Recently in Lovely Lunches Category

Last year, on a trip to London, I picked up a spork - a light plastic utensil which features a spoon at one end, fork at the other and serrated knife edge on the fork side - in a kitchenware shop and I've rarely been without it since. The last quarter of 2008 was taken up with train trips to Dublin as I worked on the Foodtalk documentary series and, food on the train being what it is - or isn't - my spork was invaluable.

Breakfast on the early morning Mallow-Dublin train was made easy by making sure there was some tortilla left over from last night's dinner to pack and eat en route but it was on the homeward leg, normally in the late afternoon, that the spork really came into its own. Short on time, I often ran into Fallon & Byrne or Avoca to choose from a selection of hummus, crackers, cheese, bread and pâté with, perhaps, a few cherry tomatoes thrown in for good measure.

After my usual last minute scramble to make the train, I relaxed, ensconced in my train seat, and - to the amusment of my fellow passengers - happily cut, scooped, spread and (s)forked up my supper. At that stage in the year, pregnant with Little Missy, I just couldn't wait until I got home for food or stomach the limp train sandwiches.

Since LM has started on solids, the spork is back in use again. For the last week, while we were housesitting for friends in East Cork, it let me prep her lunch on the move. Bananas, nectarines, pears or, on one day, much to Little Missy's distain, a kiwi fruit were brought along in a little bowl, peeled, chopped, mashed and fed to the child while we were out and about. While we were able to enjoy lunch in the Ballymaloe House Café (yum), Stephen Pearce Emporium (yum) or Aherne's of Youghal (hmm), LM chowed down on her own food, making it a positive experience for us as well as the other diners!

The only places I've seen these sporks in Ireland are in the shops at Ballymaloe House and the Ballmaloe Cooking School (priced about €2.95) but I think that they should be easy to find in outdoor shops and you can see them online at http://www.light-my-fire.se/230-147-spork.htm. Well worth picking up - for children of all ages.

I've had a sneaking fondness for the Crawford Art Gallery Café ever since I spent a Saturday working there while on the Ballymaloe Cookery Course and have returned several times since. The Husband and I were on a rare Saturday trip to Cork at the weekend, made all the hungrier for lunch by some cheese nibbling at our local Killavullen Farmers' Market, courtesy of Gudrun at Fermoy Natural Cheese. Despite the crowds in the café, we got a table quickly, which was just as well as I had already spotted lamb's liver on the menu.

Brought up in a house where liver and kidneys were a much-loved supper (I wouldn't touch potatoes but put a plate of liver in front of me and there was no problem!), I'm always delighted to find it in a restaurant, especially as the Husband wouldn't be an offal fan and we don't have at home very often. Being more orientated towards seafood, he chose the Crab, Ginger and Coriander Tart (€10.95), which came accompanied with organic salad leaves, a couple of slices of tomato which actually tasted of tomato and some pickled cucumber. My beautifully seared liver, topped with a couple of crispy bacon slices and a rich, peppery gravy, came on two slices of buttered toast, accompanied by the same selection of salads (€12.95). It was a substantial plateful of food - perfectly cooked liver, still pink inside - the accompaniments ensuring a good contrast of texture and flavour and so good that the (liver-hating) Husband tried a piece and came back, several times, for more.

Despite the temptation of plates full of shortbread biscuits and orange cake on the counter, not to mention the homemade ice cream on the menu, there was only time for mains on this trip (our afternoon tea date was coming up soon in the Natural Foods Bakery) but, after a dish like that, I wasn't left wanting too much more. When running at full speed, the Café can get noisy, especially if you're sitting in the central area, but anyone familiar with the Ballymaloe ethos knows that you're paying for what you're getting - immaculately sourced, well-produced raw ingredients, cooked well. All that, and a whole gallery's worth of art to spend the afternoon exploring. Make sure you don't miss the Harry Clarke room, right up at the top of the building.

Crawford Art Gallery Café, Emmet Place, Cork City. Ph: 021 4274415.

One of my major perks, on days I work from home, is having the opportunity to make myself something really good for lunch. If those days also happen to feature me making chicken stock or reconstituting a big bag of dried pulses – these things happen in the kitchen without me having to think about them – there's more of a treat in store. A couple of scoops of chicken stock get siphoned off to make a gutsy noodle broth, infused with slivers of ginger, garlic and chilli and eaten with relish. Freshly cooked butter beans can easily find themselves tossed with a sundried tomato dressing and some of the left-over roast pumpkin from last night's dinner.

My most successful recent impromptu lunch involved chickpeas. I cooked a few handfuls of the just-tender pulses in my cast iron pan with some olive oil, taking plenty of time, until they were toasty and golden, added some garlic and lemon juice while the pan was still hot then tossed them with plenty of freshly grated parmesan. Simple and delicious.

Barbara at Winos and Foodies is currently holding a once-off food bloggers event called A Taste of Yellow in support of LIVESTRONG Day 2007.

LIVESTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation's (LAF) grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer survivorship issues on a national level and in local communities across the country. LIVESTRONG Day 2007 will occur on Wednesday 16 May.

As Barbara says, everyone has been touched by cancer - I know my family and friends have - and she herself is currently undergoing treatment. For A Taste of Yellow she asked that we make a dish using a yellow food. I immediately thought of turmeric, a spice that I find myself using more and more for its warm, earthy flavour and vivid colour. The fact that it has recently come to attention for its reputed anti-cancer properties makes it all the more perfect for this event.

To showcase the colour and flavour of the turmeric, I decided make a one-pot dish of pilau rice. While this would make a good accompaniment to an Indian curry, particularly a tomato-based one, it is also good eaten by itself and makes a good lunchbox filler for a portable lunch.

When the weather is good no one wants to spend time in the kitchen and, when the Boyfriend arrived home from the supermarket the other day with a large box of button mushrooms, I didn't much feel like frying them or using them in an omelette strognoff or making a mushroom stroganoff or risotto or any one of the thousand and one things I use mushrooms for. I normally prefer the meatier, large flat Portobello mushrooms but, after spending the weeks in Morocco poring over Claudia Roden's salad recipes in A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, I had an idea for these styrofoam buttons.

I'm not a fan of boiling vegetables - it's all too easy to overcook them and you lose so much of the flavour in the water - so I'm always on the look out for alternative ways of cooking them and I've read a lot about the à la greque technique (in the Greek manner), which is vegetables cooked in a mixture of oil and vinegar, or lemon juice, with seasonings added. Claudia's variation on this theme is called Mushrooms in Olive Oil. I threw everything into the pan quickly, simmered it until the mushrooms were tender and then we headed off to a nearby park to sun ourselves. Coming back an hour later, with some fresh crusty bread, the mushrooms made a delicious light supper. The mushrooms were juicy and well-flavoured, there was plenty of dressing to be mopped up and, with a chunk of crumbly cheddar, we were more than happy. A cool supper - or could be a good lunch - for a hot day.

When the days get brighter and longer, a girl's thoughts turn to salad lunches. Based about 15 minutes walk away from any shops or cafés and blessed/cursed with a sloppy canteen, I bring my lunch to work year-round. Brown Bread and a fridge in the office are my lifesavers - the bread for toasting in the canteen and the fridge to store endless blocks of cheese for my normal lunch. Sometimes food bloggers eat boring food too! With the arrival of the summer, however, I start wanting a little more variety, particularly as the canteen is closed at the moment so I have no access to my toaster.

At one stage in my life I lived in a little hobbit-hole of a basement flat with other two girls and, for a brief time, we took it in turns to make lunches for each other - pasta salads, bean salads, couscous salads - that kind of thing. It had to be a dish that was happy to be made the night beforehand and sit around in the fridge. One of my favourite lunches then, and now, is a simple Puy Lentil Salad with Balsamic Dressing. There aren't very many ingredients needed here but what few there are should be very good. I always use the small, speckled blue-green Puy lentils in preference to the normal plain brown or green varieties (there's a very good page on the different sorts of lentils with pictures here). The Puy lentils are better at keeping their shape - always a useful trait in a salad, otherwise it can be very sludgy - and they have a lovely deep, almost peppery, flavour. They're also slightly more expensive than the others but they're definitely worth it.

Quality control should also follow through to the salad dressing which is nothing more complex than an amalgam of several of my store-cupboard favourites - a fruity extra virgin olive oil, richly intense balsamic, pungent wholegrain mustard, freshly ground pepper and Maldon sea salt. The basics mastered, there are many different ingredients that you can add to the salad. The one in the photo, along with the ever-present chopped red onion and garlic clove, has a diced red pepper and handful of snipped chives. I often add cheese, either chunks of mature cheddar or cubes of feta. Goat's cheese is also good but, between the Boyfriend and myself unable to leave it be, it rarely sticks around long enough to see the inside of a salad bowl. The small rice-like pasta shapes called orzo are also good in the lentils as are fresh soft herbs, tomatoes, olives, rocket or anything that you like. Just show some good judgment and don't add them all together.

A quick look round at other people's blogs for a few ideas throws up a myriad of great Puy lentil salad recipes. There's a fabulous looking Puy Lentil Salad with Feta Cheese on Moira's Who Wants Seconds blog and, to travel to the home of Puy lentils, you could try Salade de Lentilles Pomme et Cumin from Clotilde's Chocolate & Zucchini in Paris. Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg has a Lentil Salad with Tomatoes, Dill & Basil or you could try Julie's Aromatic Lentils and Orzo at A Finger in Every Pie. Check out Albion Cooks' Lentils Du Puy cooked in White Wine with Goat Cheese or, for another taste combination, try Jules's warm green lentil, chorizo & cavolo nero salad at stone soup.

In London there is a wonderful shop called Books for Cooks. A bookshop, filled with - what else - cookbooks, it is situated at 4 Blenheim Crescent in Notting Hill and is the kind of place that Sunday supplements wax lyrical about. As does anyone who visits the shop. It is small, not so very wide, and has bookshelves from floor to ceiling, crammed with hundreds upon hundreds of books of amazing dishes, foods, ingredients and people. There is a cosy, albeit battered, couch in the middle of the floor, right between a piled-high table and a low shelf - just the place to sit and leaf through one of the many books that will take you on a journey to far off lands or reveal more about your own culinary surroundings. All this, and I haven't yet got to the best bit.

When you walk into the shop, intent though you may be on cookbooks, your nose might distract you, leading you down the back, past the shelves and couch - to the Books for Cooks test kitchen. It's where the cooks - Ursula Ferrigno (Bread, Trattoria), Eric Treuillé (Bread, Planet Organic - Naturally Good Food), Celia Brooks Brown (New Vegetarian, Vegetarian Foodscape) Jennifer Joyce (The Well Dressed Salad) - work through recipes from the plethora of cookbooks on the shelves.

Each day they cook a different simple and seasonal menu - soup, quiche or tart, maybe a desert or two, a few cakes - serving lunches, coffees and sweet things until, as they say themselves, everything runs out. And, with the smells of slow roasted tomatoes and Lemon Polenta Cake mingling with that of black inky print and new paper, everything does disappear quickly. Don't even bother on a Saturday, much easier to grab a table or a space during the week and give yourself time to savour some good seasonal food with, perhaps a glass of wine from owner Eric's own biodynamic vineyard in South West France.

If, as happened to me, you find yourself slightly dazed by all the cookbooks on offer, then you could always go the easy way out and pick up one of Books for Cooks own cookbooks. These are collections of the most requested and best-loved recipes from the cookbooks used in the test kitchen, tried out on very willing customers. Engaging and inspiring, the slim volumes are what Carolyn Hart's Cook's Books, while entertaining, tried to do but didn't quite achieve. Familiar writers like Nigel Slater, Darina Allen, Sybil Kapoor, Donna Hay are all invoked, along with some less usual names - Tessa Bramley (The Instinctive Cook), Patricia Lousada (Flavours of the Sun) and Camellia Panjabi (Fifty Great Curries of India). The first time I was there, got a copy of their Favourite Recipes from Books 1, 2 & 3. I have since acquired volumes 4 and 5 and, methinks, a trip to the shop to check if there are any new additions, is soon in order. Books for Cooks - heaven on earth!

Books for Cooks is at 4 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, London, W11 1NN and - this is the important bit - is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10.00am to 6.00pm

Last Friday, over a glass of wine and some nibbles at a city centre tapas bar, the Boyfriend - after WEEKS of mystery - handed me my passport and...a guidebook for Paris! He had told me that we were going away for the weekend, we would be spending time in a city and that I had to pack for cold weather. Despite lots of guessing - I thought Galway, or maybe Belfast - I hadn't even come close to figuring out where we were going.

Coincidentally, I had been reading Clotilde's Paris-based Chocolate & Zucchini blog that morning. Between salivating over her descriptions of croissants aux amandes and peering with interest at the contents of her basket at the supermarket (I love visiting supermarkets in other countries), I was mentally planning a trip to Paris. Some dozen years ago, while au pairing in Chamonix, I had visited my friend - a fellow au pair - in Paris. At the time neither of us had any money so we just spent our time walking outside museums, reading menus and gazing longingly in patisserie windows.

Paris is the perfect city for food lovers - especially if you're not flat broke! We spent much of the weekend exploring Le Quartier Latin, thinking, talking about, sampling and eating all the wonderful French food on display. I could spend the rest of the week writing about the weekend but, instead, here are a few of the food highlights of our trip to Paris.

After my appetite had been well whetted by Denis Cotter's A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking, I decided that it was time to return to Café Paradiso itself and last weekend I went down to Cork. All my nights were tied up but Saturday lunchtime was designated Paradiso-time and who better to share it than my Sister, who lives in Cork, and the Canadian friend that I met in New Zealand. Both the girls are waitresses - one in the nearby Liberty Grill, the other in Cork's famous Jacobs on the Mall - so Café Paradiso wasn't getting the most uncritical audience.

As we arrived one-by-one and hadn't seen each other in a while, there was lots to catch up on so we were glad to be given a breathing space between the arrival of the menus and the taking of our order. We shared a starter of House Breads with Olive Oil, Cannellini Bean & Herb Dip and Marinated Olives. For mains, the Sister picked Leek, Roasted Roots & Gabriel Cheese Gratin with Hazelnut Crust, Tarragon Cream and Braised Cannellini Beans while the Canadian and I chose Lime-Grilled Haloumi with Harissa Sauce and a Warm Salad of Couscous, Roast Shallots, Green Beans, Chickpeas & Chermoula.

Bridget Healy, the co-owner of Café Paradiso, is from New Zealand, a fact which is evident from the first page of the wine list. There was an abundance of familiar vineyard names - Seifried, Cloudy Bay, Brookfields - and even my beloved Pegasus Bay Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon was represented. We eventually chose the St Clair Sauvignon Blanc 2004, a fresh and classy mouthful which was a happy match with our food.

The Haloumi was suitably styrofoam-like and deliciously salty. I really enjoyed the way it contrasted with the couscous, which was tossed with roasted shallots and my favourite chickpeas. The drizzle of chermoula on the plate was too quickly absorbed by the couscous but a few slices of pickled lemon on the side kept the dish lively. Although this dish was satisfying - so much so that I couldn't finish it - I think that the Sister won in the best dinner stakes. Mouth-wateringly good cannellini beans, which the Canadian and I started snaffling straight away, surrounded the gratin itself which was full of rich textures and flavours.

Comfortably replete after such good food and wine, we fell at the last fence and even the Lemon Tart with Praline Ice Cream couldn't tempt us. We did, however, manage to share a handful of rich handmade chocolate truffles, accompanying them with a couple of coffees and a very decent pot of real peppermint tea.

It was a leisurely lunch, staring at 1.30pm and winding up around two hours later, but at no time did we feel rushed or under pressure to finish up. The one odd note was the Sister's gratin arriving on the table before we had finished our plate of bread and dips but, being hungry, we weren't unduly phased. The waitstaff were efficient - at no time did our water jug run empty - but relaxed, becoming speedily helpful when I asked for the bill while the others were briefly absent from the table.

Our meal - a shared starter, three mains, chocolates, two coffees, a tea and a bottle of wine - came to the grand total of €81. Fabulously enjoyable and imaginative food at a reasonable price. I won't let a decade pass before my next visit.

Café Paradiso is situated at 16 Lancaster Quay in Cork. Phone: 021 4277939.

Even though I haven't been mentioning the Breadmaker very much recently, it does get a regular workout. Every so often we're out of Brown Soda Bread and it's just too much hard work to go down to the shop so I just throw ingredients into the Breadmaker bowl and it makes one of its little square loaves - which are, incidentally, the perfect size for the toaster.

Where the Breadmaker really has come into its own, though, is when I use it to make dough rather than finished bread. Take away all the kneading at the start and I'm much more likely to indulge in yeast cookery. There's a rather nice feeling that comes from working away on the computer when your Breadmaker is hard at work, kneading and rising something tasty for lunch or dinner.

Whether it's a simple naan-type flatbread to scoop up mouthfuls of dal or a large brown focaccia, fragrant with onion and rosemary, for a salad lunch, it's always satisfying - and not very much work - to have your own breads on hand. I've also been experimenting with some Orange Cinnamon Yeast Buns but I've yet to perfect that recipe!

The recipe I give below can be adapted for other types of flatbread. Just use the flavourings that appeal to you - it might be some chopped garlic or fresh herbs or nigella seeds - or make it plain and keep the flavour for the filling, splitting the flatbread like a pita and stuffing it full.

The focaccia is equally adaptable and is still delicious, toasted with a layer of cheese and chutney, the following day.

Last year, while still in Ireland, the Boyfriend and I attended a cheese-making weekend workshop at Rossinver Organic Farm in County Leitrim. My knowledge of cheese-making had previously been limited to a school outing during primary school. A schoolmate's father, Glenroe's Matt O'Brien, used to make a wonderful farmhouse cheddar called Glenosheen in the eighties. Sadly, Glenosheen Cheddar no longer exists but that was my first taste of a real cheese and, even to a pre-teen palate, it was quality stuff. I was no less fascinated by the workings of Matt's little cheese factory and, years later, all I had observed there made sense when I attended the cheese-making course at Rossinver.

Over the course of a fascinating and activity-packed weekend, Hans and Gaby Wieland taught us how to make a hard pressed gouda as well as yoghurt and a soft cheese, which we rolled into little balls and stored in olive oil (there are some pictures of the class in action here). Rossinver Organic Farm is a beautiful setting, we were fed delicious organic food at morning tea and lunchtime and the weekend was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Despite the very best of intentions, my cheese-making exploits since then have been non-existent - I managed to leave my unused rennet, cheesecloth and thermometers in Ireland, of course - but when I came across a simple soft goats cheese recipe in the Zest section of The Press recently I was determined to try it out.

Wandering down to Piko, I had no problem getting my hands on a litre of goat's milk. There were several choices but, in the interests of Buying Local, I bought the one produced in Canterbury. A few minutes on the cooker with the yoghurt and it had curdled enough to strain. I poured it into a cheesecloth-lined sieve, left it to drain and then salted it. The first time I made this cheese I got distracted during the heating process. As a result, the end product was more crumbly-textured than I would have hoped but a little natural yoghurt stirred through turned it into a more desirable spreadable consistency.

It was a gloriously warm spring day as we sat at the kitchen table with the French doors open to the warm breeze, eating my fresh-made goat's cheese on some homemade Brown Bread and focaccia (I'm getting creative with the Breadmaker!), accompanied with some freshly picked salad greens from our tiny vegetable garden. I've made it several times since then and I'm starting to think that maybe it's time to dig out the notes I took in Rossinver and start trying to make proper cheese.

Quinoa is something that I've been meaning to cook for quite a while. About ten years, in fact, ever since I read Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food. He has several recipes for this protein-packed ancient grain and, as with all his writings, I was seduced by the delicious descriptions. Not seduced enough, however, to seek it out in Ireland but, since arriving in New Zealand, I've come across it on several occasions. Eventually, an article in Cuisine led me to buy some from Piko which...just sat in the pantry until an inquiry about it from the Boyfriend's mother made me decide that it was time to actually try cooking it instead of admiring it every time I opened the door of the pantry.

Quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) is an ancient grain from the Andes in South America and was one of the staple foods of the ancient Incan civilization. With more high quality protein than any other grain, rich in nutrients, gluten free, easy to digest and quick to prepare it is easy to see how it has become touted as a new supergrain - and why it is so popular with vegetarians.

Another fact in its favour is its versatility. It can be boiled in plenty of water and then strained, cooked by the absorption method, used to make a type of risotto/pilaf and, like couscous or bulgur wheat, is a great base for salads. Like both those grains, it has a very neutral taste so it's best to season it well to avoid blandness.

For my first time cooking quinoa I decided to make it into a salad. Although I cooked it by the absorption method, the next time I have it in a salad I will use plenty of boiling salted water as it was a little stuck together. Or maybe that's just the way it turns out normally - I'll have to do some more tests! It was fascinating to watch the quinoa as it cooked. A small white thread appeared around each grain and then the grain swelled, becoming tender and juicy.

When it was cooked and the water evaporated off, I tossed it in my basic vinaigrette - extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, wholegrain mustard and plenty of seasoning - with a few chickpeas that I had also cooked that morning, some chopped red onion and fresh coriander from the garden. With enough good vinaigrette and everything tastes good anyway but, the real interest of the quinoa was in its texture rather than taste. My two testers - the Boyfriend and an English friend who is staying at the moment - and I had the salad for lunch and there were definitely seconds eaten!

When cooked, the small spherical grains turn translucent and soft while the thread - the external germ - remains crunchy. Quinoa has a unique bobbly texture which one of the lads described as porridge-like but I thought it was closer to fish roe, in a tasty way. Actually, it was so tasty that I had to go out to the kitchen just there and have another spoonful of the salad, in the name of research, you understand! I also went to Piko again this afternoon to buy some more quinoa for the next experiment. A tasty success.

Being flat stony broke these days, I like to try and bring my lunch to work with me rather than be dependent on cafés. Sometimes the lunch is leftovers from dinner the night - rice or pasta with some kind of sauce - but other days I am forced to rely on sandwiches.

Having eaten plain ham sandwiches for years as a secondary school student my boredom threshold is quite low so I try to ring the changes as much as possible with different breads, fillings and spreads. One thing that really lifts a sandwich, be it ham, cheese, pate or chicken, beyond the ordinary is this sticky and savoury Red Onion Marmalade. It's a great standby to have on hand. You can put it into jars if you want to keep it for a while but mine doesn't get a chance to hang around. I just put it straight into a covered tub in the fridge. It's great with any kind of sandwich, I have often pressed it into service as a relish when I've been eating cheese and crackers and, in her Cook's Companion, Stephanie Alexander suggests stirring a spoonful through cooked pasta.

Red Onion Marmalade is not difficult to make but it does involve some time. I find that it is a good thing to cook while you're doing other things around the house. Peeling the onions is probably the worst part of the job and, no matter what evasive action you take, you'll be shedding bucket-loads of tears before you get the last onion chopped! I try to stand by an open window or at least make sure the kitchen is well ventilated. After peeling each of the onions, rinse it under cold water and leave it to drip in a colander in the sink until you start chopping. This won't prevent the tears but it might lessen them somewhat.

It's not very often we go out for Sunday lunch but the fact that I had a voucher for the Riccarton House Café in Christchurch made our minds up for us last weekend. The café only does lunch but that's well worth the hour-long walk from our house.

It has the perfect setting. Riccarton House is a heritage attraction, a splendid example of Victorian and Edwardian housebuilding - complete with plenty of decapitated stags in the entrance hallway - and it is set in a 12-hectare reserve of ancient native forest and parkland. The homestead was the home of Canterbury's pioneering Deans family for 91 years and, when you arrive, you almost feel like you're walking into a private home.

The café is situated off the oak-panelled main entrance hallway in what might have been the Deans family sitting room. The tables and chairs are all solid and dark, as befits the space, but it does leave visitors with an absence of manoeuvring space. There are also tables outside on the veranda, overlooking the river but, despite the sunshine, it was too cold to sit there for long and we moved ourselves indoors before our meal arrived.

The menu isn't large but it is well balanced and there are plenty of choices. We settled on the pizza of the day with a topping of broccoli, blue cheese, caramelised onions and chicken. As we waited for our food, I hungrily observed delicious-looking dishes of goats cheese parcels, huge fluffy pancakes (they also serve a breakfast menu) and a pork roast arriving at nearby tables. Dishes to return for, perhaps. As it turned out we were more than happy with our pizza. While the base looked like it may have been made from wholemeal flour, it was thin and crispy enough to overcome this faux pas. Before it arrived, the Boyfriend had been bemoaning our lack of foresight in not ordering a serving of wedges as he saw them carried past us, but there were no complaints of hunger after we finished the pizza.

We did have enough room for desert so, although the Boyfriend was thinking about getting one of the scones resplendent on a table nearby, I managed to steer him towards a moist orange and poppyseed cake instead, which was served with yoghurt. Only after I promised to make a batch of scones at home! As for myself, I was seduced by the promise of a crème brulee. Although I have read a lot about these little French deserts and know how to make them - in theory at least - I had never actually tasted one. The waitress brought it over, apologising that the chef was only getting the hang of the blowtorch and sure enough there were little burnt patches on the caramel. Fortunately this only accentuated the experience of crisp caramel and light creamy custard. Not only did I finish it in double quick time, but the Boyfriend caught me using my finger to ensure that I hadn't let any custard behind. A couple of coffees and we were ready to rise. It was just as well that there was an hour's walk ahead of us!

Without the voucher the meal would have cost $34 for a shared main course, two deserts and two coffees.

Riccarton House Café is at 16 Kahu Road, Christchurch. Phone: 03 341 1018

One of the birthday presents that came from a thoughtful friend in Ireland was a very welcome book of Irish Cooking by Clare Connery. While this was a book that I might not have ever noticed in bookshops in Ireland, having several Irish cookery books already, here in New Zealand it is a pure treasure. With a subtitle of Over 100 Traditional Irish Recipes it's not likely that I'm going to run out of recipes to test any time soon. Leafing through it, the first thing that struck me were the recipes for Brown and White Soda Bread - instant nostalgia for the kitchens of my childhood where my mother, grandmother and aunts were always baking and there was much discussion over the best recipe for soda bread. Not that they ever used anything as prosaic as a weighing scales. It was always a handful of this and a drop of that.

I haven't tasted Brown Soda Bread since I left Ireland and so, while making Clare Connery's Ham and Pea Soup for supper, decided that this would be an ideal accompaniment. I found buttermilk, much to my amazement, at our small local supermarket and, in the absence of what Connery calls soda bread flour (I didn't know such a thing even existed in Ireland) made up the leavening difference with cream of tartar and bread soda, also known as bicarbonate of soda. After working with yeast breads for so long, the recipe was simplicity itself. Put all dry ingredients into a bowl, add buttermilk, mix, dump in tin and land in the oven. Despite me using what I thought was almost too much buttermilk, there were no problems.

Not knowing how much it would rise, I was loath to put the entire mixture into the tin which was looking rather full, so shaped the excess into a wee round loaf and cooked that on an enamelled pan. I certainly have some traditionalist leanings but, to subvert them, I scattered the top of the bread, not with some extra wholemeal flour as in the recipe, but with a handful of sesame seeds - not something which would have been readily available in the Ireland of my childhood.

The end result was something I would be happy to lay before my mother and aunts. While there was a slightly damp patch in the centre, this wasn't enough to cause problems and the brown soda bread went down a treat with the soup. The heretical sesame seeds, while not very noticeable on the fresh bread, came into their own when it was toasted for lunch the following day. I think this is a recipe that I'll be coming back to in the future, especially as you don't need to measure the ingredients - one cup of white flour to two of wholemeal and one of buttermilk and you're sorted. I'll dispense with the weighing scales yet!

A weekend by the sea in autumn is the perfect time for soups. What better lunch, especially eaten by the fire as you gaze out the window at the rolling grey sea. Although it's not especially cold, you feel like wrapping up warmly and doing the winter thing - and all the things you need for soup have managed to make it out of your city house and accompany you. So, never mind recipe books, this is something that can be made in minutes from some vegetables you have at hand.

Firstly, chop up a couple of onions. We're not talking slivers here but chunks, of a size that you won't mind eating when the soup is done. No liquidiser or food processor here. Throw them into a big pan that's been warming some olive oil and cook over a medium heat while you get on with the chopping.

Enlist the Boyfriend to chop up and thoroughly wash a leek while you peel and chop two carrots. Again, you don't want pieces that are too big, 1cm cubes are good. Give the onions a stir and throw in a couple of chopped rashers of bacon. Make sure everything is sizzling nicely. You want the onions to soften and sweeten in the cooking. When you see that the onions and bacon are looking good, add the chopped carrots and leek. Give it all a good stir, a couple of minutes to come back to sizzle status, and then add enough water to cover the vegetables. Put the lid on the pot and let it come to the boil.