Articles

January has come around rather quickly, the month in which I am always full of good intentions regarding my diet and lifestyle – an annual necessity after a hectic Christmas. However, my body isn’t as fit as my mind, it’s telling me it needs a break, that it is craving warm, healing, nourishing food. And while I’m in listening mode, “What else are you saying, dear body?” – Oh yes, you want ginger!
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How to move to France - this being the time for resolutions and fresh starts, Martin shares some practical advice with the many who want to live this particular dream...
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A member of the brassica (cabbage) family dating back to the 16th century or earlier, cauliflower is one of our healthiest and most versatile vegetables. With its white curdy head surrounded by a collar of green leaves, it is a lovely plant when freshly picked, yet it is widely undervalued - and that despite the fact that its image in some quarters has had an unexpected boost thanks to its rise to stardom in top restaurant kitchens of late.
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What it means to be an organic farmer in Ireland today … Jenny Young writes about life and work on an organic mixed farm in Co Kildare - and selling its produce.
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New Year's resolutions sometimes get a bad rap, because they seem to represent the folly and flightiness of the human spirit. We start off the year with grand intentions to eat only salads, walk/run/swim 100 miles a week, and to do Bikram yoga in a sauna until we weigh as much as a baby sparrow. But then by the end of January we've quietly abandoned our good intentions and reverted to guilty, bloated type.
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Chef/restaurateur and academic Jp McMahon’s passion for all things Iberian is no secret and, of the terrific trio of Galway restaurants that he and his wife Drigin operate - the much-feted Aniar, Cava Bodega and EAT Gastropub - there’s always a feeling that his heart beats fastest for Cava. This book is certainly written from the heart and, like so many books with subtitles, therein lies its raison d’etre.
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Lucy Madden begins the new year by sharing a guilty secret - and it is one that will be familiar to many... My sister and I for years have shared a guilty secret; it may be hard to believe but we hate (and I choose the word carefully) going to parties. Unfortunately friends refuse to believe this strange quirk, (“You’ll love it when you get there/here”) so the occasional invitation still arrives to be greeted by cries of ‘Oh no.
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Welcome is the byword at Frankie Mallon's deservedly popular Westport restaurant, you feel it from the moment you enter - or even when you visit the website, where the language on the home page conveys a warm feeling that both customers and suppliers are valued and respected.
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Twenty five years on and the original recipes in Darina Allen's A Simply Delicious Christmas (Gill & Macmillan, hardback €27.99) still seem as fresh and relevant as ever, but this handsome celebratory edition also includes over a hundred new recipes and many of these are a gentle seasonal reflection of our changing tastes in food.
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The scent of spices is synonymous with Christmas, so what better time for Darina to think back over the changes she has seen in our use of spices over three decades at Ballymaloe Cookery School - and to welcome Arun Kapil’s recently published cookbook, ‘Fresh Spice’.
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