Articles

This month Darina Allen comments on the food trends that are sweeping the world. IT’S a hugely exciting time to be in food. Farmers are more optimistic about the future than they have been in years and a high percentage of start-up businesses are food related.
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This month Darina takes a very long journey to the far north of Sweden - and it's rewarded with a very big treat
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Christmas Recipes and Tips - and Good News about Real Butter! The shops are brimming with tempting trinkets and baubles and canny shoppers are taking advantage of pre-Christmas bargains, and ticking off their lists. How good it feels to be organised, but more and more it’s a challenge for so many who are trying to balance both time and budget.
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This month Darina writes about an aspect of 'cheap' food production that is rarely discussed - the human cost. And says it is time to ask questions. I was totally shocked by an article by George Arbuthnott in the Sunday Times Magazine recently on the human cost of our food...
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Darina reflects on what the 12 Week Certificate Course means to the students who complete it - and proudly announces that both she and her brother Rory O’Connell have finally moved into the 21st century and have (very active) Facebook pages!
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In the US something very interesting is happening, it’s virtually a grass roots revolution. However, it’s not just in the US, in cities all over the world people seem to feel a deep need to produce food locally once again. It would seem to be an international phenomenon – an eerie almost primeval reaction as if deep down people sense that there may be a shortage of food before too long.
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When I heard of Honor Moore’s recent passing I was deeply saddened. Somehow one felt that this doyenne of Irish food writers would always be with us. I didn’t know Honor very well but remember her support, when I started the Ballymaloe Cookery School and her encyclopaedic knowledge of traditional Irish food.
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This month Darina gives (and gets) some unusual advice on effortless entertaining. I’ve just learned the secret of how to give a totally stress free dinner party! So here’s how it’s done. On a recent trip to San Francisco Mary Risley invited eleven mutual friends around in my honour. It was to be an early dinner.
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This month Darina gets stuck into one of her favourite topics - foraging. Wild and foraged foods are once again becoming part of chic restaurant menus as well as family meals. Beware; once you get on the foraging groove it becomes totally addictive. Every walk whether in the woods or the countryside turns into a foraging expedition and it’s free.
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This month Darina focuses on the shocking problem of obesity, its cost in human and financial terms - and gives her 10 Top Tips to avoid it.
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