Food in films: Stranger than Fiction
Number three in an occasional series…Any foodie can’t help but be seduced by Ana Pascal’s (Maggie Gyllenhaal, never looking sexier than here, kneading dough in dungarees) passion for cooking in Marc Foster’s Stranger than Fiction. You can find a good review here on Confessions of a Film Critic. An anarchist baker, Ana runs a little café in New York, counters laden with tempting-looking cookies and cakes – just like the kind of café that you’d like to have in your own neighbourhood. Not amused by having to be audited by IRS agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell, playing it straight for once), she nevertheless bakes him fresh chocolate chip cookies, serving them up with a glass of milk and a helping of light-up-the-screen charisma. She also has an amazing speech which, of course, I can’t fully remember or find online anywhere, about how she realised in law school that she was meant to be a baker, giving a litany of American cookies, traybakes and brownies that will have you salivating at the cinema. And how does the IRS agent win her heart? With a box of flours – rye, wholegrain – all in littlebrown paper bags with colour-coded stickers. Anyone stuck for an idea for your favourite foodie this Christmas?
If you’re looking for a Christmas present with a difference, Oxfam Ireland recently launched an online Fair Trade shop at 
An early, very generous, Christmas present from my brother arrived on Friday. A rapidly couriered, well padded little box containing a gold mine – a selection of walnut-sized, pungent-smelling black French truffles. Needless to say, I’ve never before had the opportunity to cook with truffles so this weekend, down at the 
If anyone’s around Dublin for the weekend and at a loose end – although that might be unlikely given the time of the year! – the 
Last weekend’s (unexpectedly extended) stay in England included a trip to the best farm shop I’ve ever visited, the HFG Farm Shop at Beeston, Norfolk. We were in Norwich visiting the Engineering Couple and my kinswoman, their beloved Irish terrier, Bridie, who, knowing my love of food, brought us there after a morning spent tramping and on the river in their Canadian canoe. Outside the shop were long stems of brussels sprouts and sparkly Christmas wreaths but the real treasure was inside. Tables were piled with home baking – hungry from our morning’s activities, Paradise Slices, Flapjacks, Shortbread and Date Slices immediately caught our eye – while groaning shelves of jams, jellies, oils, vinegars and chocolate lined the walls. A freezer was stocked with a multi-coloured selection of loose frozen fruits and baskets of locally grown vegetables were stacked high at the end of the room. The food available was more than tempting and, although I did resist, I still managed to walk out of the shop heavily laden with the aforementioned baking, brown paper bags of spelt and wholewheat flour from 
I didn’t have much time for shopping on my recent 
I recently got a mail from a New York PR company about a 
The second episode of Richard Corrigan’s show,