Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
Spicy Chocolate Biscotti Ever since having Chocolate and Chilli Biscotti at Underground I’ve been wanting to try making these and, biscotti weighing hardly anything in terms of postage for Blogging by Mail, this was the ideal...
Although I was a late entrant to Samantha’s Blog by Mail 2, she very kindly let me get involved and I sent off my package to Deborah in the USA on Wednesday. Figuring out what to put in it was a lot of fun and I eventually settled on a mixture of homemade goodies and local foodstuffs. I just hope that the postal service doesn’t let me down and that it gets to Deborah before anything starts growing mould!
One of the things that I do enjoy about living in New Zealand are all the cookery classes that are on offer. Not only the usual night courses at the various schools around Christchurch, but also food shops offering classes in the use of their goods à la the Mediterranean Food Company and Café and tonight I’m looking forward to a class with Judith Cullen of Judith Cullen’s Cooking Classes fame.
Barbara at Auckland-based Winos and Foodies has tagged me for the foodie leg of Basic Juice‘s meme with two tails – The Best in the Last 30. You can read more about the meme here. Basically, the idea behind it was to write about the most wine-friendly dish I had eaten over the past month.
Last night I went to see Tim Burton’s faithful, yet curiously unsatisfying, adapation of Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Reviews aside – you can find a good one here – what fascinated me was the audible crack! every time someone bit into a Wonka bar in the film. It shows that Mr Wonka was indeed making fine chocolate, unlike the sweet pappy muck that bears his name at a sweet counter near you these days.
Quinoa is something that I’ve been meaning to cook for quite a while. About ten years, in fact, ever since I read Nigel Slater‘s Real Fast Food. He has several recipes for this protein-packed ancient grain and, as with all his writings, I was seduced by the delicious descriptions. Not seduced enough, however, to seek it out in Ireland but, since arriving in New Zealand, I’ve come across it on several occasions. Eventually, an article in Cuisine led me to buy some from Piko which…just sat in the pantry until an inquiry about it from the Boyfriend’s mother made me decide that it was time to actually try cooking it instead of admiring it every time I opened the door of the pantry.
by Caroline · Published September 20, 2005 · Last modified September 24, 2021
Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that I do not like potatoes. I am not a fan of the mashed potato, nor do I like boiled potatoes, potato cakes, potato croquettes, potato salad, baked potatoes or potato gratin. I avoid any dish which involves the word aloo in Indian restaurants and I don’t like potatoes even if they are disguised as Shepherds Pie or hash browns or slipped into a soup or stew. In short, you may say, that I detest the common spud. The only two potato-based products that I do eat are chips, not wedges (too potato-y), and crisps, preferably Tayto Cheese & Onion, although I also have a sneaking, if unpatriotic, fondness for Walkers Ready Salted crisps.
The opening film in the Date Palm Film Festival in Christchurch on Thursday night was an engrossing study of Moroccan life entitled In Casablanca, the Angels Don’t Fly. The three main characters are economic migrants, dreaming of their home villages, as they work at a minimum wage job in a bustling Casablanca café. It is a tragic tale, although occasionally shot through with moments of humour, of the struggles faced by village men who have to leave their families to work in a big city.
