that's why they are called runner beans...

the fast and furious growing pace of the runner beans.

Chez Vejlupeck

Wedding number 2 this year took us to the Swiss shores of Lake Geneva (or Leman) to beautiful Nyon castle and the alpine village of Rougemont, in Vaud.

We arrived in Rougemont escaping the scorching heat of Geneva and the mountains were indeed that couple of degrees cooler -just enough to make it bearably warm. The bride had very kindly booked us a room at the home of Pierre Vejlupeck, a chatty Czech-Swiss old-school hippy that could be anything from 40 to 55 years of age, and according to his neighbour, a bit of a charmer with the ladies.

Vejlupeck's is not your average chalet with alpine paraphernalia. Judging by the style and decor of the house, Vejlupeck has instead a bit of an obsession with Tibetan flags, Buddha statues, tea-light holders and Indian mementos. It certainly feels more like a yoga-retreat than a guesthouse in the middle of one of the higher-end ski regions of the Swiss Alps.

Tucked in on a sunny slope just outside the village, Vejlupeck grows his vegetables and hosts guests of all sorts but definitely not your ski-season types. The house is charming, warm and welcoming in a laid back homey kind of way -despite some strict no-shoes-in-the-house rules and other petty things.

Vejlupeck tells us a group of hare krishnas come to stay with him every year, and it's easy to see why. The sheer beauty and quietness of the mountain in the summer, only disturbed by the sound of the cow bells, is so idyllic, so relaxing, it'll tempt even city creatures to ditch their mobile and any other reminders of the outside world. Although I wonder what the hare krishnas make of Vejlupeck's curiosity and constant chatting.

A carpenter by trade, Vejlupeck is part-philosopher, part-spiritual guru: he stresses the importance of manual labour for spiritual and mental well-being; and easily moves on to the posibility of reincarnation, current affairs and the state of the world -all this at the breakfast table after our late night at the wedding reception - and in French!

While we were hoping to catch the train back to Geneva around 11, it had to be delayed, as the animated conversation moved to his rebel younger years in 1970s in Switzerland - if there is such a thing.

As we walked down to the village in the summer sun, I wished we could stay. Mainly for the luxury of listening to the cow bells when waking up in the morning...

Octopus Galician Style..

Paul the German psychic octopus has become a bit of a world celeb. If Paul's vision is right yet again, Spain should win the World Cup this Sunday. There is talk of the Germans being so upset with Paul after their defeat earlier this week that they are considering making one of Galicia's most traditional dishes their own, yep, octopus!

The most common way of eating octopus in Galicia is what Spaniards call 'Galician Style' and Galicians call 'a feira' or 'Fair Day Style'.

Fair Day Octopus is traditionally boiled in a copper caldron, then chopped, sprinkled with sweet and hot paprika, sea salt (coarse) and a drizzle of olive oil. Served warm.

At home, you can cook it in a normal pot. Firstly, you must wait for the water to boil and dip the octopus in and out of the water 3/4 times, apparently this prevents it from peeling. Then leave the octopus in, once the water is boiling again. Usually it takes around 30 minutes for each kilo to cook. What my dad does is put a medium size potato boiling with the octopus and once the potato is ready, so is the octopus. It is usually better to undercook it than overcook it and risk having mushy octopus. Serve warm - on a wooden plate if possible!

Grilled octopus with a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt is also delicious. After boiling, cut the octopus tentacles lenghtways and grill for a few minutes each side.

In Santiago de Compostela is also quite common to find 'empanada de pulpo', octopus (pastry) pie. I'm not a big fan of octopus empanada as the meat tends to become a bit chewy but I absolutely love empanada in general though. Other simple octopus and Galician recipes can be found on http://www.lareira.net/ (in Galician and Spanish).

Buying octopus in Ireland (in the country at least) can be a bit tricky, though. We have bought octopus (frozen, which is actually good because it helps make the meat more tender) at the Wrights of Howth fish shop (from France) but I'm told many Asian shops in Dublin city sell frozen octopus from Galicia. It's in my 'to-do' list. for my next trip up to the big smoke.

Here The New York Times' Matt Bittman cooks octopus Galician style. Watch his Video.

Watch out Paul...

Grow your own - part 3

And here are some pics of the vegetable patch.

Starting to reap rewards...

The miracle Apricot tree

A few weeks ago, Mr M was weeding the vegetable patch when he pulled this very unusual looking weed. At the end of it was, to his surprise, half an apricot stone.

The 'apricot weed' was about 8cms long and Mr M potted it and put it on the windowsill, keeping the parsley some company. We wondered what would happen to the miracle apricot seedling... And here it is now, some month and a half later: re-potted again and four times its original size, loving the indoor climate of the Sunny South East of Ireland...

How the stone ended up in the vegetable patch has been the subject of much speculation. We have settled for the compost heap theory as the official one.

I have estimated we have probably eaten about 190 apricots since moving to the house - taking 80 apricots per year (at a rate of 20 per week for only four weeks a year - unfortunately) as a conservative average.

Let's leave a margin or error and say of those 190 stones, only most of them, let's say 150, made it to the compost heap. Then from the compost heap, some of them must have rotten. Some might be still in the heap and some other might be still in the veggie patch. But ONLY one has managed to grow into an apricot seedling.

This is a hell of an achievement for this resilient apricot stone, that has managed not only to germinate in the unwelcoming Irish climate (for apricots at least!) but also battle its coldest winter in 50 years. And that, my friends, is why we had to call it the Miracle Apricot Tree...

it is my favourite gardening story by far... and a tough one to beat, I reckon. Unless we manage to get rid of the slugs altogether and that will be a proper gardening miracle, technically speaking.

How to cook a lobster - humanely

Mister M doesn't let me tell people we ate lobster for dinner at the weekend, as he doesn't want them to think we are posh (which we aren't). Lobster eating, he says, sounds too uppity to be admitted in public.

However, Martin the fishmonger (not Martin as in Martin is Mad about Fish but other Martin, also mad about fish) has lobster every now and then for very cheap (around €10-12 a piece) and it is difficult to resist temptation. If you think about it, you would spend that money on a cheap trip to the chipper or the Chinese take away, so what's wrong with spending it on a juicy tasty fresh-looking lobster? uppityness and all...

I think Mister M is warming up to the idea though. To start with, he found it a bit heart-breaking, eyeing the creature (still alive) every time he opened the fridge (someone told him lobster are very intelligent creatures - I find it hard to believe somehow).

Once it's in your mouth, any guilt surely disappears... and why would a lobster be more intelligent than a Dublin Bay prawn, let's say... just because it's bigger, it doesn't mean it's more sensitive...

so that takes us to the issue of how to kill a lobster humanely. These are some options I came across but no unified opinion on the Top Most Humane Tecnique to Kill a Lobster:

-Stab in the head - so it's cooking once it's dead

-Drop in pot with boiling water

-Drop in pot with cold water, and let it boil (surely this sound more horrific than anything else)

-Let it roam free in your bath (fresh water) for a few hours before cooking. (lobsters are sea creatures though!)

I went for the boiling water option, mainly because I didn't fancy stabbing the lobster while still moving. Since there is no bath in the house, the roaming taste of freedom was out of the question - sorry lobster!

15 minutes later, it was ready to eat...

Useless tips for hayfever sufferers

According to weather forecasts (and my long-suffering eyes and nose) 22nd June is the day of the year with the highest level of grass pollen floating around, making life for hayfever sufferers truly miserable. Here are some useless tips I have received and tried over the years that have been of little or no relief - feel free to add your own...

-Close windows at home and in the car
All very well but isolation is hardly a long-term solution. What about in between car-home-office? or the weekends? Maybe it's just worth locking us all up until the summer is over, house arrest (remember to feed us a couple of times a week, please!). That will definitely eliminate the sneezing, itching, puffy-eyes, headache problem... or even better, maybe we should get under work arrest and work 24/7 from May til August: no outdoors allowed. That would actually increase Ireland's productivity and help us get out of the recession as well... This is certainly worth taking into consideration... I wonder why I didn't think of it and submitted it to the Your Country, Your Call competition...

-Wear sunglasses
Check. Maybe they meant gogles? plus people will think you are a tosser if you wear sunglasses at night...

-Wear a mask
Tried that a while back. It wasn't particularly practical, since my nose was running most of the day. Unless they patent a special mask with a drainage system in place it is highly unlikely will make it as a main hayfever relief method. Other downsides: you could get mistaken for a loopy Michael Jackson fan or a swine flu freak.

-Eat local honey all year around
This must be my fifth year on the 'local honey' diet and either: A- it hasn't affected my suffering in the slightlest or B-I would have been much worse if I hadn't taken it. In any case, it is difficult to assess results so we'll add it to the category of tasty tips, while not very clear effects.

-Don't dry your clothes outdoors
Not much of an option here, I'm afraid.

-Drugs
having tried many, I can't really say they solve my problem, although I'm sure other cases will be sorted with some anti-histamine. I keep taking them in the hope one day they'll will...

so this leaves us with one option:

-stop breathing altogether, which is not very practical at all either, for obvious reasons...

However, some website http://www.hayfever.ie/ is claiming since the main problem is reducing the amount of pollen we ingest, hayfever symptoms will be reduced by reducing breathing...

I rest my case