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TEAM FORKNCORK WINS BIG FOODIE QUIZ – AGAIN!

  Forkncork GTi (now with alloy wheels, go-fast stripes, scatter cushions AND furry dice) won the Great Big Irish Foodie Quiz for the second year running. Team members Ernie Whalley, Tim Magee and Leslie Williams were set to defend their title when, in the morning of the quiz, fourth member Corinna Hardgrave dropped out, laid

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BLOG A Tale of Two Dinners

It may surprise, nay, shock some of you to learn that a restaurant critic went out two nights on the trot this week and spent his own dosh on dinner. Usually, on the nights I’m not reviewing or attending some food or wine function, I like nothing better than to cook. From a simple fry-up

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BLOG Forkncork.com – Ireland’s first food & drink website/blog is 10 years old this November

It’s almost ten years since my good friend and web wunderkind, Paul Clerkin, said to me “You’ve gotta have a website”. “Oh, right,” sez me. Where do I get one of those, pray?” “I’ll design you one.” And he did. We’ve come on a bit since forkncork Mk.1, designed on bulletin board software, in like

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BLOG: Losing the Plot

I’ve never liked rapeseed oil as a dressing. Today I thought I’d give it another go. I bought 3 bottles of Irish rapeseed oil and tasted them, both neat and drizzled on white bread, against a bottle of ‘Silencio’ Arbequina extra virgin olive oil  that I brought back from Spain last week – it cost

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BLOG The Man with The Hat is back

It won’t have escaped anyone’s notice that my postings on forkncork have been rather sparse of late. Yes, I have been busy setting up the food section for The Sunday Times ‘Sunday’ magazine. And writing my two articles a week.  Judging wine comps and attending press junkets. But the main reason for abandoning, albeit temporarily, my

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BLOG – IDIOSYNCRATIC OR WHA’?

  Found this on an (Irish) blog today – “Big brands are capturing increasingly large shares of the market, making individual, idiosyncratic wines harder to find”. Sorry, but that’s utter bollocks. Big brands may be increasing market share but it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to find idiosyncratic.There’s never been a wider choice of wines here

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BLOG – Albert Zenato in Dublin

My good friend Maureen O’Hara who runs Premier Wine Training sends me news that  Alberto Zenato will present a tasting of Zenato wines in Dublin, on Sunday evening, April 15th. Until I get the event calendar up and running again, here are the details. Places cost €20 per person. Space is limited, and places must

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YOU’LL NEVER BLOG ALONE – the day I discovered I’m a blogger and other stories

There 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

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BLOG – variations on a sweet-and-sour theme

I 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

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BLOG – 2 good blends tested but why is most coffee in Ireland shit?

  I’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

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