lookie here!

Look at these muffin cups I found in Ireland. They’re from a Scandanavian company called Vestli House that makes paper products for baking and cooking from biodegradable greaseproof paper.

I found them at Avoca in Ireland, which is my favorite store in the whole country. It feels like it could have been the inspiration for Anthropologie, with its sweet, old-fashioned-yet-modern aesthetic. Avoca sells everything from pitchers to sweater coats that all feel very Irish countryside in a romantic and slightly wild way. Not to mention the original handwoven blankets the company has been weaving at their mill in Ireland since 1723 (and I’m now the proud owner of one for our bedroom – thanks mom!).

Avoca also has cafes with the most delicious food served on all the gorgeous plates you’ve been coveting at the store (are you listening, Anthropologie?). So let’s say you’ve been eating mashed potatoes every single day without a green vegetable in sight. Clearly, the antidote is to find your way to an Avoca café and wolf down some fresh carrot salad. Followed by a slice of chocolate and pear tart. It’s even better if your parents are with you and it’s their 40^th engagement anniversary, and you can clink mugs of tea to celebrate with this view in the background.

see you in 2011!

Whew! I'm ending the year in Ireland, hopefully with my feet up (although those are my husband's feet above) and long naps in front of the fire after trapsing through these green, green fields.

I hope you all enjoy a slow start to the New Year, and I'll see you when I get back in about a week. Here's to a creative, happy year for all of us. And thank you all so much, as ever, for joining me here. My life is enriched by all of you. xoKelly

almost like a home movie

When we were in Ireland a while back, we made the usual pilgrimage into town one evening for groceries. We had been out walking through the fields and then down by the water, so went into town in our dirty jeans and big sweaters and wellies. And as we pulled into what I thought was a parking spot, a woman came running up, frantically waving her arms and yelling, no, no, we’re filming!

We had heard rumor of this movie being shot in this little fishing town. But it wasn’t until I almost drove onto the set and straight into a scene with Colin Ferrell walking along the docks that we actually remembered, and believed the rumors.

Well, this weekend we saw the movie in San Francisco. As we sat in the theater, we elbowed each other and whispered, Hey there’s McCarthy’s pub! Look, it’s Mary from the Fish Co-op! Isn’t that Eyeries church?

It was such a thrill. This small fishing town is in a particularly wild part of Ireland that has always cared more about its fishing industry than gussying itself up for tourists. So to see the familiar landscape and landmarks from half a globe away was surreal. And honestly, Colin Ferrell isn’t too tough to look at for two hours, either.

The movie is called Ondine, and you can see the trailer right here. Do you see this kind of dark shot of the picnic table in the street? That’s where we go for pints – want to come next time? I can’t promise Colin will be there, but we will have a grand time anyway.

irish nesting

As I’ve mentioned before, my husband and I are absurdly fortunate to spend time every year in a family cottage in Ireland that's been home to generations of Mike’s family.

Needless to say, it is a beloved place. One side of the cottage faces a rocky hill, and the other side faces down to the sea. There is no phone, let alone a television or Internet, so what do we do? We wake up, light the fire, go back to bed with a pot of tea and our books. And whenever we’ve had enough of that, we wander out into a landscape so green that your brain hums a little trying to absorb all the color.

Over the decade that I’ve been going there, and the lifetime that my husband has spent there, this teeny tiny cottage with three-foot thick stone walls has become another home for us. Especially when we’re there with full cupboards, smoke curling out of the chimney, and laundry hanging on the line.

And more and more, we want to add our own personality to this favorite place.

So this time around, I took the bright-orange couch and chair set that were hand-me-downs a few decades ago, and cut patterns for slipcovers.

This is just the before, I don't have the after yet. But this is my best souvenir. Returning home with my suitcase full of pinned-together muslin. Tangible proof of our long-term plan.

I’m not going to lie. I worry that sewing a slipcover set is above my skill level. But that’s sort of the narrative of our lives. Taking on projects that are a reach, and being proud of the results. Because even when those results are a little wobbly, they’re our own.

cooking with the sea

Meadow in front of the family cottage in Ireland.As I wrote on DesignMom last week, this is my first year celebrating St. Patrick’s Day as an actual Irish citizen, courtesy of my husband. I think the Irish have historically celebrated the day with less fanfare than we Americans do, but this seems like a good day to post about a favorite new cooking ingredient that I discovered on our last trip to Ireland: seaweed.

No joke. It’s carrageen moss to be specific, even though it's technically a seaweed. And my husband Mike remembers going down to the rocky coastline when he was little to hunt for it. It has a crazy cool property that releases a gel that acts as a thickener. So I suppose it’s really a kind of briny natural gelatin. Fortunately, it doesn't turn your desserts brackish because it doesn't taste of the sea if you soak it before cooking with it. Nature, huh? So rad.

I obsessed over this the last time we were there, and finally found some. Not along the shore (as I had romantically envisioned), but in a health food store in town. I had a recipe for delicate lemon pots that called for the moss, and it was Earth-Science-Meets-Home-Ec when I added seaweed to my pot of cream and lemon zest.

One more mossy detail. When we were in Ireland last fall, Mike and I dug a garden-to-be in the front of cottage. I swear we used tools that were straight out of the Old Testament, they were so old. They tugged at my Luddite soul, with their perfectly effective simplicity. Before we left, we hauled bags of seaweed up from the shore and piled it on top of the bare garden, in the hopes that we'll be able to plant potatoes the next time we're there. This thrills and touches my father-in-law, who remembers pulling fat potatoes out of the same ground when he was a kid. It turns out his parents' kitchen garden was in the same spot.

Hopefully the luck and love is still in the soil.