American business psychologist Warren G. Bennis, described by Forbes magazine as ‘the king of leadership gurus’ is on record for saying “People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.” An adage that should be learned and committed to heart by restaurateurs, too ...
Homepage Featured, Restaurant ReviewsI’ve been a photo hobbyist since I got given my first serious camera as a fourteenth birthday present. A Zeiss Ikon ‘folder’ that took a mere eight shots to a roll of film, far cry from today’s digital wonders. It had an f4.5 lens, very slow by today’s standards. Being something of a tech head ...
BLOG, Food, Homepage FeaturedThere are now over 400 food bloggers in Ireland. Though www.forkncork.com my food and drink website, Ireland’s first, has been up and running almost ten years I never considered myself a part of the blogosphere. Though the term ‘blog’ had been coined in the early noughties it certainly wasn’t in common usage, at least not ...
BLOG, Food, Homepage FeaturedNatural Wine Tasting at Fallon & Byrne, Dublin by Le Caveau My first encounter with what has come to be called ‘natural wine’ came some five or six years ago during the Salon de Vins de Loire at Angers. That week I was staying at the Chateau des Vaults, as a guest of Evelyne de ...
Homepage Featured, Wine & DrinkI cooked my first sweet and sour dish in 1984. Pork, of course. The recipe came from Ken Hom’s Encyclopaedia of Chinese Cookery Techniques, a cookery book classic and one I bought the minute it came out that year, on foot of Ken’s successful BBC TV series. I still refer to this book on a ...
BLOG, Recipes“We really cook very simply. Remember that the methods and ingredients have been used for generations and in the past there were hardly any cooking facilities and definitely no microwave ovens, so things had to be easy. The key to the whole thing is that in the ‘old days’ food had much better flavour and ...
Books & Equipment, Homepage FeaturedI’ve just been road testing a brace of quality coffees from a small and relatively new Irish supplier, Imbibe. Latin Espresso is a blend from Columbia and Costa Rica beans. The blend was described to me by Imbibe’s man Gary Grant as “a medium-to-dark roast espresso which is rich, sweet and balanced with notes ...
BLOGValpolicella is a viticultural zone of the Italian province of Verona, east of Lake Garda, ranking as the second most significant production region for Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) wines in volume terms (Chianti is first).This red wine is typically made from three grape varietals: Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara although others are permitted in small ...
Homepage Featured, Tasting Notes, Wine & DrinkYesterday I set out to clean out my store cupboard – well, not exactly ‘clean out’ but at least have a good fossick around and see what I have, what I’m nearly out of and what I’m missing. Like…. 3 bottles of dark soy sauce, all opened. A bottle of Peychaud bitters that must be ...
BLOGMy first encounter with Chinese food was in Manchester way back in the last century. I was doing evening classes, I forget the subject. During a break-time conversation it emerged that Johnson, one of the guys in the class, was the proprietor of a Chinese restaurant. Furthermore, he kindly issued an open invitation to a ...
Homepage Featured, Restaurant Reviews