MY FIRST DAY OFF
Before I came to Ireland, I bought a cookbook titled "The Phoenix Restaurant". It was written and published by Lorna Tyther, a woman with numerous awards for her vegetarian and vegan cooking. I had written to her asking if I could come and work for her in exchange for room and board like I am doing here at Rosemont. I had gotten her write-up from the same organization as Rosemont. She responded "yes" to my request but only after I had committed to coming to Rosemont. But her pictures of her place, which also houses a small B&B (3 rooms) and pictures of her food and recipes for that food looked like just the place I'd like to visit someday. When I saw how close it was located to Rosemont, I knew I'd make the trip as soon as I could manage. That was yesterday.
I asked around if it would be better to ride a bicycle to Castlemaine or walk. Both methods were vehemently discouraged. The road was not only very steep in some areas but also very narrow with no place to step off from on- coming traffic. So I went to the bus station and got their schedule which included a stop at Castlemaine from Tralee. It was a 25 minute bus ride. I was really glad I decided NOT to ride a bike. There were no guard rails or any room on either side to get out of the road.
So I took the 10:35 a.m. bus arriving at the Castlemaine post office at 11:00. I had already done a little homework to see which road would take me to Lorna's place. It was about a 4 mile walk. So with my iPod on playing Fleetwood Mac and Bruce Springstein, I walked. It was a cool day with overcast---just 50deg. If the sun was out, at least I would have felt its' warmth but instead I put my hood up from my sweatshirt and walked briskly to keep warm. The countryside on Route 571 was all farms with mostly sheep, their babies and cows. I saw big black birds what looked like crows standing atop some cows pulling the fluffy hair from them and flying off with it. The cows just stood there not caring. I saw a lot of sheep many with twin babies; like tiny babies very recently born. Beautiful.
When I reached Boolteens Village I knew I had just 1 mile to go. I knew when I was coming up on the restaurant that it was Lorna's because of the huge phoenix bird painted on one side of the building. I had emailed her the day before asking if I could come and if she'd be there. As I approached the door, she opened it and I knew immediately it was her by the strikingly red hair I'd seen her sporting in her book. She opened the door and I said "I walked all the way from the U.S. just to see you."
Her restaurant was lovely. It was just one room with seating for about 30. All the wicker chairs and wall decor were decorated with beautiful embroidered and mirrored cloths from India. She made me a pot of herbal tea and brought me a just baked spelt scone with pumpkin seeds. Very tasty. Then we shared bowls of her watercress, potato and black lentil soup. Wonderful. I met her husband, Billy and the most recent and only workawayer, Lars from Germany. He was 19 and had just come in from planting celeriac seeds one by one with tweezers. All 4 of us shared bowls of rhubarb crumble topped with yogurt. All the food we had was organic The rhubarb was just picked from her garden.
I got to meet Rufus and Ellie their 2 dogs. All they wanted was for me to keep throwing the ball for them to chase and fight over. Cute.
Lorna cooks food and packages it up to sell every Saturday at a farmers market in the next town called Milltown. So I got to take containers of pesto, curried squash, hummus and a bean dish to take back for my next few meals at Rosemont. Her gardens are really beautiful. The need for workawayers to tend to the gardens is crucial both to keep them looking beautiful with all the flowers coming up everywhere and also for the success of the restaurant serving the garden's bounty of vegetables. There are numerous fruit trees also I was told but didn't get to see.
Billy gave me a ride back to Castlemaine post office just 2 minutes before the bus arrived. 25 minutes later after another enjoyable ride back I arrived at the Tralee bus station. I walked the 2 miles back to Rosemont and reflected back on my glorious day.
Next trip: INCH BEACH......Easter weekend
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