Category: Do

Check out the Lar Veale’s Sour Grapes wine blog for his entertaining entries on matching wine with Irish Blog Awards Food/Wine nominees. This piece has the first 13 blogs nominated and this one finishes off the list. Fortunately, as the Husband and I both went off Malborough Sauvignon Blanc last year (that’s what happens when you order too much wedding wine and decide to finish it off for yourself!), Bibliocook gets matched with Pinot Noirs from Central Otago or the Waipara Valley and, in the whites side of things, Riesling, Pinot Gris or Chardonnay. That’ll be a bottle of Babich Marlborough Riesling and Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir, please. I wish…

I’ve always loved old cast-iron kitchen ranges. My Grandad would always put the porridge on overnight in the warming oven of the old, age-darkened Aga at Oldcastletown. By morning it would be cooked creamy, although with such a thick skin that I couldn’t stomach it. As a child I was a very picky eater. The Aga – it ran on solid fuel – also made the best toast. Grandad would supervise the making of this treat on a cold winter’s evening as we came in hungry from school. There were two methods: the first was simply to place a thickly sliced piece of bread from the local shop directly onto the base of the hot oven where it turned brown in a matter of minutes. And then there were the evenings when we were allowed to get out the ancient toasting forks, open the front of the firebox and toast on the flame. Those were the times that Grandad’s work- and age-toughened hands came into their own, holding the bread close enough so it toasted properly. Our softer little paws – and faces! – weren’t quite up to enduring the heat.