If you've been a fan of Deborah's Humble Housewife blog - she's now blogging at taste.ie - check out her new venture at the beautifully designed Spicendipity, which sells a selection of spice mixes, sauces and baking mixes, alongside some gorgeous gift baskets. Press release below...
Craft butcher Jack McCarthy is a passionate man. Make a visit to his shop in the middle of the main street in Kanturk and be prepared to learn all about his wide range of award-winning meat products. On a quick visit to the town to meet up with the Editor earlier today, I called in to pick up some of my favourite North Cork pancetta. We were only in the door two minutes when Jack had us as a willing audience to taste his intensely savoury air-dried beef. Sliced thinly like Italian Bresaola, it melts in the mouth with a silky texture similar to the finest smoked salmon, leaving a lingering flavour of the spices used in the cure. This innovative craft butcher is like a shark, never standing still – for Jack there's always something to learn or try, a new product to work on, an old one to improve.
A wide variety of sausages were just asking to meet a barbeque: I picked up some of the ones that he makes with local Ardrahan cheese for the next sunny evening at home but could easily have bought twice as much again, so intrigued I was with the flavours on offer. The shop is festooned with awards, including the 2005 Gold Great Taste Award for Jack's spiced dry-cured back rashers, which come vacuum-packed in a striking gold foil packet with his trademark bay leaf. The same product also took the prize for Best Irish Speciality Product that year.
As I drove home, I started planning tomorrow night's dinner. If I can track down some Gabriel cheese, I'll make a spiky salad from the garden (the rocket and mustard are flourishing particularly well), dressed simply with lemon juice and decent olive oil, topped with the jewel-coloured slices of air-dried beef and some shavings of the cheese. But there's also rashers to try, the sausages to barbeque and the pancetta to toss with pasta or make into a superlative BLT. Thankfully Kanturk isn't too far away.
Jack McCarthy Meats, Main Street, Kanturk, Co Cork.
Tel: + 353 29 50178
Web: www.jackmccarthy.ie - Speciality hampers are available to order for delivery in Ireland.
Read Anne Kennedy's impassioned feature on Jack McCarthy at Greatfood.ie.
Watch Jack McCarthy on Nationwide.
You may have noticed some random design issues around here recently, as well as messed-up links, comments not working and the like. I'm still trying to figure out my MT upgrade and, of course, my computer hard disc managed to flatline in the middle of all of this. At the moment I'm lucky to be online at all and am working with a disabled hard disk in a parallel Linux world. Some time soon, I hope, services will return to normal.
My Nana always kept hens. As a child, I spent a lot of time at her house - just the other side of the hill from where we now live - and hens were an ever-present, taken-for-granted part of growing up. Previously my Nana, a trained and skilled poultrywoman, had kept flocks of hens for breeding; by the time I came along she just supplied Dwanes, one of the local shops, with fresh eggs for sale at the counter. But there were still jobs for the grandchildren to do. One of the dreaded chores was that of collecting the eggs. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the straw-lined wicker egg basket banging against my Wellington-clad bare legs, I would go through the gate in the far corner of the yard, wander past the haggart with all its fascinating bits of rusty farm machinery, turn right on to the lane the cows ambled along twice a day for milking and, keeping close to the less muddy inside side, come to the old wooden hen house. After taking a deep breath of clean air, I would twist the old bolt across, opening the door into the musty fug of the hens' world and prepare myself for the egg search.
These were very much free-range eggs; the hens spent their days roaming through the nearby grove and surrounding farmyards. Very few of the outdoor escapades of my cousins and I didn't involve encountering some squawking hen in an unlikely place. But there were always a few indoors and they looked very imposing indeed, especially to a little girl who wasn't too much bigger than the basket that she carried. Most of the nesting boxes that lined the hen house were empty that time of the day but there were always a few hens in place to put the heart crossways in you as you pulled back the disintegrating curtains that gave the layers some privacy. Unlike my Mother and aunts, I could never bring myself to root under a hen for eggs, always too afraid that that shar-looking beak would seek to defend its owner from the unwarranted intrusion. I wonder how many eggs I left behind in those days?
On Saturday the Husband picked up four Rhode Island Red, point-of-lay pullets from a hen lady near Kanturk to populate our sturdy and stylish new hen house and run from Fingerprint Wood Products. The crooning and clucking from the girls as they figure out their new surroundings has unlocked a stream of long-forgotten memories. Every time we go into the garden there has to be time spent observing the new arrivals and marvelling at their antics. Even though we are keeping them confined at the moment, they have already managed - even at a remove - to terrorise the local tom cat who was paying visits to our own cat. The cat herself normally follows us around the garden as we work outside; her movements are now more confined as she tries to avoid being seen and commented on by the hens. Last night the Husband and I spent half-an-hour in and out of the run, trying to find a bowl or bucket that our ever-so-slightly dense foursome would recognise as a water receptacle. They walked around - almost into - the various water containers for quite a while but not once while we were there did they actually see what was in them. Figuring that they wouldn't expire from thirst overnight, we eventually left them to it. I think that my Nana would have been very entertained.
Just got an email from Cactus TV (home of Saturday Kitchen and Richard and Judy) looking for people who are interested in learning how to bake and who would like to participate in a new cookery series. It all kicks off in June so they need volunteers in the Cork area ASAP. More info below.
- Do you love cooking but find the art of baking a bit of a mystery?
- Does your bread fail to rise?
- Do your cakes go soggy?
- Maybe you loved baking as a child but have since lost the skill?
Cactus TV are looking for people to learn to bake as part of a new cookery series – so if you’d like to pick up some top tips from a TV chef, are aged between 20-40, are available at weekends in June, and live in or around Cork, then email us with a photo ASAP at bake@cactustv.co.uk telling us your name, address, age, and why you’d love to be part of our baking school.
The perfect birthday? Take a day off work - this is always nicest if done midweek! - and book a night away in Gort-Na-Nain, a vegetarian guesthouse near Nohoval outside Cork city, run by the welcoming Lucy Stewart and Ultan Walsh, vegetable growers and suppliers of vegetables to Café Paradiso, amongst other Cork restaurants. Drive there after work the day before your birthday, picking up the Husband en route, and arrive just in time for your pre-booked three-course dinner. Relax and savour Lucy's fabulous cooking, using fresh-picked vegetables and fruit grown by Ultan, with the other (very entertaining) couple that happen to be staying there that night. Take a long walk to see the sea before tucking yourself into a large, comfortable bed in an bright and spacious room.
Rise early on a sun-drenched morning for cards and presents before wandering downstairs for a lavish breakfast of just picked strawberries, homemade muesli, brown bread, muffins, pots of coffee and, the piece de resistance, homemade chestnut sausages with fried potatoes, egg and spicy chutney. Persuade Ultan to show you around his polytunnels - giving the Husband notions - and admire his neat asparagus beds, the newly-planted apple orchard, rows of salad greens, aubergines, beans, artichokes, tomatillos, peppers and several varieties of tomato plants. Before you leave, check out the chicken run - there are plans afoot to populate the back of the cottage land with a couple of chickens once we actually get round to organising accommodation - and leave, knowing that this visit won't be a one-off.
Proceed on to Kinsale and, after a walk to stimulate appetite, take yourself for a long-anticipated lunch at Fishy Fishy. Despite the Sister's warnings ("Arrive early and be prepared to queue or arrive late and be prepared to queue"), we were whisked to a table immediately (always good to be doing these things midweek) and start to study the menu. We chose a chilli-spiked seafood salad and fish pie, added a couple of glasses of white wine and sat back to observe Kinsale, and our fellow diners, in the sunshine. Orders of clams and mussels arriving at neighbouring tables had me thinking that I should have gone for a different lunch but, when it arrived, there was no disappointment and no leftovers. Finish off with a decent brownie, served with ice cream and too-cold chocolate sauce and some good coffees then proceed directly to Charles Fort for afternoon reading and snoozing in the sun.
En route home, call into the Teacher's house for a cup of tea and to plan this summer's holidays (we're driving to and camping in France with the Teacher and the Tax Advisor) before making it back, eventually, to the cottage for supper in the sun. A perfect birthday? Without a doubt!
One of the things I love about living in an old cottage is the excuse to furnish it in alternative ways. When I lived in New Zealand, I was an habitué of the op shops (charity shops) in Christchurch, always picking up old cake tins or nutcrackers, battered but usable cutlery, my old dining table and an odd assortment of small stools, used about the house as bedside tables, wee seats and useful steps. Space being limited in Ireland, I've avoided my worst NZ excesses, much to the Husband's relief: there was once Words by the side of the street when one of my op shop chairs didn't fit into the car. One thing I do watch out for, however, is old china. No trip to New Zealand is complete without a few items being secreted in the luggage for the journey home; last time I even managed to fit a collection of old fashioned spoons (to match the bone-handled knives and forks that I had picked up at the Bantry market last summer).
As time goes on, my modern matched crockery and cutlery keep getting pushed further and further back in the press, as I use and re-use my favourite supper plates and particular forks. The dishes that would once been used as shallow soup plates make perfect pasta bowls and an assortment of mismatched side plates and saucers work to serve up deserts or sweet treats to have with tea. The photo is of the remaining pieces of a once-numerous set from Arklow Irish Pottery that I picked up recently. With rims of pale daffodil yellow, painted with twisted curlicues of gold, it is the perfect delft to use when eating early summer meals: platefuls and platefuls of steamed and dressed PSB (Purple Sprouting Broccoli - yes, it did turn both P and S, eventually), millet and bulgar salads with roasted vegetables, roasted buckwheat tossed with flageolet beans in a chilli citrus dressing. Everything seems to taste much better when eaten off the perfect plate - especially if that's done outside in the sunshine.
Working on a site upgrade at the moment - please bear with me while I wander around the back end of things and figure out what goes where.
There was great excitement in Urru, Mallow on Wednesday when the first of the Irish-grown strawberries arrived from Rosscarbery amidst glorious sunshine. We stacked boxes of ruddy fruit on the shelves of the fridge, inhaling their fragrance all the while, until it was decided that we needed to open one - just for quality testing, of course. That punnet wasn't long in being devoured, and - before they all disappeared with customers - I grabbed one for myself, to sit in the evening sunshine and eat, all tumbled on great scoops of Murphy's Vanilla Ice Cream. The first real taste of summer.
Just heard from a reader that the café at The Glebe Gardens in Baltimore is well worth a visit. Liz writes:
"Just wanted to let you know of a café I happened upon last weekend. It is the Glebe Café, in Baltimore, West Cork, and it is one to rave about. The produce comes straight from their garden on to the plate and it is just spectacular. The website is www.glebegardens.com. I think they are only open at weekends right now but I think they start a weekly thing in the summer. I had Organic Beef Stew....yummy simple great food, it just excited me so much that I had to tell someone."
Last June, while the new Husband and I were honeymooning in West Cork (along with eight of his family, six English Engineers and an Irish terrier called Bridie) we visited the Glebe Gardens and loved it. Unfortunately the café wasn't opened while we were there - although the Husband did meet the owner of the house and almost secured me a job while talking to him about me doing the course at Ballymaloe - but all the ingredients were present in the garden, just waiting to be used. Great to hear that it's doing well - I'll have to plan a trip back to the West this summer!
Just been checking out the James Beard Foundation Awards nominees and I see that congratulations are in order for Heidi Swanson for her nomination in the Healthy Focus category. Her book - Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways to Incorporate Whole & Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking - is a constant source of ideas and inspiration these days as I try out her ideas and experiment with new ingredients.
Nominated in the Asian Cooking section is Fuchsia Dunlop for Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook - I'm just reading Shark's Fin & Sichuan Pepper, her enthralling memoir of cooking and eating in China. Fuchsia is also up for a Newspaper Feature Writing award, as is David Leite of Leite's Culinaria. Other of my favourite authors up for awards are Mark Bittman aka the New York Times writer that brought No-Knead bread to the world (How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food), Alice Medrich for Pure Desert (we're big fans of her Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies around here), Anne Willan (The Country Cooking of France), 2005 Savour NZ presenter Patricia Wells (Vegetable Harvest) and - one of the most entertaining food books from last year - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (I still have plans to try out her recipe for homemade mozzarella!). The awards will be announced on Sunday 8 June.
Although there has been lots of salad planted in the garden on recent weekends, including mustard greens, rocket and mizuna (at least I'll be able to distinguish between the plants after cramming in Ballymaloe for the salad leaves and herbs exams!), it's going to be a while before any of the leaves are big enough to eat. Then, of course, because our planting in succession routine is not entirely developed - despite best intentions - we'll have another glut to work through. But that's all ahead of us and, until then, I've been growing my own salad on the windowsill.
I bought a small, three-level seed sprouter last summer but it was much too warm in our Dublin flat so my first attempts weren't very successful. Now, on a bright windowsill in my unheated cottage, it's really coming into its own. It's on the window behind the sink which makes it easier to remember to rinse the sprouts twice a day - it's not so good when you forget although the smell will help you remember.
I started off using the seeds that I bought at the same time as the sprouter - broccoli (a bit weedy), fenugreek (spicy addition to salads), mustard (peppery, really good in sandwiches) and red clover, which is all a bit anonymous. Getting more adventurous, I recently moved on to the contents of the store cupboard. Mung beans - the bean sprouts we all know - have been a success, especially in their crunchy and juicy early stages but the quinoa never really grew properly and the wheatberries were much too much like grass to be palatable. I suppose that's why wheatgrass is normally used for producing juice. My absolute favourite - so far - are the sprouted lentils. I've been switching between the simple brown and crunchier Puy lentils, both which are great mixed with the stronger-flavoured mustard and fenugreek sprouts in salads and stuffed into sandwiches, pitta breads and wraps. With this tiny garden, I'm much better with successive planting - hopefully we can make it work better outdoors this year!
If you're interested in reading more, there's some very useful information about sprouting in the recent Guardian Grow-Your-Own Guide and the ever-useful Nigel Slater gives a few ideas about how to use them here.
Woo hoo! Bibliocook got a brief mention in Marie-Claire Digby's Webwatch in the food section of yesterday's Irish Times Magazine. Unless you have a subscription, you can't view it online so here it is (told you it was brief!):
Webwatch
www.bibliocook.com
Read about the culinary adventures of former entertainment journalist turned Ballymaloe-trained cook and food writer, Caroline Hennessy.
Published: Sat 19 April 2008 - The Irish Times - Magazine
Slow Food Cork has an event coming up this Thursday, 17 April, at a new bar called An Crúibín on Union Quay. Before it was revamped and made over, the venue was known as the Lobby Bar, site of many a night of musical madness and commemorated by inimitable Cork musician John Spillane in his nostalgic Magic Nights in the Lobby Bar. Now a tapas bar, An Crúibín will play host to, we are promised, a traditional evening of pigs trotters, tails, ribs and cheek, accompanied by bread from the Arbutus Bakery and pints of Beamish, my stout of choice. The event starts at 8pm, it costs €10 for Slow Food members (€15 for non-members) and bookings can be made at 021 4505819.
Hog roast from Gubbeen was on the menu at the Waterford Food Fair farmers' market in Dungarvan yesterday. Cooking started on Grattan Square at 5.30am so appetites were well-stimulated by the time Fingal Ferguson and his staff started serving blaas stuffed with roast pork to a hungry crowd around 1pm. It wasn't the only food on offer at the market - think Chocolate Brownies from Tara's Cookies, Baldwin's farmhouse ice cream, O'Flynn's Gourmet Sausages that I often pick up in the English Market, apple juice from Killowen Orchard and the Crinnaughtaun Juice Company - but, with waves of pork-infused smoke wafting through the square as it cooked, it was definitely the most spectacular.
When we arrived, as the market opened, I grabbed a half-dozen duck and hen eggs from the Dungarvan and Waterford Irish country markets stall. Buying eggs first thing in the morning may not have been my most intelligent idea but, despite other purchases (hunks of local Knockanore and Knockalara cheeses, jars of Seville Marmalade and Fíor-Mil summer honey, fresh-baked rye and seed bread from the Ormond Café), along with the Sunday newspapers, various scarves and layers that were shed as the day heated up, we still managed to get them home in one piece. That was until they were introduced to some mushrooms and butter in the omelette pan that evening...
There's a video report on the first Mallow Farmers' Market on TG4 - go to Cúrsaí Reatha - Cartlann, scroll down to Nuacht TG4 - 05/04/08 and the piece is third on the Nuacht, 6.38 into the clip.
Waterford Festival of Food - this weekend! 11 to 13 April in Dungarvan, Co Waterford. Food trails, cookery demonstrations and a Sunday farmers' market that I'm planning on visiting. I hope they're going to be serving those delicious soft floury white bread baps, unique to Waterford, called Blaas. No weekend away in Tramore was complete without a breakfast Blaa, stuffed with bacon and omelette...mmmm....
Terra Madre Ireland 2008 - 4 to 7 September, in Waterford City. Slow food workshops, debates, tours and tastings, all based around the theme of sustainable food production. Sign up on the website for a news letter that will keep you up-to-date with all the goings-on.
Some weeks things work, at other times my attempts to fill the tins with sweet treats for work falls flat. This time I have a not very successful variation on Almond Honey Squares from a neat little Woman's Weekly Simple Slices book that the Husband ordered for me recently. I think he's trying to ensure his supply of different nice things to take to work - before I started making these weekly variations, it was a consistent diet of Chocolate Sesame Flapjacks and variations thereof.
Although I didn't really follow the recipe, I have to admit that it was not entirely my fault - this time. I had the honey - but the Husband had stuck a buttery knife, complete with toast crumbs, into the jar (luckily that transgression was balanced by the gift of the book!) - so that was substituted with maple syrup, which I couldn't even taste in the eventual result. One of my recently-purchased packets of flaked almonds went a-missing so instead I used a not-too-bad combination of flaked almonds and toasted pistachios. The eventual result - Nutty Chocolate Squares - didn't go to waste, they had their fans, especially when there was nothing else on offer, but only scored 6/10 from the Polish Colleague. His scale is, apparently based on flapjacks at 10/10. Here is the original recipe - I think this may be one to try again, but with honey this time.
Continue reading "Sweet treats for work: Nutty Chocolate Squares" »
With Irish cheeses and handmade terrines, fresh-shucked oysters, champagne and plenty of spiced beef, the launch of the Taste of Cork festival took place last Thursday in the English Market and it's shaping up to be something well worth checking out.
Although I was rather underwhelmed with my experience at the first Taste of Dublin, the teething problems - portion size, rain shelter, muck underfoot - seem to have been ironed out and, for the event's Cork debut, the organisers have chosen the historic surroundings of the Cork City Gaol (or Jail, depending on where you grew up!) for the weekend of Friday 27 to Sunday 29 June. The restaurant line up includes Jacobs on the Mall, Seamus O'Connell's Ivory Tower, the very familiar Ballymaloe House, and Mallow's representative - Longueville House. We're planning on a family day out - time to book those tickets!
Gradually getting through the Observer Food Monthly - it's like very good chocolate for me, not something to be gobbled down but, rather, to be slowly savoured - and just came across a feature on Bill Hogan and Sean Ferry of the West Cork Natural Cheese Company, makers of the superlative Desmond and Gabriel cheeses. The cheese-making partners have been in conflict with the department of agriculture since 2002, when their cheeses, all made from raw, non-pasteurised milk, were impounded. They eventually won their case - but it was not without much difficulty and hardship. Read the whole story - The revolution will not be pasteurised - here and then take yourself down to your nearest cheesemonger and buy a large slice of Desmond and Gabriel in tribute to a couple of cheesemakers who fought back.
Trish Deseine is a familiar name in the food blogosphere - particularly to anyone who reads Chocolate and Zucchini - and this Ulster-born food writer is also very well known in her adoptive France. Last year's publication of Nobody Does it Better: Why French Home Cooking Is Still the Best in the World, was her first major foray into the English-speaking world - her Boudin Noir aux Deux Pommes (Black Pudding with Apples and Potatoes) is one of those useful ideas that is cooked regularly in my house.
Her debut television series, Trish's Paris Kitchen, starts on RTÉ One tonight at 7.30pm. I don't know if the programme is going to be broadcast online just yet, although 4oD has completely spoiled me for watching TV on the web (thanks Suzy!), but you can catch Trish being interviewed on Corrigan Knows Food from last June and she was also being interviewed on Monday's Today With Pat Kenny - scroll down and click on Shows from the past week on the right hand side.
If you're anywhere in the Mallow area this coming Saturday, 5 April, you can catch the first Mallow Farmers' Market in the wee courtyard outside URRU - the culinary store, deli and café where I work - from 10.30am to 1pm. Stalls that will be there include my favourite Fermoy Natural Cheeses, smoked fish from Geraldine Bass' Old Millbank Smokehouse and herbs from West Cork's Gairdín Eden, which supply the fantastic salad leaves that we sell in URRU. Hopefully the weather will stay fine!
In the "I wish I was still living in Dublin" category, check out the forthcoming evening of Italian food, wine and song organised by Greatfood.ie and the Italian School of Cooking for this Saturday night (29 March). Tickets for that are on sale at Greatfood2buy.com. Independent wine blog Sour Grapes - well worth taking a look at for some decent wine reviews - is organising a wine tasting event at Fallon & Byrne for 15 April. Sign up at Sour Grapes here.
Not having a TV, I've only just heard about Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory, a Channel 4 series about chocolate entrepreneur Willie Harcourt-Cooze and his dreams of growing, importing and manufacturing high-end chocolate products in England. Although there's no video online, there is a selection of photos from each of the four episodes of the show, the last part of which was shown last night, alongside some of Willie's recipes - I particularly like the Black Beans one. And make sure you don't miss the feature on chocolate ad blasts from the past, including the caramel bunny, the Man from Milk Tray and - of course - "Ambassador! You are spoiling us".
...in which Bibliocook pays a quick visit in the rain to Blackheath Farmers' Market, picking up a log of goat's cheese on the way, has dinner in a rather nice private room at The Punter in Cambridge, eats breakfast in Baker and Spice (while admiring the enormous rectangles of butter and jars of jam for sharing in the middle of the communal table, wondering idly how long it takes before the display is irretrievably destroyed) dashes into The Hummingbird Bakery to take a peep at their cupcakes, walks all the way from Richmond train station to Skye Gyngell's tea house at Petersham Nurseries only to discover - oh tragedy - that it is shut on Mondays, cooks dinner (a gnocchi dish, with Gubbeen cheese and chorizo imported by Caroline, very much adapted from an idea in this month's delicious.) for the London-based Brother and his partner, pays homage - once again - at Books for Cooks and catches up with a former Ballymaloe classmate over dark Americanos, Mushrooms and Goat's Cheese on Brioche and a Chocolate Loaf Cake at the Grocer on Elgin. Phew!
Eoin Purcell of Mercier Press in Cork (the same company, incidentally, that are publishing Kieran Murphy's Ice Cream book) has set about putting together a collection of recipes of traditional Irish family favourites. Everyone is welcome to contribute recipes from their own granny - or granddad! - and Our Grannies' Recipes will be published in October, with €1 from every copy going to Age Action Ireland. You can read more about it and take a look at the first few recipes here.
Congratulations to Lorraine at Italian Foodies - the winner of this year's Best Food/Drink Blog at the Irish Blog Awards! Kieran of Ice Cream Ireland was also a winner, taking the Best Business Blog award. You can read about all the winners on Maman Poulet, herself also a joint winner in the Best News/Current Affairs category. Sounds like a good night was had by all!
Best of luck to all the nominees, particularly those in the Food and Wine category, for this year's Irish Blog Awards! It's all happening tonight at the Alexander Hotel in Dublin but, the fact that this North Cork-based blogger works on Saturdays, combined with a visit from the Brother-Who-Lives-In-London means that I won't be able to make it to this year's event. Looking forward to hearing all about the winners, though!
I was on RTÉ Radio 1's Mooney programme yesterday talking about baking and breadmaking - if you're interested, you can listen here (I'm on after the 4pm news!) and here are some links to recipes that I either mentioned, or intended on mentioning, during the show.
My ever-popular Chocolate Brownies
Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies
Lemon & Pistachio Yoghurt Cake
And, for those breadmakers out there, here is a recipe for a simple Brown Soda Bread and - if you're getting more adventurous! - you could try Mark Bittman's No Knead Bread or even experiment with some Sourdough Bread.
Kevin Thornton's Guerrilla Gourmet evening at the Rock of Cashel is now online here for any fellow television-less fans of the show.
A quote from one of satisfied customer's at Denis Cotter's Guerrilla Gourmet evening, when he cooked a vegetarian meal for adamant beef-eaters at Bandon Mart. Watch the whole programme and access recipes online at the RTÉ Guerrilla Gourmet website - note: the programmes are only available for 21 days after broadcast.
Read a short review of Denis Cotter's beautifully realised Wild Garlic, Gooseberries...and Me here, as well as an older cookbook and Café Paradiso review.
Congratulations to all those who are on the longlist for the Best Food and Wine Blog 2008 - it's great to see so many old favourites there, including Val's Kitchen, Italian Foodies, Ice Cream Ireland, Martin Dwyer, The Humble Housewife and Eat Drink Live. There are also plenty of new blogs, reminding me that it's definitely time to do some work on my blog roll!
Best Food and Wine Blog Longlist 2008
The 2008 Irish Blog Awards will take place on 1st March at the Alexander Hotel in Dublin. Keep up to date at the award blog here.
Don't forget Pancake Tuesday tomorrow! I'm looking forward to trying out a new product from Sowan's Organics - two organic pancake mixes, one with unbleached white flour and a spelt variation, which I'm particularly interested in. Both come fortified with organic vanilla, a great addition to savoury dishes - when I'm making Nic's Buttermilk Pancakes, I flavour them with some vanilla extract before adding the crispy bacon and maple syrup. If you have to buy a mix, best stick with something organic but, if you're interested in making your own pancakes, you'll find my standard recipe here with a useful dish for Pancake Tuesday - Ricotta and Spinach Pancake Bake. For more ideas check out Greatfood.ie's pancake special.
Update February 06, 2008
Sowan's Organic Spelt Pancakes were a winner, filling and flavoursome, if a little too sweet for my taste for using with ricotta and spinach, although I still think that they would work well with crispy bacon and maple syrup.
I was recently asked whether baking - particularly bread making - in Ireland is undergoing a recent resurgence or is it on the way out? Are people too busy/too tired to cook, never mind bake, for themselves? Judging by the amount of people that bake and blog about it, it doesn't look like it! What do you think?
Apologies for the loss in transmission for the last while. My hosting company decided to play silly buggers and, as we were in New Zealand on an in impromptu trip to surprise the Husband's grandfather for his 80th birthday, it was a little difficult to sort out. Still, I'm back now and ready to start eating my way through 2008!
Christmas Cake, made by my mother from Granny's recipe - rich, more-ish and, best of all, still around to enjoy with pots of tea.
My aunt's fabulous Plum Pudding, eaten after Christmas dinner with lots of Brandy Butter and oodles of cream.
Black pudding from Hanley's of Mitchelstown, nicely flecked with oatmeal and hot from the pan with some late homegrown apples cut into segments and caramelised.
Greatfood2buy's Wild Cranberry and Apple Chutney, with toasted cheese sandwiches (particularly anything involving blue cheese) and, especially, with the aforementioned black pudding.
An almost disastrous Stephen's Day soup - Ham and Pea this year - which got left on too low a heat during the family's traditional woodland walk so that the peas almost didn't disintegrate in time for lunch. Some rapid simmering and cheeseboard distraction saved the day, however!
Slightly stale Stollen, toasted under the grill until brown and bubbling, buttered and served with mugs of cinnamon hot chocolate in front of the fire.
The traditional family post-Christmas dish: left-over ham and turkey stripped off the bones, heated in a simple Mushroom and White Wine Sauce and dolloped over sourdough toast or steaming heaps of garlicky mash.
Savoury tarts made for visiting family - a seasonal combination of broccoli, Cashel Blue, fresh cranberries, chorizo and caramelised onions snuggled together under a custard blanket.
Little wooden crates of brightly coloured clementines, heaped under the Christmas tree and eaten in great quantities as the antidote to Christmas excess...
Christmas is coming/The goose is getting fat... and it's more than time to have your Christmas lists made and almost completed. This year, between living out of the city and being completely immersed in the Ballymaloe Cookery Course, it's almost crept up on me - and I know that I'm not the only one! Here are a few present ideas for your similarly-food orientated friends.
After the course, I'm interested in a whole new kitchen makeover, complete with gas hob. Seeing as that won't be happening, it's time to take a look at the items that are in the Ballymaloe kitchen stations and see what I can add to my already bulging kitchen cupboards. Top of the list would have to be a simple cast-iron grill pan. Although I have friends that swear by them, I had never used one before but I ended up cooking so many different things this way - fish, steaks, chicken, vegetables - and I have several duck breasts (after the practices for my practical exam!) just waiting to be pan grilled, when I get my own one. QuirkyKitchen.ie is well worth taking a look around for things like this, as well as lots of other kitchen gadgets.
Despite watching various teachers manage to cut themselves on while demonstrating how (not) to use the Japanese mandolin (always a good time to busy yourself with your notes, rather than watch in close-up on the tv monitors!), it's still on my list. I have visions of slicing up cucumbers for pickling next summer, as well as plenty of potato and other root vegetable gratins.
A couple of loose-based tart tins are also something that I intend on picking up at some stage, if they're not in my Christmas stocking. I had a large one in New Zealand, bought from my favourite charity shop for $4, and loved using it. Tarts and quiches always look more spectacular when you can slip them out of the tin before presenting them.
If you - or the person that you're buying for - is based in Dublin, a voucher for the Italian School of Cookery is well worth picking up. You can get vouchers for individual classes of wine, cooking, food and song from just €60 or choose from any of their series of classes for 2008. I thoroughly enjoyed the class that I attended last year and I don't think that I was the only person there that night that made plans to go back at another stage. They're based in Rathmines so call around, especially if you want to take a look at the Italian wines, oils and preserves they also have on sale.
Online, head to Irish-based Greatfood2buy.com where you can put together a gorgeous package with seasonal Wild Cranberry and Apple Relish, a perfect addition to post-Christmas turkey sandwiches, a selection of spices and herbs in dinky little light-proof metal canisters - remember that you'll need nutmeg, cloves and star anise for your Christmas baking - and the intensely flavoured Halen Môn flavoured sea salt. Try a tiny pinch of Halen Môn with Taha'a Vanilla on top of a dark chocolate mousse to give new life to over-fed taste buds. Watch out especially for the beautifully packaged range of Le Tamerici mostarda (a pungent mustard jam, fabulous with cheese) and delicate organic jams. Greatfood2buy.com will deliver anywhere in Ireland, via An Post's Parcel Service, at a flat rate of just €7.95 but order now - last date for ordering Christmas gifts is 18 December.
Still on food, but angling towards the growing side of things, annual marjoram, chervil, sweet geranium, sage, spearmint, dill and fennel are all on my gardening list for 2008. It's also time to renew gift memberships with the Clare-based Irish Seed Savers Association. For €35 you get five varieties of seeds, three varieties of seed potatoes and a great newsletter twice a year. Also good for organic seeds and unusual varieties are Madeline McKeever's Brown Envelope Seeds (we loved the prolific Ushiki Kuri squash from Brown Envelope that we grew this year, the last one is awaiting me in the kitchen as I type) and the Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co Leitrim. Both the Organic Centre and the ISSA do a wide variety of courses, from vegetarian cooking and organic gardening to bee keeping and cheese-making and vouchers are readily available.
Best of all, if you've a little time for baking and cooking, you can make your own selection of biscuits and tasty treats for your friends and family. Nobody will turn down jars of homemade Apple and Sloe Jelly or Tomato Chilli Jam - I'm off to make piles of Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies, Ballymaloe Mincemeat Slice and Shortbread!
Congratulations to Anne Kennedy over on Greatfood.ie who has got her new fine food and ingredient gift shop - Greatfood2buy.com - off the ground in perfect time for Christmas. I know she has been cooking and testing for the Greatfood.ie range of chutneys, preserves and jams - Wild Cranberry and Apple Relish sounds especially good and I think I'll have to pick up a jar of Onion Marmalade with Plums and Port for myself. Living in the countryside, it's not always easy to get your hands on things like puy lentils, verjuice, organic polenta, lavender honey, quality spices or my favourite argan oil but Anne has put together a great selection of products that can be all yours in the click of a button (if you have the use of a handy credit card...) She also has the award-winning Castle Leslie range of balsamic reductions for sale - a bottle of their Balsamic Reduction with Sherry and Fig has gone down a treat in this house, with spoonfuls being tasted at regular intervals. I have great plans to use it on some pan-fried duck breasts, if it ever makes it all the way to the kitchen. Watch out next week for Greatfood.ie's Flavour of Italy range, including fine pasta, mostarda gift sets, Italian dolci and wine.
To celebrate the launch, Greatfood.ie have teamed up with the Italian School of Cooking in Rathmines to run a Christmas Artisan Food Fair on Sunday 9 December from 12 noon to 6pm. Wonder if Marco will be singing again?!
Transition from a full-time journalist's job in Dublin to country-based student life is more than just packing a car, cleaning out the old flat and shifting down to the cottage. Mindless routines - the 45-minute stroll to work, a computer-based eight-hour stint, walking home mentally preparing supper, deciding whether to call into one of my favourite shops on the way (Mortons, Donnybrook Fair, Taste of Italy, Al-Khyrat) - suddenly become more precious as the days speed towards leaving the city. Only one thing to do: sidestep the whole situation by flying off to Girona in Spain the day after the move!
The Husband and I spent three nights in the small Catalonian city earlier this week, time to soak up sun and recover from our eighth move in three years, a breathing space to adjust and look forward to the future. Plus an ever-welcome opportunity to consume copious amounts of tapas, cava, café con leche and rioja while reading stacks of books - Miranda Innes' Getting to Mañana, a memoir of her move to Andalusia set a perfect scene as well as having a good scattering of simple recipes - taking long siestas and general relaxation. Now back home, I've the task of condensing two kitchens, their ingredients and equipment (did I mention that I'm a hoarder?!), into one. It's baking blitz time this weekend - No-Knead Bread, Mexican Beans, Brown Bread, Chocolate Sesame Flapjacks, cakes and cookies - as I try to clear some space in the kitchen. Now, where did my new uniform disappear in the move?
Well, I've taken the plunge. Notice has been given at work. Going away parties (the Baggott Inn's self-serve Guinness taps proved particularly popular!), dinners and drinks have been partaken in. After ten years living in Dublin and five years in Cork city, it's time to return to the country. This weekend, the Husband and I move out of our horrible little Dublin flat and, in less than two weeks, on 17 September, I start the 12-week certificate course at Ballymaloe Cookery School.
It really is going back to school time. For the first time since I left second level, I have a uniform list and had to wander down to O'Connor's Workwear on Capel Street yesterday afternoon to purchase two sets of chefs' rig outs - white jackets, check trousers, the lot. Aprons, engraved knives and wine textbooks have been ordered directly from the school and a trip to Reeds filled my stationary requirements. All equipped, I'm ready to embark on a new phase of life as I take my hobbies - writing about food and cooking - and try to make them into something that I can earn a living from. Wish me luck!
Unless absolutely necessary, I tend to avoid bed and breakfasts. I've stayed in many around Ireland and most experiences are nothing to write about - unless in a negative manner. Last year's May Bank Holiday we were forced into B&B accommodation in Westport by weather unsuitable for camping. After we spent the evening avoiding a particularly racist guest, breakfast was enlivened by talk of the May Day flowers that had been left for our piseog-loving landlady. There was a landlady in Navan who thought we were only staying one night and could only offer us bed, no breakfast, for the second night. The best of the lot, however, has to be the Carlingford B&B where the bedroom was painted blood red - the walls, the ceiling, the skirting board, the bathroom even had a matching red toilet and bath! Most disturbing, I spent the night having nightmares about being trapped in a womb.
The one exception that I've come across in Ireland is a B&B just outside Ballymoney in County Antrim, that myself and the Husband stayed in years ago. We had a large, comfortable room, it was run by friendly but not too nosy proprietors and, best of all, they had alternatives to the usual fry-up breakfast - smoked salmon, pancakes and French toast were all for the eating if you gave notice the night before.
This weekend, en route to a wedding in Scotland, we discovered another wonderful B&B. We flew in to Inverness on Friday and, after searching through Organicholidays.co.uk, decided to spent the night at Shenval B&B. The Husband used to do a lot of walking in Glen Affric and was familiar with the area so, after hiring a car, we proceeded onwards to Drumnadrochit and went to stay with Pierre and Christiane Lebrun. Shenval is a small but comfortable B&B, with just three rooms (we ended up in the twin!) and a shared bathroom. After an afternoon snooze, an essential part of any holiday, we followed Pierre's advice and took walked to Corrimony Cairn, just far enough to encourage enough appetite for dinner.
We sat down to the table with a pair of French birdwatchers, for a simple but substantial feed of Scottish specialities - haggis with clapshot, a mixture of turnip and potatoes, followed by Cranachan (a mixture of whipped cream, whisky, honey, and fresh raspberries topped with toasted oatmeal). With dinner, the four of us shared a bottle of wine which we had brought along, sitting over tea and shortbread afterwards with Pierre and Christiane. A relaxed breakfast the following morning, complete with tattie scone and homemade bread, set us up nicely for the day ahead. As we left to drive to Lossiemouth, Pierre and Christiane stood at the door to wave us off, making the whole experience feel more like a visit to friends than a necessary evil. Dinner, bed and breakfast for two was £70. Money well spent.
Just a reminder that the Festival of World Cultures kicks off tonight in Dún Laoghaire. It is taking place all weekend with lots of free music and plenty of good eating. Slow Food has a stand at the Cool Earth eco-fair in the Town Hall so, if you're interested in learning about SF - and tasting some products from Irish artisan producers! - call in over the weekend.
For anyone who is interested in the relationship between food and farming in Ireland, the annual Euro-toques National Food Forum and Fair - entitled Reconnecting: Farming, Food & Rural Communities - will be taking place at Brooklodge Hotel in Macreddin Village, Co Wicklow on Sunday 2 September. On this year's panel are Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Trevor Sargent; UK organic movement pioneer and champion Helen Browning; Gerry Scully, the programme manager for Rural Development with Teagasc; Irish Farmers Journal columnist and farmer Peter Young; and Ross Lewis, chef/proprietor of Chapter One Restaurant and Commissioner of Euro-toques Ireland.
Peter Young, together with his wife, Jenny, recently opened Castlefarm Shop, a farm shop in Co Kildare selling organic, homemade and homegrown food. I've been reading about their dairy farm's conversion to organics and the work involved in running a weekly stall at a farmer's market as documented in Jenny's monthly column in Food & Wine Magazine. The farm shop definitely sounds like something to call into if you're around the area - I've added it into the Kildare page of my Bridgestone Irish Food Guide for future reference!
The forum takes place from 11am to 1.30pm and, after a break so that delegates can visit the nearby market, an organic and wild food barbecue will take place at the chapel in the grounds of Brooklodge Hotel. Last year's debate on food tourism in Ireland touched on many interesting points but it was all too short to fully discuss the issues raised. Still, it's an event well worth going to - lots of conversation with opinionated people, new producers to discover in the market and some really wonderful food at the barbeque. The forum, market and barbeque, which includes champagne reception and wines, costs just €45. For more information and bookings contact Ruth Hegarty of Euro-toques Ireland at info@eurotoquesirl.org.
Thanks to Slow Food Dublin for an educational, entertaining and delicious evening at last night's Malaysian food cookery demonstration and dinner. With four trips to visit my family in Malaysia over the past five years, I've enjoyed every opportunity to sample the foods on offer and Mee Goring, Roti Canai, Teh Tarik, Kaya and Murtabak are just a few of the things that I love to eat while travelling there. While there may not have been any Teh Tarik or Roti on offer last night, chefs Rama and Mat Ju cooked up a storm in front of the crowd - yummy Mee Goring, morish Onion Bhajis, a well-flavoured Vegetable Curry, and Dosai - fermented lentil and rice pancakes - with Coconut Chutney. After the demonstration, we feasted on a buffet which also included slow-cooked Beef Rendang, Nasi Lemak or Coconut Rice, and a few savoury additions - crispy ikan billis (dried anchovies), hard boiled eggs, chutney, peanuts and fresh cucumber.
Although the food was very good, eating it in Fallon & Byrne's comfortable upstairs function room meant that the experience lacked a certain roadside charm that only comes from sitting on rickety stools by a food stall somewhere in Malaysia, hot, sweaty and starving, our dusty feet sticking out into the sunshine as we await plastic platefuls of whatever we've ordered, while drinking the refreshing juice from a hacked-open coconut. You'll only get that experience in Malaysia itself but the taste memories that flooded back last night when I ate a combination of Nasi Lemak, ikan billis and egg brought many a Malaysian breakfast to mind.
The next Slow Food get together in the Dublin region is a spit roast feast at The Church in Macreddin Village by Brooklodge Hotel in Wicklow. Local Wicklow foods - Three Wells Farmhouse Ice Cream, organic vegetables and salads from Gold River farm, Old MacDonnell's Farm soft goats' cheese and yoghurts, Sweetbank Farm seasonal fruits - will be served alongside slow spit roasted Wicklow lamb together with mackerel and vegetables cooked on the barbeque. That event takes place on Sunday 22 July and there's more information available at Slow Food Ireland.
West Cork is undoubtedly a fantastic place to spend time in even if, as happened to us on last week's communal honeymoon, it pours for most of the time. We were lucky enough to be staying in a wonderful cottage on
