“We’ll go down to the Mermaid Café and I will buy you a bottle of wine. And we’ll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down.” I sang over the phone. “That’s great. Did you write that?” said Lefty, my fellow guitar-playing conspirator. “No, Joni Mitchell did, but I was probably her ...
Restaurant ReviewsFriends always say to me “Oh you’d eat in a railway tunnel long as they served game and truffles” and yes, I would. Some go further and say I’m impervious to ‘atmosphere’. To counter these criticisms I took my sister-in-law, a bona fide interior designer, to dine at Eamonn O’Reilly’s Pacific. Here are her musings: ...
Restaurant ReviewsIf anyone thinks this job is a picnic they should have accompanied me yesterday, as I left the comfort of my Sunday morning pit, drove over to Harold’s Cross to collect fellow food scribe Marilyn Bright and plodded down the long and immensely featureless drive to Portlaoise. We were bound for the Craft Butchers Association ...
Food‘Mony’s the love affair I’ve had wi’ whisky’ an Edinburgh publican confided in a rare Burnsesque moment. I know what he meant. One twirl around the dance floor with a honey-blonde Scots charmer, I’m a born-again teenage romantic. One kiss from the dram of my dreams, I get the urge to find a desk and ...
Wine & DrinkSCOTCH AND IRISH: SOME TO TRY Highland Park, Orkney Heather and sweet damp moss on the nose. Add six drops of water and enjoy the butterscotch sweetness and the long, long finish, like coming home to a welcoming turf fire. Springbank, Cambelltown Big rich “see yu, Jimmy” of a peated malt. Pokey but with huge ...
Wine & DrinkAt Easter I got given a beautiful, succulent leg of lamb – thanks Hylda! It arrived “butterflied” – de-boned and opened out and weighed about 4lbs. Seeking to experiment I par-roasted it – checking with a skewer that it was still pink within. Then I 1) painted the topside with Dijon mustard 2) spread soft ...
RecipesBio-dynamics is not so much a cultivation method, more an agricultural philosophy that sets out to balance the relationship between the land and the plants grown on it. To this end it uses natural fertilisers and treatments and links cultivation techniques to terrestrial and solar cycles. The founding father of bio-dynamics was Austrian philosopher–scientist Rudolf ...
Wine & DrinkThe connection between red wine drinking and health has been known for some time, although the medical profession, with its natural conservatism and caution, has not, until recently, seen fit to champion the cause of drinking wine, even in moderation. Of course, it all started with the French.What became known as ‘The French Paradox’ was ...
Wine & Drink(Well, I had to call it something and I was listening to Beth Orton’s ‘Trailer Park’ the last time I cooked it) per 2 people allow 2 pig’s kidneys, thinly sliced 4 or 5 mushrooms, thinly sliced 2 rashers of plain (pale) bacon, cut into 3 or 4 pieces olive oil, lemon juice, Vermouth, cream ...
Recipes25g dried porcini mushrooms, broken into small pieces 375ml red wine 1 kg rolled pork loin, skin off sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 onion, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 6 juniper berries, crushed 1 sprig rosemary 2 bay leaves 4 anchovy fillets, chopped 120g wild or mixed fresh mushrooms, cut ...
Recipes