Potatoes, potatoes & more potatoes

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I admit that I've turned into a neurotic eater and the potato has fallen victim to this. A summer of eating nothing but bland boiled potatoes has turned me away from this starch... with the exception of mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are something of an elusive craved dish as they have never been made at home... not even when growing up. They're just not a Chinese thing to make. Friends are aware of this and the dish forms a substantial part of my birthday dinners and they slip me doggy bags of it from other events such as Thanksgiving or Easter that I happen to crash. I'm in mash potato heaven in this part of the world.

Ireland seems to have a long history with the potato (most notably the Irish Potato Famine in the 1850s) and it still continues to dominate the dinner plate and politics. My lunchtime Sheppard's pie was topped with mashed potatoes and the pie itself contained more slices of potatoes. On the news this evening, potato farmers apparently interrupted a Tesco executive meeting after news broke that the supermarket chain was considering the import of British produced potatoes into their Irish stores.


And now for some random trivia:
The Blarney stone was apparently brought back by Crusaders from the Holy Land.

The term eating "spuds" originates from an acronym standing for: Society for preventing Ulster Dairymen

North Americans are stereotyped as enjoying lots of ice in their drinks. Sure enough, there was a bucket of ice this morning at the breakfast buffet and the night before, the bartender asked me if I wanted ice in my apple cider. Odd.

Thatched house roofs are a dying trend. Increased insurance rates as they're a fire hazard.

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Photos

Potatoes
on the way to becoming great mashed potatoes

Comments

[cristina]

Great place to be!
Wow! I really like this place. Thanks for sharing this post with such interesting topic. I will be certainly be coming to your site. Great post. You can also visit more Travel ideas here

[Ursula]

Go to the North!!!
If you can, it has some amazing places too. Especially Giant's Causeway, pretty neat to see. Bushmill's distillery has free tours and if you get your hand up early free tastings. Enjoy your time there, it is definitely an experience, Hugs, Ursula