oh my god. you killed kenny.

In honor of Pancake Tuesday and International Women's Day, I bring you, my favorite vegan pancake recipe.  It's great because I always make just enough, and I hate eggs, so I don't have to go wasting my money on eggs I won't finish before they go bad...

Makes: 4 Pancakes
2/3 cup of flour
2/3 tablespoon sugar
1 1/3 tablespoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup soymilk (or milk if you're not vegan and just hate eggs)
1 1/3 tablespoon cooking oil
(optional: a few drops of vanilla)
(optional: dried cranberries or walnuts)

And then you make them like you'd make regular pancakes.  I usually make these when I have no bread and don't want to go to Dunnes.  I stack them up and make a quadruple-decker PB&J pancake sandwich!  Yummy!

orange juice, grapes, pancakes, and johnny weir: breakfast of champions.

Now, here it is, as promised: my trip to Kilkenny.  I was staying with a friend of my mom's friend, and even though I was nervous about so many things involved in getting there and getting comfortable (bus tickets, bus timetables, bus transfers, being super shy), I had nothing to worry about.  The bus ride went off without any glitches, and everyone was extremely nice.  It felt great to have a real life in Ireland for a weekend, you know?  Watching birds out of the kitchen window just like at home, visiting friends, buying birdseed, driving around the countryside, going out to lunch, sitting in front of the fireplace, playing with pets... I don't know really how to describe it, but it was really relaxing and just what I needed, so here's a shout-out to Cathy Burke and her family: THANKS FOR BEING AWESOME!

both of these pictures (above and below) are from rothe house in kilkenny, one of the few medieval burrages left.  what they'd do is give you a plot of land that was maybe 20m across, but that would stretch back 100-200m.  so rothe house was actually a series of three houses separated by beautiful courtyards and gardens.  the top picture is this deer skull mounted at the height it would have stood when it was connected to the actual animal!

a shot from a 95th birthday party.  how many of those do you get to go to, huh?  this guy was born before the 1916 easter uprising.  it just blows my mind.

a little church we found while driving down a random road.

this and the photo below it are both from st. mullins holy well.  holy wells are really cool because they're more folk religion that official religion... there are so many rituals involved with them, and guess who was in charge of those rituals?  women.  which is really awesome, in such a patriarchal religion as catholicism.  it's also really fascinating to think that people would walk/crawl there in bare feet... like, what?!  i only wish i can find such dedication in my life.  below is a picture of frog spawn found in the holy well.  i nearly fell in i was so excited!  holy herpetology!

a cemetery behind monastical ruins near the holy well.  there's also a motte just across the street, which corroborates what we're learning in class about how castles sprung up near places already in use as ecclesiastical sites or preexisting settlements...

 twin lambs!

 

a fireplace--how cozy!

these next two are from the gardens at woodstock park, an amazing place with trees and tea houses and benches and ruins and ponds and playgrounds and everything you could ever want to see on a walk.

  

a beautiful view from the side of the road.

puppies!

kilkenny castle, a beautiful, multiphase castle owned by the butler family, the dukes/marquis/earls/lords/whatever-title-of-magnificence-you-can-think-ofs of ormonde.  they flip-flopped more than any politician of our day from jacobite to loyalist and back again.  and like most castles, there's a lovely park attached that's great for walking.  across the street is the servants' quarters/stables.  there were actually tunnels and secret stairways so that the elite people wouldn't see them milling about.  how strange!

So, there you have it.  I had an amazing time in Kilkenny, and I hope to maybe go back again once the flowers have started blooming and such.  I'd love to see Jerpark Abbey and St. Chanice's Cathedral and some of the older buildings in town.  I really loved it there.  :)

Tonight, I'm off to a Mozart concert by Ireland's RTE Orchestra followed by Trad Night.  I will be wearing my new pair of jeans since the rest are in the wash.  It was a little aggravating because I couldn't find a pair of normal jeans so I had to get skinnies.  For someone with calves the size of mine (gentlemen of yore would kill their mothers for calves like mine), it just doesn't work out... but they're not as bad as I expected, and I can sit down in them, so... c'est la vie.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and I'm determined to do Lent right this year.  I want to give up something that turns me into a mindless machine so I can spend more time thinking about my life and how I can be a better person, improving my productivity, feeling better overall.  I just bought ice cream and Nutella, so giving up sugar is out of the question.  So I've decided to say goodbye to my Facebook for forty days.  I'm still going to be on e-mail, so if you need to contact me: jgraham@oberlin.edu or wilde.erbsen@gmail.com.

That's all for now.  Chowder, y'all.