Articles

Triskel Cheeses are hand-ladled French-style soft goats cheeses and a semi-hard cow’s cheese, made by Breton woman Anna Leveque in a small production unit at her home in Portlaw, Co Waterford, using locally sourced milk. Recently recognised by Euro-Toques in their 2012 EirGrid/Euro-Toques Food Awards, the Triskel cheeses are already popular with discerning chefs and were nominated by Euro-Toques chef Michael Quinn, of Waterford Castle Hotel.
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“Seaweed has always been an important part of life for Ireland’s coastal communities, for use on the land and in the home,” says Sligo GP and Slow Food member Prannie Rhatigan in her book Irish Seaweed Kitchen (www.prannie.com). “Today, the shoreline is mysterious to many of us - but it’s as familiar as the back garden to families living along the coast or on islands, who have grown up with the rhythm of the tides and the briney harvest that is revealed every twelve hours.”
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The world of publishing is all topsy-turvy these days and, while book sales are generally in sharp decline – due mainly, we are told, to the rise of the internet and related areas - we see a growing number of bloggers successfully publishing books.
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Something very different for the ‘Just Ask!’ Restaurant of the Month in June as, for the first time ever, the award goes not to a restaurant but to a group of establishments, in Galway city.
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Once the summer begins to kick in the annual drift towards the seaside starts too, so fish and seafood soon take pride of place on menus and home dinner tables alike. There are great goings-on in the world of seafood at the moment and, although the underlying reasons for a lot of the activity may be alarming – global warming, over fishing, depleted stocks of many species – it is heartening to see attention focused on finding solutions.
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In the first of a new series, Marilyn Bright looks at the highs and lows of some of Ireland’s leading seafood restaurants - and finds out what makes them tick. They keep things simple at The Crazy Crab Café & Bistro, Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford, proving that you don’t need fancy dishes to please the punters – just really fresh fish that tastes of itself.
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Summer has arrived bringing with it elderflower blossom, I could smell its delicate perfume as I walked in the field behind my house this evening. As I inhaled the the balmy fragrance I had a rush of panic – quick pick it before it rains and the blossoms are washed away.
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We love our cuppa in Ireland and are still drinking more tea per head than any other country in the world. Sadly though, nowadays most cups of tea are made from teabags rather than good loose tea which I am totally convinced makes a far superior brew. On a trip to Sri Lanka in 2010 I visited Handunugoda Tea Estate only a few miles from Galle, Mr Gunaratne whose family have been tea planters for 400 years, proudly showed us around.
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Summer seems to be here at last and even our ducks look slightly bleached from the sun. The tomato and cucumber plants in our polytunnel are starting to grow tall. I seem to be spending most of my time watering and weeding. Onions, salad crops, beetroot and radishes are all growing well.
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I am doing a lot of transplanting at the moment, which is always a fun activity for a GIYer. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of planting seedlings – bare beds transformed in an instant with neat rows of little plants. I always feel intensely happy after spending some time planting – and now I know that there is actually a scientific reason for this – contact with soil triggers the release of serotonin in our brain according to research.
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