KITCHEN AT FOTA HOUSE

Fascinating tour! UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS at FOTA HOUSE 
See my full post here

Well equipped

The game carousel

SWEET SWEET AMANDINE

AMANDINE

In you are in Athy this sunny morning for the ploughing, or indeed for any day of the event, I’ll bet you won't easily pass the stand of Amandine Confectionery. 

This Dungarvan based company makes delicious French style cakes of all shapes and sizes and all are tempting, especially the succulent Pear & Almond and Lemon Meringue Tarts that have been shortlisted for the 2011 Irish Food Awards in Dingle at the end of the month.

But you don’t have to go to Athy to get your hands on these sweet things. Amandine has a permanent stand in the mall at the Mahon Point Shopping Centre and also at the City Square Shopping Centre in Waterford.  The products are also available in Dungarvan (in (Dunnes Stores and Twomey’s Eurospar in Abbeyside) and in Midleton (Hurley's SuperValu).

Claire O'Connor is a busy person and, aside from the Ploughing Championships, you see her at various food festivals in the southern half of the country – I met here most recently at Midleton. Claire is from France, from the Var department in the region of Provence. She was educated at the Ecole superieure de commerce de Montpellier and now lives in Dungarvan

Claire, a follower of Munster rubgy, has brought a real taste of France to Ireland, her delicious selection of artisan confectionery includes cakes, tartlets, birthday and photocakes and more. Why not have a look at her Facebook page .

DAILY BREAD....

DAILY BREAD...

Took a refreshing stroll along the Mahon Estuary Walk yesterday morning and called up to the Blackrock Farmers Market before going home. A queue for coffee and hot chocolate at O’Connaill’s and some fresh vegetables in another stall from Ballycotton but no sign of the

In Ballymaloe with Skillogalee's Dave Palmer

SKILLOGALEE WINE-MAKER DINNER AT BALLYMALOE

Wine with a smile

Clare Valley wine-maker Dave Palmer (above, right) and his wife Diana were in Ballymaloe this weekend introducing some of his wines during a top notch five course meal. The Wales born one time economist delivered his to the point information with a great deal of practical insight (as you’d expect) and also with a large measure of sparkling humour.

Of course, we did start with their

NEW DISHES FROM BALLYCOTTON SEAFOOD

BALLYCOTTON SEAFOOD

Salmon & Sweet Chili

Mediterranean Cod Gratin

Always like calling to see the folks at the Ballycotton Seafood in the English Market and also make the odd call to their shop in Midleton.

Now the good news for

EL GORDO

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Pics from today's Spanish Wine Show in Cork....post to follow..click on image to enlarge
Top:Claire Lemasney (Gilbeys); Mark McCloskey (Greenlea); Stephen Morrissey (Barry & Fitzwilliam), Paul Kiernan and Billy Forrester (Bubble Bros).
Bottom: Antonio Lorente & Rafael Salazar (Vinos Tito); Joe Karwig and Billy Lyons; Bren Smith (Mackenway) and Marcus Gates (Karwig).

THE BIG SPANISH WINE SHOW

“Wines from Spain: Changing Ways 2011” was the name of the big Spanish wine show that was held in the Imperial Hotel (Cork) yesterday. El Gordo (The Big One) is associated with the Spanish lottery but there was no gamble in

KILLAVULLEN FARMERS MARKET

Think I'll head up here on Saturday morning - with the shopping bags!!

Click on image to enlarge

LORGE AT LARGE

LORGE AT LARGE

I met Kerry chocalatier Benoit Lorge for the first time at last Saturday’s Midleton Food Festival. You just couldn’t pass the range of tempting creations at his stall. And, when you study his brochure, you realise that this is only a fraction of his portfolio of chocolate goodies.

You can buy singles or boxes (with anything from two to 54 pieces). You can fill a mixed bag, like I did, 10 for €6.00. He also does chocolate bars including an award winning Praline and also Nougat (nice stuff too – I got some in Manning’s Ballylickey two months ago). His truffles - buy by the bag – are multi-awards winners, gold going to the Rum Bitter, the soft Rum and Caramel and also to the Orange and Cointreau.

I had whiskey and rum included in my selection and you may also get Baileys and other liqueurs.  But you may also avoid the

WINE COURSE

O'Donovans Off Licence

One week left to go before WSET Level II Wines & Spirits (Intermediate Cert) Course starts next Tuesday 20th September. Gary O'Donovan who has over 20 years experience in Wine Education & The International Wine Industry will be running this course. Please hurry - limited places available! Please contact deirdre@donovansofflice.com or 021 4296060.

Roger Ravoire Wine Dinner at Donnybrook Fair

Lubernon vines with Ménerbes in background

Roger Ravoire Wine dinner at Donnybrook Fair

Olivier Ravoire (above) from Roger Ravoire will host a wine dinner on Wednesday 19th October at 7.45pm in The Restaurant @ Donnybrook Fair. Olivier will introduce a selection of wines from his family’s winery located in the heart of the

APPLE RECIPES

Apple & Blackberry Cobbler

APPLE RECIPES

It is the apple time of year, lots of them now becoming available at fruit farms and in the farmers markets. Thanks to our friends at All Recipes UK and Ireland, we’ve got no less than 482 apple recipes for you! More than an apple a day.

Find apple recipes for all of your favourites - apple cake, apple crumble, apple pie. They have savoury ways with apples, too - apple-stuffed chicken breast, apple and cheese bruschetta and more.

So get picking and peeling and click right here 

LES GOURMANDISES: Premiere classe

LES GOURMANDISES

With recent Food & Wine kudos for both the chef and the sommelier, you’d have thought we were on a good thing when we visited Les Gourmandises at the weekend. Well, we were but we knew that even before the awards were announced as this Cook Street restaurant is, and has been for some time now, one of the very best in Cork.

Started with the Les Gourmandises tasting plate: Parsnip Soup, Black Pudding with Foie Gras and breaded John Dory with green puree. The Parsnip soup was delightful; the Black Pudding outshone the Foie Gras while the fish was spot on. A good start is half the battle.

Next up for me was the Roasted duck leg confit with confit potato and cherry. A beautiful piece of duck, so well cooked. It also looked fantastic, a tempting light colour, and it fell away from the bone at the slightest touch. Tasted as well as it looked, much better than similar efforts I ate in the Dordogne in the summer of 2010.

CL was also very happy with Fillet of Cod with Celeriac and Apple puree and mushrooms. The fish and puree combination was top class, every little bit welcomed onto the palate. We both got a side dish of sautéed potatoes, shaped into small globes, not much bigger than marbles (or glassy alleys, as we say around here).

We each had the same dessert: Red Berry Jelly and Lavender Panacotta, with a Lemon Madeleine. I’ve had some variation of this here previously. It was fresh and lively, a really smashing way to finish off a meal, the combination of sight and taste sending two happy customers on our way into the night.

We were on the Prix Fixe menu which is priced at €27.50 for two courses, €29.50 for three. Do the math and you’ll see that the dessert cost just two euro! Two glasses of Lombeline wine, one Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire, the other Syrah/Grenache from the Gard, brought the bill to €72.70.

No complaints with the wines, each was excellent. The following day, by chance, I spotted that The Wine Store sells the Sauvignon Blanc for €10.99 a bottle. The glass at Les Gourmandises is priced at €6.85. The Bridge Bar and Grill in Dublin internet site lists their glass price at €7.00, their bottle at €24.00. These would all seem to be rather large mark ups.

And the other thing about Irish restaurants selling wine by the glass is that you are rarely told how much wine is your glass, whereas in some European countries, Austria for example, you have the choice of one or two decilitres and, in some cases, the glass is marked.

MIDLETON FOOD FESTIVAL

Midleton Food Festival 10.09.11. Click on image to enlarge. Post to follow...

MIDLETON FOOD FESTIVAL

Had really been looking forward to this year’s Midleton Food Festival and neither the food on offer nor the people offering it let me down in any way. A stroll down (and up, and down and up again) the main street this Saturday morning was a foodie pleasure.

Enjoyed my chat with Claire of Amandine who make sweet temptations from the most gorgeous French style pastries to personalised birthday cakes. Two of her pastries, Pear & Almond and Lemon Meringue Tarts, have been shortlisted for the 2011 Irish Food Awards in Dingle and they were the two we bought.

One of the pleasures of these festivals, especially if you go early, is the opportunity to chat with the stallholders and we compared notes with Claire on Provence (where she is from and where we, and she, holidayed this year). Bonne chance in Dingle, Claire.

Also had a chat with Jon Ward and Kevin Aherne from the inventive Sage Restaurant  who played a big part in the festival with a few stands out on the street as well as one in the courtyard.

Also called to the regular Farmers Market which was also running and delighted here to meet up with Noreen and son Henry from Woodside Farm  and also the busy and ever inventive Deirdre Hilliard of Cobh’s Just Food .

Back to the food now. Let’s start with the bread, a lovely sourdough (already tested) from the Granary who have a pleasant permanent position just off the main street. Three lots of cheese came back to the city: two from the Old Irish Creamery  and one from Ardsallagh .

Isabelle Sheridan was manning the On the Pig’s Back stand and here we helped ourselves to some Chicken liver pate and to a slab of Venison Terrine. Also a box of Victoria plums from the Rose Cottage Fruit farm .

At the Farmers Market, we bought the veg from Ballycurraginny Farm (regulars at Mahon Point), got some Pork and Apple Burgers from Woodside and a Muesli and pot of Ratatouille from Just Food.

Madeline from Pure Sushi told me she was delighted with her award at the Mitchelstown Festival and we treated ourselves to a six pack for this evening. Some sweet stuff too. In addition to the cakes from Amandine (who have a permanent stand in the Mahon Shopping complex), we spoiled ourselves with a bag of gorgeous mixed chocolates from Benoit Lorge .

As you know, I regularly buy Irish, buy local. But it is not always easy. Lorge has quite a reputation in the chocolate field and many of you may have seen Eve Chocolates  from Dennehys Cross highlighted in the Evening Echo during the week.

Yet last week, at the English Market, two US travel agents told me they were disappointed to find only two Irish chocolate products on sale in an otherwise well stocked chocolate shop there.