Along with almost every other journo in Grub Street, I have been asked to write about ‘cheap eating’ and have just written an article (published in today’s Irish Examiner) about saving money on food shopping for the family, specifically, how to buy meat for less.Continue reading “More Than Just a Cheap Cut”
I’ve got a bunch of tickets to be won for some of the absolutely fantastic lineup of events at this weekend’s Ballymaloe Litfest, so see below for competition rules:Continue reading “Ballymaloe Literary Festival – Ticket Competition!”
As we sift through the wreckage of yet another blundering budget courtesy of an impotent and creatively bankrupt Government, the feelings of anger, despair and, worst of all, powerlessness amongst ordinary citizens are only too palpable. The scant few measures aimed at supporting SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises – which covers the bulk of the local, Irish food sector) were aimed at those targetting export markets; those who rely on the domestic market alone were ignored. Actually, not ignored but hammered even further, for example, the €1 tax increase on a bottle of wine is very wounding indeed to local independent wine retailers and also to small restaurant and cafe businesses who offer wine on their menus.Continue reading “Self-empowerment Begins At Home”
It’s the closest I’ve come to generating a twitter firestorm – well, maybe more of a twitter firelog but it’s certainly the most tweets I’ve ever received in response to a query for an article I was writing, published in the Irish Examiner Weekend Magazine. The query? Name ten cookbooks you should own. And then the tweets began a-tumblin’ in. I even received an email furnishing his top ten from a man so profoundly allergic to the whole social media phenomenon, he was unable, physically, mentally or morally to respond with a tweet. But he is also a man who knows his onions, the 101 things you can do with them and a whole load of other foodstuffs besides, with a veritable library of fabulous cookbooks to bolster that knowledge.Continue reading “10 Cookbooks You Should Own?”
So The Swashbuachaill hightailed it off to France recently for the full pair of weeks seeking refuge from the deluge but it turns out precipitation and lots of it is currently the in-thing right across North Western Europe. But, as always, it began promisingly with the always-pleasurable cruise out of Cork Harbour on the Pont Aven, a most superior take on ferry travel for those of us, veterans of the Slattery’s coach trips to London in the 80s.
And then, lo, who should I spy in the vessel’s piano bar (‘piano bar’, says you!) – none other than a true Cork legend, Mattie Kiely, formerly of the late and very much lamented, Kiely’s chipper on Maylor St, in Cork. Mattie was en route to Lourdes, an annual pilgrimage he makes with his lovely wife and a group from Ballinlough, the Cork suburb where he lives (turns out I lived around the corner from him for a number of years and never knew!) but for me, this was a culinary equivalent of heading off to Mecca and bumping into Mohammed along the way. Safe to say, if Kiely’s were still open then any arguments over the best fish and chips in Cork, nay, Ireland would all be redundant — when Kiely’s was around there was simply no other competition.Continue reading “Meeting Mattie Kiely”
One glorious Sunday evening a short few weeks back, The Swashbuachaill set out with a couple of bottles of vino, a rapidly assembled travelling kitchen and something less than his usual purposeful stride. You see, The Swashbuachaill, bound for uncharted territories, was rather unsure of what lay ahead.Continue reading “Chaos Cooking”
Another lovely little bit of news for Irish craft beer drinkers (and anyone else in Ireland who claims to be fond of a pint) comes with the arrival of a new brewing company, launching three new beers.
Cork-based Elbow Lane will be debuting Angel Stout, Wisdom Ale and Elbow Lager over the next two months and having had the privilege of an early tasting, The Swashbuachaill can only raise a glass to these new arrivals and the continuing rude health of the truly burgeoning craft beer sector, seemingly unaware of the global economic meltdown.Continue reading “Craft beer drinkers can tell their Elbows from their arses”
Leaving one very happy coachman to count up one very tidy tip, The Swashbuachaill alighted at the gates of his staggeringly palatial home sometime after dawn just a few short days back. Having enjoyed a most splendid evening abroad on the town, he reasoned a brisk walk and the balm of some fresh morning dew would be just the tonic before repairing to the boudoir for a good fortnight of rest and recuperation and proceeded to crunch his way merrily up the long, gravelled driveway.
But, he’d hardly made 2 miles when he was cast into the ditch on one side by a most terrifying apparition, a coach and horses travelling at a mighty lick, hogging the width of the entire road and the reins held by a most scabrous villain, pictured above. It was the Childcatcher!Continue reading “Cruelty, neglect and abuse”
So, The Swashbuachaill is back home again, and contrary to the old saw, the heart is not yet here, still lagging way behind somewhere east of Cork city, loath to leave Dungarvan town. And the spiteful, spitting rain, that sly chill wind without Swashbuachaill Manor only adds to the pain of returning to the real world after yet another glorious spell in the alternative universe that is the Waterford Festival of Food but is often and very appropriately abbreviated to ‘Fungarvan’.Continue reading “Fungarvan – Waterford Festival of Food 2012”
There is a giddiness abroad in The Swashbuachaill household, a nervous tension the like of which only prevails before the rare Christmas when I’ve been, by and large, a good and very deserving boy throughout much of the preceding year. (Or at the very least, intended to be.)
But we’re a long way off Christmas – The Swashbuachaill’s anticipatory fervour comes on foot of his eagerly awaited first delivery of wine from Red Red Wine, an Irish company owned by Tom and Elena O’Loughlin who are based in the South of France and sell online directly to private customers at wholesale prices, averaging about five deliveries nationwide per annum.Continue reading “An Early Christmas”
Joe McNamee: Food Writer 