When visting Dubrovnik, we decided to take an excursion to see Mostar in Bosnia, which is a couple of hours away. The countryside along the way was rugged and beautiful, with lush orange groves, pencil cypresses and wild pomegranates everywhere.
View of the old town
Like Dubrovnic, Mostar dates back many centuries, and had been owned or occupied by various rulers during it’s history. It also suffered badly in the war that followed the break up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and large parts including the medieval old bridge had to be rebuilt.
Koski Mehmed pasa Mosque.
Mostar has some amazing Ottoman architecture, and while it’s maybe a little more rough around the edges it does seem a bit less sterile than Dubrovnik, and is a lot more affordable. There are plenty of local artisans ready to sell you leather and brass tourist tat. Eating and drinking is cheap and hearty, our waiter suggested a local dish (we never got the name), made up of bread, spicy sausages, vegetables and a sweet spicy red pepper relish which was delicious. This along with a couple of beers was half the price we had paid for an overpriced pizza in Dubrovnik. This is a really interesting and historic part of the world, and well worth a visit, but a day is probably enough to see the old town.
The countryside is rugged and beautiful, with lush orange groves, pencil cypresses and wild pomegranates everywhere.
When I mentioned to some people I was going to Dubrovnik, their faces lit up. Anyone who has visited the the place will testify to how beautiful it is. I had never been to Croatia before and to be honest didn’t know a lot about it.
The old town which is pretty sizable is a UNESCO heritage site, and was a pretty important port for trade in the Adriatic. It has been a Republic and occupied by various other nations, more recently it was damaged and rebuilt in the 1990’s after the break up of the former Yugoslavia.
Understandably the locals prefer not to focus on this (coming from a place that has had it’s own troubles I’m glad that they prefer to look ahead, instead of dwelling on a difficult past). More recently, the city has been one of the most recognisable locations from Game of Thrones.
Rector’s Palace
The architecture is beautiful and I don’t think I have ever been to such a clean city (I mean it seriously looks like the whole place has been freshly scrubbed just for you coming). The old town has steered away allowing the eponymous chains seen in most cities. You won’t find a Star Bucks or McDonald’s to save your life.
It is however not a cheap place to eat or drink. Eating out was at times eye-wateringly expensive. Food in the old city tended towards Italian, with pizza being a popular choice. During the day, the bakeries sell savoury pastries and sandwiches, and this is probably the most affordable way to eat. I didn’t really see much in the way of local food promoted, so I can’t really tell what Croatian food is like.
Dubrovnik is ideally located if you want to visit other cities/countries. You can take day drips to Montenegro, or do as we did and visit Mostar in Bosnia.
This is an easy, healthy curry that even the most ardent
meat lovers can enjoy.
Don’t be put off, if it seems that there are a lot of ingredients. I know I prattle on about how good Asian supermarkets are, but you can build up a good stock of cheap spices that will help change how you cook.
Ingredients
500gms Butternut Squash (peeled, deseeded, and diced)
200gms Frozen Peas
150gms Red Lentils
1 Large onion (chopped)
2 Tbsp Coconut or other oil
1 Red chilli pepper
4 Cloves of garlic
1 Tsp Fennel seeds
1 Thumb sized piece of ginger
2 Tsp Garam Masala
2 Cardamom pods
500ml Vegetable stock
2 Tbsp Chopped coriander
Serves 4
Method
Add the fennel seeds and cardamom pods to a dry pan and toast until you can spell the spices.
Add the coconut oil and once heated add the onion and cook over a medium heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The onions should be cooked gently until they caramelise and turn brown. Taking the time to do this might seem like a bit of a faff, but it does help improve the depth of flavour
Add the butternut squash (which has been diced in 1.5cm cubes), and continue to cook over a gentle heat for 5 minutes
Grate the ginger and add to the pan along with finely chopped chilli, garam masala, red lentils, and vegetable stock, cook for a further 10 minutes
Add finely chopped garlic to the pan, along with frozen peas, and cook 5 more minutes
Check that the butternut squash is tender, and check the seasoning and adjust to your taste. (I usually go easy when adding chilli, as it’s always easier to add more, but if you like a super hot then go nuts)
Serve with basmati rice or naan bread (or both if you’re a total carb junkie like me). This curry reheats really well, and will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days
A great Friday night spent at Direct Wine Shipments “walking wine tour” sharing gorgeous wines with friends and probably spending much more than I intended.
Direct Wine Shipments, in Corporation Square in Belfast is an institution. For 65 years it has been bringing great wines from around the world to Northern Ireland. The staff are friendly and knowledgeable, and the owners have their own wine Crua Celta from their vineyard in Spain. Their historic premises have been everything over the years from a grain store to a brothel, and are reportedly haunted.
I enjoy wine, but what I love even more is cheese. The Artisan Cheese Monger from Holywood brought some brilliant samples for pairing with wine. It turns out brie and the right Champagne are a marriage made in heaven.
I arrived home, a little tipsy and with a bag full of cheese. Saturday turned out to suck, a day full of house cleaning, laundry and sh*tty weather. However, the upside was being able to settle down with my purchases from the night before. Brunost cheese from Norway is amazingly delicious. It’s made from boiling the whey after cheese making. It’s like fudgey, caramely cheese, it sounds wrong but it’s fabulous. Go try some!
I use Google photos, which decided to try and depress me by sending me reminders of being in Bali.
Bali may possibly be the happiest place on earth. If sandy beaches with crystal clear waters and busy nightlife are your thing then resorts like Kuta are for you.
Personally, I prefer to go and chill out and soak up some culture.
The Balinese people are amazing, and I found them to be kind, polite and gentle. The local tradition of every home and business making small offerings each morning to give thanks is a beautiful sight, that we could all learn from. It’s like they invented mindfulness before it was co-opted by some Westerner who now makes a fortune tells us about we need to regularly show gratitude for what we have.
I prefer to travel inland to towns like Ubud. This town has a much more chilled out vibe, and is a good base travel round to visit sites like the 3 volcanoes shown above, or the breathtakingly beautiful temples.
Balinese food is fresh, delicious, and healthy. There are also plenty of Western options available if you prefer something familiar. One day cookery classes offer a great option to learn more about local ingredients, food culture, and offers the chance to meet other people (especially if you’re a solo traveler and feel like some company). You learn how to make an impressive range of dishes that you can enjoy afterwards. The local beer Bintang, is similar to Heineken and hits the spot on a hot afternoon. But a lychee Martini looking out over luscious jungle is hard to beat.
Yoga, wellbeing and spas are very popular across Bali. Prices are good, but remember that the local’s take home pay is significantly lower than in the West, so be a good guest and tip well. You will always receive good service regardless, because the Balinese are unfailingly gracious and polite, so enjoy your pampering, feeling good that you’ve recognised how hard the person pampering you works.
Lila and her family run my favourite Belfast bakery, Piece of Cake, now with a shop in the Europa Bus Centre in Belfast. They are also much loved regulars at St George’s Market in Belfast.
Due to unrest in their native Croatia in the 1980’s, Lila and the family relocated to Belfast. Once here they worked their socks off, getting up at the crack of dawn everyday to build a business and a home.
While she might be 80 years young, Lila’s work ethic and energy would put most people half her age to shame. On top of this, she is also a sweetheart.
This bakery creates amazing artisan breads, pastries and cakes. I have a secret fantasy about being locked in their shop overnight. Just two among my many favourites are their potato rostis, and the coconut meringue cheese cake, OMG they’re fabulous.
Some moronic pr*cks like to spout off about how immigrants don’t contribute to society. I would say they obviously haven’t met women like Lila or her family or see how hard they still work, and the local people they employ.
A Belfast childhood can best be described as character building. One of the plus points was that every now and again you would get to have a smokey!
A smokey was normally served in a tall glass and consisted of pineapple lemonade, vanilla ice cream and a chocolate flake.
I’ve never been able to track down who started serving these in Belfast, although there was a well known Italian ice cream shop in Castle Street where I got mine. Give this a go, it’s really scrumptious. If anyone does know the origin of smokies please let me know.
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 Large scoops of vanilla ice cream
1 Litre Pineapple lemonade
4 chocolate flakes
Method
Get 4 tall glasses, and a scoop of ice cream to each glass and top up with the pineapple lemonade and stick the chocolate flake into the ice cream when floats to the top.
I’m fortunate enough to live in a part of the world where you are never far from the sea. Despite this as a nation we don’t eat enough sea food. We definitely don’t take advantage of the absolute heaps of sea vegetables and edible coastal plants we have access to
On a mild but rainy day, the immensely knowledgeable David (former National Trust Ranger, with a passion for coastal flora and fauna), was kind enough to share a small portion of his encyclopedic knowledge with me and a small bunch of other food nerds.
To make things even better David’s partner Celia, an extremely talented and well known chef in her own right, treated us to a fabulous meal centered around foraged food.
Who knew that trendy foods like sea purslane can be collected for free!, and scurvy grass was used as far back as the Romans to give sailors a massive hit of vitamin C on long voyages, (it also tastes like wasabi).
Other top discoveries were pepper dulse, which tastes somewhere between an oyster and black truffle, OMG it tastes so good.
All sorts of terrestrial plants such as sea spinach, sea radish, wild peas and orach all make amazing salad vegetables, and sea vegetables like channel wrack, and sea spaghetti are super tasty when lightly steamed and are bursting full of iodine, and other trace elements that are really good for you.
Who would have thought of baking fish in sea weed. Celia treated us to hake wrapped in sugar kelp and it was properly delicious. She also made us a feast of breads seasoned with seaweeds, dulse butter, wild garlic pesto, and great salads.
Get out and get foraging, make sure you check what you are picking, and don’t be a d’ck and over pick plants that are scarce. Other than that, go forage!
These were inspired by the great minds at Thug Kitchen, these food writers like myself, try to stay healthy and are prone to saying f*ck quite a lot. You can also use vegan dark chocolate if that’s your thing.
Gorgeous on a hot day, or my own guilty pleasure is to have them while sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee. But f*ck it, eat them how you like.
Makes 6
Ingredients
6 Lollipop sticks
100 grams Dark chocolate (you can use vegan chocolate if that’s your thing)
3 Bananas
1 Tsp. Coconut Oil
50 grams chopped almonds (peanuts,
or hazelnuts also work really well)
Method
Line a baking sheet or plate with grease proof paper.
Toast the nuts in a dry pan, and set to one side. (It’s worth taking the time to do this, as it really improves the flavour).
Chop the chocolate and put in a bowl over a pot of barely simmering water, and allow it to melt. You can also try melting this in the microwave, by give it blasts of 30 seconds at a time. Once the chocolate has melted, stir in the teaspoon of coconut oil.
While the chocolate is melting, peel the bananas and cut width ways. Stick the lollipop stick up the middle of the banana from the flat end.
When the chocolate is melted dip the banana in it, using a spoon to cover any bits that aren’t covered.
Sprinkle the chocolate covered bananas with the nuts, place on the grease proof paper and put in the freezer for 2 hours.
When frozen if you aren’t going to eat these immediately, but them in freezer bag.
When an old friend suggests going to Russia, sometimes you just have to say yes.
So with newly acquired visas, a rudimentary knowledge of Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet and a couple of clean pairs of under crackers we set off. (Do your research on getting a visa, depending on the type of passport you hold it can be really straightforward, or a total faff)
St Petersburg is a riot of multi-coloured buildings
St Petersburg is like no other European city you’ve seen before. It’s sometimes called the Venice of the North because of its canals and grand architecture. It has buildings in every style from Rococco, Art Nouveau, traditional Russian churches and palaces, through to vast soviet monolithic mega structures. The scale of the place and buildings will take your breath away.
How it all started
Around 1703 Peter the Great decided he wanted to create a European style capital city and navy. Not one to be wait about, he hired, European, architects, scientists and engineers, and enlisted 40,000 serfs to make this happen. The results are pretty impressive.
Onion domed churches hide in little side streets
Catherine the Great and the Hermitage
Catherine the Great deposed her husband (and heir to the throne) in a military coup in 1762. She then declared herself empress and set about fancying up the existing Winter Palace which is now the state Hermitage museum.
Catherine also started a world class art collection, modernised Russia and introduced education for girls, so in fairness there was a bit more to her than being just a power hungry little minx with a penchant for interior design.
One of the entrances to the Hermitage, tradition says that it’s good luck for couples to rub the toes of these statues on their wedding day.
If your taste in art is more 20th century, then you should allow plenty of time for the galleries in the General Staff Building (across the mains square from the Hermitage Palace, but part of the same complex). The art collection has more Picassos’, Matisses’, and Kandinskys’ than you can throw a stick at. Honestly, it could eat and sh*t any gallery in Paris, London or New York.
Catherine the Great’s private chapel in the Hermitage
You can buy tickets online to visit the Hermitage, and I would recommend this to avoid queues at busy times. Foreigners are charged more to visit the Hermitage. In fairness most Western visitors earn more than the average Russian, so I don’t have a problem with it.
Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood
An other fabulous building is the Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood. This might be most beautiful church I’ve ever seen. Surprisingly small inside, it’s covered in intricate mosaics that glitter in the candle light. It’s probably what heaven is like, if it didn’t have 40 tourists invading your personal space.
Coffee and dessert at the Kupetz Eliseevs Food Hall
Honestly, the food was simple, cheap and basic with very little that jumped out, apart from one place. On a wet evening on Nevsky Prospect, mainly to get out of the rain we stumbled into Kupetz Eliseevs Food Hall. Think of a Russian Fortnum and Mason, but in one of the prettiest art nouveau interiors you’ll ever see. Not especially cheap, but if you’re a foodie, you’ll love the selection they have on offer. I could have spent hours in this place.
Seaneen's Sunnyside Kitchen 