Riesling is one of my absolute favourite wines. Wines made from this incredibly aromatic grape can run the full gamut of taste from steely and flinty, passing through dry fruit crispness and ending up at luscious honeyed sweetness. You’ll even get an occasional bang of petrol/diesel which is actually incredibly addictive.  Continue reading »

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Chez Tullamore
The awards ceremony this year was hosted by Tullamore Dew in their Old Bonded Warehouse in Tullamore town. There was an optional tour of the nearby distillery beforehand, which I couldn’t pass up. It still looks as pristine as it did the day it opened two years ago, despite operating around the clock pumping out malt and pot still spirits.  Continue reading »

Many of the organised crime figures in Lewisburg (jail) treated me as one of their own…made sure I received the same food as they did: corn on the cob, pheasant and rice, steak and onions….

… pheasants were ..cooked on a nightly basis around autumn. Traps were set for the pheasants – milk boxes, which fell on them, as they entered to eat loose scattered corn. One night a raid was conducted on the dormitory for narcotics and other contraband.  Continue reading »

JD Wetherspoon Real Ale Festival: are any words more stirring to the human soul?  Late October means it’s time for my annual ritual of cycling out to the South County coast and seeing what’s on the pumps in my two locals. I usually stop in Blackrock first but decided to start in Dún Laoghaire this year, to catch the cavernous Forty Foot before it got loud and crowded. As in recent years, English hops was the theme, with every one of the 30 festival beers using nothing but.  Continue reading »

Cinnamon Cottage
A Treasure Trove

Ali and Patrick are just over 12 months into their adventure at Cinnamon Cottage and the hard-working pair are doing just that, working hard. Much done, more to do, but you can see the difference. The deli has been expanded and the wine selection has been doubled.

And still the work goes on. Fun too.  Continue reading »

A Madregale Duo
Not the same as madrigal!

Having a bit of fun with a pun here. Below, we have a look at two examples of Madregale wines, one white, one red. The Madrigal is a musical work. Maybe after a glass or two of the wine, you and your drinking partners might move on to a Madrigal!

Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied but that is not the case with this example by Monterverdi .  The number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six.  Continue reading »

A mid-afternoon flight home meant I only had time for a handful of beers on my last day in Brussels. I began by nipping across to Cantillon, to restock my cellar with lovely lovely gueuze. There was much of interest on the bar blackboard there, but only by the 75cl bottle, so not practical drinking for the solo traveller in a hurry. Back, then, to Moeder Lambic, which had just opened its doors.

I started my day, as perhaps one always should, with De Ranke’s Cuvée de Ranke.  Continue reading »

Taste of the Week
Athula Peri Peri

You can’t go wrong with Peri Peri, not with the spelling. It’s also spelt Piri Piri, even Pili Pili. Three chances of getting it right.

Whatever about the spelling, Athula has got it all right with his range of Peri Peri sauces, now available in local Supervalus and indeed in Mr Bell’s in the English Market.  Continue reading »

I tend to do our weekly shopping. The Wife likes to have a kiwi fruit with her morning muesli. I like to deliver a week’s supply of perfect kiwis to preserve her good humour and to avoid waste. While in the supermarket, I behave like an old woman with a wheeled shopping basket, squeezing the fruit to find what I want and what I don’t. If my thumb goes through the skin, leave it behind. If it’s like rubbing my chin with three day old stubble, I leave it there too.  Continue reading »

Portuguese Pair Show Quality and Value

The inspiration for trying this Portuguese pair, well at least the red, came from Jancis Robinson’s The 24 Hour Wine Expert. She has a page of Obvious and Alternative wines. In one pairing the obvious is Bordeaux red, the alternative is red from Portugal’s Douro. Spotted this Esporão in Karwig’s and, though it’s not from the Douro exactly, thought that it would fit the bill.  Continue reading »

Each year the European Beer Consumers Union holds a reception in Brussels for MEPs and the drinks industry, just to remind them of us, the humble consumers, and our concerns over issues like provenance, ingredients transparency, taxation and whatnot. I missed all but the first few minutes of last year’s but decided to go over to this year’s as a special one-night trip. The venue was a beautiful community centre with a garden, and the weather played ball too.  Continue reading »

Dining without reservations has finally made it out of the city centre and into suburbia – well kind of, if you consider Upper Leeson Street to be the edge of the suburbs. John and Sandy Wyer, the force behind Forest Avenue have opened Forest & Marcy in the space formerly occupied by Rigby’s and to which the adjective bijou can be truly applied.

Described as a “small neighbourhood wine room and kitchen“, Forest & Marcy impresses from start to finish.  Continue reading »

Iago for Dinner

 Going to a dinner was the making of another.

Might have mangled that old saying a bit but all in the cause of truth.

While at the table during the midweek Green Saffron Spice Dinner at Isaac’s, I was talking to two Dublin visitors on my right and one of them was telling me all about a Dublin restaurant where the pasta is made fresh every day.  Continue reading »

We love a good Halloween party in our house. This ghoulish feast is one of the easiest parties to cater for, as really anything goes, and the gorier the food can look, the better. When there are faces to be painted and a house to be decorated, I never put myself under too much pressure where the food is concerned.  Continue reading »

My chickens are gone woeful fat. Eileen says I leave them in too much corn altogether. She doesn’t know that I also pick big caterpillars off the cabbages and feed them to the old fatsos. They see me coming and get into a right flap. They’re the fattest, happiest chickens in Ireland, I’d say. I’ve a daughter too, you know. I can’t bear talking to her any more. I used to think she was the bee’s knees, but now I’d rather feed caterpillars to chickens than talk to her.  Continue reading »

For…
The post Kitchen projects: Sourdough bread from start(er) to finish appeared first on Bibliocook – All About Food.  Continue reading »

Friday evening. Work done for the week. Three friends have an event to attend elsewhere in town later but they meet in The Beer Market. It’s a nicely flexible drinking space: you can session on pints if you like; you can buy something exclusive and spendy too, and the 33cl servings that most things arrive in are useful for co-ordinating the timing around the table.
One reveller goes for Summer Spreeze, brewed by Siren with input from Evil Twin.  Continue reading »

Some days amazing things happen. Like getting a phone call asking me to demonstrate healthy recipes as part of the Navan #MyHealthyTown initiative. I had to pinch myself!
This was one of the most popular dishes I demonstrated in Navan for Morphy Richards last weekend. Everytime I heated the pan, it was like an advertisement for certain gravy granules and attracted a crowd. It seriously only takes about 7 minutes to put together.  Continue reading »