To soothe the Tiger King's weather-beaten skin

This one is for Brian, Charlie, and all of my past Celtic Cinema students (one of whom I bumped into on the street yesterday!)

I was visiting a small farmer's market a few weekends ago, and came upon a great find: Man of Aran beauty products! Aran, of course, refers to the islands off the coast of Galway. They are known for their dramatic cliffs, windswept vistas, and proliferation of Aran sweater shops. When I visited years ago, Inishmore (made famous more recently by Martin McDonagh's macabre The Lieutenant of Inishmore) seemed to be populated by artists, innkeepers, and tourists. So that's Aran.  

Man of Aran is something else - a film released in 1934 about the poor and rugged but romantic Irish folks who 'scratched out a meagre existence' on the islands alongtimeago, digging dirt from between rock crevices in order to plant gardens, and fishing for sharks to obtain oil to light their lamps. The film was marketed as a documentary, but came under significant criticism when it became clear that many elements of the film were anachronistic, or fabricated for effect. Anyway, that's enough of a lesson for now. It just completely cracked me up when I saw Man of Aran beauty products at the local/organic market. The irony of branding luxury items on a film about the decidedly beauty-product-free characters in the film was too much. I expect several folks were wondering why I was crouching down in front of  a serviceable metal shelf to take photos of shampoo and body lotion.

Speaking about the shelves, the market had one stand that served a fabulous lentil soup (they only had half a bowl left, so I was charged half the price, and went around that afternoon half-full), and the most reasonably priced natural soap that I've seen in Dublin. Many bars are 7-8 Euros (ahhhhh, don't convert!), but this place had some for 2.50. Small pleasures...

 

The SuperNatural Food Market operates indoors at the St. Andrews Resource Centre on Pearse Street, and is open until the mid-afternoon on Saturdays. If you walk along Pearse St. past Trinity College in the direction of Dublin Bay (notice I refrained from saying 'east', 'cause Dubliners don't use compass directions), you'll find it on the right (south) side of the street, across from Pearse Square. If you reach the bridge over the Grand Canal/docks, you've gone too far.

Houseplants, walking, and other cultural idiosyncrasies

Moving to a new country has revealed to me how deeply we are shaped by our home culture. I knew about the food, the social rituals, the idiosyncrasies of language, and many other things that a different culture has to offer, but there are little things - tiny things - that amaze me, or frustrate me, or just baffle me.

For instance, I can't seem to walk properly on the sidewalk. I don't mean that I've been imbibing too much Guinness, but that there is something about the way people move in public spaces that I just can't figure out. I keep almost bumping into people, or having to slow down suddenly because someone in front of me has stopped. I cannot figure out what is going on. At first, I thought "Aha! I'm walking on the right side of the sidewalk, and I suppose people naturally gravitate to the left side here, in order to do as all good pedestrians are trained to do: act like traffic. So I tried consciously shifting, but it didn't really make a difference. Then I tried altering my pace. Perhaps I was walking too quickly? A little bit too much NYC in my North American mobility patterns? Didn't really work either. It's clear that I am just not picking up the cues. People send off cues unconsciously, and I am not picking up the signal when it comes to walking. I have decided to stop thinking about it, and perhaps my body will figure it out on its own.

I was in London this past weekend visiting friends (more on that in a future entry), and SF asked me how I was doing in Dublin. He lives in London, but has spent chunks of time in other places (including Toronto), and said to me "Everything is completely different, isn't it?" And I said - "You are SO right!" I had never really thought of it that way before, and just thought that maybe I was getting dumber by the minute. We see the obvious differences quite quickly, but the more subtle differences -- such as the humour and unmarked references to celebrities or local politicians -- just glide right over my head at times. I'll stop thinking about it, and maybe my mind will figure it out on its own.

But onto more serious differences: shopping and consumption. There are certain things that I found very easy to find at home, and clearly I took them for granted. In Dublin, I have searched and searched for such things, and only with great effort have I come upon them. Like a bathmat made of simple terrycloth towel material. Like one of those Japanese scrubby towels used for vigorous exfoliation, which I used to pick up for two bucks at the Korean stores on Bloor. Like pretty tea towels, made of absorbent material. Like Toms of Maine or JASON toothpaste that doesn't cost 8 Euros. Like HOUSEPLANTS.

I love houseplants. We had so many of them in Kingston that going out of town always made us scramble for botanical care-givers. Parting with my plants was harder than parting with my clothes, or my small bottles of Aveda products taken from hotelrooms, or the ginger I had lovingly cut into cubes, dried, and saved for a days when all the fresh stuff was lying flavourless at the bottom of the teapot. My consolation of course is that houseplants are easy to come by. Every corner store, grocery store, florist, and even some hardware stores in Ontario have them, so it wouldn't be a problem in Dublin, where many indoor plants in Toronto could live happily outdoors. But I was wrong. I have been here for over a month, and have kept my eyes peeled on every shopping venture. Marks & Spencer (which has yummy and healthy prepared foods, by the way), had a few sickly day lilies next to their cut flowers, and one florist had some limp looking heather, but there was not a schefflera or philodendron in sight.

And then I remembered that Dublin just got an IKEA. Woohoo! Multinational mega-chain comes to the rescue! I tried - I really did - to go local. At least I took the bus. The trip back to the city, on the 13A bus, is like a nature peep show. If you sit in the front row of the top deck as Sophie taught me in London - you can see the Wicklow mountains beyond the city as the bus weaves back and forth through different neighbourhoods. It always amazes me when I see mountains in the distance. They look close enough to walk to, but I think it would take a good day.

Anyway, here's a picture of some of my new plants. The basil was from M&S, and I think it was meant to be eaten, but I just separated the roots and put it in a bigger pot. It was very unhappy for a while, spitting brown leaves at my floor, but it is perking up. The peace lily on the TV was left beside the dumpsters in the courtyard this morning, so I figured that was a 'good garbage' sign. There is also an ivy in the bedroom, but I'm feeling too lazy to upload two photos, because I am at least 6 or 7 blog posts behind...

Keeping it clean, environmentally

I've been a fan of Ecover products for a long time - they smell so good, and kept our house clean and fresh. But I always felt a bit odd buying them; the intention was to rid the house of harsh chemicals, and to use something friendly to the environment, but Ecover products are made in Belgium, and it's a long, carbon-emitting journey from Belgium to Toronto. So when I stepped into my new favourite health food shop, Down to Earth on South Great Georges St., I was happy to find Lilly's Eco clean products, made just a hop, skip, and a jump away in West Cork. I've tried the toilet cleaner and the floor cleaner, and can report that although they both give off a topnote of vinegar, the sharpness subsides after a while and everything is left sparkly and fresh.

Farmer's Market

 Yeeha, I just found out that there is a weekly farmer's market in Temple Bar, just around the corner from my new flat (more on the flat-hunt later). I'm getting used to things being on a smaller scale here - grocery stores are smaller, apples are smaller, and neighbourhoods are smaller -- so I was kind of expecting a very small market, with maybe three vendors. But to my great suprise and glee (I think I may have audibly yelped), it's a full market that rivals the one at Dufferin Grove Park in Toronto. There is one major fruit and veg vendor who does everything organic, and then there are several cheese stalls, bakers, butchers, and even one flower stall. There are also a few prepared food vendors, serving noodles, sandwiches, burritos, and 'Gallic fare', and all of it seems on the healthy side, and not the fast-food side. I'm eating the kale I bought right now, and it tastes very fresh and earthy.

Translation moment: I know that aubergine = eggplant, but there are a few other translations necessary for the interested eater:

rocket = arugula
mangetout = snowpeas
spuds = potatoes

I'm sure there are more, so I'll update this as I go along...


In the same way we have seen the rapid growth of the organic food movement at home, the local food movement seems to be rapidly growing here; I've been noticing signs in many restaurants about where food is sourced. Very exciting, because eating cheese from 'Wicklow cows' is much more exciting than eating regular old cheese.  I came across a list of other farmer's markets, so I look forward to checking them out.

I spoke with one woman at a bakery stall (I bought a lovely loaf of rosemary garlic bread, which, as it turns out, is a bit salty), and asked her when they closed up for the day. She said that they closed at 5pm, which is great news for me, because despite my early rising these days, and my intentions of getting out early, I often find myself attending to other homey kinds of things on a Saturday morning. "Great!", I said, "and when do you close down for winter?"

"We never shut down - we are here every Saturday, all year, rain, hail, or sleet"

Well didn't I almost fall over. I thanked her profusely, as if Ireland's temperate climate were all her doing. Yes! One point, finally, in favour of Ireland's climate!

The vegetable vendor is all little off on his own through a laneway on the east side of the Meeting House Square:

 

 

But the rest of the vendors are smack dab in the middle of the square, which has its nicest entrance off Essex St. East: