Domane Wachau Grüner Veltliner 2006
Grüner Veltliner craze seems to be sweeping the country !
From the retailers that I have spoken to Grüvy really seems to becoming increasingly popular.  Continue reading »

Thanks to Andrew over at http://www.spittoon.biz I’ve found out I’m a Chardonnay.
What are you??
You Are Chardonnay
Fresh, spirited, and classic – you have many facets to your personality.
You can be sweet and light. Or deep and complex.
You have a little bit of something to offer everyone… no wonder you’re so popular.
Approachable and never smug, you are easy to get to know.  Continue reading »

As I mentioned yesterday, R and I had a large number of people over last weekend. And although I was by no means calm and composed, I think I handled feeding and entertaining 50 people quite well, if I do say so myself. I love entertaining friends and family, and really don’t mind putting the work into making a beautiful spread. If it wasn’t so darn expensive, I’d do it a whole lot more often!
Read after the jump for my 7 tips to make a kick ass fruit platter!  Continue reading »

I can’t help popping into shops this week, both online and off, and comparing prices.
I decided to run my basket for the week though the two main retailers who are online, Tesco and Superquinn. I haven’t the energy to trudge around shops that are not online doing the same.
When I did my shop for this…  Continue reading »

You know one of those days where everything seems to be a little bit off center?  The days where everything just doesn’t go as planned?  Well yesterday was definitely one of those days, it started off with a phone call from my dear old mammy, claiming she couldn’t find her booking on Ryanair and wanted help to locate it.  Being the ever
accommodating son, I spent the next forty minutes, trying every combination of reference number, credit card number, and email to try and retrieve it from the Ryanair website to absolutely no avail.  Continue reading »

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Here are the old (left) and new (right) labels of our popular Cava from Mas Codina.

Let me know if you think this is an improvement. I’m inclined to think it is, myself. If you could suggest why it is or isn’t in your view, so much the better.  Continue reading »

This may not be directly food related. But it’s worth a read. Very, very entertaining. I’m glad I didn’t have anyone like Giles Coren writing for me when I was editor of the North Belfast News. The link is for an article on the Guardian’s website which reproduces an e-mail the said restaurant critic sent to the Times’ subeditors after one of them removed the letter ‘a’ from the final paragraph of one of his articles.  Continue reading »

Today I’m going to review a little restaurant called Francesca’s Intimo that I’ve come to adore in the last few months. I’ve actually only been there twice but it’s become a fast favorite and the easy choice for a nice dinner, or say, a date.  Continue reading »

Last Friday a group of friends and I headed to L’Guelton to try and get rid of some of our hard earned summer-job money!! I had heard loads of really, really positive things about it and S raves about it every chance she gets – it’s her absolute favourite.
The only bad thing about the restaurant is that they don’t take bookings, so at 6 I found myself standing outside queueing for a reservation.  Continue reading »

So, it’s no going to be slightly harder to get booze legally with the The Intoxicating Liquor Act 2008 which kicks in tomorrow.
Most of it’s sensible enough stuff in principle, preventing anti-social behaviour, binge drinking and alcohol abuse – nothing to get too hot and bothered about, though whether there are the resources to enforce any of it is another question.
More importantly and fundamentally, can legislation affect our behaviour? The smoking ban did.  Continue reading »

I hope you find these as cute as I do.
(Thanks Anna, Aisling and Rúna for posing and thanks also to their accomodating parents!).  Continue reading »

I started the day by going for the paper and being tempted well beyond endurance.
For a long time I’ve been making occasional forays to Ardkeen Food Store in Waterford, which may just be the best supermarket in the world, not for cheap food, but for very, very good food.
Always on my list is a selection…  Continue reading »

Sorry this is late again people, have had a mad busy time recently. EDIT: And now it’s super late because it didn’t post right and it lost all the original work I’d done writing this post!
Here’s this weeks round up of Bookmarked Recipes and this week we have some more great recipes from some more great bloggers who have bookmarked them from some really great places!!!  Continue reading »

While we were away in France, we were lucky enough to have my Naas Cousin come to house- and chicken-sit for a few days. Not only did she take extraordinarily good care of the place and livestock, she also left us a gift of the cutest pair of dozy bear eggcups. Boiled eggs will simply never be the same again with this duo to hold them upright. Thanks Elaine!  Continue reading »

It is now close to four weeks since we left Ireland to come to France for the summer and I have managed about four blogs in that time. This however should soon change soon as we now, after fifteen months of effort and travelling down cul de sacs , have finally got broadband in Le Presbytere so now all we are missing is the house itself.  Continue reading »

I have a really great recipe for you, but I don’t have a picture of it. DON’T STOP READING! I know, it’s sinful, almost blasphemous to post a recipe without a photo of the final product, but I have a really, really good reason. I promise.
Last weekend, R and I had an open house at our apartment so that our families could see the place and the neighborhood, and we could show off our mad cooking skills.  Continue reading »

To be replaced with shot of actual recipe
I regularly drive through Clonakilty in West Cork and am always reminded of three things: summers spent there as a child, summers spent there as a teenager in De Barra’s pub and Clonakilty Black Pudding. This version of the black pudding must be one of the most famous in existence.  Continue reading »

here’s a quirky little story I picked up from Slow Food news.
“Hundreds of German milk producers recently went on strike for several weeks to protest against reduced milk prices, stopping milk deliveries until the retail market agreed to pay 40 eurocents per liter.  Continue reading »

I’m so totally in Summer mode at the moment!  Especially after the weekend- we had great weather for the whole trip up through the Burren and up the coast towards Galway.  I was really blown away by some of the scenery, but less so by the food on offer.  Unfortunately I didn’t have time to look up any great places to eat, so we ended up eating dinner at a pub in Doolin, mainly due to most of the restaurants being fully booked.  I was hoping for some really solid pub grub, but unfortunately, the seafood platter was less than impressive and the sides for all the mains were basically soggy coleslaw!  There were two guide recommended restaurants in the village, so next time I’ll be sure to book ahead!  Continue reading »