Category: Travel
Silver Circle: A Cook’s Holiday
Stirring tagines in Morocco, making fish cakes in Bangkok or buying the ingredients for Chicken with Apples in Normandy, make the most of your holidays by taking a cookery class while abroad. Caroline Hennessy gives some ideas for locations where the recipes you learn will last far longer than a suntan on SilverCircle.ie.
Volcanic pizza
Blue skies and a good morning’s work under my belt was the excuse I needed to head off to my favourite farmers’ market in Mahon Point today. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one with that idea as I got stuck in traffic during the lunchtime rush there and our first choice for lunch – Green Saffron curry – had already sold out.
Bye, bye Hanoi
…and all our new friends at the noodle stalls just around the corner from where we were staying. Three mornings of breakfasts there and we were regulars. With a choice of Pho Ga (chicken noodle soup), Pho Tofu (noodle soup with, yes, tofu) or Banh Cuon (rolled rice pancakes) from the three ladies cooking at the stalls and a bar for coffee across the road, this was good eating. Porridge breakfasts back in Ireland are just not the same.
Vietnamese coffee
A cup of hot coffee with milk at Café Mai, 79 Le Van Huu Street, Hanoi. Dark, strong and very sweet – there’s a layer of condensed milk at the bottom of the cup – Vietnamese coffee is just the thing to get you going in the morning, and for the rest of the day.
Goodbye to New Zealand…
…but we’re not heading home just yet. Next stop – via a brief overnight in Kuala Lumpur – Vietnam!
New Zealand flavours
Flowers on a feijoa tree at Stafford Lane Estate when we visited on a wine tour of the Nelson area. Feijoas are very popular in New Zealand, I loved them when we were living...
Fossil Ridge: wine on the doorstep
While in New Zealand, staying with the Husband’s parents, our nearest café is actually a winery called Fossil Ridge. We pass the small vineyard on our daily walk (sometimes several times a day as the Husband tries to balance lots of eating his mother’s fabulous food with regular competitive brother-in-law weigh-ins!) and the walk does occasionally get a little interrupted. An attractive wooden building, set amidst olive groves and overlooking a pond covered with water lilies, the cellar door is a relaxed setting to enjoy a selection of platters and light lunches to accompany its wines.