May 13, 2008
Old china
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.
Posted by Caroline at 3:05 PM | Comments (0)
Site upgrade - hopefully
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.
Posted by Caroline at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2008
Just in season...
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.
Posted by Caroline at 4:11 PM | Comments (0)
May 6, 2008
The Glebe Gardens, Baltimore
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!
Posted by Caroline at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
May 1, 2008
James Beard Foundation Awards nominees
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.
Posted by Caroline at 9:28 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2008
Sprouts ahoy!
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.
Posted by Caroline at 5:30 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2008
Bibliocook in The Irish Times
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
Posted by Caroline at 10:33 AM | Comments (4)
April 15, 2008
Slow Food Cork: An Crúibín
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.
Posted by Caroline at 9:33 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2008
Pig as performance piece
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...
Posted by Caroline at 12:09 PM | Comments (2)
April 11, 2008
Mallow Farmers' Market on TG4
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.
Posted by Caroline at 9:23 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2008
Waterford dates for your diary
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.
Posted by Caroline at 9:09 PM | Comments (2)
April 8, 2008
Sweet treats for work: Nutty Chocolate Squares
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.
Almond Honey Squares
Plain flour - 150g
Freshly ground nutmeg - ½ teaspoon
Ground almonds - 60g
Light brown Muscovado sugar - 110g
Butter - 90g, melted
Topping
Eggs - 3, beaten together
Light brown Muscovado sugar - 55g
Honey - 90g
Milk chocolate - 100g, melted
Slivered almonds - 210g
Preheat oven to 180˚C and grease a 20 x 30cm tin.
Mix the flour, nutmeg, ground almonds, sugar and melted butter in a large bowl. Press evenly over base of prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Allow to cool and reduce oven to 160˚C.
Combine the eggs, sugar, honey and melted chocolate for the topping. Pour over cooled base and sprinkle with the slivered almonds. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until topping is set. Cool in the tin and refrigerate for several hours before cutting into about 20 squares.
Posted by Caroline at 8:36 PM | Comments (0)
April 6, 2008
Taste of Cork
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!
Posted by Caroline at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)
April 3, 2008
The revolution will not be pasteurised
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.
Posted by Caroline at 8:32 PM | Comments (7)
April 2, 2008
Trish's Paris Kitchen
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.
Posted by Caroline at 7:57 AM | Comments (0)
April 1, 2008
Mallow Farmers' Market
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!
Posted by Caroline at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2008
Dublin food and wine events
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.
Posted by Caroline at 7:06 AM | Comments (3)
March 24, 2008
More Easter chocolate
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".
Posted by Caroline at 4:42 PM | Comments (4)
March 19, 2008
A few days in London...
...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!
Posted by Caroline at 8:06 AM | Comments (5)
March 4, 2008
Our Grannies' Recipes
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.
Posted by Caroline at 10:57 AM | Comments (1)
March 3, 2008
Irish Blog Awards 2008
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!
Posted by Caroline at 11:35 PM | Comments (2)
March 1, 2008
Irish Blog Awards - tonight
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!
Posted by Caroline at 7:27 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2008
Baking and breadmaking on Mooney
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.
Posted by Caroline at 11:06 AM | Comments (3)
February 13, 2008
Guerrilla Gourmet: Kevin Thornton
Kevin Thornton's Guerrilla Gourmet evening at the Rock of Cashel is now online here for any fellow television-less fans of the show.
Posted by Caroline at 8:11 PM | Comments (0)
February 8, 2008
"There's more to a meal than steak..."
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.
Posted by Caroline at 11:31 AM | Comments (2)
February 5, 2008
Blog Awards 2008
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.
Posted by Caroline at 10:56 AM | Comments (5)
February 4, 2008
Pancake Tuesday
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.
Posted by Caroline at 7:45 PM | Comments (2)
January 29, 2008
Baking in Ireland
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?
Posted by Caroline at 12:52 PM | Comments (11)
January 27, 2008
Missing in action
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!
Posted by Caroline at 6:21 PM | Comments (6)
January 7, 2008
Tastes of Christmas
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...
Posted by Caroline at 5:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2007
Christmas Pressies for Foodie Friends
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!
Posted by Caroline at 11:47 AM | Comments (4)
November 23, 2007
www.greatfood2buy.com
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?!
Posted by Caroline at 2:36 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2007
Transition Time
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?
Posted by Caroline at 7:55 PM | Comments (2)
September 4, 2007
What's next? Ballymaloe!
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!
Posted by Caroline at 7:47 PM | Comments (27)
September 3, 2007
Visiting Scotland
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.
Posted by Caroline at 7:44 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2007
Festival of World Cultures
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.
Posted by Caroline at 7:08 PM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2007
Euro-toques National Food Forum and Fair
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.
Posted by Caroline at 9:50 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2007
Malaysian food in Ireland
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.
Posted by Caroline at 6:52 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2007
Honeymooning in West Cork
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 Ardagh Castle Goat Farm but, with eight of the Husband's family nearby in Baltimore and another half-dozen English Engineers staying out on the Sheep's Head Peninsula, there wasn't much time to properly appreciate the beautifully restored cottage! We did, however, get a chance to feast on the owner's crumbly, Wensleydale-style Ardagh Castle Goat's Cheese. A picnic hamper of Norfolk food specialities from two of the English Engineers yielded up a tube of Letheringsett Watermill Spelt Biscuits which had enough sweetness to marry happily with the cheese. Ardagh Castle Goat's Cheese is only available locally around Baltimore and at the Saturday farmer's market in Skibbereen but I've managed to export a large chunk of it to North Cork.
A week is a short time, especially when it only stretches from Monday to Saturday so we didn't manage to get round to visit all the places which I had hoped to or, unfortunately, any of the great suggestions from Jenny at Where's the Salt. Although I drove past The Good Things Café several times en route to visit the English Engineers, it wasn't open at the time, although I did take a peek inside at the newly-painted café premises! With so many people around, a dinner at Heir Island Cottage had to be abandoned this time round, although it does give us an excuse for another trip down to that area of the country.
Of the things that we did get round to doing, The Glebe Gardens, on the road into Baltimore, were well worth a visit. We were particularly taken by the potager garden, flowers and vegetables growing in fruitful profusion side-by-side and the Husband loved their polytunnels - especially when the heavens opened and we needed shelter. Their café was also being refurbished (and should be open again for business soon) but we didn't really need afternoon refreshment, after having a long, leisurely and very good lunch at Rolf's Country House, just above the town. Of the pubs in the area, we enjoyed a night at the Tin Pub in Ahakista and a window seat at Bushe's Bar in Baltimore proved to be a comfortable place to watch the rain teaming down.
A trip to Friday's Bantry Market showed just how easy it is to eat locally in West Cork. We stocked up on Gubbeen salami, chorizo and smoked bacon (read more about the Fergusons of Gubbeen here), grabbed some pesto, sundried tomatoes and butter bean salad from the olive stall, some old-fashioned, bone-handled cutlery to eat with, a slice of pâté from Frank Krawczyk of West Cork Salami, and the pièce de résistance, a set of four asparagus plants for a new asparagus bed that the Husband (still getting used to that new name!) kindly rabbit-proofed last weekend. I also caught him browsing through information on polytunnels while at the market - wonder how much longer we'll be without one?!
Weather aside, there's plenty to look at, do and eat in West Cork. For us it was the perfect place to honeymoon, communally or not. Now, to get used to normal life as a married couple...
Posted by Caroline at 7:05 AM | Comments (13)
June 7, 2007
Growing like crazy
Life is busy - but, despite a routine that involves week-long neglect and frenzied activity at the weekend, the cottage garden is thriving! The Boyfriend is a member of the Irish Seed Savers Association so we got a few different types of potatoes from them, planting Cara, Ratte and Arran Banner varieties, along with some Roosters that sprouted in the bottom of the cupboard in March. They were all - apart from the Roosters, which is a more floury variety and an accidental planting - chosen deliberately for their blight resistant and waxy properties. So far the blight resistance, together with the blight-spray ministrations of a very helpful neighbour, seems to be working so hopefully there won't be a reprise of the Great Irish Famine in Ballyvoddy (still, there's always rabbit for the eating...)
The Irish Seed Savers were a great source of interesting-sounding plants, as were a very helpful company called Brown Envelope Seeds. On one of the dark, dreary February nights, while travelling back to Dublin on the train, the Boyfriend and I pored over our catalogues, and after many arguments and discussions, picked what we thought was a restrained amount of seeds. With visions of Ushiki Kuri Squash and Babington Leeks dancing in our heads, there was lots of excitement as the packets arrived. And then, between driving up and down the country on Fridays and Sundays, maintaining full-time jobs in Dublin during the week and busy weekends at the cottage, we had to find time to actually plant them.
Sown with the help of the Little Brother over Easter, the seeds turned out to be extraordinarily fertile and we ended up with an enormous amount of seedlings in old cream, yoghurt and vegetable cartons. It took us quite a while but they were eventually planted out in fits and starts over the last month and we now have Magic Rainbow Chard, Niki's Cut and Come Again Kale, rocket, tomatoes, celeriac, (lots of) purple sprouting broccoli and Painted Mountain Sweetcorn all safely behind the rabbit proof fence. Although there have been attempts by the rabbits to infiltrate our wee veggie patch, they've not yet succeeded and hopefully, fingers very much crossed, won't manage at all. Due to the kindness of the aforementioned neighbour who has a very well-maintained vegetable garden, we also have leeks and beans planted, along with some garlic, and edible flowers like marigolds, nasturtiums and sunflowers. Our old damson and apple trees have set well, as have the more or less ignored blackcurrant bushes. Lemon thyme, regular thyme, rosemary, parsley, chives and a little bay tree are all thriving in pots by the back door - near enough for me to actually use the herbs - and plants of black peppermint and lemon verbena are settling into place.
The Boyfriend - who next week will become the Husband! - has already plans for the extension of the veggie patch. Black weed-proof matting has been laid in an adjoining block and - mentally, at least - seeds have been sown for next season. I've been talking to a gardener at Annes Grove Gardens (a place well worth packing a picnic to visit) about getting artichoke plants for next year and there's a list of vegetables that we want to grow stuck on the front of the gardener's encyclopaedia that has become our bible. And it's all so worth it when you go out into the garden, colander in hand, and are able to pick enough rocket and soft herbs for a delicious, home-grown side-salad. It tastes even better when you can sit outside in the sunshine to enjoy it!
It may be quiet around here for the next couple of weeks as we're off to spend some time in the cottage before the Boyfriend's family arrive for next weekend's wedding celebrations. We're honeymooning, en famille, down in Baltimore, West Cork so if anyone has any foodie suggestions for the area, they would be very gratefully received! We're staying at a goat farm and already on the list are Heir Island, The Glebe, Organico and Rolf's Restaurant. I might even have to try out some of Conor's recommendations around Bantry and, in a non-foodie context, there's also Haydn Shaughnessy's art gallery to visit down in Kilbrittain. A week will be much too short!
Posted by Caroline at 7:25 AM | Comments (13)
May 18, 2007
Baker's Edge in Ireland
One of the many interesting things about food blogging is tracing the movement of ideas and recipes around the widespread world of bloggers. Since the first time I read about Mark Bittman's No-Knead Bread - currently on my (very long!) list of recipes to try - in the New York Times it has travelled far and wide. You'll also find Peabody's Cranberry Orange Cookies a-wandering around other people's blogs, as is Donna Hay's Self Frosting Cupcake recipe, which first surfaced on Niki's Baking Sheet and then moved out into the wider world.
The Baker's Edge baking pan is one of those things that's been wandering around the blogging world for the last while. My interest was piqued when it popped up on Chocolate and Zucchini last year. Beautifully photographed, as always, by Clotilde (she also has a savoury recipe here), I loved its curvy snake-like shape and was intrigued with the idea of a baking pan - it was originally designed for brownies - that was designed to distribute heat equally so that there wouldn't be such a difference between edge and centre pieces. And then I promptly forgot about the Baker's Edge - until it started cropping up other blogs. A few months later, I've become the proud owner of what may be the only Baker's Edge in Ireland!
Solidly constructed from non-stick cast-aluminium, it came with a leaflet of recipes (cup measurements only) as well as a dinky little red spatula which helps to smooth cookie dough around the turns in the pan as well as being invaluable when it comes to dividing up brownies and getting them out of the dish. Unfortunately my Baker's Edge has become a victim of our current peripatetic lifestyle. Living in Dublin during the week and the country cottage at weekends means that it, much like my digital camera, always seems to be in the wrong residence when I want to bake! I still don't feel like I've given it a proper try-out but I have been experimenting with David Lebovitz's Friendship Bars, trying to convert the ingredients for Chef Emily's Signature Cookie Bars into metric and playing with a great recipe for Coconut Blondies (which is how I discovered the thermostat for my Dublin oven is screwy) that I got from the Connoisseur.
I'll just warn any potential purchasers that if they, like me, have a fan oven - nothing else seems to exist in Ireland any more, come back NZ cooker, all is forgiven - to be extra careful when cooking in this pan as it is all too easy to overcook things. I'm fiddling around with a few different recipes at the moment and hope to post them soon. In the mean time, you can read about why the Baker's Edge came about and creator Matt Griffin's efforts to bring it into the market, and browse through some recipes here.
Posted by Caroline at 7:30 PM | Comments (4)
May 15, 2007
A Taste of Yellow: Round-Up
If you're in the mood for yellow food, Barbara over at NZ food blog Winos and Foodies has managed to wade her ever-gracious way through a total of 143 - that's no typo, I did say 143! - entries for her A Taste Of Yellow foodie event.
When I first started blogging, while living in New Zealand in 2005, it wasn't long before I discovered Winos and Foodies, one of - as far as I know - the first NZ food blogs and I've been a fan ever since, admiring Barbara's ever-inspiring zest for life, food, Donna Hay, baking and blogging, despite her ongoing battle against cancer.
Barbara's A Taste of Yellow, in support of Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG Day, is about raising cancer awareness and it has also become about people sharing their own cancer stories. You'll find her very comprehensive round-up here.
Posted by Caroline at 4:16 PM | Comments (3)
April 23, 2007
Peter Gordon Webchat
The first time I heard of Peter Gordon - the New Zealand-born, London-based chef of the Providores and Tapa Room - was when the whole Antipodean fusion cookery style was being written about in English newspapers like The Sunday Times during the early 1990s (my newspaper of choice through college although, after discovering Nigel Slater's food section in The Observer, I've never looked back!). While I lived in New Zealand in 2005, he opened a restaurant in Auckland - dine by Peter Gordon - and as a result was all over the NZ newspapers and food magazines. That's how I came across his fantastic and much-made (it's especially good as a Christmas pressie) Tomato and Chilli Jam recipe.
Peter is also a consultant for Air New Zealand, Tourism New Zealand and New Zealand Lamb. Unique Interactive recently got in contact to let me know that, wearing his lamb ambassador hat, Peter will be online for a webchat at www.uniqueinteractive.co.uk/chat on Wednesday 25th April from 2pm to 4pm. Darina Allen is also a fan - he was a guest at the Ballymaloe Cookery School last year.
Posted by Caroline at 4:46 PM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2007
Slow Food Ireland: The Future of Irish Food
If you're interested in sustainable food production, all three Slow Food Dublin Convivia are hosting a film screening and debate at The Sugar Club in Dublin on Tuesday 8 May. The films that will be shown are: Fowl, an Irish documentary by Andrew Legge, which examines modern day chicken farming and western people's relationship with food; and The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, a film about how a country can successfully traverse the reduction and loss of finite fossil fuel resources.
Andrew Legge, director of Fowl, will be in attendance on the night and Davie Philip, Education Manager of Cultivate, the sustainable living and learning centre in Temple Bar, will introduce The Power of Community and lead a discussion afterwards.
The Future of Irish Food: A Film Screening and Debate event will take place at The Sugar Club on Tuesday 8 May 2007 at 7.30pm. Cost: €12 (members) and €15 (non-members). See you there!
Posted by Caroline at 6:02 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2007
Housekeeping: Food reports and Irish blogs
There were two interesting food pieces on RTÉ news programmes over the weekend - Jennie O'Sullivan reported on a Slow Food Ireland promotion at a farmers' market in Kinsale on the Six One News and there was also a feature on Morning Ireland about the new farmers' market in Ballymun.
Also, here are a few more new Irish food blogs...
Eat Drink Live: I missed Limerick-based Laura's blog last time round but fortunately Val pointed her out. She is currently running a monthly muffin recipe on the site (check out the fabulous Paddy's Day ones here) and - as a result of her blog - has just started supplying Italian deli La Cucina with muffins, cookies and other assorted sweet stuff.
Italian Foodies: speaking of La Cucina, owners Lorraine and Bru have their own blog at Italian Foodies. Lots of simple Italian recipes, information on Italian foodstuffs and lessons on how to eat like an Italian.
Eat Me Drink Me: Abulafia's inspired experiments with Homecured Bacon and Pork Rillette are well worth reading. Plus she's also a fan of one of my favourite seasonal cookbooks, The Cook and The Gardener by Amanda Hesser.
Quirky Blog: Quirky Kitchen.ie has its own wee blog on the go, with a few recipes - just beware of straying on to the rest of the site which has lots of lovely bakeware, my favourite cast iron pots, all kinds of useful gadgets - and they deliver free in Dublin for orders over €100.
Posted by Caroline at 7:57 PM | Comments (5)
March 30, 2007
Moving time
It's moving week so there's not much cooking and baking going on, apart from me making loaves of brown bread to try and use up some of the six - yes, count them, SIX! (and that's not mentioning the few that are down at the cottage, ahem...) - bags of flour that I have sitting on my shelves. The flat that we are moving into in Dublin is much smaller and doesn't have a freezer so for a while there was a mad race to finish up all the frozen foodstuffs at our current place. Then we made a quick trip to DID Electrical so we now have a new under-counter freezer and the pressure is off. It still leaves me scratching my head at some of the things that I have in there though. Who knows why I froze a brioche loaf or what kinds of curry are in all those little plastic containers that I use for lunches? Certainly not the person who should have been labelling them!
The dry food cupboards are also well supplied - too well supplied. My habit of bringing food home every time I go travelling makes every cupboard clear-out a memory trail. There's a little leftover honey and argan oil from Morocco, along with some dukkah that didn't get used up when the weather turned cooler. My baking supplies at the cottage have been supplemented with vanilla bean paste and natural almond extract from our December stop in Norfolk, there's wine from New Zealand and Spain to move, not to mention the other fruits of that trip to Barcelona - membrillo (quince paste), fig and nut cake, several chorizo from the Boqueria food market, assorted chocolates and the most of a kilo of garlic. All week we've been eating soups and Socca, quinoa (very good used instead of bulgar wheat in this salad with Pomegranate Molasses Dressing) and a Chocolate Biscuit Cake with coconut, nuts and wheatgerm (decidedly tasty, despite being made from a ragbag of ingredients). I now have a new cooker and kitchen to break in - once I get everything out of their boxes - but, before that we're off on a long-promised trip to try out the much lauded Old Convent in Clogheen with the cousins and their partners...
Posted by Caroline at 4:22 PM | Comments (3)
March 27, 2007
HHDD #10 Cheesecake: Round Up
If my (cracked and misshapen!) Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake has whetted your appetite, check out Peabody's round up of cheesecakes from around the world. There is a grand total of 54 cheesecakes and all votes have to be in by next Saturday, 31 March.
Warning: this is not something to go looking at in the run-up to lunchtime. All the photos of fabulous cheesecake concoctions will definitely have you drooling!
Posted by Caroline at 6:21 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2007
Happy St Patrick's Day!
Because I know I won't be able to post from the cottage on St Patrick's Day - we're down for the weekend to get the spuds planted on the traditional day, 17 March, in the Boyfriend's painstakingly rabbit-proofed garden - I'm going to celebrate Paddy's Day with a round-up of new Irish food blogs. If there's anyone else out there, just let me know!
The Humble Housewife - an American Irishwoman, living in Edenderry with her American husband and two daughters, Deborah definitely has her hands full with a couple of blogs but is also thinking of getting back into food catering. Check out her recipes for Sticky Cinnamon Buns, Deborah's Divine Dinner Biscuits and lots of family-friendly dishes.
Organico Bantry - this independent family-run café, shop and bakery in Bantry has a blog, although it takes a little fiddling around to locate it, with lots of great healthy recipes using organic, fairly traded and locally sourced products. Next time I get my hands on some beetroot, I'm going to try out their Organic Beetroot Salad. The last time we had beetroot I pickled it, using a recipe from Darina Allen's Simply Delicious Vegetables, and it was good but it did linger around a little longer than necessary. Anyhow, anything with yoghurt can always get my attention.
Stuff Yer Bake - although based in England, Sarah's is very definitely an Irish blog, with a subtitle like: "The mad ramblings of a Northern Irish foodie". Take a look at her picture of a delectable pork belly, just after an update on cake decorating and before one on her diet, which she illustrates with a picture of and recipe for the River Café's Orange, Almond and Cardamom Cake. Diet? What diet?
Superyacht Chef - Niall Harbison is a private chef on super yachts and there's plenty of video footage of his cooking on board. He's also working on raising money for an orphanage in Africa and you can find more information on that project here.
The Diet Cast - Hayden's blog about eating healthily, with plenty of information and links on growing your own food, sustainable living and food concerns. He has also just announced a competition on fellow site My Diet Friends for anyone interested in writing about sustainably sourced and prepared food. If we ever manage to grow anything in our rabbit-infested garden - or even manage to catch a few of the pests - I'll definitely be up for that.
Val's Kitchen - Val always has fantastic photos on her site - check out her spectacular St Patrick's Day cookies - and I always love to read reviews of local eateries.
And here's also a couple of websites about sustainable living in Ireland that are well worth taking a look at:
The Good Life: Self-Reliance In An Uncertain World
Irish Sally Gardens: living the sustainable dream in rural Ireland
Posted by Caroline at 10:18 PM | Comments (9)
March 5, 2007
Doh! The Irish Blog Awards...forgotten
Did I mention that I was a bit dotty with dates recently? I'm raging that I managed to MISS the Irish Blog Awards, thinking that it was on next weekend. It actually took place last night and I only discovered when I did a wander around the Irish blogosphere this morning. Although I'm disappointed that I didn't manage to make it along, it was great to see that some of my favourite bloggers were among the winners. Take a bow Ice Cream Ireland (Best Business Blog, Best Specialist Blog), Conor for Best Blog Post (You may feel a small prick), the lovely ladies at Beaut.ie (Best Design and Best Newcomer) and The Sigla Blog (Best Arts and Culture). Congratulations all!
The Winners:
Best Videocast: Allyn Quigley – Size Matters
Best Designed Blog: Beaut.ie
Best Podcaster: EdgeCast (Conn O Muineachain)
Podcast: An Lionra – 06 12 06
Best Business Blog: Ice Cream Ireland
Best News/Current Affairs Blog: IrishElection.com
Best Sport & Recreation Blog: Tom's Sporting Almanac
Best Technology Blog/Blogger: Bernie Goldbach
Best Use of the Irish Language in a Blog: Hilary NY
Best Newcomer: Beaut.ie
Best Personal Blog: RedMum
Best Group Blog: In Fact Ah
Best Specialist Blog: Ice Cream Ireland
Best Political Blog: IrishElection.com
Best Music Blog: Nialler9
Best Arts and Culture Blog: Sinéad Gleeson's The Sigla Blog
Best Contribution to the Irish Bloggersphere: Bernie Goldbach, promptly passed on to Irish Blog Awards organiser Damien Mulley
Best Photo Blog: Headphoneland
Most Humorous Post: Twenty Major - Countdown to Next Election
Best Blog Post: Conor's Bandon Blog – You may feel a small prick
Best Blog: Twenty Major
Posted by Caroline at 7:50 PM | Comments (8)
February 28, 2007
Fairtrade chocolate at Amnesty in Dublin
Fairtrade Fortnight kicked off on Monday this week and, if you're not off chocolate for lent this year, you can indulge and feel suitably virtuous at Amnesty Ireland's launch of their fairly traded and organic bars of chocolate. It takes place tomorrow night, Thursday 1 March, at 7pm in the Freedom Café on 48 Fleet Street in Dublin's Temple Bar and admission is €5 per person. Rumour has it that there'll be a chocolate fountain in situ.
Incidentally, if you're about town and looking for a decently priced, delicious lunch, the Freedom Café is definitely the place to go - and, if you're interested in chocolate supplies for baking, pick up a doorstopper 1kg bar of their Amnesty Fairly Trade Chocolate.
For more information on fair trade and the Fairtrade brand, there was a good article in Sunday's Observer Food Monthly Magazine (I'm only getting through Sunday's papers at this stage in the week!) here and you can also listen to a feature on RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
Posted by Caroline at 7:39 AM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2007
Looking for information: Barcelona
I'm heading off to Barcelona with the sister for three days in a few weekend's time and I'd love some food suggestions! We've never been there before so this is completely new ground for us both. The Boyfriend has been recommending the "silky" coffee to me, the sister has lists of places to try out (she arrives several days before me) and, my appetite whetted by the Mediterranean Food Company's tapas class and several nights consumption at Dublin's Market Bar, I have every intention of eating my way through as much as possible of everything on offer in Barcelona.
After having very positive experiences with using the Lonely Planet World Food Guides in Thailand, Malaysia and Morocco - handy little books which incorporate information on food history, vocabulary, specialities and recipes in one pocket-sized package - I've ordered one on Spain to add to my collection. Fingers crossed that it arrives in time!
We're staying at a self-catering apartment in the Barceloneta area, which will give us the chance to ramble through the markets, buying fresh produce to prepare at home. What I would really like to do is a cooking class or walking tour of the markets with a local guide. Anyone know where I could find any information on something like this?
Posted by Caroline at 7:58 AM | Comments (7)
February 19, 2007
Thanks to all who voted, but...
...unfortunately Bibliocook didn't manage to make it through to the shortlisted stage of the 2007 Irish Blog Awards. However, some of my favourites did so best of luck to Beaut.ie, Sinéad Gleeson, One Breast Less, Conor O'Neill, The Waiting Game and Ice Cream Ireland on 11 March at the Alexander Hotel. You can see the full list here and a particularly big thank you to all who voted for Bibliocook!
Posted by Caroline at 8:14 AM | Comments (7)
February 12, 2007
Irish Blog Awards nomination
Wow! I'm delighted to see that Bibliocook is on the Best Specialist Blog longlist for this year's Irish Blog Awards. You can read more about the awards goings on here, all the longlists for the various categories are here and - very important this! - you can vote for your favourites here.
The best thing about these kind of longlists is the opportunity to discover lots of different blogs. I've also noticed several old favourites like Beaut.ie, Maguire's Movies, The Sigla Blog, Maman Poulet, Blogorrah, Conor's Bandon Blog, Winds and Breezes and Bubble Brothers. Other food blogs in my category - there are a total of 32 of us so forgive me if I don't post the whole list - are Random Grub and Ice Cream Ireland. I've also come across An Irish Craftworker's Good Life, Siopa Eile and Munster Pubs before but sites like One Breast Less, The Waiting Game and Burma Review also look well worth spending some time with.
Voting for this round will close on 16 February at 5pm and the award ceremony will take place on 3 March in Dublin's Alexander Hotel. Big thanks to Damien and Jason for all their work on this and best of luck to all the nominees!
Posted by Caroline at 8:01 AM | Comments (3)
February 7, 2007
The Italian School of Cooking
Thanks to Marco and Marcello, my hosts at the Italian School of Cooking, where I attended a class on pasta making last night. As well as learning how easy it is to make pasta without a machine - I was dead proud of my attempts at orecchiette! - I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening, eating and drinking, meeting people and being serenaded over dinner by a very enthusiastic Marco. The school, which is centrally located in Rathmines, is definitely worth checking out. Time to pick up a bag of durum flour from the Italian shop in Ranelagh for some pasta-making experiments down at the cottage.
Posted by Caroline at 5:19 PM | Comments (6)
February 6, 2007
Happy Waitangi Day!
Although we may be back in Ireland, today we are celebrating Waitangi Day, a national holiday in New Zealand, with that ubiquitous Kiwi desert - the pavlova. After bemoaning the lack of pavlovas in Irish supermarkets, the Boyfriend went off to work this morning laden with boxes of meringue nests, tubs of cream, my hand whisk and a nice pink bowl to assemble a selection of impromptu pavs for his workmates. Bron has an entertaining defence of the NZ claim to the pavlova here, along with many delectable pictures of her own fabulous Waitangi Day creation.
Posted by Caroline at 7:55 PM | Comments (2)
February 2, 2007
Boiled, Baked & Basted - encore
Boiled, Baked & Basted, the brilliant RTÉ Radio 1 programme that I mentioned in October, featuring chefs and cooks talking about their favourite cookbooks, sadly came to an end on 30 December. A simple but effective format - just the voice of the interviewee, interspersed by actors reading from cookbooks that they mentioned - made this essential listening for the cosy Saturday nights that we spent in the cottage. You can listen back to the whole 13-programme series on the all-new redesigned RTÉ.ie website here.
I've just discovered another informal wine course in Dublin. This one is on in The Vaults and starts on Tuesday 13 February at 6.30pm. The sessions are hosted by a Master of Wines from Findlater Grants and run every second Tuesday for four weeks, costing €35 per person per night. More information is online here (they also do a - pricy - cookery course and details for that are here).
Tuesday 13 February
Wines from Australia
Tuesday 27 February
Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir from around the world
Tuesday 13 March
Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon from around the world
Tuesday 27 March
Wines from Italy
Posted by Caroline at 8:35 PM | Comments (1)
January 29, 2007
Wine tasting in Dublin
I'd be the first to admit that, despit