Winter Weekend in Wexford

Wexford Winter Weekend

Top chef Kevin Dundon circulated among the visitors to his Dunbrody House Hotel Market last Sunday and we had a chat as we bought some of his conserves and relishes. He’s particularly proud of his Lemon Curd and the Brandy Butter. Lots of other food on offer too from local producers and no shortage of Christmas crafts either in the cluster of yards and sheds. 

Dunbrody House is in a wooded area above the small fishing village of Authorstown. The market is on every Sunday from noon until 4.00pm. It was packed at the weekend with both car parks close to full. And if you want to take a break from the shopping, then you may relax in the onsite pub with a drink and live music.

We had started the weekend a day earlier in Wexford town itself with its narrow busy streets. After the morning trip from Cork, a spot of brunch was in order and we found a good one in Button and Spoon, just a few steps up Church Lane from the quay. Excellent food and friendly people there.

Had a look around after that and called to Greenacres to do some Christmas shopping. Not difficult at all in that well-stocked emporium and a good amount of Irish produce, such as Bean and Goose Chocolate, Melanie Harty’s jellies and Tom Cowman’s Wexford Honey, included. And if you’re a sportsperson, you’ll note the sculpture of local hurling hero Nicky Rackard in an action pose on the street outside.

Not Nicky Rackard!

Headed north then, up along the coast until we came to the Strand Inn which has a fantastic position overlooking the sea and the pier at Cahore. They too put the emphasis on local (including Yellow Belly Beer) and there’s a fine menu there - I enjoyed my plate of Prawn Pil Pil as the daylight began to retreat. Must go back in the summer-time!

Our destination for the night was the Ashdown Park Hotel on the edge of Gorey and, after a warm welcome, we took a break here for an hour or two. We had a table booked at Table 41 on Main Street, about a ten minute walk away. A very tight menu in this upstairs venue but quite good food on offer and friendly service in this relatively new venue.

Back in the hotel bar, we were disappointed to find no craft beer at all, not even a bottle of any of the local brews. They did have some Irish gins though and we had a bit of a “tasting” with Blackwater, Drumshanbo and Short Cross in the mix. Breakfast was nothing to write home about.

Actually, there’s a much better brunch menu, believe it or not, in the cafe at the Hook Head Lighthouse, and it’s available all day Saturday and Sunday. They have upped their game here, as should all visitor attractions. Places like Good Day Deli (in Nano Nagle Place) and the Café in Cork’s Crawford are excellent examples. Some not so good that I can think of are the Skellig Visitor Centre on Valentia and Spike Island, unless they’ve improved over the last 12 months or so.

The weather was mainly cloudy and very windy at the Hook and that meant it was quite spectacular, a great day to visit! Even if we had to work our way through spray flying across the narrow approach road from time to time. Indeed, there is a wooden “rampart” by the lighthouse and we got an invigorating splash or two as we took in the views from that vantage point.

Dunbrody was our next stop and, after that, we came back down, just a few minutes drive, to Aldridge Lodge (near Duncannon). This is a Michelin Bib restaurant with just three rooms and luckily we had one booked.

Yogurt from the breakfast bar at Aldridge Lodge

Everything was just perfect here, from the warm welcome by owner and chef Billy Whitty to the fantastic evening meal based hugely on local, even family, produce. No full bar here so no draught or whiskey. But no shortage (they carry the local Cleverman beers) and we finished the pleasant evening with a drop of the Stonewell Tawny.

We would leave the following morning but not before a treat of a breakfast.The plaice was served with a poached egg (hen or duck), mushroom and tomato. It was a great start to the day. Time then to say goodbye to this highly recommended place and head to the village of Ballyhack to take the ferry to the Waterford side (8 euro single trip); we were home in less than two hours overall after two great December days in the Model County!

Great Variety at City Hall Food Fair. Hard to Beat Cork & Kerry United

Great Variety at City Hall Food Fair

Hard to Beat Cork & Kerry United

Clair and Jo

Made an early start to Saturday’s Cork Kerry Food Fair at the City Hall. Just as well, as the aisles soon filled up, the punters keen to sample the wares and hear about the many products, some of them new, on display in the 70 or stalls. It was great to meet up with some new producers and also to say hello to some that we’ve come to know over the past few years such as Timoleague’s Anthony Cresswell, a terrific supporter of local food and well known for the delicious stuff that comes from his Ummera Smokehouse.

Had heard good things about the Busy Botanist, the winner of the 2017 Listowel Food Fair Best Emerging Artisan Food Product Competition which is sponsored by Kerry LEO.  The Glenbeigh company was established earlier this year friends and herbalists, Clair Kelly and Jo Arbon.  

The overall winner of the Kerrygold Listowel Food Fair Cheese Competition was a garlic and thyme flavoured goats’ cheese.  Cordal are the producers and they too were in the City Hall but were busy when I passed and I forgot to go back later on.

While it was a pleasure to meet Clair and Jo for the first time, it was lovely too to link up again with the likes of Mella and her amazing fudge - it just seems to get better and better. And the same could be said about Hegarty’s Cheese from Whitechurch. Got a taste of their 12-month cheddar from Jean-Baptiste and it was just exquisite, as always, a classic.

Kinsale Bay's Aoife ad Lorna

It has been quite a year for Kinsale Bay Food Co with their products becoming more readily available with every passing month. Manager Tommy Doyle has quite a crew in the Little Island facility and Aoife White and Lorna Conroy were keeping the flag flying last Saturday.

Melanie Harty’s 100% Irish jellies, savoury and sometimes spicy, are well known all over the country and we meet Melanie, herself well known all over the country selling her produce! If you're on the road that much, you have a particular interest in the weather and she told us about her experiences during the recent storms and said that Brian with the heavy rains caused her more problems than the windy Ophelia.

Mella

More spice down at the end of that line where Athula had a stand. Athula, who works out of the Cork Incubator Kitchens in Carrigaline, is well known for his sauces, particularly his Piri Piri range with which he started, and you’ll also see him in local Farmers Markets. You’ll see his doing tastings in lots of local SuperValus  and at events like the City Hall. If you want to know how best to use these sauces, check his website here.   

TLC Fine Confectionery, from Mallow, will probably be known to you through the Auntie Nellie Sweetshops around the country. Here you’ll see the large range of Katie’s chocolates and, just recently, they have been joined by Wilkies Chocolates. Willies are a bean to bar producer and Shana Wilkie will continue, and probably expand, along those lines.

More sweet stuff at the Marshmallow Factory. I had already sampled the Strawberry one, it was taste of the week not too long ago (see here). I took advantage to stock up on the others, the Mint and Passionfruit. Melt in the mouth delicious.

Katie's + Wilkies = lots of chocolate

Munster Brewery are Youghal based and well known in the craft beer market. Now they have added another company producing a Kombucha called Hola. There is loads of info on this organic drink, a fermented tea and sugar drink, on their Holorganics website. The twins, Padraig and Adrian Hyde, are serious about their beer and about this, intending in the long run to establish a retreat to help people who are racing to stand still.

Holo!

Many of you will have heard of Gookies, a handmade wheat free, gluten free cookie dough roll in various flavours that is refrigerated and can be frozen.They are produced by Bia Gan Breise a company located in the heart of West Cork. Tasted some of the finished product at their stall. Impressive!

Monica of Rosscarbery’s Fish Deli (great supporters of these events) was in top form as always. They had some more good news recently when they won a national honour taking the Irish Quality Food Award for Best Prepared Fish and they had it on display in the City Hall. So well done to Monica and Peter and all the crew.

Jean-Baptise
Hegarty's Cheese

Another West Cork company, Milseán, was a popular stop. This chocolate company had no shortage of samples and they were just flying off the saucers!

After all that hard work sampling all the good things, it was time to move on over to the separate Craft Drinks section and first stop was the Cotton Ball who we had seen collecting their beers from the brewpub earlier in the morning. Alongside, were Youghal’s Munster Brewery, the other half of the Kombucha venture! 

Ballyvourney's 9 White Deer Brewery were highlighting their Gluten Free range and I was told they had a great time down in Cronin's Crosshaven the previous evening when they launched Ireland's first ever Gluten free draught stout.

Fish Deli

Blacks of Kinsale were all set up with special six packs available at a very good price indeed. Next door were the West Cork Brewery from Baltimore with their unusual oval shaped bottles (all the way from Italy, they told me).

Rupert, of Longueville House Drinks, is another terrific supporter of this kind of event and he had their ciders and apple brandy available for tasting. Indeed, I noticed a nicely packed trio of the two ciders and the brandy (the trilogy, Rupert called it) that would make a lovely Christmas present. Stonewell Cider were also displaying their range and neighbours Kinsale Mead, who have been getting their lovely product into more and more stores, were across the way with the newcomer Beara Ocean gin and Hyde Whiskey alongside.

Longuevilla Trilogy

I wasn't doing tastings myself - a bit too early I thought. But Justin of Bertha's Revenge “ambushed” me. Before I knew it, I had a sample in my hand. That wasn't going to waste so I tasted and was immediately reminded that this is a lovely “sipping” gin. So, if you’re out of tonic, don't worry. Just pour a drop of Bertha’s and sip it nice and easy. 

Time then to say goodbye to the event for another year, another tasty and flavoursome one ahead by the looks of it!

Food Festival and Amazing Cliffs. Donegal Day 1

Food Festival and Amazing Cliffs

Donegal Day 1

The cliffs

Early last Friday - well, about 8.00am,- we leave Cork on a five hour spin to Donegal, an uncertain forecast on the horizon. The trip, via Gort and Tuam, goes well and we land in Donegal at 1.00pm, on schedule. Just touchdown though as the weather is pretty good and we decide to continue to Slieve League, the highest cliffs in Ireland and less than an hour west of Donegal.

Soon, we pass the famous fishing town of Killybegs and close in on the cliffs. A cup of coffee and a scone at the Tí Linn Café boosted us as we headed for the cliffs. You come to a car park and, if you can walk at all, leave the car here and enjoy the walk up and down (timed it down at 25 minutes).

Higher & higher. Many walks near the cliffs.

If time is short or the legs aren't what they used to be, open the gate at the end of the car park (it opens down the slope towards you), drive through and close the gate and drive carefully (road is comfortably wide enough) to the viewing point. Plenty of room to park up there.

The viewpoint itself is at quite a height, so much so that you don't really hear the waves crashing in below. The cliffs, part of Slieve League mountain sweeping down into the Atlantic, are, at 609m (1,998 feet), nearly three times as high as those at Moher. They are the highest in Ireland and, according to Wikipedia, among the highest three in Europe. Spectacular.

Painting of wall
of a Killbegs cafe.

 There are many walks in the area. And I was told time and time again that the best way to see the cliffs is by boat and that can arranged locally, as can a local guide for some of the walks.

After the exhilaration of the fantastic cliffs, we drove back to Donegal town, stopping to check out the huge fishing trawlers in Killybegs, the only place we got rained on during our stay but that heavy shower was over in a few minutes.

Checked in then to our gorgeous, if relatively expensive, accommodation at Ceol na Mara in Summerhill, about two miles from the centre of Donegal Town, quite a small town indeed but packed because of its famous annual festival, A Taste of Donegal.

We checked the festival website for parking areas and soon found one to suit us. Then it was off on foot to find our restaurant, The Harbour on Quay Street. It is an excellent restaurant, serving local food and craft beer. Highlight was perhaps their Aubrac Steak. By the way, The Harbour changed hands on Sunday, taken over by current chefs Patrick and Mary. Debbie and Jo, behind The Harbour for the past 15 years, are moving this week, with "the same food and the same crew", to a spanking new restaurant further up the street called Quay West.

Aran Islands Goats Cheese by Gabriel Flaherty is delicious!

 With our early dinner finished, we walked across to the busy Festival site. They had opened at four and, by seven, the place was abuzz, with top chefs demo-ing and crowds sampling the food from dozens and dozens of stalls. Fast food (Bad Boys BBQ were prominent - just follow the smoke!) at the start for those who hadn't been to the Harbour!

Some amazing displays in the stalls, including one from Eddie Walsh, the local butcher who supplies the Aubrac steaks to The Harbour. We enjoyed roasted marshmallows, Aran Island Goats Cheese, Roscommon Chocolate, and much more. Lots to drink too, beers and ciders (including a limited edition from Longmeadow that has been matured in oak barrels).

Flavoursome Aubrac Steak!

And we enjoyed a drop or two of Coole Swan and a chat with Kenny Maguire who had also dropped in and we also had a chat and a laugh with Melanie Harty, up all the way from Kerry with her spicy jellies! Couldn't get near the folks in Ballymaloe Relish, they were so busy.

Another familiar face, up by the demo marquee, (where he would do his stuff on Sunday morning) was chef Zack Gallagher, well known to most of you as the Irish Food Guide on Twitter. He introduced us to Brian McDermott (The No Salt Chef) and Kevin Dundon, all enjoying their busman's holiday.

Bad Boys

 The local hotels were out in force as well with competitions and samples to beat the band. Perhaps the most impressive sample came from the nearby Harvey’s Point, a pancake with a most delicious apple and cinnamon filling.

The darkness, not long fallen, was banished for a while with a spectacular firework display over the tented festival village and the harbour alongside. Time for us then to head back to Ceol na Mara and get ready for the second day of this friendly festival.

See also:

Castle, Crafts and Super Food. A Taste of Donegal Day 2

Eddie Walsh butchers