Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
Last weekend I was at a pop up restaurant: this weekend’s treat was a pop-up shop. And not just any old shop, but an actual cheese shop just down the road in Charleville. Little Missy and I collected the Student Siblings on our way there on Saturday morning which was fortunate as it’s always good to have an LM distraction while her mother is distracted by lots of gorgeous local cheese and a great selection of Irish food products.
The perfect Valentine’s Day surprise? After a day away from the computer, coming home to find that Bibliocook: All About Food has been nominated in the food and drink category for this year’s Irish Blog Awards. And I’m in good company! Check out the list below and take a look around the Irish Blog Awards site to discover who, and what, else is going on in the Irish blogging world.
I’m SO excited! After almost six years – Bibliocook’s official birthday is in March – I’ve finally got a spanking new look and a long-awaited move to Word Press, thanks to Súil Design.
It was an eating weekend in Dublin. Kristin of Dinner du Jour and I were there on Friday night to attend Clonakilty by Candlelight, a pop-up restaurant which ran for three nights last week and is continuing for another three from this Thursday. I don’t want to write too much about the whole event – one of the best parts of it, for me, was the fact that I didn’t know what was about to happen – but I’ll give you a few impressions of the night: sipping cava in the drawing room of a gracious Georgian house…fabulous meet and greet people…lots of eerie staring dolls…unusual uses of bacon…in short, great food, interesting people and an amazing atmosphere. Well worth dressing up for. There was also a competition element which the IFBA representatives didn’t shame themselves at. Just as well – the bagful of Clonakilty products that I went home with came in very handy for breakfast the next morning as the Husband and the Aussie had been out, researching, for the evening in Against the Grain and Messers Maguire.
I wish I could be the kind of person who says that I’ve no interest in kitchen gadgets (and mean it) but that would be a total and absolute lie. My 10-year old immersion blender was recently replaced after it got a little overworked from Little Missy’s weening dinners and, faced with the idea of no blended soups, homemade mayo or lump-free gravy (it happens to everyone, y’know) I came out in a cold sweat and headed straight to the shops. The bread machine, which I picked up from Gumtree for a tenner two years ago, is in constant use. This weeks’ breads? Little Missy’s favourite cheese and mustard loaf for lunchtime soups and a breakfast one, flecked with shreds of marmalade, for toasting. Gumtree was also the source of my slow cooker, which I picked up at the start of the summer. Another €10 so, I figured after a bit of heming and hawing, nothing venture, nothing gain.
Replying to an early tweet from @ElectricCork on Saturday morning about their new lunch menu got us a feast, compliments of the restaurant.
Unless it’s homemade, I’m not a fan of coleslaw. Too much rancid mayo, too few shredded veg, too gloopy by far. When I was in the Cork’s The Woodford recently, I ordered meatballs in a Cork-made blaa for lunch.
