Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
Sunday sees the last in the Foodtalk series with Garden being the theme of the final show. We travelled to Clonegal, Co Carlow to meet with Henry Stone of the Sha-Roe Bistro and then to Nohoval in Cork to talk to Ultan Walsh of Gort na Nain Vegetarian Guesthouse and Organic Farm.
Watch out for The True Cost of Cheap Food on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm as Observer food critic Jay Rayner looks into the realities of cheap pre-prepared supermarket food. With sales of organic food dropping and an ever-increasing rise in the purchase of supermarket value ranges, Rayner asks if supermarkets have a responsibility to feed their customers properly. Judging by the profits made by Tesco alone in the last year (£1.8bn in the UK), it doesn’t look like they’re going to want to do anything that might eat into their shareholders gravy train. Surely pre-made food – be it from the cheapest or the most expensive supermarket ranges – can’t be as good for you as something made from scratch at home? Wonder do they actually look at that side of things. Should be worth a look – I’ll be downloading it from 4oD tomorrow.
I’ve been nominated for an Irish Blog Award in the Best Food/Drink Blog category, along with another 26 – count ’em! – Irish food, wine and beer bloggers. The entire category list below so take a good look around, there’s plenty of interesting reading out there. The full list of this year’s Irish Blog Awards Nominations is now online here. Well done to the organisers – they’ve done a fabulous job putting it all together. This Awards are taking place closer to home for me this year, in the design-tastic Cork International Airport Hotel on 21 February.
Trying to upgrade Bibliocook at the moment and, like last year, there’s been a lot of frustration and pulling my hair out over long nights at the computer. Fortunately the Techie and her Husband have stepped in to help out so I hope to be back in the land of the useable blog very soon. Wish us luck!
Just discovered that Foodtalk: Spices is available to listen to as a podcast from the Newstalk podcasts page – Foodtalk on Newstalk is at the top of the page so you can’t miss it! Check out Conor’s Bandon Blog for useful information on listening and subscribing online.
I was thrilled to hear the first Foodtalk on Christmas Day at 1.30pm, just as we were basting the turkey, making gravy and chopping vegetables for dinner.That programme – very topically – was on Livestock, focusing on Irish pork. Jacque Barry (Jacques Restaurant) talked about her love of good quality ingredients and food eaten with family while Fingal Ferguson of the Gubbeen Smokehouse explained how the cycle works on the Gubbeen farm in West Cork – the pasture is eaten by the cows who produce the milk for the cheese, the whey of which is fed to the pigs who are turned into the best pork, sausages, salami and chorizo by Fingal.
Don’t forget to tune in to my first Foodtalk programme on Newstalk 106-108 fm which will be broadcast today at 1.30pm. Happy Christmas!
It was a sad day in work today as URRU Mallow closed its doors after just over two years of trading.
