with the Hagans, Webers, and Whittakers. The premise was to do the wine tasting thing, but after the third stop, we were over it. The wines themselves weren't that bad, what was funny was what they were trying to sell them for. At one place, they were trying to sell a red for 65 smacks - and this is a wine that they don't even buy the grapes for, they supposedly just ferment.

The best part was hanging out in the cabin and drinking to excess. Food wasn't too bad either - first night was Fondue, second was baeckhoffe. It's a 'do again next year'.

French Dinner

Yep, the french were back in town for work - which means dinner at the Smith abode. Bonus points this time around, since Patrick Emanuel's wife, Virginie, was in town to visit as well.

Dinner menu was the usual:

Soup: Pumpkin (was going to serve it in a pumpkin, but it was losing structural integrity)
Appetizer: Poached egg (the real way) with wild mushrooms and toasted cumin
Main: Grilled Aged Ribeye
Cheese and Salad: Mostly from Capriole
Dessert: Standard Chocolate Coulant (too easy not to make)

And in case you don't recognize everyone . . . (seated from the left) Laurence Galocha, Theresa Weber, Patrick, Virginie Emanuel (standing from the left) Jim Weber, Philippe Duhau, Yours Truly, and Patrick Emanuel

Cider

Cider is done.

Frequent readers of the blog will remember that back in October, the gang all made some pressed cider and started fermenting it. Right before I returned to Ireland I bottled it up, and now it's all done for drinking.

Actually it's not too bad - a bit on the dry side. So I think next year we won't use the champagne yeast and find the proper apple cider yeast. The nice bit is that if I'm in the mood for a little carbonation, but not wanting the Sahara dry feeling of the cider - a little Cassis sweetens it up nicely.

New Heater

I know, not the best picture of a heater - but let's be honest, once you've seen one heater, you've seen them all. So I thought I'd throw in a picture of Patrick sitting on top of the heater vent.

The old heater needed to be replaced - quite frankly, I was surprised it last a month after I first bought the house and that was almost 10 years ago. And as far as efficiency? Basically the HVAC guys wouldn't even hazard a a guess on how bad the old furnace was - general thoughts were less than 30%. Now we just need a new redone kitchen and bathroom, and then this place is ready to be put on the market. Well, a little recovery of the real estate market wouldn't hurt either.

What did I miss most about the US?

Dude, it's the library.

Granted living in Ireland had the advantage of being able to find english books easily, I didn't make it to Kinsale's library. In fact, I wonder if they had one. Regardless, getting back to Indianapolis and being able to check out any book you want to free online just makes you wonder how Amazon has become so successful. The only issue now is that my online waiting list is a little out of control.

Notes from the past

Amazing what you can find when you're cleaning your entire house from top to bottom. After going through piles of crap in the basement (which deserves its own post someday), I found this travel itinerary from my grandmother's trip to Europe 40 years ago - complete with her own notes.

She apparently landed in Paris (I wonder if the airport was that horrible back then too), and then she immediately headed for of all places . . . ALSACE. Kind of weird to learn that your grandmother visited the same places back in the early 1970's that you lived. She went to the same restaurant that Patrick and I went to on our last day in France, the Crocodile - she had rack of lamb. She went down the wine route and found Riquewihr charming - shocking. And she made some passing comments about the huge Cathedral - no surprises there. Best part was that she was totally dissing on the other people on the tour with her traveling companion - so catty, I loved it.

Yo something Taco Bell

The rumors are true.

Despite trying to be a foodie, I still have my weaknesses - namely, Taco Bell. So on the way from the airport back to the house, we did stop at the Mecca of "All things Mexican food, but not really having anything to do with Mexican food at all". Had the typical grilled stuffed burrito without the meat product.

Missed it by one flight

The new "international" airport in Indianapolis opened up the day I arrived back from Ireland. Unfortunately, I ended up not landing there by one flight - we were actually the last flight to land in the Indianapolis airport - I guess that's probably pretty cool too.

My only dream now is for our airport to actually have a direct flight to some European city, so I won't have to keep on going up to Chicago to get anywhere.

Packing

Time to pack up to go home for good. I couldn't remember the exact size of our air shipment, but I didn't think we were in too much danger of going over. We only used one container coming over, and we really buy that much additional stuff to take back home.

Kind of amazing that you can go live someplace for six months with about 10% of your stuff and still be perfectly happy.

Paddy loses the bet

Remember back in mid to late September when Sarah Palin was just announced as McCain's running mate, and Obama had dropped even with McCain in the polls? Democrats started to panic, 3 of the 7 signs of the Apocalypse had been seen, etc? Well, during this temporary moment of pandamonium, Paddy bet me at lunch that the Republicans would win.

Of course, I took that bet - and the wager was dinner at Ivory Tower for the winner. Since it's not in my nature to rub it in to anyone that I won and someone else lost, we decided that Paddy could just take Jamie and I out to Kirby's pizza one last time instead. Unfortunately, Mr. Kirby was actually adopting a child or something in South Africa, so we had to settle for the White Lady instead.

Nice time had by all.

Daily Commute

As we approach the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I thought it appropriate to take a moment to be thankful for those things in life we sometimes don't fully appreciate. Granted I may find Kinsale's lack of a movie theatre a bit annoying or the fact that potatoes are as common at meals (including breakfast) as salt and pepper, but I can't complain about the view from the balcony or (as you can see now) the commute to work.

Seriously, I'm looking at a stint in Mexico City for 6 months, so a 7 minute commute to work with no stoplights in Ireland is something that I need to appreciate now - because it ain't ever gonna happen in my lifetime.