Foodies braved the threat of bad weather to sample what Dublin’s best restaurants are offering at the Taste of Dublin festival, writes Niamh Mullen. Food heaven is the best way to describe the Taste of Dublin festival. Now in its fourth year, the festival took place from Thursday, June 11 to Sunday, June 14 — [...]
What is the sound of dinner cooking?
February 6, 2009 By
Berna Cox is a dab hand with a shovel when it comes to whipping up a dinner for the family. If myself and the ever-loving other half were ever to find ourselves on that awful TV programme Mr and Mrs, the awfulness would be immediately increased. Even after almost three decades of cohabitation, he’d probably [...]
Taking the biscuit — because it’s free
September 24, 2008 By
There’s no doubt about it, the Irish mammy is a formidable force. And the Irish mammy of a son is a particularly formidable force. Add into that equation that the son is a big, lumbering 18-year-old and the mammy is a pocket-sized fusspot and it makes for nothing short of pure entertainment. If you want [...]
Feast your palate on some far-flung flavours
May 30, 2008 By
It’s fair to say that there have traditionally been a few areas where Ireland could have done with a bit of help from outside experts. First of all, we really could have done with some style advice. As a milk-skinned, mousy-haired people, we need all the help we can get, even if we are a [...]
Irish BBQs deserve a roasting
May 4, 2008 By
Greg Baxter says that as summer approaches once again, our barbecue efforts are doomed to failure because we have such abysmal weather, we use the wrong grills and we always cremate our burgers and steaks. There’s nothing so anti-climactic in the world as the Irish barbecue season. It seems to end before it ever began, [...]
Food for traditional thought
January 25, 2008 By
Handmade cheeses, exquisite silky chocolate, fragrant honey, tender dry-aged beef, succulent mountain lamb, traditional bread freshly baked by hand, Irish salmon smoked over woodchips from noble oaks felled in local woods. This is not exactly the usual fare on a supermarket shelf. At any of the farmers’ markets that have sprung up around the country [...]
Chicken soup, is it really for the soul or good for a cold
January 4, 2008 By
Where does this expression ‘Chicken soup for the soul’ come from? Chicken soup, in its purest form, as a clear broth with vegetables and chicken meat is also known as ‘the Jewish Penicillin’ and must therefore be as old as the hills themselves. There is even a website called jewishpenicillin.com which claims that “Dr Stephen [...]
Family meals- a thing of the past in modern Ireland
September 21, 2007 By
A recent survey published by Bord Bia stated yet another fact that we shouldn’t really be alarmed by, relating to food and eating habits in our new, ‘shocked-into-the-future’ Ireland. In urban areas of Ireland, not specified but I’m sure we can do the sums, a large percentage of families sit down to two separate meals [...]
Going completely potty over those special salad days
June 22, 2007 By
As meals go, it was entirely ordinary. Absolutely nothing special. Tossed salad with a bit of smoked salmon and a few other little salady bits and pieces. Ordinary. But for me, it was the most satisfying meal I’ve had in ages. And not because I was particularly hungry or not because I felt noble and [...]