Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
A fabulous, feel-good beer festival in a deconsecrated Methodist church. Crunchy whitebait cichetti at Coppi. Instagram-perfect weekend brunches at Established Coffee, that taste even better than they look. Belfast, in 2017, was an exciting, fun, friendly, food-filled city...
by Caroline · Published September 8, 2017 · Last modified February 12, 2018
Beer, cheese, sherry, chocolate, coffee: for the last three years I’ve taken the ABV Fest (and every other opportunity!) as a chance to immerse myself in the food side of Belfast. I love the...
First published on Irish Country Living. The first time I visited Belfast was back in 2002. I took the Enterprise from Dublin’s Connolly Station on a wintery Friday night to meet my new Kiwi boyfriend; we...
Food Events / Irish beer & cider / Sláinte: The Complete Guide to Irish Craft Beer and Cider
by Caroline · Published July 15, 2015 · Last modified September 8, 2017
Any excuse to visit Belfast, right? After a gap of 13 years, I was blown away by the quality of food when I went there in January. I jumped at the chance to return...
First published in the Irish Examiner on Saturday 28 February: This is how to spend 24 hours in Belfast With sublime raw materials on offer, including Himalayan salt-aged beef from Hannan’s Meats, delicious rolls of...
It all began with a few pints in New Zealand. When the Husband and I lived in Christchurch there were about three brewpubs within 15 minutes walk of our house. We could stroll down...
I love experimenting with and learning different cooking techniques, especially if they involve playing with yeast. No Knead Bread? Yes please! Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Made that. Sourdough from my own starter? Still bubbling quietly away in the fridge. But grilled or barbequed pizza? Not yet – that was until I got my hands on a copy of Craig Priebe’s Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas. Craig developed his grilling technique, using a barbeque, when he ran his own pizza restaurant in Atlanta and this book explains it in detail. When we did the pizza day in Ballymaloe, Darina cooked one of her creations on the barbeque outside the demo theatre door but, more fascinated by the wood-fired oven, I didn’t hang around in the rain, instead directing my attentions indoors so I never got to investigate the barbequed pizza properly.
Although there has been lots of salad planted in the garden on recent weekends, including mustard greens, rocket and mizuna (at least I’ll be able to distinguish between the plants after cramming in Ballymaloe for the salad leaves and herbs exams!), it’s going to be a while before any of the leaves are big enough to eat. Then, of course, because our planting in succession routine is not entirely developed – despite best intentions – we’ll have another glut to work through. But that’s all ahead of us and, until then, I’ve been growing my own salad on the windowsill.
