Today I did my first ever farmer’s market, which was a resounding success. By the end of the day, I had one Snickers and peanut butter muffin, and about 10 cookies leftover! My sister helped me with the baking last night, and we fell into bed at 2am. I’m so grateful for her help – I would never have gotten everything done otherwise!  Continue reading »

Robert Roberts Tea & Coffee producers recently celebrated a haul of an unprecedented 12 Gold Stars in the recent 2010 Great Taste Awards and to celebrate this win they’d like to offer one of you lucky readers the chance to win a lovely hamper of some of their winning products.
The Great Taste Awards have become well known in recent years as the Oscars of the food world. This year, the competition was especially fierce with over 6000 entries from the UK & Ireland.  Continue reading »

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Other bloggers from Sligo will have told you all about the gigs and sights to see while you’re around so I’m going to take a proper foody tact and name some of my favourite shops, bars, and restaurants.
Gourmet Parlour on Bridge Street, this is a great place for sandwiches, quiches, salafs, tarts, cakes, breads and tubs of homemade icecream.  Continue reading »

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For years gardening simply eluded me. Try as I might, I just could not get my head around the so-called greatness of gardening. I really thought it was a bunch of hooey…much ado about nothing…something to brag about when you’d nothing more exciting in your life.  Continue reading »

We are delighted to announce that Greg White will be working from Organico in Bantry on Wednesdays. Greg is a sixty eight year old Irish-born, experienced, practicing psychotherapist.
Greg’s background is in depth psychology in the Jungian tradition, with a special interest in Oriental psychology, and a history of involvement in human rights in mental health.  Continue reading »

The lovely people of Gallagher’s Boxty House in Temple Bar (a review of which you can read over at the Daily Spud) have created a series of short videos showing you how to prepare some simple Irish dishes. My favourite, below, is how to make Irish Coffee.

To mark this, they would like to give you a dinner for two, including a bottle of house wine.  Continue reading »

While this may look like last week’s apple martini, it’s actually slightly different.  This week’s apple martini has a touch of caramel to make it extra sweet!  Check out what I thought of it after the jump!  Continue reading »

In order to celebrate the departure of my brother to foreign shores a dinner for 6 was organized. Following on from the success of recent BYO events in Dublin / Belfast I urged my fellow celebrants to consider bringing our own wine for this dinner. After a quick phone call to Thorntons to confirm that they would allow BYO we agreed that this was the best way to proceed. The dinner took place a few weeks ago on a Saturday night
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This is Lola, who I met in Dingle today. She likes sorbet. Raspberry sorbet, in fact. I’ve never met a dog before who likes sorbet, even though our own Ivan is fond enough of ice cream. He’d never stand on two legs for it, though, and he’d never touch sorbet.
There’s just no accounting for taste!

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“The finest glasses for both technical and hedonistic purposes are those made by Riedel. The effect of these glasses on fine wine is profound. I cannot emphasize enough what a difference they make. (Robert M. Parker, Jr. The Wine Advocate and world’s most influential wine critic.

There’s a very special tasting happening in Dublin in September which I’m really looking forward to. What’s so special?  Continue reading »

Wine season is due to kick off in earnest at the end of August with many wine courses reopening their doors for eager students. First up, the very popular “5-in-5“, run by wine journalist, Matthew Nugent (he’s also the author of Mick McCarthy’s Captain Fantastic).
Matthew has been running his “5-in-5″ series from The Hole In The Wall on Dublin’s Blackhorse Avenue for the last few years and they’re usually booked solid.
What’s 5-in-5?  Continue reading »

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Some soup on the menu today! Asparagus and peas, simmered in vegetable stock and thickened with potatoes. This soup is perfect as a lunch time pick-me-up or would work well as starter. 

Like the other soups I’ve posted, this is great served with a slice or two of Weight Watchers whole meal bread and a little low fat butter, or 2 slices of wheaten bread such as Mc Cambridges. A couple of Ryvita crisp bread also go very well as an alternative.  Continue reading »

Just so you know and can pretend like you knew this all along when you cook this for your friends, Osso Buco is a Milanese dish. The name means “bone with a hole” or “hollowed bone” which refers to the veal shank bone with a large and tasty marrow filling. By braising (slow cooking) the meat this tough but tasty cut of meat will become super tender and taste almost like butta.  Continue reading »

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Finding Lost Recipes – The Chicago Tribune has started a program in which readers who have lost a recipe (it doesn’t matter if it was from 50 years ago or a week ago) can send letters about the recipes, in hopes someone has it or knows it. There’s also a write-up of Lost Recipe stories that are pretty entertaining.

Eating Nature – Christopher Nyerges is the leader of a journey into the wild, where he is determining what humans can and cannot eat.  Continue reading »

Earlier this week I spotted a tweet from Damien Mulley requesting food bloggers to get in touch with Roma for a free bag of pasta flour and as the offer contained 2 of my favourite things, pasta flour and “free”. I immediately popped an e-mail to the appropriate address and received a prompt response that left me feeling on top of the world, my new contact in Roma is a fan!  Continue reading »