What is it about oats that makes them such a wonder food, if I don’t have my bowl of porridge for breakfast in winter or fruit muesli in Summer – I seem to get a craving for something snacky and sweet around 11:30am in the morning. All my grandchildren love porridge, Joshua and Lucca eat [...]

Romantic sounding menus, lots of red roses, twinkling candles, a bottle of fizz – hotels and restaurants are using all their ingenuity to tempt us to throw caution to the wind, forget the blues and celebrate. 
My students laugh when I tell them to get out there and find a fine strong farmer with a parcel [...]

There’s a big pot of citrus peel bubbling away on my cooker in my kitchen. The whole house smells of marmalade and I love it. The aroma of freshly cooked Seville oranges brings me back almost 40 years when I made my first marmalade. I was so proud of my few pots of glistening preserve [...]

Just before Christmas a book slipped onto the shelves here in Ireland without a particularly big fanfare - ‘the wine and food of ely through the seasons’
The team behind the hugely successful ely restaurants came together to produce what in fact turns out to be two books in one - a terrific cookbook and a [...]

I’ve just had a wonderful morning learning how to make traditional Listowel Mutton Pies from Mary Keane, wife of the late play-write John B. I was in the town for the annual Food Fair and of course strayed into the legendary family pub, I fell into lively company and we took to discussing food, local [...]

New York was doing its best to be jolly when I was in Manhattan recently for a friend’s wedding. It’s difficult to get New Yorkers down; they have been through a lot and have managed to keep their spirits up despite the many challenges they have had to collectively face. Everyone seemed to be excited [...]

Students come from all over the world to the Ballymaloe Cookery School. It’s a lovely mixture of ages, nationalities and backgrounds – this term eight countries are represented. It’s always interesting to meet the new batch. Last term we had the usual cosmopolitan mix, some had never cooked before, others had dabbled in the kitchen, [...]

For the past decade virtually every cook book, food magazine and cookery article I picked up was concentrating on meals in minutes and assuring us that we could whip up delicious food in a flash. Well it is indeed possible provided you maintain a well stocked larder if one maintains a well stocked larder and [...]

After all the excitement of Christmas I’ve got lots of delicious bits to be eaten up. I am always full of good intentions to buy just what I need but despite my calculations all-be –it on the back of an envelope, I have a fridge and pantry full of miscellaneous bits, some will last but [...]

I’ve chosen some suggestions for a Christmas Eve supper menu from several new cookbooks which have been released for the festive season. The first is from Sarah Raven, a gardener/cook who has a cult following. She makes regular appearances on BBC Gardeners World where she shares her expertise on how to grow the beautiful vegetables, [...]