Traveling to Italy for the afternoon

I have always wanted to design a zoo, I will settle for even just designing a single animal enclosure, but since I have yet to do either of these things, I settle for going to every zoo in every major city I have ever visited. I LOVE THE ZOO! We originally planned to go to the zoo over Easter weekend, and we never made it there since we just were enjoying each others company way too much. When Ben got back to work this past week and talked about us going this weekend, what was going to be just the two of us, turned out to be a large group of about 10 of us. I know, what does the zoo have to do with Italy, but I am getting there…..

The plan was to go there on Saturday, which was forecasted to be a beautiful day. Then the zoo excursion was going to be followed up by a BBQ. Which is really cute when you hear an Australian say “Lets go throw something on the Bar-Bee” (think Outback Steakhouse commercial). They do not have shrimp worthy of being BBQed in Australia, so when Americans advertise, “throw another shrimp on the Bar-bee”, they actually would never say that, but they do get a kick out of us saying that. I am still digressing from Italy.

Saturday turned out to be the best day we have had here since I arrived. Maybe it was about 70 degrees, no wind, and clear sky. We had to bring a dish to the BBQ, and since we own the barest essentials in a kitchen, I did not bring any cookbooks with me and I have yet to learn how to use the metric system, I was very limited to what I could make. I fell back on my tried and true Cheesy Artichoke Dip, that has been a crowd pleaser for years. Now most of the ingredients I can find very easily, and have the recipe memorized for years. There was one ingredient that was eluding me. Artichoke hearts. I stopped by my local Tesco Shopping Centre and there were none there. Lots of weird random canned stuff like mushed peas, chick peas, salted peas, sugar peas, pealed peas, peas, peas with carrots (do you see a pattern) and lots of tomatoes. But no artichokes. I then stopped by the Spar, Londis, and Centra, again no canned artichokes, or fresh for that matter. Then I stopped by the little Italian café at the corner. When I walked in there where my artichokes. I asked for a few scoops, but alas, they do not sell them. They just use them for the salads and paninis. I asked them where I could find them, and through her very poor English (yes she was Italian working at an Italian café, go figure) and my no Italian, I got some very bad directions. But I was on a mission. I had never been over to the Beechwood village. I did not have a map on me, so I just sent out on the directions she gave with no street names of course, just vague references to stuff I might see and her indecisiveness on which directions I really should turn. It was a nice day, I had nothing else better to do, I had my mobile, so I set off.

Now for some of those that I have talked about the food before, there is not much of a selection of food. It has gotten better since Ben and I were last here to visit, but it is Irish food sold in an Irish grocery store. When I finally found the Doritos salsa with the crisps, I thought I was in heaven. All of this build up to my adventure, but it really was not that far, and ended up being easy to find, but you could see where it could have been a big adventure given if I had made a different turn…. As I approached the cutest little village street, I slowed my pace and just enjoyed it. It was a very crowed little centre with mums and their kids, the homeless guy asking for change, little old ladies that can walk further and faster then I can, and a group of old guys hanging out in front of the pub. There are probably about 20 shops along the double block, but everything you could ever need (not necessarily want) would be right there. As I neared the end of the street, I thought that I missed my store and was in the wrong place, but the very last shop, there it was, “A Taste of Italy”. As I walked in, there was everything you could ever want from Italy food wise. Great wines, sauces, noodles (more than just spaghetti, which is all I can find at other stores), spices, and my elusive artichoke hearts of all different kinds. They also sold all sorts of organic veggies and meats, which is good for future reference. I took my artichokes home and reveled in my new find. It was a small accomplishment and I guess to others it is not that big of deal, but I was happy with my new find and could not wait to take Ben there! Now if I could just find Okra for my gumbo…..but I am sure that will be a story unto itself for the future.

To finish up the beginning story very quickly: Zoo was overrated (they need to reopen the newly remodeled Asia exhibits), I got very sunburned, every animal was asleep except for the fighting rhinos. They had a lot of monkeys and big cats which are my favorites, with the Gorilla picking his bum and eating whatever he got out of there (had to post that, it was just too funny). BBQ was grand, but we ate way too much, made way too much food, stayed up way to late, and stumbled home with our blisters already forming. A good end, to a great day!