How do you cure an egg yolk? First, you have to get it to admit that it’s sick. But after that it's a pretty easy process - gently bury it in equal parts salt and sugar... and wait.

The first time I saw someone curing an egg yolk on YouTube, I jumped out of my chair and immediately burrowed a dozen yolks into a sugar and salt bath, and then noted the effects on each as I pulled them out at different time increments. But even when I found the perfect curing time and fleshed out all the different methods to produce this tasty little garnish, the question still remained. . . now that it's cured, what do I do with it?

Ted and I have great fun in the kitchen playing the "What if?" game. What if we put this with that? That with this? What if we tried braising it instead of roasting it? What if we use yogurt instead of cream? It's discovering the answers to some of these questions that has led us to some pretty interesting plates.

Sometimes it’s immediately clear if something has worked. . . or if it hasn’t. Then there are the times that the initial results disappoint, but potential remains and you wait  until the day inspiration finds you and one slight tweak leads to a stunning success.

The slightly cured "just long enough" version  that produced a thin savoury membrane over the luminous, raw yolk, naturally made us think of breakfast. Black pudding and streaky bacon. The debut performance of our slightly cured egg yolk was basically a bite sized breakfast complete with hollandaise sauce served in a potato basket. The black pudding component eventually got melded into a delicious croquette, which in turn lent itself very well to our homemade raisin chutney.

And then came the day we asked “What should we do with these asparagus that won't last much longer?”

Wrap them in proscuitto and serve them with a black pudding croquette and the lonely cured egg yolks. Obviously.

It writes itself.

Delicious animal face parts. . . Many people would argue that these words should never be spoken together. But have you ever tried a braised Irish lamb cheek? Or beef sweetbreads covered in a Cashel Blue Cheese sauce? Many people haven’t. And even for those who have, they may not be at the top of the list when ordering off a menu. . . so it’s a good thing we don’t have a menu!

This wasn’t always the case. When we started the process of taking over the kitchen at Roundwood from Hannah’s mother, the meals she prepared seemed like they would be impossible for me to reproduce on my own. Rosemarie had spent years in that kitchen honing her craft, perfecting recipes, and learning both the subtleties and the broad strokes required to deliver a crowd pleasing set menu.

She was a great teacher, but when she finally took off the apron, the combination of my limited experience and a fear of deviating from her winning formula, meant I that cooked somebody else's food for a lot of years.

I don’t say that as a bad thing. It was absolutely necessary. I was not Rosemarie. I had never had a job in my life that didn't involve a guitar. I needed to practice. And to do that, I needed Rosemarie’s play book.

Fast forward to today. Rosemarie’s Parsnip and Cashew Nut Terrine is still a front runner. But things are changing in Ireland. Attitudes towards food aren’t what they were twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. Palates have evolved, and very conveniently evolved at the same pace that I’ve learned how to cook.

And with time grows confidence, and almost a decade at Roundwood has really taught me what this county has to offer. When I replaced the beef in Rosemarie’s bourguignon with Mick Keegan’s Laois-raised lamb cheeks, I finally started to feel free to improvise. Started to feel like it was becoming my kitchen. It’s now one of our most popular dishes. Check out the recipe below:

Lamb Bourguignon

lamb cheeks (or substitute beef cheeks)  600 g (about 20 cheeks)
bacon: coarsely chopped 100 g
button mushrooms: quartered 100 g
shallots: quartered 100 g
red wine 0.5 litre
beef stock 1 litre
garlic: minced to taste
rosemary & thyme: finely chopped to taste
salt & pepper to taste

Clean the fat and sinew from the cheeks. Season and sear in a very hot pan. Deglaze the pan with some of the wine and transfer cheeks into roasting pan. Add garlic, herbs, seasoning, and the rest of the wine. Cover with beef stock. Cover the pan with tinfoil, and braise at 350° for 1½ hours or until meat is tender.

In a separate pan, cook bacon until crispy. Add to cheeks. Cook the mushrooms and onions in the bacon fat. Again add to cheeks.

You may need to reduce the sauce some more once all ingredients are added. Just place the roasting pan on the stove, and reduce until you get the desired consistency. It should be dark, rich and gooey.

It’s also important to note that the beef stock, made here at Roundwood, takes about 48 hours to prepare. When using shop bought stock for this recipe, be sure to look for an unsalted product.

We all play the lead role in our own life story.  That is until we get married and have kids.  After that, the best one can hope for is the odd, sympathetic nomination for best supporting role, celebrated by a hastily constructed card on fathers' day promising a lie-in.   But I've become used to residing outside of the limelight.  Every now and again, however, my role around here is reduced even further to a walk-on part in someone else's story.

Periodically, a character shows up from Roundwood's past and with their arrival, my story briefly intersects with another in which my house has played a part.  They are sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, but always tales which make my efforts to keep this old girl standing all the more rewarding.  In a way, I feel like a memory conservationist.

One sunny afternoon a few years ago, I saw through our kitchen window  a very old woman dressed entirely in black, slowly making her way across the cobbled yard.  Her style of dress was from another era, and were it not for the gentleman accompanying her,  I could have been forgiven for thinking that I had seen a ghost.  As we weren't expecting any ghosts, I bravely asked Hannah to investigate, and naturally she invited her in for tea.

The spectral woman was Enid Cosby, 96 years old and returning to show her son the house that she grew up in.  Time may have stooped her body, but her memories of almost a century before remained as intact as if they were yesterday.  The stories of her adventures around the grounds,  running through the woods with her playmates, could have been told by my girls, if they weren't so busy running through the woods on their own adventures.  Time stands still here.

Enid was delightful and re-wound Roundwood back to another time for us.  She recalled being forced into afternoon naps in the drawing room, and stuffing ducklings through a drainage pipe, to the delight of her companions who watched them shoot out  the other end, dazed but unharmed.   She came here to savour her idyllic childhood one last time.

She also reached back in her memory and pulled out her wedding day for us, which she reconstructed in vivid detail.  On a bright summer's day,  the guests gathered on the lawn at the side of the house, laughing, sipping champagne and awaiting the arrival of the new bride.  She appeared through a purpose built doorway, that until a few days previously had been the central bay window of the drawing room. And yes, it had its intended effect. The gathering erupted in rapturous applause as she made her dramatic entrance through the doorway-for-a-day.  It seems that going over-board for weddings isn't a modern phenomenon.

But the stories can break your heart as fast as they warm it.  Not long after Enid, a man arrived with his five year old daughter, got out of his car and stared up at the house.  I watched him for awhile, and seeing that he had no intention of venturing inside, I came out to say hello.  He told me that he had been married at Roundwood and as he was telling me this, my mother-in-law Rosemarie arrived, recognized him and asked him how his wife was.   His eyes welled up with tears and before he could get the words out,  his daughter ran over to him, hopped up into his arms, put her hands over his mouth and said, "No daddy, please don't cry anymore."

Hannah brought the little girl inside to play with our girls, so her father's mouth was free to tell of his wife's recent passing, and one of his happiest memories of their time together: their wedding day at Roundwood.

The sight of her two little hands holding back the flood of her father's grief would make a statue cry.  But watching him breathe in the memories of their day here and smiling at small forgotten moments recalled between himself and Rosemarie, had a calming, soothing effect on him, and when he was saying good-bye he said it with a smile.

These brief encounters give me a glimpse into the life that came before me in this fabulous house; of the loving memories that fill every corner of my stomping ground.  I store them all away for the more tedious, mundane moments around here; and when I'm dragging the bins up our long driveway, in the rain at midnight, I try to do it lightly, because I'm dragging them through someone else's memory.

In every good life there are bad days, and this was one of them. One thing I haven't gotten used to in the country is all the dying. I'm sure the grim reaper doesn't spend more time here than he does the cities, it's just that you meet more of God's creatures when you're here. In 3 short years here I've witnessed the passing of 3 cats, two geese, a peacock, Frodo (a chestnut brown mongrel), and dozens of mice (although, I have been responsible for those). Today marks a passing to eclipse all others - Sheridan, our beloved border collie.

He was 15 years old (105 to you), and the real master of the house. Although I only lived with him for three years, I've known him for ten, and he knew me well by the time he closed his eyes this afternoon. He stayed with me while I filled potholes in the driveway when no-one else would. He saw me smoking behind the barn and told no one. He let my kids sit on his back to allow me a little guitar time. My tutor and partner in crime. In a way he completed me. I'd tell guests that Sheridan would take them on a tour of the property, and as if he were listening from behind a bush, he would appear and show them around, to the amazement of newcomers, and with a familiar smile from regulars.

One guest, who has been staying here with much appreciated regularity for the last 14 years, claims that his visits are because of Sheridan. We received a package from him at Christmas containing a card for Sheridan and one pair of “Doggles”, which for the uninitiated, are goggles for dogs...with UV protection. Although I was at first offended by the thoughts of playing second fiddle to a dog, I now understand why.

Sheridan was nature’s welcoming committee. He allowed me to stop and smell the roses. He would walk at my pace, stop when I stopped, and helped me hear the heartbeat of this place. I loved him, and no different than anyone else that I love, at times I wanted to kill him.

For a few years, he had a particular affection for attacking the wheel wells of cars as they arrived down the long drive. The distance from the front gate to the house gave plenty of time to plan his assault. Just when I thought that another car had made it safely to the house, he would charge out of the long grass and attack, terrifying a new arrival, and mangling the side of their car. Never someone driving a Fiat Punto. No, Sheridan’s tipple was dark coloured, late model BMW’s and Mercedes. If anyone reading this has had their car attacked by Sheridan in the past, I hope you feel guilty about sending us the bill.

He was also clever, cold and calculating. Not long after moving here, I remember the panic as he came limping across the lawn after an encounter with one of our donkeys. Another favourite pastime of his was herding our donkeys, and on this day the donkey stood his ground, and kicked Sheridan in the side. He lay down under a bush and didn’t come out for three days and I’m sure I would have too. He recovered and chose his moment. A year later he charged the donkeys in front of an inspector from the Donkey Sanctuary ensuring their swift removal from the property.

Well, today all is forgiven. I sat with him as the vet shaved a patch on his foreleg to find a vein to inject the Euthanyl that would send him off. I said my good-bye and thanked him for showing me around his home, then left him to make sure Hannah was ok. Expecting to be met by floods of tears, I was surprised to see her preparing the starter for the guest’s dinner. She gave me a hug when she saw my quivering lip and proceeded to tell me how relieved she was. We’d all been dreading today, but he didn't suffer and was surrounded by people he loved. He had a good life.

The Yellow Hammer was buried on Saturday.  That wasn't his real name.  His real name was Ivor and no-one had been able to explain to me why he became know as The Yellow Hammer.

  "Why is he called the Yellow Hammer?", I asked Sadie, a twenty-five year veteran of Roundwood who knew him when he was Ivor.

"He's called the Yellow Hammer because...he's just the Yellow Hammer.”, was her response.

I knew him better as the part-feral old man who 's way of getting around was to stand in front of oncoming cars, forcing them to stop and give him a lift.  He was never going far,  just to town or back, so he became a familiar, if slightly unexpected moving landmark on the short stretch of road that passed by our house.  He had reached a ripe old age, so there was no surprise to hear of his passing.   If there was any surprise, it was that it wasn't as a result of being run over on his way to get milk.

There are many stories about him, as you might expect about a man with such a bizarre name and lethal road etiquette.  A favourite of mine involves his interaction with a fellow Canadian named Bunny.  Stopping to avoid hitting him, she offered him a lift, as was expected in accordance with the local custom.  He strangely refused and she carried on, rightfully confused.  The next passing car was driven by another local, which he get in when offered.

"You won't believe it!",  exclaimed the Yellow Hammer, before he had even taken his seat.

"That Canadian woman just stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride*!  And there I was, just minding my own business, looking for a lift into town."

*(For non-Irish readers, a “ride”  means something else here…)

I love my life here.  It’s a pretty magical existence, living in a 300 year old country estate, surrounded by nature and animals, my girls at my side, entertaining interesting guests from all over the world.  But, I do get homesick sometimes. I miss my family in Canada. Sometimes I wish I could just meet my father for a pint, tell him about my life.  About the tiny Mexican woman who stayed with us last week,  who’s job was risk assessment for NASA, or a cute story about one of the kids, but I am where I am and wouldn’t change it for the world.  You can’t have everything.

It was during one of my recent bouts of homesickness  that this story begins and it’s one that I couldn’t have made up if I tried.  It was the day the world learned of David Bowie’s death.  A sad one for myself and millions of others and I have no doubt that it effected some of them the same way it hit me.  I got me thinking about mortality, mine and that of those close to me, slowly leading my mind across the Atlantic to Canada and my parents.  If an extra-terrestrial rock star can be taken from us, none are safe.

When the sad news broke, I was in the kitchen with Khan, a 19 year old Berliner who had been staying with us for a few weeks.  I suggested that we should record a song in Bowie’s honour and we began exchanging ideas about what kind of song we should make.  One of the musical references he made, was to his “father’s Turkish rap crew”, a combination of words never uttered in my presence before.  We went online and sure enough there was his father, rapping in Turkish.  I tried for a moment to picture my father in Khan’s father’s crew, but because dad had wasted so many years being a judge, I was certain both his rapping skills and his command of the Turkish language would have been underdeveloped enough to prevente our fathers from busting rhymes together.

Then my phone rang.  It was my father’s number and considering the mortal theme running through my mind, I got a bad feeling.  I answered it and from the sound I was hearing, could only assume that his phone was in a tumble-dryer.  This was followed silence, then heavy breathing.

“Dad, can you hear me?”  No response, only distressed breathing.

“Hello…Can you hear me?”  Then I heard distant voices, that I thought at first were echoes of my own, repeating,

“Can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me?”

A feeling crept over me that something terrible had happened and he had called me to say good-bye, losing consciousness before he got the words out.  I was sure that I was listening to my father’s last breaths, the distant voices belonging to concerned bystanders trying to revive him.  Then the line went dead.

Finished work for the day, Justice Flynn left his chambers and made his way to the parking garage.  When he arrived at his car, he cursed under his breath at the idiot who had parked so close to his driver’s side that he couldn’t open his door.  Weighing his options, he decided that finding the offending car’s owner would take far too long and that this was a situation that called for “thinking outside the box”, a skill he used daily.

The plan was simple.  He would enter through the passenger’s door, lean across into the driver’s side, slowly ease out past the car blocking his door, then get out and walk around to the driver’s side.  Except, when he had taken up his position, he couldn’t properly get a grip on the steering wheel, a constraint he corrected by opening the drivers door, giving him the few inches he needed.

He called his wife to tell her that he’d be home in time for dinner, hung up the phone and started the car.  He put it in drive and stretched his left foot out to press down on the accelerator, quickly discovering that it didn’t posses the same subtlety that his right foot did, as the car shot forward.  In a panic, he stomped for the brake, missing it and fully flattening the accelerator.  The screeching tires propelled him forward, the sudden motion making him grip the steering wheel, turning it hard left, and into the wall in front of him.  The impact threw him forward, a flailing limb engaging the cruise control and hitting the speed dial for his son’s phone number in one fell swoop, before launching him out of the open driver’s door.  The vehicle continued forward, connecting with a pillar, which slammed the door shut.  Doors shut and engine on, the doors automatically locked and the car continued on, an eighty thousand dollar pinball, in a parking garage themed pinball machine.  Down the ramp it went, it’s course corrected by the walls it bounced off on it’s way through the security gate.

Dazed and confused, a nasty cut on his elbow but otherwise unharmed, Justice Flynn looked on in stunned silence as courthouse security guards surrounded his unstoppable driverless car, which continued to bounce from wall to pillar, like a short-circuiting robot.  The surreal scene made even stranger by the fact that the guards were shouting at the car, asking if it could hear them.

“Can you hear me?”, a voice from inside the car asked them back.

To prove to himself that he hadn’t sustained a head injury in the fall, he reasoned that the bluetooth function must still have been enabled on his phone, which would explain the conversation taking place between his car and the guards.  To test his theory, he reached inside his breast pocket, retrieved his phone and ended the call.  To his relief, the voice stopped. Now, if only his car would do the same.

One Sunday, in the not too distant past, we decided to take advantage of the rare confluence of sunshine and a day off, by going for a walk in the mountains.  It was unusually hot for May, or for any time in Ireland for that matter, so with great delight we headed towards Kinnitty Castle. Children in tow and dog in the boot,  we planned to stretch our legs on the grounds and then have dinner in the castle and let someone else do the dishes for a change.  We started out with a bounce in our step.   But it didn’t take too long before 23 degrees of Irish sun shortened our stride.  About ten minutes to be more precise.  But that’s all it took for our 6 and 7 year old daughters to begin their “go-slow” campaign, stopping to pick wildflowers every twenty paces.  Rococo, our energetic labrador, had  no such qualms with the elements.   She charged off into the woods, tail wagging and eyes bulging, as if she would never be taken on a walk again.  As it would happen, she was nearly right.