Food

The Cellar Bar and Restaurant on Eglinton Street has won the inaugural Hellmann’s Sandwich Challenge. Chef Aidan Cleary’s ‘Cellar Cajun Spiced Chicken Ciabatta’ recipe took the title, while McCambridge’s on Shop Street and Kilkenny’s Hibernian Hotel finished runners up.
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MEP for Ireland North-West, Jim Higgins has termed Ireland’s failure to teach its children to cook properly a “recipe for disaster”. Mr Higgins is calling for Home Economics to be made mandatory until the Junior Certificate and says it would be “a great way for students to learn about food, how to cook and, above all, how to take care of themselves”.
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Despite a cloudless blue sky, it was well below zero outside last Monday and vast patches of frost were still shining bright and white. It was, in a sense, a strange time to be planting potatoes, even early potatoes.
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Galway will again play host to a food festival this year. The 2013 Galway Food Festival is to take place on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend from Thursday 28 March to Monday 1 April. The festival, which is now in its second year, will again showcase local food produce, food producers and food outlets.
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Café, restaurant and wine bar Ard Bia at the Spanish Arch has been named Bord Bia’s 2013 Just Ask annual award winner. The Just Ask 2013 campaign encourages diners to look for information on where the food on their plate comes from, and urges businesses to provide this information on their menus.
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When I was born, supermarkets were unknown in Ireland. Of course, they were not unheard of. They were known as far-off phenomena, more suited to the Godless life of larger societies but, nonetheless, sprinkled with a fair amount of fairy dust.
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Galway’s Malthouse Restaurant has been honoured in the Megabites awards 2012, organised by John and Sally McKenna of the Bridgestone Guide. The restaurant, which is situated in the Olde Malte Mall, 15 High Street, scooped the coveted ‘Megabites Best Service Award’ for 2012 last month.
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I lived through an era when Dualit toasters were not trendy and could be bought only from vendors of catering equipment. I remember when toasted sandwiches contained wither plastic cheese, plastic ham, or both.
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Following its successful launch in 2012, GMIT will once again host the Foodie Forum in GMIT Galway on Tuesday 5 February. This year’s event will include workshops, demonstrations, debates and master classes with leading chefs including Enda McEvoy of Aniar, Martin O’Donnell from the Twelve Hotel, Wade Murphy of Doonbeg Lodge, Jp McMahon of Cava and, in association with Redmond Fine Foods, Martijn Kajuiter, Executive Chef of the Cliffhouse Hotel and author of ‘Let’s Go Disco’.
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After the success of Liz Carey’s baking classes in The Skeff during the Galway Food Festival last Easter, The Skeff Bar and Kitchen are putting on a series of baking classes for those who wish to improve their baking skills.
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I’m always surprised that turkey remains so popular. I mean I can understand how, in the days when chickens were an occasional luxury, the turkey must have been the very definition of a feast with all those extra pounds of – to be honest – very similar flesh.
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My good friend Conor Pope, with whom I used to work at The Irish Times, made a very good point on Newstalk’s The Right Hook a while back. He was talking about how students can save money and survive within a tight budget and he remarked that the single most useful thing they could is to learn to cook.
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Liquorice is one of those flavours nobody seems to be neutral about: you either like it or hate it. I’ve never heard anyone say that they can take it or leave it. In fact, I have a feeling that the majority of the population gives it a very wide berth.
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Mulberrys restaurant in Barna is celebrating once again after having been selected along with Jamie Oliver’s new Dublin restaurant Jamie’s Italian as places to try in the highly regarded food bible, Food and Wine magazine.
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