When we were at the St. George’s Market last week, we noticed one of the fish stalls was selling seaweed on the side. £1 bought you a little plastic bag of this deeply purple coloured stuff – a bargain that couldn’t be ignored.

The seaweed had a wonderful salty taste and was slightly chewy – kind of like how car tyres might turn out if they were left in a pressure cooker for a while – and I mean that in a nice way, because I like this seaweed. A mouthful of it brought back memories of being 9 or 10 at the beach, dressed in my red frilly swimming costume (the one with a silly pouch in the crotch area that would become heavy with stored sand the minute you stepped into the water), squinting in disgust every time seawater was accidentally gulped down.

Apart from eating it as a snack, this seaweed can also be fried as chips, or stirred into a chowder. I later found out that it’s also called dulse or even “sea parsley”, which has a nice ring to it.

No one else seemed very enthusiastic about snacking on our new purchase so I decided to turn it into a salad instead. The seaweed was blanched briefly so that it wouldn’t be excessively salty, and was then chopped roughly and tossed through some other ingredients : organic lettuce, sliced shallots, crispy bacon, and topped with a poached egg. The seaweed didn’t quite stand out in the end result, but instead added a texture variation and a little saltiness to the whole dish. I think the exercise was more an excuse to eat more bacon, really, because the bacon here is very very good.

On a musical note, last night we saw the Frames perform at the Ulster Hall. It was a rollicking good show that forced most of us up from our seats (I’m surprised they even had seats in the area that’s usually the dance floor/standing room section), dancing down the aisles, singing along to most of the tunes. I also liked how they weaved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and dEUS into their song, Star Star.