PERROTT’S AT HAYFIELD MANOR

PERROTT’S

AT HAYFIELD MANOR

GOOD FOOD - GOOD CAUSE

 Leading chefs Rachel Allen and Andrew Rudd are holding an exclusive cooking demonstration to help support Concern’s work with women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Haiti. 

Don’t miss out

The event will take place at The Metropole Hotel, Cork on Thursday 4 November at 7pm. Tickets cost €40 each and all proceeds will support vulnerable women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Haiti through Women of Concern. Tickets are selling out fast so book early to avoid disappointment.

Book now

Get your ticket here. Or you can email liz.yeates@concern.net or colm.dolan@concern.net. Alternatively, call 01 417 7700.

THE WEEKEND CATCH

A bumper Weekend Catch, fresh from the Net.

THE WEEKEND CATCH

Restaurant Wine & Food Scene

via Twitter & Facebook

Control and click to follow the links and find out more.

Paco Guzman cooks up a Silk Purse storm during Jazz fest http://themeatcentre.com/wordpress/?p=823

adriancummins Adrian Cummins Restaurants will suffer if the government suck too much disposable income out of the economy thus loss of jobs.

Pandora Bell Confectionary Pandora Bell will be at the Craft Fair at the Limerick Milk Market today. It promises to be a great day with Halloween games and treats for the kids. Thank God for the new roof or I would be dusting down my wellies!

Nautilus restaurant is still on holidays :)
We will reopen next Thursday with a few new dishes on the menu.
Meanwhile, you can start planning your Christmas party by clicking on the link to the menus:
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=307840757350&notes_tab=app_2347471856

Ballymaloe Ballymaloe House Delicious for the Autumnal days, Mulled Apple Juice at the 'Cafe at the end of the shop', Ballymaloe Shopwww.ballymaloe.ie/ballymaloeshop

Ballymaloe Ballymaloe House Sacha and Dave, Smith & Whelan Spanish Wines, Ballycotton; great selection of 'Large Format Bottles',

Liberty Grill We will be involved the Dine in Cork promotion in November
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dine-in-Cork/110730515616653

Little Buddha Cork NEW PRODUCTS: Manual Coffee Grinders now available in-store and online. Now you can have your fresh coffee in the morning. visit www.littlebuddha.ie

No.5 Fenns Quay Restaurant Fenns Quay is looking foward to the next Dine in Cork happening from the 5th november to the 14th inclusive for more information www.dineincork.ie or keep to date on the facebook page "dine in cork"

Bibliocook Caroline@Bibliocook Finally, a #foodcamp write up. Still flying from Friday's launch of the @IrishFoodies site. Time to knuckle down... http://fb.me/wcSKvWeo

FoodAndWineMag FOOD&WINE  The FOOD&WINE Magazine Christmas Show takes place at the RDS Main Hall on the last weekend in November (Friday...http://fb.me/KxSoygCj

foodforlivingie Food for Living Re-enforcing how important mental attitude and social support are with good health RT @greythinking: http://twurl.nl/4baho4

rednosewine Red Nose Wine You have until Oct 30 to win Icon wine http://bit.ly/b99qVE by following us on Twitter or Liking Facebook http://on.fb.me/bHuwKJ Please RT

SAVEURMAG SAVEUR We've come to appreciate turkey as an ingredient capable of incredible things... http://bit.ly/90lO2k

SAVEURMAG SAVEUR 10 Sweet Potato Recipes  http://bit.ly/czk8JY

Uvinum in English  How to taste wine without being a wine taster

Hallowen recipes - http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipes/halloween-recipes.aspx

Control and click to follow the links and find out more.

We search the net, via Twitter and Facebook, each Thursday evening and early Friday morning, for the latest from the Cork restaurant and bar scene. If you don't have either of the above, reach us at cork.billy@gmail.com. Deadline 9.00am Friday.

WINES FROM HUNGARY including Tokaj....

HUNGRY FOR WINES?

COME TO THE 1st INTERNATIONAL WINE & ARTISAN FOOD FESTIVAL IN

MITCHELSTOWN

TASTE A MEMORY

Just like mother used to....

TASTE A MEMORY FOODS

Ann Bradfield’s Taste a Memory Foods have come on in leaps and bounds since trying out a stall in Bandon Farmers Market just a few years back. Now they operate out of the Kinsale Road Commercial Centre. They have won national awards and the products are available in over 30 shops, with further expansion on the horizon.

But the same hands on approach is used as in the early days. ”Our range of Pasties are the only hand-made Pasties available in shops in Ireland. We produce Pasties using original methods dating back to the 1700s in Cornwall, Southern England.”

Tried out their Fish Pie at a recent exhibition and it was just perfect. Now for the Cottage Pie, the Chicken Pie and all those Pasties.

Unit 30, Kinsale Rd Comm. Centre 021 4840703
www.tasteamemory.ie

SUGAR SUGAR

SUGAR CAFE and PETITS FOURS PATISSERIE

Last summer, enjoyed some gorgeous macaroons in the Dordogne and then soon found out I could have been enjoying them here all along. Over in Washington Street, Christine Girault, in Ireland for 17 years, runs the Sugar Cafe and Petits Fours Patisserie.

Tasted the macaroons recently and they are absolutely delicious. The range here is hugely and hugely tempting: traditional French éclairs, Macaroons and Florentine Biscuits, Fruit Tarts, Mille-feuille and her own favourites Paris Brest, Opera and Flan Patissier....and she also does special occasion cakes.

The cafe is open 8.00am to 4.00pm Monday to Friday and here you can have the traditional French breakfast and quite a  variety of lunch treats (salads, baguettes, ciabatta, wraps etc.)

25 Washington Street West 087 6481452

http://www.petitsfours.ie

SAVOUR KILKENNY - THE REPORT

THE CON-FOODERATION OF KILKENNY 2010
Read Bibliocook's account of a great day for foodies....

TWO FROM CAHORS - ONE A GOLD MEDAL WINNER

CAHORS RAID NETS TWO GOOD 'UNS

One day last June, made a trip through the Cahors Vineyards. Started by visiting a couple of sleepy villages, got lost in the middle and ended up by purchasing a couple of cases in Parnac. 

In the bastide town of Montcabrier, pigeons cooed while children babbled contentedly in the school. More sounds of contentment in Duravel where the local café was doing quite a lunch-time trade.

A meander in the Lot

Then onto the River Lot and the quayside of Puy-L’Eveque, once a river port. Fine views here of the river and the old town and vineyards in the near distance. Views kept getting better. High up in Belaye, we had stunning views of both the Lot and Cahors Valley.

And even that was outdone when we called to nearby Albas which overlooks the Lot from a cliff. A few kilometres outside the two we got a magnificent view as the river formed a huge U shape in the valley below.

Despite the sign, was lost when I took this one

Then passed through the ancient Cathar fiefdom of Luzech and its imposing 12^th century keep before getting down to business in the little village of Parnac. Here the Cave Cooperative du Vignoble de Cahors (you see Les Cotes d’Olt on the signs) have a massive cave with a fine shop.

After a few tastings we settled on a Château Les Bouysses 2002 (€7.40 a bottle) and a Cotes D’OIt Malbec 2005 (€4.00), some rewards for a hard slog in the car.

Cotes D’OIt Cahors Malbec 2008: Aroma of black fruits and a deep red colour from this 100% Malbec. On the palate, it is well endowed with fruit, plum especially, and tannins enough to dry gums but nothing extreme. It is well balanced, velvety, almost creamy. There may well be more to come from it as “Good potential for aging” is written on the back label. 

PR: 7.5

Chateau Les Bouysses 2002, Cahors 2002: This won a Gold Medal in Macon in 2005 and is a blend of mainly Malbec (Auxerrois) and Merlot and boasts on the front label that is has been in oak: “Eleve en fut de chene.”

The nose is of black plum and cherries and the colour is red going on black. It is juicy and well flavoured with an adequate amount of tannin and hints of its time in oak. Supple with a decent weight and a good finish, there is very little not to like about this one. PR: 8.5

BREHENY’S BELLISH

BREHENY’S BELLISH

The Bellish is a play on embellish. They say: “The clover embellishes the land. We embellish your plate.”Maybe it sounds better in the Gaeltacht where the company is based.

But relish or bellish, I have no argument. Got some of their slow cooked red onion relish when I visited their stall recently and it sure went very well with some cheese I had to hand.

But Conall Breheny’s West Cork outfit have quite a range and are well regarded and some of their products have figured on national award lists in recent years. Worth a look and worth keeping an eye on. Could well emBellish your plates in the future.

Unit 6, Udaras Na Gaeltachta, Ballyvourney. 087 9477669
www/brehenysbellish.com

Check out my review of Breheny's Bellish - I am cork - on Qype

WELCOME TO THE MART

Guest post by Deirdre Shaughnessy - see her blog at http://deshocks.wordpress.com/

We’re not in Kashmir anymore, Toto

*Burgers*Chips*Curry*Salad*Cans*Chicken*

… Ponies…

… Toys…

… Carpets…

… Liquid Viagra (Free! Today only!)…

… Chickens…

… Work boots…

Welcome to the Mart. A Bank Holiday Monday Mart.

Only on Bank Holidays does the Mart – what Orla Kiely fans would call a farmers’ market, until they experience it in all its tacky, mucky, jumble sale glory – really come into its own.

Wizened, hunched-up streethawkers who could be in Kandahar or Kilmallock, dirty-looking old men, trousers held up with twine,  chubby, rosy-cheeked welly-wearing children with tracksuited knees smeared in cow dung… all of rural life is here and most of it ain’t as pretty as Fáilte Ireland would have you believe.

Knobbly carrots? You want 'em, we've got 'em.

Organic apples, smoked cheese, crepes and knobbly, mucky, GIY looking carrots? Down the road at the food fair, along with the Thai food stall, the gourmet sausages and the substantial burgers that appear altogether more sanitary than the greasy patties from the ancient, grumbling chip van at the gate.

This stuff is serious. Up here is where you’ll find jeeps used for their intended purpose; transporting greyhounds and baling twine, old reels of wire and bags of calfnuts. Most of them predate their shiny Celtic Tiger four-by-four cousins down near the food fair.

The real farmers, sour faced, capped, quiet men, are inside by the parade ring, fiercely concentrating on the mumble-whine of cattle prices and the tracing of who’s who, who’s where, and what’s where it shouldn’t be.

Who’s sold sites; who’s in a bit of trouble with the Department, and who’s waiting for their payment or doubling their quota. Organic apples, indeed.

While business is done inside the fun goes on outside. Travellers, pitched up for the last few days in case they’d lose their spot, are busy checking ponies’ teeth and eyeing up disturbed-looking chickens in their windblown cage at the gate. Terrier pups peer from inside ripped, ripoff Nike tracksuit tops, their teenage owner carrying a cane (all the rage these days) in his free hand.

Asian tradesmen by way of Roscommon are flogging  ’Adidas’ tracksuits and  ‘Dior’ mugs to a highly suspect – but pennywise – public. The type of public that kicks tyres and stretches seams before so much as offering a price, this is the buyer they’ve been used to at home, and there is no  surprise at being offered half the stated price for anything. Bargains is bargains, and they know they’re not in Kashmir anymore.

It's been a long time since that lorry accident.

Hollywood movies three for €15, battered and faded cover images of gallants and ghouls – for the season that’s in it – and even a few rare as hen’s teeth videos stacked away in the corner, for the older customer, or perhaps because the lorry they fell off had its accident a few years ago now.

Roaring trade at a stall, staffed by at least two generations of Traveller women, selling buckets, rugs and other household ware. With Chanel and Dior logos on them. For a moment I stop, taken by the beige bucket with the black Chanel double C stickers carefully dotted around them. For a joke, like. But I don’t need a bucket.

It wasn't as nice as the Chanel bucket, but there was always a handbag to be had.

Trade is alright, they tell me. Not great. But then, I might be a garda with that many questions. So, unless I’m buying that bucket, there’s no conversation to be had. The Travellers are more chatty than the foreigners, but they too can spot a mere observer. That jingle in my pocket is likely to stay there – my jeans and Converse give me away as a food fair native and merely a curio tourist at their show.

They don’t seem to mix, really, but it’s hard to see who does. They stick to their own patch; not like the food fair where the fudge man is busily quaffing the spiced apple juice of his neighbour and ignoring the middle-aged woman (two dogs, and plenty of money – the real salesmen down at the mart would’ve pounced on her) eyeing up his fudge.

The Eastender selling liquid Viagra like a Wild West snakeoil salesman, is armed with a smooth patter and amplified with a collar mic, to add to wild gesticulation and an unnerving habit of casting luminous-packaged products like pearls before the assembled hysterics. He’s selling  ’designer’ perfume too, “Twenty pounds only today!”

An Alfie Moon-alike, he’d want to watch out before the lad at the IRA stall beside him gives him a clatter for his lack of awareness that we are in a Republic. Four flags, some unfamiliar but all guaranteed 100% Republican,  ‘Ra songs playing on loudspeaker and multiple copies of the Proclamation in lurid frames testify that business is booming on the green market.

This, then, is country life.

ARTISAN CATERER

BARRIE TYNER

“Freshly made artisan pâtés using the best sourced local ingredients and a splash of the good stuff.”

That is the pride and joy of artisan caterer Barrie Tyner. And he lets you know. The queue at a food launch in the English market stopped alongside where Barrie was showing his wares and he almost stuffed me full of that pate. Not that I was complaining. It is delicious.

You won't find Barry normally in the English market but don't; worry. He is a regular ion Mahon Point (Thursdays) and in Midleton (Saturdays).  “That is where you’ll find me, tasting the living daylights out of every passing foodie!” I know, I know.

Tanglewood, Lover’s Walk, Cork 087 630 6761

http://www.localmarkets.ie/Cork-Local-Producers/Barrie-Tyner-Artisan-Caterer-c208/

Vittorio Castellani Visit

Italian food journalist Vittorio Castellani, who recently visited restaurants and markets in the Cork area, is currently doing a similar trip in Brazil’s Sao Paulo, particularly taking in the tastes of il Mercado Municipal. While here, he fell in love with seafood chowder and declared it his favourite Irish food.

He was in touch recently to say that the results of his trip to Cork will appear in the magazines he works for sometime in the Near Year. He has promised to contact the restaurants and myself when they appear,  so watch this space!

BRENDAN’S VEGGIES BURRITOS and BURGERS

BRENDAN’S VEGGIES BURRITOS and BURGERS
Fast (well, fairly fast) Food stalls did a roaring trade during the weekend Jazz festival. I found myself in the queue at Brendan’s Veggies Burritos and Burgers and ended up with one of his Burritos. This was one packed piece of stuff, probably equivalent to in poundage to any lunch plate around town and all for just a fiver.

These are apparently the real thing: Authentic Mexican/American Veggie Burritos Made with all Natural and only high quality ingredients. Sure tasted good and hot and needed a drink afterwards (Not that spicy mind you!)

Brendan operates his All Vegetarian Hot Food Market Stall based mainly in Cork, and can also be found at Festivals throughout the year. Markets covered include the City, Clonakilty and Blackrock. In addition, his frozen burritos are available at O’Driscoll’s (Ballinlough), Natural Choice (Paul St), O’Keeffe’s (St Luke’s) and An Tobrain (Bandon).