Texas | One Man's Meat

Dublin goes DFW part five. Slow roasted, pulled shoulder of pork. – “Did ya pull?”

Here in Dublin, after a night on the town, us young lads, boasting of our nocturnal conquests might ask each other “Did ya’ pull?”. No matter what private mortification occurred the evening before, the answer was always in the affirmative. “Course I did. Wasn’t I beating them off?” “I would have landed both but they were fighting over me.” and other such testosterone-fuelled nonsense was, of course, obligatory. However, that was all back in the day.

3rd September 2013

Conor Bofin

53 Comments

Dublin goes DFW part four – Beef Chili and Cornbread

Nothing is likely to upset a Texan more than telling him you can cook a better chili than he can. No doubt, his recipe will have been passed down through generations of trail hardened cow-pokes. The exact mix of chili, the cuts of meat to use and the number of cans of beer are all closely guarded family secrets. They demonstrate their culinary prowess by boiling up great pots of the stuff on the back of pick-up trucks while downing slabs of beer, tipping back their ten gallon hats and belching to each other. Or so I hear…

20th August 2013

Conor Bofin

52 Comments

Dublin goes DFW part three – Wild Irish Salmon and Texas Ancho Chili.

This is another post using Richard McGary’s parcel of chilis. It is a celebration of simplicity. I had originally thought I would do some fancy pants writing about Texas and Ireland. That would allow me set up a few jokes and ribald comments, poking fun at their propensity to eat extremely hot chili based food while gently admonishing us Irish for our ‘meat and two veg’ approach to things culinary. That was until I saw the beautiful colours in this ever so simple dish. So let’s park that and go for simplicity instead.

13th August 2013

Conor Bofin

43 Comments

Dublin goes DFW part two – Lamb goes Shoulder to Shoulder.

I’m a rugby fan. Irish rugby is united. United way ahead of the politics of our little island. So when Ireland plays internationals, there are two Irish ‘anthems’ played. One is the Irish national anthem “Amhrán na bhFiann” or “A Soldier’s Song”, representing the 26 county state of the Republic of Ireland. The second is “Ireland’s Call”. This is played as a unifying anthem, given that Ireland’s rugby team is drawn from all 32 counties on the island.

5th August 2013

Conor Bofin

40 Comments

The McGary Chili Challenge – An attack on European harmony?

There’s an old story about a farmer from Texas visiting Ireland. When he got to his three storey hotel, he tipped back his ten gallon hat and remarked that in Texas they had hotels that reached the sky. He went on a bus tour of Connemara and when he saw the mountains, he said that the mountains in Texas were at least ten times bigger. Just outside Lisdoonvarna, the tour bus broke down and the Texan had to walk into town.