Would you like any food with that mayonaise?

Daniel and I are very lucky. So far, the food that we've been served or given to prepare ourselves here at the farm has been wonderful. Last night Sinead made a fantastic fish curry and then we had a rhubarb crumble for dessert. For lunch yesterday it was simple - corn and tuna with toast and hummus and a rocket salad. Just lovely. Simple, fresh, wonderful food that fills the belly after a long day of work.

I've also enjoyed some of the food we've had out. I of course love the Irish brown bread and the scones, and I had some really great Irish smoked salmon in town on Sunday afternoon and Saturday night a surprisingly good chicken kebab (the second syllable to be pronounced like Barbra Streisand's nickname - "Babs").

However, I am someone who really cannot tolerate mayonnaise except on two occasions (a potato salad from Montauk that I've had once and in coleslaw that I put on my barbeque sandwiches in South Carolina). Of course, in small quantities I can manage it, but really anymore than that and my belly gets achy. Well, here in Ireland they heap it on everything, and it's a real effort to avoid it. On Inisheer, the smallest Aran Island, where we visited the other day, literally the only thing I could order on that was not full of mayo (the condiment, not the county) was roast pork. Not my usual fare for a light lunch, but I went for it. Daniel, however, chose smoked salmon salad. As you can see above, the salmon itself was mayonnaise central, as were the potato salad and the coleslaw. In case that wasn't enough for you, they also slathered a healthy dose of the stuff onto the brown bread that the salad was served on. You know things are going a little overboard when Daniel starts wiping mayo off of something, but even this was too much for him. Even so, he gobbled up the whole thing, and then we went and said hi to some cows.