Articles

Recently, I’ve had requests for vegan recipes as the interest in a vegan life style gathers momentum. The increase in numbers continues to confound the sceptics. There are a variety of reasons why people decide to embrace a vegan diet. For many, it’s a combination of concern for the environmental impact of many of our food producing systems and animal welfare issues.
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We are coming into the most super exciting time of the year for both cooks and gardeners. The summer produce is ready to harvest at last… We are now picking the early broad beans and peas to add to the beets, courgettes and carrots we’ve been enjoying for the past few weeks.
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This month Darina talks about The Hungry Gap and a Pop Up 'eating between the seasons' dinner organised by her students recently, to raise funds for the Slow Food Educational Project
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Bet you didn’t know there was such a thing as an International Carrot Day, well indeed there is. It is celebrated every year on April 4th, the day when virtues of the carrot are highlighted through Carrot Parties and Carrot related festivities around the world.
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Bread and our national loaf is a subject which continues to exercise me. I’m totally in despair at the quality of our squishy sliced bread and deeply concerned about the effects on our health and waistline, many not least the Bakers Association of Ireland would disagree with me and I certainly hope they are right. I myself can’t seem to find out what exactly is in the bread, an enormously important staple for many people. Flour, yeast, salt, water, so far so good, but what else to speed up the process and produce a loaf at this price.
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What will we be eating in 2017? Well for most of us it will probably be more of the same but my top tip for what it’s worth is to eat a wide variety of real food and no food products – real food is not the same as food products. We need lots of biodiversity to feed and nourish our gut biome – the health of our gut flora has a phenomenal impact on both our mental and physical health.
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Darina has been inundated with a whole new crop of cookbooks published just in time for Christmas - something to tempt aspiring, experimental and accomplished cooks
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This month Darina talks about "an extraordinary fortnight of random events dreamed up by a small committee of super charged individuals" at the annual Taste of West Cork festival
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It's not as easy as it sounds to give visitors 'a real taste of our Irish produce' - but Darina has the answer to this common problem
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This month Darina introduces Felicity Cloake’s unusual book, The A-Z of Eating. A for almond, B for blue cheese, C for caramel, D for dumplings, E for eggs, F for fat and so on. The chapters of Felicity Cloake's book, The A-Z of Eating are all themed around Felicity's favourite ingredients.
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