Articles

This month Marilyn Bright talks to Michael O'Neill of O'Neill's The Point Bar, Renard Point, Caherciveen, Co Kerry; with a big reputation for ultra fresh seafood, the 'simplest is best' mantra at this immaculate little bar clearly works
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The goat is the most widely used farm animal in the world for its milk, the cheese and its meat - yet, astonishingly, we hardly use it at all here, except for cheese.
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On our travels this summer I’ve been surprised to see that wintry favourite, Jerusalem artichoke, on a number of menus where seasonality is usually observed. Perhaps chefs are somehow confusing them with the splendid globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus) the handsome architectural member of the thistle family that is a cultivated form of the cardoon, and in season now.
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Toby Simmonds is a legend of alternative thinking in the Irish food world - in 1993 he started a venture that many said would never work, The Real Olive Company, at a stall in Cork’s English Market. It was a huge success.
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A touch of summer magic comes into play this month, as we look at a couple of quirky cookbooks from original cooks in Clare and Kerry - and also an unusual supermarket magazine, Fresh, which has the focus very clearly on local Irish producers and suppliers, some of whom are graduates of The Food Academy, a collaboration between Bord Bia, Local Enterprise Offices and SuperValu that provides support for start-up businesses. And, with that in mind, we're thinking ahead to the 'new school year' time, when we're all in the mood to learn and begin new projects - whether that is starting a new food enterprise or re-energising your business, 'Money For Jam' and 'Sales Tales' are sure to inspire you.
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This series is all about Irish craft brews and, for August, our expert columnist and food blogger KRISTIN JENSEN introduces a delicious beer from a very promising newly launched brewery
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Here is a piece for August about a very simple restaurant we ate in in the Aveyron. Common in France thirty years ago these experiences are quite rare now. The images show the progression of the very simple but delicious apricot tart.
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Rachel Gaffney, the famous foodie who's flying the tricolour for us in Texas compares some visitor expectations with their actual experiences in Ireland - and feels gratified
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We have been walking the farm on a weekly basis to manage our dairy herds grazing. The gorgeous warm July and its lack of rain means our organic grass is sparse. We have had to feed silage ground, earmarked for winter feed. Hopefully we will not have to buy in too much organic dairy feed this winter as a substitute.
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It's hard to fathom, but it's already August and the seed-sowing year is almost over – this month is the last opportunity to sow seeds and marks the end of seven months of fairly intense seed sowing activity that started way back in the dreary days of February
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