The Lederman Kitchen

I wrote before, in the post We're All Speaking English Here , about how we have a difficult time understanding some people and how we find it almost impossible to pronounce some cities, names, and words (all of which have Irish language roots).  Well, these things still are difficult, but we are getting better everyday. This post is about Irish slang.  In Ireland, there are a lot of similarities to the words, phrases and sayings British use, but some slang is just Irish. Below are a few of the common Irish slang terms we hear all the time here. Grand Pronounced: grand Used in a sentence: "That's grand", "I'm grand", "He is grand", "It's grand", "They're grand" - you get it - everything is grand over here Meaning: good Thoughts: I like it, occasionally someone will say it 5 times in one sentence, which makes me laugh, but I like it. Your Man Pronounced: yer man Used in a sentence: "Di...

Living abroad can be tough for many reasons, and not being able to eat or find your favorite foods is one of the things that can make it tough.  If found, they can be a huge comfort in a far away place. Vietnamese and Mexican food, not surprising, are the 2 cuisines we miss the most here in Dublin.  Having moved from San Francisco, we had been spoiled with the abundance of delicious and authentic dishes of both.  We ate them often, and really, really miss them over here. I'm super lucky because, even though we can't find Vietnamese at all here, and the Mexican just isn't the same, I have my husband who will cook them for us. I've mentioned before how spoiled I am to have a husband who not only likes to cook, but is also pretty amazing at it.  Brian has been determined to bring our favorite foods to Dublin.  Last week, I shared his version of banh mi , which we thoroughly enjoyed and we've already had again since. And now, he is perfecting street tacos....

I start my new job on Monday!  It was quite the process to get to this point. April 2nd - Arrive in Dublin May 10th - Offered my job May 18th - Paperwork sent off to Irish government for my Work Permit June 7th - Work Permit granted! June 8th - Updated my status at the Immigration office (yay for a better photo on my immigration card) June 25th- First day of my new job! Although this seemed like the longest process in the world, they originally guessed my start date would be July 23rd, so things happened about a month quicker than expected. So, here goes nothing.  I'm excited, a little nervous, but mostly, just ready.  I am not going to lie, I will miss sleeping in, hitting the gym before, or after, lunch and meeting my friend Abby for an afternoon coffee on the canal.  The last few months, I have developed a surprising ability to fill a day with these small tasks.  I did volunteer ~15 hours a week for the last 3 weeks, which really helped get me bac...

Sunday night we had the best Banh Mi in Ireland.....cooked by Brian. We ate Vietnamese pho & banh mi often in San Francisco.  Brian would have a banh mi for lunch pretty much every time he didn't pack his own lunch.  I often would go out for pho with co-workers.  And on any given rainy, or non-rainy weekend, we would often grab a bowl of pho or banh mi.   As always, what you really want, you can't have.  Ever since moving to Dublin, and learning of the lack of Vietnamese food (aka it doesn't exist), we crave it all the time. Brian had been planning on making banh mi for a while now.  He had been scouting the Asian Market for pickled or fresh daikon and pickled carrots, since those are really the only unique ingredients needed.  When he came up empty handed, there was only 1 solution - bring a daikon home from London, and do the pickling himself.  And that he did. Step 1: Pickle the carrots and daikon - this should be done ...

It was just as beautiful of a day as it was on Day 1 of our trip , and we wanted to take full advantage of it.  We decided to drive south to the Cliff of Moher, then swing back up to The Weir for lunch at Moran's Oyster Cottage , which came highly recommended by Brian's co-workers, all before heading back across the country to Dublin. I think I said "this is just beautiful" at least a 100 times during our drive When you visit somewhere new, you often have an idea of what it will be like, or what to expect.  Well, Brian was dying to see castles and rock walls in Ireland.  There was no shortage of rock walls, and plenty of castles on this trip. Dunguarie Castle We went through some cute little villages It wasn't just on this trip, but people just park wherever they want in Ireland.  The photo below was taken on the coastal highway.  The highway!  The speed limit on this road is 100km (63 mph), it's narrow, curvy and apparently it's cool if y...

Brian and I embarked on a cross country road trip 2 weekends ago.  Across to Galway, and back to Dublin again.  Sounds brutal, but Ireland is only 129 miles wide where we crossed! To be fair, it used to be a brutal journey, before they built the M6 Motorway , which was completed in late 2009.  Before this 2-lane motorway, with center barricade, was built, the only way to drive across the country was on smaller highways.  I'm not sure what the those highways were like, but if it's anything like the other ones we've been on in Ireland, I can only imagine how long it would take.  Not to mention how stressful of a drive it would be on small winding roads with ridiculously high speed limits.  I've heard it took more than double the time it takes now.  Honestly, I don't ever want to know, the M6 was nice, easy and fast, with a speed limit of 75 mph.  And the scenery, how beautiful.  We really felt like we were in Ireland. Road shot -...