Articles

January is synonymous with comfort food - and where better to look for ideas when the weather turns chilly than Ireland’s great old traditional dishes? You’ll find these a-plenty in Michelle Horgan’s book ‘Recipes From The English Market’ (Atrium, €25).
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Darina takes a break from her column this month, but Georgina Campbell has been browsing the 2013 Ballymaloe Cookery School Course Schedule... It may seem like no time at all to many of its longterm fans, but Ballymaloe Cookery School has been in business since 1983 - and, to celebrate the 30th anniversary this year, there are over 60 short courses on offer in addition to the renowned 12-week certificate course.
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Lucy Madden considers the question of Manners - and, warning that The Gathering’s returning diaspora may cast a more critical eye on us than we might like, hopes that we can remain a mannerly country. During a visit to Berlin at the end of last year my son visited the prison, now open to the public that the Stasi, the secret police, had used to incarcerate their victims.
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Ronan Byrne - AKA The Friendly Farmer - is a familiar figure at Galway and Moycullen farmers’ markets, where he sells the free range meat and - especially - poultry - produced on the 35 acre farm outside Athenry in East Galway where he grew up, and which once belonged to his grandparents.
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Craft beer is one of the biggest recent success stories of Irish food and drink. This month, in the first of a series which will show how to get the best from some specific food and wine pairings, our expert columnist and food blogger Kristin Jensen gives her top tips for beer and food matching in general.
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Has January come around faster than usual? Although I am not complaining as my Seville orange marmalade is bubbling on the stove, the house is filled with its wonderful perfume, a wonderful contrast to the spicy smells of December’s kitchen.
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Rachel Gaffney, the famous foodie who’s flying the flag for Ireland in Texas, sees parallels between Dublin and Dallas in the rebirth of the city she now calls home.
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With the 2013 growing season nearly upon us, I’m intrigued by the idea that 2012’s GIYing is still paying dividends. It’s a good time of the year therefore for a bit of stock-take. I use various locations to ‘store’ vegetables – our kitchen doubles up as a larder at this time of the year (you can barely get in to the kitchen - there are veggies hanging out of every available space!); then there’s the garage where I keep vegetables in sacks, boxes and the freezer.
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We are nearly back to normality after the Christmas break at Castlefarm. In preparation for our spring herd of 70 cows to calve down, we have disinfected calf sheds and re-installed calving cameras in the calving boxes. From the end of January the monitor in our bedroom will allow us to check on expectant mothers through the night without leaving the warmth of our house.
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Even though we have been living full time out here for four or five years and spending a lot of time here before that, this turned out to be the first time we have spent Christmas out here, not just that but we persuaded the full family, daughters, sons in and out of law and the totally precious grandsons to come here for the holiday also.
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