Bibliocook - All About Food

Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.

Tagged: cook

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Ballymaloe Cookery School / Do / Travel

Transition Time: from Dublin to Ballymaloe

Transition from a full-time journalist’s job in Dublin to country-based student life is more than just packing a car, cleaning out the old flat and shifting down to the cottage. Mindless routines – the 45-minute stroll to work, a computer-based eight-hour stint, walking home mentally preparing supper, deciding whether to call into one of my favourite shops on the way (Mortons, Donnybrook Fair, Taste of Italy, Al-Khyrat) – suddenly become more precious as the days speed towards leaving the city. Only one thing to do: sidestep the whole situation by flying off to Girona in Spain the day after the move!

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Ballymaloe Cookery School / Do

What’s next? Ballymaloe!

Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course Cookbook Well, I’ve taken the plunge. Notice has been given at work. Going away parties (the Baggott Inn’s self-serve Guinness taps proved particularly popular), dinners and drinks have been partaken in. After ten years living in Dublin and five years in Cork city, it’s time to return to the country. This weekend, the Husband and I move out of our horrible little Dublin flat and, in less than two weeks, on 17 September, I start the 12-week certificate course at Ballymaloe Cookery School.

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Do / Travel

Visiting Scotland

Lossiemouth beachUnless absolutely necessary, I tend to avoid bed and breakfasts. I’ve stayed in many around Ireland and most experiences are nothing to write about – unless in a negative manner. Last year’s May Bank Holiday we were forced into B&B accommodation in Westport by weather unsuitable for camping. After we spent the evening avoiding a particularly racist guest, breakfast was enlivened by talk of the May Day flowers that had been left for our piseog-loving landlady. There was a landlady in Navan who thought we were only staying one night and could only offer us bed, no breakfast, for the second night. The best of the lot, however, has to be the Carlingford B&B where the bedroom was painted blood red – the walls, the ceiling, the skirting board, the bathroom even had a matching red toilet and bath! Most disturbing, I spent the night having nightmares about being trapped in a womb.

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Cook / Cookery Books

By Request: Huzzar’s Chicken

An exercise in nostalgia Dishes that we cooked or were cooked for us as children always hold a special luster. I had a set of kids’ cookery cards from Irish sugar company Siúcra which had great recipes like The Last of the Mohicans Baked Beans (think the recipes were based on classic books!) and a desert of bananas warmed in a sauce made of orange juice (Swiss Family Robinson Bananas, perhaps?).

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Cook / Grow

Garden gluts: Silverbeet aka Swiss Chard

Silverbeet or Swiss Chard Beware when you’re sowing seeds. Especially if, as happened to us, you’ve ordered them from the Irish Seed Savers Association or Brown Envelope Seeds and every single last one of the seeds sprout forth. We planted way too many in March, didn’t thin the seedlings enough, and now have copious amounts of kale, purple sprouting broccoli and leeks for later in the season so I’m keeping my eye out for recipes for those (will definitely have to check out some of Sarah‘s ideas for the broccoli!). The squash is trying to escape from the confines of our rabbit-proof fenced veggie garden while I try to figure out what to do with armloads of silverbeet.

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Do / Eating Out

Festival of World Cultures

Festival of World Cultures Just a reminder that the Festival of World Cultures kicks off tonight in Dún Laoghaire. It is taking place all weekend with lots of free music and plenty of good eating. Slow Food has a stand in the Cool Earth eco-fair in the Town Hall so, if you’re interested in learning about SF – and tasting some products from artisan producers! – call in over the weekend.

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Bake

Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies (by way of Chocolate Chippies)

Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies Chocolate Chippies are big in New Zealand. Also known as a chocolate chip cookie, none of the Husband’s family gatherings are complete without a box – or several – of these small addictive biscuits, made by the Husband’s Mother or Sisters. When we were in Nelson in January, I spent time going through the Husband’s Mother’s great collection of recipe notebooks, taking down details of dishes I have enjoyed in the past – especially Gracie’s Brown Rice and Chickpea Salad and the Chocolate Chippies.

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Eating Out

Restaurant Review: Wine Upstairs at Tribeca

Tribeca logoAfter discovering a leak in the ceiling of our bedroom in the Dublin flat on Monday and subsequently having to spend the night on the floor in the kitchen, neither the Husband nor myself were in any particular hurry to get back there on Tuesday evening. Heavy rain plus no umbrella (the Husband) and flip flops (me) didn’t help morale on our walk home so we decided to meet in Ranelagh and try out the recently opened wine bar – Wine Upstairs – over Tribeca. The restaurant is always buzzing, as it was last night, but, after we had shaken our bedraggled selves off, stashed my umbrella and walked up the stairs, we arrived in an airy room, with lots of tables, plenty of bottles of wine on display – and no other people. Stashing ourselves in the corner by the New Zealand wines, the Husband looked at wines while I devoted myself to a perusal of the short, but well formed, menu.