Bibliocook - All About Food

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

Tagged: North Cork

2

Do

Bibliocook on Facebook and Twitter

I swore I wouldn’t get sucked in. Ah, the promises I make to myself!This whole social networking thing can be like a black hole, whole chunks of the morning – work time for me while Little Missy sleeps – disappearing while I catch up on Kieran Murphy’s ice cream tweets and check out A Taste of Ballyhoura Country’s Facebook page. But, for a freelance journalist working from a cottage in the middle of nowhere, North Cork, this is as close to an office watercooler as I’m going to get.

Ardagh Castle Goat's Cheese 13

Do / Travel

Honeymooning in West Cork

Ardagh Castle cottage - from www.ardaghcastle.comWest Cork is undoubtedly a fantastic place to spend time in even if, as happened to us on last week’s communal honeymoon, it pours for most of the time. We were lucky enough to be staying in a wonderful cottage on Ardagh Castle Goat Farm but, with eight of the Husband’s family nearby in Baltimore and another half-dozen English Engineers staying out on the Sheep’s Head Peninsula, there wasn’t much time to properly appreciate the beautifully restored cottage! We did, however, get a chance to feast on the owner’s crumbly, Wensleydale-style Ardagh Castle Goat’s Cheese. A picnic hamper of Norfolk food specialities from two of the English Engineers yielded up a tube of Letheringsett Watermill Spelt Biscuits which had enough sweetness to marry happily with the cheese. Ardagh Castle Goat’s Cheese is only available locally around Baltimore and at the Saturday farmer’s market in Skibbereen but I’ve managed to export a large chunk of it to North Cork.

Field mushroom hunting: Mushrooms in Milk 4

Cook / Grow

Field mushroom hunting: Mushrooms in Milk

Last weekend saw the Boyfriend and myself travel down to my parents’ place in North Cork. As a result of the warm, damp weather over the past few weeks, I have received constant reports from my mother about the abundance of mushrooms so, with a Beef and Guinness casserole bubbling away in the oven, we off headed for a pre-dinner ramble down the fields with our eyes firmly fixed on the ground.