I’m continually surprised by how thrown waiting staff in many restaurants seem to be if one asks about the provenance of the food. They immediately seem to go on the defensive and it can take three or four attempts to find out the source of a piece of meat, fish or cheese.
A recent attempt to [...]
Love is in the air and there are a few things more alluring than the smell of something delicious cooking in the oven. Doesn’t matter how sexy you are, they soon get fed up with burnt burgers and greasy chips.
So why not ask your cute friend round for lunch or dinner. Doesn’t have to be [...]
Coming up to Christmas lots of newly published cookbooks arrived on my desk. There were so many that I simply couldn’t manage to mull over each one. Now that I’ve had a bit more time to digest the various tomes I’d like to pass on my thoughts. There were several treasures, including one I had [...]
Simplicity, even in winter is everything and nothing hits the spot quite like a hearty bowl of thick, chunky vegetable soup. A well flavoured with a few fat lardons of bacon or generous cubes of chorizo to add extra oomph. How delicious does that sound?
I’ve got lots of recipes for winter bean and lentil soups. [...]
Food fads come and go but the craving for Italian food still continues to endure; a few really simple pasta recipes are a must in everyone’s repertoire and where better to seek them out than in Giuliano Hazan’s books. Giuliano’s first book ‘The Classic Pasta Cookbook’ sold over half a million copies world wide, so [...]
On the sixth of January, the feast of the Epiphany, the French enjoy 50 million Galette des Rois to celebrate the Festival of Kings. The flaky pastry cake has a soft filling of delicious frangipane - inside is hidden a Feve, originally it was a broad bean but nowadays it is more likely to be [...]
It’s a very busy time in the kitchen now so don’t forget a big hug for the cook! By now most people will have planned their menu for the festive season. Let’s hope the lesson learned from the excesses of Celtic Tiger era will mean that fewer people will totter out of the supermarket with [...]
Carmel Somers, owner of the iconic Good Things café in Durrus developed her love and appreciation of good food in her childhood ‘while surrounded by lavish roast dinners, meticulous baking and too much butter’ In her late teens she was tossing around trying to decide which direction to follow so on a friend’s suggestion, she [...]
Darina will be signing copies of her new Book ‘Forgotten Skills of Cooking’ on Saturday December 5th from 1pm.
A couple of weeks ago my daughter-in-law Rachel’s new book shot to the top of the best sellers list. Can you imagine Bertie’s reaction when he was knocked off the number one spot by a book on home cooking! This is Rachel’s sixth book in just six years. Can’t imagine how she manages to keep [...]