Posted from Vernon, Conn.

Karen's brilliant recipies:

Recipe for GAMMON: Buy a deboned salted gammon joint (pork) from a trusted butcher. Simmer it in water 20 mins, which takes the salt out. Drain gammon & remove casing. Coat casserole dish with set-honey, place gammon in & coat with honey (the boiled pork will warm the set honey so it can be spread) & sprinkle with ground cloves. Bake at 200 until honey is brown almost burnt. The crusted honey will keep the pork moist, ham will brown, some suger & clove will seep in. Peel off honey after, & discard. The meat should be loose & tender kinda like bbq pulled-pork. Serve with chicken & salad.

Recipe for CHAMP: Mashed potato, cream, scallions, bacon bits. Serve with beef-sausage & steamed cabbage. Steam cabbage then add balsamic vinagrette & some red onion.

Recipe for BREAD PUDDING: Use blue-molded or stale sliced bread. Butter both sides. Layer in casserole, sprinkle suger & sultanas (like raisins but softer & less sweet). A few layers then sultanas on top. Mix eggs & double-cream, pour over top. Nutmeg optional. Bake till crusty brown then serve with custard over it.

Say Grace.

Cafe menu near Giant's Causeway on Sept 20 (pounds sterling):

£4.50 quiche
4.95 cottage pie
2.20 stuffed sausage
3.95 veggie chili pasta bake
1.50 sausage roll
1.50 wedges
Internet £1/15 mins. STEEP!

Gas in Ireland was about €1.16 /liter = $6.15/gal
Gas in N. Ireland about £0.95 /liter = $7.20/gal
Today €1 = $1.4
£1= $2




My route through Ireland Sep. 11-21, 2007....loopy like I had a few pints!! Instead of the planned 2 nights in Northern Ireland & 2 again in Galway, I ended up 5 nights in the north............... $350 to move my flight an extra day well worth it! Same $$$$$ for an extra day whether I departed Dublin or Shannon. 2 1/2 hours to Dublin Airport on the M1. Toll takers are on the RIGHT-hand side and there to take my .75 euro was a smiling lass.






Road signs are bilingual in Ireland. During the 1700s or so, the English anglicized the place-names. In Northern Ireland, signs are English only. Look for the Gaelic "Uisce" it means Water & where we get Whiskey. Sharon said anyone can be an Irish citizen if you have Irish grandparents and learn Gaelic.



















This hotel was the most bombed in Belfast during the Troubles: 26 of about 40 planted went off....

















Seisun, Longford Arms Hotel. Tenor banjo is on the left, then Uilleann Pipes, then two right the Bodhran which is a handheld drum.

















Belfast murals


















Armagh





Glenariff, one of the Nine Glens of Antrim. My drive took me down Glenariff to a Strand (that's what they call beaches), along the coast a few miles northwest, then up Glendoe. The road from where this picture was taken will take you along the northern (left) slope of Glenariff.











Antrim coast near Cushendun. The sea is very FAR below try to even hear it! You hear Sheep all over ireland, even in the middle of nowhere they blend in with the rocks you hear one. Check out Scotland on the horizon, bout 11 mi. away (closest point between)















Clonmacnoise, south of Athlone & near the Blackwater Bog where they harvest the peat. The most visited Catholic site featuring celtic high crosses, round towers, & temple ruins. Clonmacnoise is a monastic site founded in 545 by St. Kieran along the river Shannon, about 160 miles the longest in Ireland. The Pope preached from that modern pulpit in around 1989.