Reblogged from inthesestilletos:

Cinnamon Rolls have to be one of my all-time favourite treats. Honestly, it’s one of those foods that I have no “stop button” for; I can literally eat one after the next, after the next. My Obsession for them started when I lived in the States in 2004, I went through a period of withdrawal until “Cinnabon” opened up its doors in South Africa. It was only on going back to the states recently did I actually realise how SIMPLE they were to make at home, and how utterly delicious they make your kitchen …

Yum!

A repost from last year

Today is the last of the twelve days of Christmas. Generally known as the Feast of the Epiphany  it also goes by the name of “Nollaig na mBan” or “Women’s Christmas” in Ireland. This is an old Irish custom, which goes back to the days when large families were the norm and men were not expected to help out with the women’s chores in the house. Tradition had it that each year, after the hard work of the Christmas festivities, their men folk would give women a break  from the housework on January 6th.

Mainly a rural tradition, women would go out to celebrate the day with their friends, sisters, mothers, and aunts. Although Nollaig na mBan is slowly dying out in many parts of Ireland, overtaken by Mother’s Day; in Co. Cork, the tradition is still very strong.

I came across the most wonderful nostalgic description of Women’s Christmas on a recent  post at the Wise Web Woman blog - perhaps it will bring back memories for some of you of days long passed into the mists of time. I hope you enjoy reading it today as much as I did.

“The day of the Women’s Christmas women were supposed to take it completely easy after all the hustle, bustle and hard work of the prior months, with the men now taking care of them and cooking and cleaning all day. I can assure you that this never happened in my house as, like many men of his era, my father didn’t know one end of a broom from the other and boiling a kettle was the peak of his culinary skill.

However, my mother was the eldest female of her family so consequently her sisters, sisters-in-law, aunts and mother came around on that day and a smaller, daintier version of the Christmas meal was served. On the menu were: a bird (usually a fine roast chicken), a smaller lighter plum pudding and a lovely cake, usually dressed up in the fanciest of pink wrappers with silver sprinkles everywhere on the pink and white icing. The most delicate of my mother’s tea sets was brought out, my own favourite, the lavender and pale green set. I would love to hold one of these little saucers up to the light and put my hand behind it, as it was so fragile you would see all your fingers through it.

Gifts were exchanged, usually the most feminine of presents, perfume or talc, bottles of Harvey’s Bristol Cream were lined up on the sideboard and the fun would begin. I was encouraged by the grandmothers and great-aunts to always give my mother a little gift on that day for the woman that she was and I did, from a very early age. I would buy something small in Woolworth’s on Patrick Street, a little comb or my personal favourite, those fiercely aromatic bath cubes, which were a whole three pence each. I would wrap it up in layers and layers of newspaper and it was always exclaimed over with the phrase, “Well now, I can hardly wait to use this”!

The coal fire would be stacked up high and already lit in the front room before anyone arrived, with Bord na Mona briquettes piled on the fender around it, and any male showing his face would be banished to some other spot in the house.

I remember the women gabbing all day and in the heel of the evening getting into the stories and songs of which I never, ever tired. My female cousins and I would sense the privilege of being included in all of this, there was a respect in us and never did we exemplify more the ideal of children being seen and not heard than on that day. Unasked, we poured the drinks and ran outside to boil another kettle to make a fresh pot or brought in the sandwiches and the fairy cakes and the chocolates and exotic biscuits in the later part of the day.

I remember the hoots of laughter as my aunts dipped their ladyfinger biscuits into their sherries, letting us have a small sample of the incredible taste. This was the one day in the year that I could get a sense of how the older women in my family were when they were young girls themselves. Full of fun and music and stories. I learned about their old boyfriends and who courted them, how one of my uncles had dated all four sisters before settling on my aunt. How wild he was and how she tamed him.

I’d learn of the sad miscarriages and the stillbirths, the neighbours who went peculiar from the change or the drink, the priests who got spoiled in Africa and became pagan; or who had the failing, the old great grandaunt who took on fierce odd after her son married. I didn’t know what a lot of it meant then but I stored it all away to ponder on in later years.

They would dredge up old musical numbers from their single days and sing a few bars while one or two got up and showed off their dancing legs. Sweet Afton cigarettes were lit and my grandmother would puff on her dudeen and we all could hardly see each other for the clouds of smoke.

Stories were told and they would get caught up on all the doings they might have missed in their conversations all year, obscure marriages and births, sometimes in Australia or other far flung and exotic outposts of the Irish Diaspora. But most of all I remember the peals of laughter which resounded throughout the house all day and evening.

A moment would come in the midst of all the hilarity when the time for a spot of prayer came. Out of the big black handbags that never left their sides would come the rosaries. These would be threaded through their fingers and all the heads would bow in unison. I never knew the prayer and haven’t heard it since but it was to St Brigid, the women’s saint of Ireland, and it involved her taking all the troubles of the year before and parking them somewhere in heaven and thus they were never to be seen again. This was followed by a minute of silence (while St Brigid did what she was asked, I have no doubt), then a fervent “Thanks be to God and all His saints” and a reverent kiss on the cross of the various rosaries which were all tucked away carefully into the handbags again. Then the glasses of sherry or the cups of tea were refilled and the whooping and carrying on would begin afresh, the bothers and griefs of the past year now permanently banished and forever. “

Happy Nollaig na mBan everyone!

Rosses Point, Co Sligo

Driving home from Sligo to Clare today, I was struck once more by how beautiful the Irish countryside is at this time of year. After a grey, cool start to the day, and a walk on the beach at Rosses Point after breakfast -  a great way to clear the head after the night before – the sun began to shine as we left Sligo behind us, heading for Mayo.

I don’t know this part of the country all that well, so it’s great to discover another piece of Ireland, and see it through fresh eyes.  We veered off the road at Ballindrine towards Dunmore, on the Galway, Mayo, Roscomon border as hubby’s family originally came from here. We made a stop at Dunmore castle, built by the Norman de Berminghams, but originally a stronghold of the ancient O’Connor kings – my O’Connor husband likes to think he can trace his lineage this far back.

Dunmore Castle, Co Galway

We get so used to living in a place, that it’s easy to overlook the beauty of the landscape, and the sense of connection to a place and its  history, but I really felt that sense of connection today as we stood in the ruins of this ancient twelfth century castle, with only the resident birds nesting in its ivy clad walls to observe us.

Madonna not impressed with hydrangea gift from fan

Apparently an eager fan presented Madonna with a floral gift of hydrangea at a Venice Film Festival press conference for her new film W.E. While the  singer and actress gracefully accepted the flowers, she turned to the person beside her voicing her disgust at them.

‘I absolutely loathe hydrangeas.’ she was heard saying when the press conference microphone was left on.

I don’t share Madonna’s loathing for hydrangea. I love the mixture of overblown purple mopheads and delicate white lacecaps which bloom in my own garden.

The flowers are great for cutting and very easy to arrange in vases. There is something reassuringly old-fashioned about hydrangea, so I like to arrange mine in a country vase or a vintage bowl, but they also look great arranged in a group in a clear glass vase and stunning mixed with white roses and green foliage. Now tell me what’s not to love Madonna??

Throw and Grow with these Flower Grenades

So I’ve heard of love bombing, but seed bombing is  a new one on me and I am really taken with the concept of flower grenades which I’ve only just come across.

I admit I hadn’t heard about this growing movement of guerilla gardening before now, but I just love the idea encapsulated in Tony Minh Nguyen’s original description of a 2008 project he called the Bio-Grenade:

Instead of the grenade form leaving a detrimental impact it disperses life

The basic idea is that you lob  ”seed bombs” in empty urban waste ground and let nature do the rest.  Seed grenades were first used by the Green Guerillas in the USA in the 1970s to introduce explosions of wildflowers into the concrete jungle of New York.

So if you fancy a bit of throw and grow therapy, check out Designist in Dublin, stockists of flower grenades. You can also buy online from their store or for UK readers, check out Suck UK for more information.

This weekend, I discovered masses of rosehips ripening on the dog rose bush at the side of our house. I don’t remember there being so many last year, but perhaps I just wasn’t so observant.

The pulp from the rosehip is a great source of vitamin C, beta-carotene, bioflavinoids, calcium, citrates, citric acid, iron malates, malic acid, niacin, phosphorus and vitamins A, B1, B2, E and K, so it seems a shame not to make the most of the harvest in my own garden.

I have been canvassing opinion on what to do with them when I collect the ripe berries, and have had suggestions to make  tea, jam or syrup (excellent for winter colds). I spoke to my elderly neighbour, who warned me that so many rosehips this early, means that we are in for a hard winter! She also advised me to wait until after the first autumn frost to collect the berries, as the frost will soften them.

Anyone have any tips for making the most of my rose hips? Would love to hear from you if have.

Did you catch this title in this week’s Irish Times? It certainly caught my eye! The opening premise that undying romantic love is not the main driver behind Irish men choosing their future wives rang a bell alright.

It appears that the decision to settle down and get married is often made for much more practical reasons such as timing and financial stability.

Dr Paul Ryan, assistant lecturer in sociology at NUI Maynooth, is writing a book based on the letters sent to agony aunt Angela McNamara, whose column appeared in the now defunct Sunday Press for 17 years (I remember it well!)

Michelle McDonagh reports:

He presented a paper entitled How I Met Your Mother: Exploring Changes in Mate Selection in the Lives of Irish Men 1963-80 at the 38th annual conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland at University College Cork over the weekend.

In this paper, Dr Ryan looks at the extent to which the practices of mate selection changed when the traditional structures of community, class, education and family began to change in Ireland in the 1960s. As well as reading the letters sent to McNamara, Dr Ryan interviewed men who read her columns about their reasons for dating and marrying the women they married over that period.

‘All the literature in sociology shows that prior to 1960, marriage was all about farming issues and dowries with the man’s parents, particularly his mother, having a much greater say over the wife her son chose,’ says Dr Ryan.

‘As we moved into the great modernist era of the 1960s, we were supposed to have got rid of all this and the perception was that people were choosing their partners for love, but my research threw up a few contradictions.’

Dr Ryan found that love was not a main driver in proposing marriage for the men he interviewed. Timing was a huge factor. Waiting until they felt they were financially stable was another factor in the man’s decision to get married.

‘That concept of heroic love was not really there. One man told me that as his wife would be moving in with him and his parents, he had to choose somebody his parents would get on with,’ says Dr Ryan.

‘Another man broke up with his fiancee who was seven years older because his mother did not think it was a good idea.

‘Although the literature would say family became less important, my interviews found the men never married somebody their parents did not approve of.’

Dr Ryan points out that this unromantic basis for making the commitment to marry persists into the modern sociological literature.

In her book Talk of Love , Berkeley sociologist Ann Swidler writes of marriages that are the outcome of steady friendships in many cases or of couples who decided to marry after they ‘grew on each other’

‘On the one hand, we are sold this incredibly romantic notion of how couples meet and marry through the media and movies, but in reality, it’s often quite different,’ according to Dr Ryan.

Thoughts anyone?

Source: Irish Times 10/5/11

Image Source: greatcakes.net

Can you believe it is the first of May already?  As I write this, I am looking outside my window at a beautiful hawthorn tree in full bloom and I am reminded me that this tree is also known as the May tree, after the month in which it blooms.

While its blossoms are used in May Day celebrations, it was considered unlucky to bring hawthorn into the house, because of the folklore that doing so would bring illness and death to that house. Much nicer then to reflect on its more positive symbolism, chiefly that of regarding the hawthorn as an emblem of hope. In fact its genus name Crataegus, comes from the Greek kratos, which means strength.   Its branches are said to have been carried by the ancient Greeks in wedding processions, and in Celtic lore, it was said the hawthorn can heal a broken heart.

hawthorn blossom

The hawthorn features widely throughout our own native Irish myth and legend, with many references to the tree (sceach gheal in Irish) and its connection to the little folk – the fairies. My grandfather, long dead now, was a great believer in the fairies and the old folklore. A Co Longford farmer, he would plough a wide circle around the lone hawthorn tree in his field, for fear of offending the fairies that supposedly inhabited the tree. It was widely held that disaster would befall those who dared to dig up a hawthorn tree.

The hawthorn is in flower from May to June and right now it is a joy to behold the hedgerows and fields  alive with great clusters of its beautiful 5-petalled white flowers. Come September the pollinated flowers become 1cm wide, deep red fruits known as haws and a once common expression in Ireland ‘When all fruit fails, welcome haws’ is something else my grandfather used to say to us when we were children.

I love the way this daffodil looks as if it is straining towards the sun – it is a wonderful image and one I have taken with me all week.