t’s not often I get asked to make a speech but next time I’d like a little more than an hour’s notice! Still, all’s well that end’s well – no one threw their scallops and black tiger prawns at me (not surprised, they were delicious) and as a warm up for the Norah Casey Joe ...
FoodOkay, so we’ve persuaded you to go to your first wine tasting. Inhibitions shed, you’re standing at a table in front of a row of bottles, glass in hand. Probably the host will have provided tasting notes, in which case you can safely work through bottles – however many there are – in the suggested ...
Wine & DrinkO’Connell’s in Bewley’s Hotel, Ballsbridge the restaurant run by Tom O’Connell, brother of Darina Allen, has closed after health authorities discovered an outbreak of potentially fatal E Coli. Separate investigations have been launched by the Eastern Health Authority and the Food Safety Authority. Apparently there were five confirmed cases of the bug, plus two probables. ...
FoodReserve’, it’s a curious word. Used in a sporting context it speaks of being not quite good enough to make the grade – “Russian striker Dmitri Turgenev will play for the reserves at Rochdale while his colleagues take on Milan in the San Siro.” Transfer the word to wine jargon, however, and the reverse is ...
Wine & DrinkI hate fusion. But sometimes, in order to jazz up a plain vegetable or to revive one that’s looking maybe a bit jaded you have to resort to “meddling” or “fudging” – always based, of course, on the precept that you know what works with what. I took to my Thai stocks to breathe the ...
RecipesIt’s not every day you get to interview one of the world’s top six biking icons. Who was also voted one of ‘1000 people nastier than Mick Hucknall’. I asked Clarissa Dickson-Wright “Are you missing your Fat Lady friend?” “It sounds awful to say ‘no’ but because we were only together for filming I don’t ...
FoodI’m a big fan of wine from New Zealand. Trouble is, prices seem to be creeping up. The reputation of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc, spearheaded by the wonderful and increasingly hard-to-get Cloudy Bay, is now sky high – in fact SB could soon overtake Chardonnay as our Preferred Grape – and makers seem to be getting ...
Wine & DrinkA friend phoned up to see if I had the names of any stockists for Sharwood’s Tandoori paste – she was throwing a dinner party that night and wanted to try an “almost instant tandoori” mix for salmon, involving the aforesaid Sharwoods plus a pot of yoghurt. Alas I couldn’t oblige but, as I’d nothing ...
Recipes