live blog: doonbeg panorama

To say The Lodge at Doonbeg is dramatically situated is a bit of an understatement. You’re going to want to click the image  – then click it again – to get the full effect of the Clare coastline.

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live blog: chow(der) hound

Local fish supplier Charlie Sexton has fished the waters off the coast of the village of Doonbeg for the past 25 years. The Atlantic coast is home to hake, cod, monkfish, and tiny prawns – all of which he catches to end up in the seafood chowder of Chef Wade Murphy, seen here teaching me how to do it properly, with the addition of clams, mussels, and salmon, in Darby’s at The Lodge at Doonbeg.

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live blog: close encounters of the crustacean kind

Out along the Doonbeg strand today I came upon a pair of prehistoric-looking crabs the size of footballs. At first glance they looked to be dead, but after finding a stick of suitable length and girth I discovered they were, in fact, just sleeping – or heavily medicated. Barely mobile, they looked to be encrusted with barnacles. Once the tide started to roll in and rinse them of their sandy camouflage, however, they revealed themselves to be a bright purple color, baring a striking similarity to the limestone landscape of the nearby Burren. Even more curious, nobody at the Lodge at Doonbeg was able to identify them, claiming to have never seen anything like them. Chef Wade Murphy finally solved the mystery, identifying them as purple spider crabs, known for their sweet and toothsome meat.

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live blog: love at first fry

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bucket list: 2010 – october

IRELAND: I honestly didn’t expect to be able to get back to Ireland this year, so when the opportunity arose for a long weekend on the west coast with friends, I jumped at the chance.  County Clare, as typified by the sheer Cliffs of Moher and the otherworldly landscape of The Burren, is that vision of Ireland often enshrined on picture postcards:  wild and rugged, yet also starkly beautiful.  Secreted away at a house in Doonbeg, the eight of us cooked, drank, and spent a lot of time laughing by the fire. The absence of a typical Irish rain – and unseasonably mild weather, to boot –  made for lovely strolls out along the strand.

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the edible revolution

When people think of Irish food they tend to focus on the mythology of the humble spud – or pints of creamy Guinness.  Yet what many don’t realize is that while the Slow Food movement may have been born in northern Italy, it first gained traction and was embraced in Ireland.  Almost a generation ago a new breed of Irish chefs who had trained abroad and saw the creeping spread of pesticide-grown, antibiotic-riddled foods realized that back home the burgeoning globalization of agribusiness had yet to invade their country.  The good stuff, as it were, was still being produced locally on small farms:  beef and lamb that tasted of the pastures where they were raised, fresh dairy that didn’t have to travel across a continent, produce within a stone’s throw, and fish and shellfish foraged from the surrounding ocean.  At the same time, the growth of the Celtic economy saw a wave of returning emigres, and suddenly there were artisanal cheese-makers sprouting up near the dairy farms in Cork and Kerry, smokehouses outside the fishing villages in Clare, and stone-ground mills in the rolling hills of Wicklow:  sustainable, affordable, and deepening the country’s connection to the land. The little island was a big Greenmarket.  To be a locavore wasn’t so much a political statement – notwithstanding the colonial legacy of enforced exportation of most homegrown foods in return for nutritionally poor imports  – it was a practicality.  England may do the gastropub with more spit and polish but walk into any humble village pub in Ireland and you’re likely to find a menu with unadulterated ingredients sourced within a five-mile radius; they just don’t crow about it so much.

Of course like anywhere, you can eat a bad meal in Ireland, too.  But I didn’t have that problem in Doonbeg:  crab claws with tomato concasse, samphire and chili butter; foie gras and cherry confit; loin of Clare lamb, roasted girolles and eggplant; pear sorbet; and a board of farmhouse cheese.

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a break in the wind

I am a sucker for the livestock when I’m in Ireland.  Nothing makes me happier than to be out on a hike and chance upon a field of horses, cows, or my favorite woolly friends:  the sheep.  There were no sheep in proximity on this particular visit but after walking the length of Doughmore Beach I came upon a windswept field of cows abutting the ocean.  The pair in the foreground were just inside  a field-stone wall; they looked like they were trying to catch a break from all the wind.

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sunday morning ride

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low tide along doughmore strand

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bound east for doonbeg

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