Here at Keldaby we raise the beautiful, gentle and shyly friendly angora goats that provide Moonshine Design with the cloudsoft and highly lustrous mohair used in our fine selection of hand dyed, hand woven goods. Wrap yourself in a throw, toss a scarf or shawl around your shoulders or luxuriate in our fabulous ruanas. Step back to a more romantic era in a Western Isles hood. Discover the magic of mohair socks dyed in every color of the rainbow.
Jen has noticed that there will be a guided tour of the standing stones and Barnhouse village this morning so we head out for Stenness because although we’ve been there numerous times we figure there’s more to learn. Good call! Eleanor MacLeod, who hales originally from Lewis (in the Hebrides), is an excellent enthusiastic guide, full of stories and folk traditions. She also clarifies for us what a henge is; many think it is the ring of stones, but no, it is the ditch and earthworks which may or may not include standing stones. For more on the village check out this link: http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/barnhouse/
Jen has also checked the tide times and so we then head to Birsay, It’s low tide, there is hardly any water at all and so no seals appear and we quickly walk across to the Brough and stay for a while though we don’t make the trek up to the lighthouse and cliffs beyond.
In Dounby we find the butcher shop open and are truly relieved. We had worried that perhaps it had closed. She’s the same bubbly person we’ve met before and we buy lambchops, porkchops, a shoulder of lamb and of course home-raised bacon. Back at No. 10 Jill makes lambchops for dinner accompanied by new potatoes and butter, peas and homemade mint sauce. Yum indeed! I make a sort of tomato-garlic melange. The weather has been beautiful for days now but in the afternoon the wind picks up, it’s cooler and the water in the bay is very choppy. Tomorrow we’re off to Hoy.
Jill is fighting a cold and sleeps in until 9 o’clock and we’re happy to just sit back and enjoy our coffee. By 10 though we’ve pulled ourselves together and we head off to Orphir, south of Stenness, on the road to Kirkwall. We visit again the Orkneyinga Saga Centre but skip the short film we had watched on our first trip, then walked to the Earl’s Bu, ruins of a Norse farmhouse and home to several of the earls who figure in the Orkneyinga Saga and finally to the Round Kirk of which only the apse remains.
We’re off then to Waulkmill Bay, this time properly shod in our new wellies. I’m sure that I saw a rock I’d seen two years before, coveted then but not taken because it was too big. Lynn and I aren’t quite as crazed by now but we all pick up a few to take back to the cottage. https://www.orkney.com/listings/waulkmill
A quick trip to Tesco to return some unneeded olive oil–there’s plenty on hand in our kitchen–and then we head home for lunch, our first BLTs.
We sit and knit for a bit but the weather is beautiful and here in Orkney, in May, one doesn’t waste warm, sunny, windless days so we head for the Ring of Brodgar. We can’t walk into the Ring! Victim of erosion damage, almost certainly caused by climate change, and perhaps too much tourism, the Ring is now cordoned off and we can only walk the exterior perimeter. We drive next to the Stones of Stenness and the neolithic Barnhouse village. https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/barnhouse
The Ring and the Standing Stones
We’ve never gone to the Unstan burial cairn so that’s next on our agenda. The cairn is located in a privately owned farm and we meet the owner. We crawl in and see the five burial chambers. There is a swallow-like bird etched on the lintel of one chamber. https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/tombs/unstan/index.html
Back home we have a delicious chicken soup that has slow-cooked all day, watch a Tiny House episode (though Jill is completely engrossed in her BTS K-pop videos) and make plans for a trip to Rousay.
Last night Lynn, Michael and I were rudely awakened about 1 o’clock when the TV suddenly roared on, complete with a bare-breasted woman. At least that is what Michael says. I was too sleepy and, sans glasses, barely a witness to this porn-not-on-demand epiphany. We mention this event when we stop to pay for our night’s accommodation and £20 is instantly subtracted from the bill!
Ceiling in the Inn’s restaurant
We have our final Scottish breakfast across the street at the Ferry Inn, including black sausage and haggis (really good!), pack the car and go for a final walk through Stromness. Then, although it is now raining steadily, we decide to make one last visit to the Ring of Brodgar. Jill really wants to see the rabbits and their warrens again so despite the cold, the rain–becoming heavier by the moment–and the presence of fourbusloads of tourists, we park and walk up to the stones. The rabbits have the good sense to stay underground and we can’t see their warrens, only the sodden tourists dutifully plodding around the circle.
Soaked now we drive up the east coast and eat our lunch near the water. Jen has read about “the forest” at Cottascarth which, when we finally find it, turns out to be a wee patch of trees, a lot of heath and numerous birds, at least according to a sign that is posted there. It’s too rainy for any exploration however. We see no curlews.
We drive into Kirkwall. We have too much time to kill before our dinner at Helgi’s. a harborside pub next door to the hotel where we spent our first night (we will have gone full circle by the time we are finished.) The restaurant has come highly recommended by a local gent Jen spoke with earlier. The rain has mostly stopped. I pay one last visit to St Magnus and then we all take a walk along the pier front and out along the jetty.
We top off the diesel for the car and have one final drink at Judith Glue’s but the town is mostly closed up for Sunday. It’s too early for dinner, too late to explore anywhere new; it’s that uncomfortable in between time.
Helgi’s is not the treat we hoped for. Perhaps we have chosen the wrong menu items. Jill and Jen’s fish n’ chips looks the best, my roast beef sandwich–grey-brown meat on grey-tan bread–is dry and unpalatable, Lynn’s cheese salad is just that….cheese, and I have already forgotten what Michael ordered.
Window at Helgi’s
And now we begin the long slog home. We drive to the airport, drop off the car which has served us well and, miracle of miracles, board our Flybe flight with a rainbow touching down right over the plane!
A magic moment
Looking back
In Glasgow we check into the Holiday Inn Express which is within walking distance of our arriving plane. Once again Lynn and I are bunking in with Michael who finds the HIE a properly run establishment (at last!) where the people understand the hospitality biz. We have to be up at 4:30, breakfasted and ready for our early-morning flight to Dublin where we have the most tedious five-hour layover I have ever experienced. We don’t have Euros so can’t buy anything easily. By now two of us are trying hard to ignore the increasingly tense atmosphere, two of us have perfected the eye-rolling expression of annoyance and one of us is terminally hostile.
At last we board our final flight for Bradley and after interminable movies (Enough Said–excellent, with James Gandolfini in his final role–and Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children for me) we arrive a little after 4 o’clock on Monday afternoon, all our baggage still intact and accounted for.
Epilogue
So what went wrong? As you may have guessed one of us is no longer friends with the others. Was it the feng shui of this cottage which didn’t have the cozy fireplace-centered living room with really comfortable couches and a special-occasion dining room that graced Number 4 three years ago? Was it the really bad colds that two of us endured through much of the fortnight? Had there been some change in the group dynamic before we ever left? Perhaps it was the zeitgeist resulting from Brexit and November 8th and all the other depressing news. Whatever it was, I am so sorry this happened…
And I still want to return to Stromness with friends!
In happier times, in our Orkney-flagged mohair socks
The day begins raw and grey and there are white caps out on Hamnavoe harbor and although the forecast promises us temperatures in the upper 50s by noon, we have the heat on. I sketch a harborside scene while drinking a couple mugs of very good coffee (the only thing Rosemary has failed to provide us with is a frother, a recently acquired indulgence of mine!)
Mid morning we head up to Birsay. Here is the island as seen from Mainland Orkney, just across the Birsay Bay.
Having checked the tidal schedule we know low tide is at 12:40 so we plan to arrive there about 11:30. By then the water will be low enough for us to cross the causeway over to the island. In Birsay we stop for coffee and hot chocolate in the little store there and check out some of the local crafts the owner carries.. We then wander around the ruins of the Earl’s Palace built in the 1570s by Robert Stewart, a thoroughly unpleasant and imperious earl of Orkney and half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots.
It must once have been quite an impressive Renaissance palace–and given his propensity for violence–fortress.
From 2014, the causeway still under some water and the eddy that forms as the tide runs out
Jill standing on the Point o’ Buckquoy before walking over to the Brough o’ Birsay
And then a minor miracle–the sun appears, the wind calms and we all immediately feel restored. The causeway is totally open and we walk across to the Norse settlement.
A walk up the hill brings us to the lighthouse and we sit for a while looking out at the sea. From here you can see all the way to Hoy, the southern-most island.
Back on the mainland we find a sheltered place to eat our lunch which unfortunately is minus the cheese we forgot to pack. Beats a blank, well, just! Crackers and pickles, Hmm…..
At least we remembered to bring the beer!
We walk along the cliff side toward a geo (a deep cleft in the face of a cliff) but stop short to sit in the sun by this beautiful inlet.
After we leave Birsay we drive by the Barony Mill where, three years ago, we had learned all about bere and the mechanics of a water-powered grist mill . It introduced us to this wonderful ancient grain and the owner was enthusiastic and proud of this 19th century mill. Now we decide to stop there although it looks closed, as it has both previous times we have driven past. Indeed there is a sign on the door saying the mill is closed.
We also discover, after we have stopped at the Birsay Antiques Centre, new since 2014, that the mill owner is very ill. He doesn’t go into details but it has something to do with his back or spine.
On the way home we stop in at the butcher and buy lamb and chicken and for dinner I cook a curry-ish chicken dish with rice. Later we all, except Michael, head to the Stones of Stenness
and Barnhouse Village. Although Jill and Lynn have a vague memory of the village there, I have no memory of it at all although it is just a short walk away from the standing stones. We climb the stile and walk down the lane to this neolithic site. https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/barnhouse/
Back at #18 we have Orkney ice cream and watch a bit of TV, a program showing evidence of mammoths living once in Shropshire, and play a hand or two of Spite and Malice.
Today begins grimly. I have no email whatsoever. Verizon has dropped my account without the notification that I was lead to believe I would receive before I could proceed to opt for either a new address or stay with my current Verizon address to be administered through AOL. Jill and Jen have had a most unpleasantly cold and smelly night so another email is sent off to Rosemary. Soon her plumber cum handyman Jason arrives, diagnoses the problem as a clogged pipe due to the street construction just outside our door, covers the shower drain in the lower bathroom and, as all the stores are closed, promises to return the next day with the necessary parts. A good breakfast puts us all in a better mood.
A few views of our cottage
We spend the morning settling in and by the time we make our long-anticipated BLTs (Orkney bacon is to die for!) for lunch, the house is warm and cozy and the smell is gone; we are at last ready to begin our adventure.
In the afternoon Jill, Jen and I drive to the Tesco (supermarket) in Kirkwall to complete our shopping while Lynn stays home to learn how to knit netzpatent in the round (perhaps it is also called double brioche stitch??) with Michael.
Ever since we had set the dates for our stay in Stromness we have known that we would arrive in time for a Beltane ceremony at the Ring of Brodgar so just before 6 o’clock we head off for the Ring. Want to know more about Beltane, also called May Day or Walpurgis Night, see the link below.
This ceremony is meant to usher in the fertile, warm late spring season, halfway as it is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, but it is quite cold and so windy we expect to be blown at any moment straight off the hill and all the way to the Stones of Stenness. We number about three dozen brave souls! We lean into this frigid wind and try to hear what the priest and priestess are saying. Part of ceremony is to leap over a bonfire but we have to make do with a couple of candles in jars, which is probably a wise idea since a fire once started on this windy hilltop of dry heather would quickly rage out of control. Still, “leaping” between two jars with candles is a bit of a letdown!
We stand in a circle but there is no bonfire to leap over–or stay warm by!
The musicians with bodhran and a stringed instrument
The story of our second trip begins a month ago. There are five of us this time: in addition to the original Orkney travelers Lynn, Jill, Michael and I, we have added Jill’s daughter Jen. We’ve decided that along with knitting projects we will also try sketching and to that end we have all bought watercolors or watercolor pencils, notebooks and other paraphernalia and some of us have been trying to hone our skills. The 18 months of anticipation finally ends, we’ve all packed and repacked a dozen times in order to have the fewest but most useful clothes for the Orkney spring weather. We don’t want to check our bags so we won’t have to worry about lost luggage.
And we’re off…
Lynn and I at the still barricaded Heath Rd bridge
27 April 2017
We’re on the road to Bradley Airport (Hartford/Springfield) about 2 o’clock, Jen’s husband Neil driving us down I-91. Our Aer Lingus flight is at 6 o’clock. Going through security is easy enough and we’ve left ourselves plenty of time. No one has said “Oh my God, I forgot…”
The plane is full, cramped and for those of us who didn’t bring our own earphones (me, for example) the movies are all unintelligible. Dinner is adequate–a choice of cheese pasta or beef stew–but the free glass of wine has become a luxury of the past for us Economy Class folks. Luckily I have my Kindle which keeps me entertained, mostly. At the Dublin airport we have to slog our luggage miles and miles, up and down stairs, with no time to buy drinks or food.
Flight number two to Edinburgh is aboard a creaky old plane with a flight attendant who must be Mr Bean‘s brother, a twin perhaps? We are invited to purchase snacks and drinks which look like they have circulated through the cabin far too many times. We don’t take him up on the offer. Another interminable trek up and down and through the Edinburgh airport to our waiting Flybe plane–even smaller–to Kirkwall, Orkney. At last we arrive and the very pleasant and knowledgeable car hire man is waiting for us. We get our beautiful Citroen Picasso stick shift and Jen takes to the car like a duck to water and is instantly expert navigating the narrow roads and streets of Kirkwall. (Jill is delighted to relinquish her role as driver!)
At the car hire
We check into the Kirkwall Hotel right down by the harbor and while Michael and Jill take naps (we’ve been up for about 36 hours) Jen, Lynn and I decide to drive out to Stromness, see our cottage which will be ready for us tomorrow,
Our first visit to No. 18 South End
and make a quick visit to the Ring of Brodgar.
The weather is as predicted (turns out it’s about the same back home) cool, grey and windy. We stop and buy beremeal biscuits, various cheeses and a couple Orkney beers. (Beremeal, if you don’t remember, is an ancient type of barley grown on Orkney. We plan to revisit the Barony Mill which still grinds this delicious grain.)
After we’ve eaten–no one is very hungry–we play several games of Spite and Malice before retiring to bed about 9:30. Jill and Jen share one room, Michael, Lynn and I the other.
For weeks I have been pleading with Michael to send me some of his many, many excellent photos from Orkney and lo and behold this morning I was rewarded! Some of these are just plain better shots than those Lynn or I took. (Jill as driver didn’t get a lot of time to take pictures.) Others show a location, an event, a piece of Orcadian life from a slightly different perspective. I was going to try to insert them into the earlier posts at their appropriate places but who has that much time? Really? So instead I will put them here with labels and if you haven’t previously read some or all of the posts, here’s your opportunity to visit…or revisit…the sites.
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Above are some scenes from Stromness–a vivid blue door and a periwinkle one–Michael and a curious puss, Michael and Lynn and a couple of seascapes. I’m not sure where the bas relief plaque was.
Boats in the Stromness harbor…and one that has been beached behind a house. We all took pictures of the turquoise hull, Michael’s I think is best. Quilters, take notice. Wouldn’t some of these brightly painted boats be wonderful subjects for piecing?
We certainly did a lot of knitting and if Michael had had his way we would have spent even more time at the cottage knitting! Many an afternoon around 3 o’clock he would wistfully say “We could go back to the cottage now and knit.” But we were unmoved by his pleas. No, we’d say. “We can knit later. There are too many sights to be seen!”
The real Jill having her excellent cuppa’ This picture more than any captures an elusive part of Jill’s psyche.
We did a lot of toasting–every meal provided an opportunity
The site of the infamous “Sunday morning ‘J…F…C..!’ fallen ice cream cone” scene in front of St Magnus Cathedral and across the street from Judith Glue’s
These three shots are at the Earl’s Palace in Kirkwall, right across the side street from St Magnus. Check out that beautiful stone spiral staircase
Finding the perfect cabbage at Tesco’s
From time to time Michael passed his camera to one of us to capture the essence of Michaelness–a long-distance, by proxy, selfie I guess you could say. The last is best; he looks about 14–and I have to say, endearingly cute!
Scenes too beautiful to miss. The middle one is from the entrance to the Cuween Hill cairn…and look at the light of the setting sun on those stone walls
These too were taken on Cuween Hill (remember…where Michael sang an aria). Jill coming out was one of our favorites!
Thank goodness Michael got the photo of the Dounby butcher with her award-winner’s plaque
Jill enjoys a contemplative moment by the cairn on the beach
Some of the inventory at the Harray Potter studio
A Kirkwall barrister returns from lunch or is he perhaps making a plea bargain deal ?
And finally the perfect shot of the gulls who came to grab the lamb chop remains
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For those who perhaps wondered if I ever conquered netzpatent, if I…and even more, Michael…had had the patience to stick with it, here’s the proof. Jill made the excellent suggestion to finish up with something different so the scarf wouldn’t end abruptly with a blunt edge. Skeptical as I was, I added several rows of garter, then some stockinette, then doubled the number of stitches. It looked great so I picked up the stitches at the beginning and repeated, more or less, the same ruffled pattern I had created.
Today I suggested that we all begin to plan our 2016 trip to the Shetland Islands!
Thur, May 29 Well, here we find ourselves on our penultimate day and at last a sunny warm one. For the first time we take the Outertown Road to Warbeth just north up the coast.. We park near the water and several cemeteries and walk along the beaches. Here we are in our Moonshine Design mohair socks–and not for the first time to be sure! .
In the distance we can just see the ruins of the palace built by the last bishop of Orkney at Breckness and right on the beach we come across a beautifully constructed cairn (modern). Here we sit for some time watching the birds and boats and soaking in the sun. The views out toward the cliffs of Hoy are spectacular.
We walk back to the cemetery (or cemeteries?) and I and a Glaswegian couple with the help of a groundskeeper who had attended the funeral spend quite some time trying to find the gravestone for the author Geogre Mackay Brown. We expect something larger and more showy so it takes a while for us to start focusing on the smaller stones. Success at last. I love the quote on it: Carve the runes then be content with silence
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I suggest that we pay a final visit to the Ring of Brodgar and on the way, in Stromness we go to Julia’s, a cafe that has been recommended to us. The cappucino is excellent as are the pastries. Michael makes a quick trip to the Harray Potter to try to discover more about the knife maker or his knives but no further light in shed on their provenance .
The Ring is far less forbidding in the sun and of course the warmth has brought out a swarm of tourists. We try to keep the mystery but it’s a bit difficult with people off a couple of tour buses everywhere shooting pictures. I preferred the brooding and dark, cold day with scudding clouds. Not far outside the Ring we notice very distinct mounds which turn out on inspection to be a couple of rabbit warrens–shades of Watership Down! The bunnies scamper about but I never seem to have my camera ready at the right time.
From Brodgar we head once again into Kirkwall. and finally visit the Earl’s Palace and the Bishop’s Palace next door…and just across the street from the cathedral. The Earl’s Palace, begun in 1601 by Earl Patrick Stewart, was to be the Renaissance showpiece of Orkney and all Scotland but Patrick was a shady character (he didn’t pay for the sandstone brought in from the island of Eday, for example, and the builders were to all intents and purposes enslaved and unpaid as well. Within five years Patrick was deep in debt and nine years after, both he and his son were executed for treason. The palace complex was joined with the older Bishop’s residence and today is still a most imposing set of buildings.
We next pick up Lynn’s new ring from Alison Moore and around the corner Lynn and I each buy a small model of an Orkney chair. It’s an impulse buy and we both have slight buyer’s remorse though now I am happy I did buy it. It brings back many memories.
Back in Stromness I make dinner trying to use up as much as I can of the remaining food, all built around the wonderfully thick Dounby Butcher’s lamb chops:
Cynthia’s Last Supper
Prepare rice using chicken broth in place of half the water
Add cardamom pods, raisins and the remaining salad dressing Lynn had made
Chop and saute on large griddle
3 small sweet peppers
1 large onion
6 oz mushrooms
1/2 head of garlic
6 to 8 oz frozen lima beans
Push vegetables to the side and grill
5 lamb chops until they are just barely done…so tender!
There is no wine left so Michael makes himself and me a vodka plus sweet syrup in soda water drink.
We watch the sailboats out on Scapa Bay and Jill puts the bones from the lamb chops out on the back deck. Instantly a dozen gulls swoop in and we race to get our cameras. We try to entice them back using soggy water biscuits but they are not impressed. At least we have gotten a few photos.
We wake this morning to bright sun, a milder temperature and we’re in great spirits. Today we are going to visit two of the three most important west Mainland neolithic sites, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar, and reserve a place for ourselves tomorrow at the third, Maes Howe. The two stone circles occupy important sites on the narrow neck of land that separates the salty Loch of Stenness and the freshwater Loch of Harray, lakes that account for a large area of central Mainland.
Off we go, first to the Stones of Stenness, probably the oldest of the many archaeological sites on the Brodgar peninsula, having been carbon-dated to about 3100 BCE. It was built as a henge, which is to say, a level, circular platform surrounded by a ditch with an external bank. The henge here was more than six feet deep and about 22 feet wide. It was later that holes were dug for the placement of 12 standing stones, the largest being 18 feet high. Only four stones remain upright today.
The weather in the meantime has made a most remarkable reversal; it is now much colder, the lowering sky promises rain–or sleet maybe?–the wind is biting. But these massive stones with their angled tops convey such a foreboding, mysterious presence that the cold is almost forgotten.
A brief word about the high hills of Hoy. Generally speaking the Orkney islands are not hilly, but Hoy which lies just south of Mainland has two moderately high hills at its northern end, Ward and Cuilags. Seen from Mainland the slopes of these two hills form a V and it is the orientation of the sunset between the hills in the weeks around the winter solstice, the placement of the stones at Stenness and Brodgar and the entrance of Maes Howe that suggests the sophistication of these stone-age people. We will probably never know what their religious beliefs were but it is fascinating to theorize the possible uses for which these structures were built. The Stones of Stenness are a very popular motif for Island artists.
When we leave the stones we try to locate the Ness of Brodgar which we know is nearby and which we have been told is either open and accessible for anyone wishing to see it or, conversely, will not be open at all until later in the summer when excavations will again begin. It was only discovered 12 years ago. In any case, the only possible site we find is a large mound totally encircled by fencing and covered with turf and some sort of mesh visible in spots. Can this be the Ness? Or a part of it? How tantalizing! It seems to be in the right location, somewhere midway between the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. The guide book makes this 5000 plus year old site a cogent argument for a return trip!
We push on to the Ring of Brodgar, probably the most familiar landscape in all of Orkney. The Ring is about 310 feet in diameter and the circle is perfect. It too is a henge with a ditch and outer bank. Of the original 60 stones, 27 stand today.
It is nearly impossible to photograph in its entirety except from the air. It sits atop a slight knoll in a huge field of heather, just barely beginning to green up a bit, with a long view down over the Loch of Stenness toward Hoy. In the photo you can just make out the V of those two hills.
Again the sense of endless time pervades the site: people mined, transported and dressed these massive stones and placed them around this henge in a perfect circle. What did they know of geometry? Wasn’t that Euclid, a long time later? How did they do it?
I haven’t felt this touched by the enormity of time since my first visit to Stonehenge more than 50 years ago–before all the fences and gates, the tunnels and parking lots, the swarms of tourists milling around the visitor centre and once, horribly, graffiti. It was midnight then and a nearly full moon and just my mother and me.
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Michael, Lynn and Jill suited up for a spring day in Orkney
We eat our sandwiches, surely a different riff on the BLT theme by now, and then drive northeast to the Broch of Gurness. This is also a very impressive site, though practically modern by comparison, a scant 2000 years old or so. This site with its ditches, walls, broch tower and ruins of the community’s buildings, perhaps about 30 families, arrayed around the broch was occupied from the Iron Age to Pictish times to the Norse era about 800 CE. At the same site there is a rebuilt Pictish settlement.It is in the shape of a shamrock with rounded rooms radiating off from the main hearth area. Here’s a shot from one of my guide books showing the site from the air.
In the visitor centre I buy a new copy of Orkneyinga Saga and a book of short stories by the best known Orcadian author George Mackay Brown.
Iron Age dwelling, Gurness
We make another foray into Kirkwall for another round of shopping–Michael buys a beautiful North Ronaldsay sheep fleece, Lynn a ring, T shirts and a biking jersey and Jill found several items for Nicky, Fayley and Gussy. I’m sure I bought something too. Perhaps my second ring from Alison Moore!
Back at the cottage it’s Michael’s turn to make dinner and here it is:
Michael’s Cozy Chicken
Ingredients
2 Tbl olive oil
1 or 2 onions, diced
1 or 2 bell peppers, diced
1 1/2 lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs
6 plum tomatoes, diced
2 Tbl tomato paste
1/4 c worcestershire sauce
2 tsp fresh thyme, salt, pepper
1 1/2 c water
10 oz fresh or frozen corn
10 oz baby lima beans
1 lemon
Heat oil in a heavy pot or dutch oven. Add onions, peppers, salt and cook until onions are translucent
Place chicken on top and add tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, thyme, worcestershire sauce and water and bring to a boil.
Simmer 15 minutes, covered. Remove chicken to a plate andadd to the pot the beans and corn and continue to cook, about 15 minutes.
While the above is cooking, shred the chicken, then return it to the pot, add the juice of 1 lemon and serve.
Note: other vegetables may be substituted and fresh basil is good sprinkled at the end.
We had this wonderfully moist and delicious chicken with Tesco’s version of Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck. This one was Vino Rosso Italiano,bottled by CVSC of Ortona, Italia.
Do we let what we eat dictate the color of the wine? Of course not! What a tired canard that is!
When Jill, Lynn and I cook we try to limit the number of utensils dirtied in the meal’s preparation. Not so with our Michael!!
Jill standing on the Point o’ Buckquoy before walking over to the Brough o’ Birsay
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