Chocolate rabbits, fine food... Say hello to the awards season

There's very few people able to coerce the premier of any country into auctioning a chocolate rabbit but if anyone's up for the job, it's Margaret Jefferes. Margaret is founder of Good Food Ireland - a tourism and food organisation which brings together the best of Ireland's food producers, restaurants, cafes and accomodation. In my work I come across members of Good Food Ireland all the time and it's testament to Margaret that she has gathered those at the top of their game into her organisation. The sublime Merrion Hotel, Cliff House Hotel, Chapter One and food producers like Graham Roberts of Connemara Smokehouse, Glenillen Farm and Cashel Blue cheese are all members of the group. These are people and companies who I've covered in stories because they are doing something different and authentic in food. And when I travel around the country to interview farmers and food producers I always find the Good Food Ireland folk a fantastic, energetic and fun bunch of people. The minute I get out of my car they're there with a warm welcome, an honesty and humour that always makes me really warm to them. Maybe it's because they gain strength from each other in what can be a lonely business - running a food SME in a recession. But whatever the reason, they have huge passion for what they do, and I always end up chatting for hours and more importantly, laughing, a lot.

Earlier this week they held their annual conference and awards in the Shelbourne Hotel Dublin. It was an honour to asked to speak at the conference alongside the likes of Kevin O'Sullivan editor of the Irish Times, Feargal Quinn retail legend, Fred Karlsson Founder of DoneDeal.ie, and Mary Carney winner of MasterChef Ireland. Mary spoke about "Creating Great Taste Memories" and the good and bad memories we all have of Irish food which brought me back to the terrible days of the 1980s microwave lasangne but also my Donegal grandmothers insanely good soda bread. The lunchtime spread of foods from Good Food Ireland was so fantastic it was hard to take in. I think I had about fourteen separate things on my plate at one stage, everything packed with flavour, beautifully cooked and as Irish as it comes. Some of the highlights from the conference talks on the day were from Sile Gorman, Aran McMahon and Peter Ward from Country Choice who all spoke about how difficult it is to make money out of producing or serving good food, but that what keeps them going is the love affair they have with food, and the feedback they get from their customers who come back again and again.

The awards ceremony was later in the evening and it was lovely to see some great Irish businesses like Goatsbridge Trout farm, The Chocolate Garden and Ballyvolane House collect some well deserved silverware. But for me it was a race over to Trinity College for my second appointment of the day - the Bord Bia Food Industry Awards, and yes, I finished the evening pretty well fed. The Bord Bia awards were slightly different as they are aimed at larger food businesses. Huge Irish success stories like Largo crisps won awards alongside Flavahans porridge (a staple in our home), Country Crest, Green Saffron, Jameson Whiskey and a new collaboration between Kerrygold and Cashel Blue which will see the Grubb family's handmade cheese on shelves in the mega marketplace that is the USA. It's fantastic to see this kind of innovation taking place as our big brand leaders like Kerrygold could do a lot to give smaller businesses a leg up in markets where they already have a foothold. And now more then ever, when our food exports are so important in keeping jobs in Ireland is the time to exploit this further. Here's a shaky photo of Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney speaking at the event; bigging up the export performance of Irish food which is set to hit 9 billion euros by the close of the year. Just so you know, the Bord Bia dinner was St. Tola's Cheese, roast Irish pork and a berry crumble to finish. As usual with Bord Bia's events, it was beautifully done and a really lovely evening. For me it was also a chance to catch up on the gossip with other farming and food journalists and we had a lively night with lots of laughs. Particularly pleasing to me was seeing the "journalist writing tomorrows piece on back of napkin" approach is live and well, as a quick scan around the media table revealed. Having no napkin to hand, my own scribbled notes were made on the back of my speech from earlier in the day. We're nothing but enterprising, us lot.

Let them eat cake.

I used to assume garlic bread was a type of actual bread. Apparently not.

In a surprise move by the Irish Revenue Commissioners, the price of baked goods such as bagels, croissants, garlic bread are set to rise by up to 13% in new Government measures which will make them subject to VAT for the first time. This change in status is because Revenue have now decided that bagels, croissants and the like are not sufficiently "bread-like" to be exempt from VAT.

This has come as a shock not only to consumers but to the baking industry, some of whom only found out about the changes from the Revenue Commissioner's website.

Reaction from Irish food producers today isn't positive to say the least. Alongside jokes that the Germans are now writing our budget (bagels.. ) small bakeries are busy claiming that their products are in fact far more bread-like then the average sliced pan which as it stands, will not receive any price hike in terms of the new VAT regime. To be fair, there are many different types of sliced pan and they vary hugely in quality. Last year while checking out one of the UK's biggest food retail outlets - the new ASDA/Walmart in Swindon, I purchased a loaf of bread for 26p. Two weeks later this loaf had the exact same consistency and taste as the day it was purchased. Value for money? Certainly. Will I be buying it for the kids? Don't think so.

The VAT hike on baked goods comes as yet another blow for what small food manufacturers say is continuing Government disregard for their sector. Con Trass, a food producer in Tipperary points out that the apple juice he makes on his farm is already subject to 21% VAT. Putting this kind of pressure on small food businesses can be crippling and as he points out, is also a barrier to growth "With the top rate of VAT on your foods where is the incentive for farmers to diversify?"

While we won't starve as a result of our bakery tastes priced a little higher, what it will cost is jobs in small food companies, over 400 of whom are supplying specialist goods like these products to a market which is already difficult to operate in. And for consumers, it's yet more money travelling from your wallet into the black hole of an economy on the edge of the train wreak that is the euro. But for now, the question I really want to ask Revenue is "What about the blah?"

If your food has fur, don't eat it. New survey shows 46% of us eat food that's past its sell-by date

Today, survey results released by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland show that nearly half of us eat food that has passed its sell by date. No Biggie, you might say - "sell by" and "best before" dates are tools food manufacturers use to force us to throw out lots of the groceries we buy, in order to fill our trolleys with more.

But what these new figures from the FSAI and Teagasc outline is how as consumers we continually rely on our gut instinct (pardon the pun) to judge if food is safe to eat. The 46% who disregard sell by dates said in the survey that they were happy to eat food as long as it "looks and smells okay". The FSAI think the statistic is "worrying" and shows that Irish consumers are still willing to put their health at risk rather than throw something out.

There's a couple of forces at work here. Firstly, advice from all corners is that we should waste less food and shop and eat smartly. In my case this often means taking mushrooms from the back of the fridge that are probably three days past their best, and chopping them into a tagliatelle with some nice artisan pesto. Like the people surveyed, I judge for myself if these mushrooms will land me on the floor with stomach cramps or in fact, taste rather nice. As they are local, organic, and lets face it expensive mushrooms, the pressure to eat them is even greater. I even have a "I'll eat this dish but not give it to the kids" approach if I feel it presents a risk to tiny stomachs but not to mine. Again this decision making process is based not just on murky science but no science whatseover.

Also in this mix is the particularly Irish psychological pull of hating to waste any kind of foodstuff. "My brother fried up rashers that were three weeks out of date and he was fine" type story is central to upholding this belief and reinforces the notion that "use by" and "sell by" dates should only be loosely applied, at best.

The survey of 1000 consumers also reveals a lack of understanding of what "use by", "sell by" and "best before" terms actually mean. 39% of us will not eat food that has passed its best before date even if it looks and smells fine. But this then contributes to unnecessary food wastage by consumers. We should remember that best before dates are meant to provide a guideline. For example, the bacteria plentiful in cheese age and alter it on a continuous basis, changing its structure and to a point, improving its taste. Its up to us to judge when that cheese tastes at its richest, has gone past its best or presents a danger to us.

I'm regularly cavalier about "use by" dates and from these new figures its clear I'm not alone. From my work on food safety, spoilage bacteria is not the worst thing in the spectrum of threats from what we eat. Much more dangerous and prevalent worldwide are new antibiotic resistant ecolis such as E0104 which killed over fifty people in Europe this year. These unfortunately are not created by food being past its best, but carried on foods as a legacy of our food chain - most ecolis come from human or animal waste, and via an abattoir or factory onto the food we eat. They will make us ill but also carry fatal consequences such as HUS - hemolytic uremic syndrome; a really nasty sidekick of 0104 which in the German outbreak affected almost 30% of the victims who ate contaminated food, far more than in previous ecoli outbreaks.

The FSAI are right to warn consumers about use by dates and improve our understanding of them, but I feel there are bigger threats out there with much more long reaching ramifications. In Holland there have already been measures taken by both agriculture and public health authorities tackling intensive farming, antibiotics and ecoli in the food chain. It's something I hope to explore further on television as current awareness of this problem among consumers is very low, or non-existent. As one Irish academic recently told me, antibiotic resistant ecoli in food is a reality that's "boiling away in the background, we don't even know how big the problem is".

More on this topic again; it's a fast moving area and getting more relevant by the month. But for the moment, happy eating, and if it has green furry stuff on it - best throw it out.

Like beer, pubs, cheese, eating, everything? Check out this little video and a celebration of our wonderful Irish farmhouse cheeses and craft beers

Many years ago as a young producer on Ear to the Ground I set up a story on Ardrahan cheese in Cork and came home with rounds of the most gorgeous soft, richly-flavoured Irish farmhouse cheese. It was all fairly new to me at the time, and in fact in I remember sitting round with a bunch of us in the production office, digging in and generally looking wide-eyed at each other saying - wow this is Really Good... How come we didn't know about this before?
That was over ten years ago and particularly in that period, Irish farmhouse cheeses have grown from a small number of producers to over fifty businesses. These range from what I call the big players - Cashel Blue, Gubbeen etc.. who have their product on cheese boards in top restaurants and who've developed export markets to the smaller, newer entries such as Mary Kelly's Moonshine soft cheeses made in Mullingar.

The last ten years or so have also seen the growth of craft beers in Ireland. Long in the stranglehold of the big international breweries, most Irish pubs or restaurants offered little choice in anything local or alternative to drink. Now we've no excuses - with gorgeous beers from Dungarvan Brewing Company, O'Haras, and Eight Degrees Brewing and fourteen other craft brewers getting into off licenses and pubs, we finally have alternatives that are great tasting products. I adore a decent beer and any chance I get, I pick up some of the new Irish offerings. Yes they are more expensive but they taste fantastic, with real bite and flavour.

Last weekend in Ireland saw a countrywide initiative to bring craft beers and farmhouse cheeses closer to consumers who may not be aware of, or buy this kind of food and drink. Bord Bia, the national food organisation here initiated the Farmhouse Cheese and Craft Beer Weekend with over 30 activities that took place in farms, breweries, restaurants, gastropubs, off-licences and markets across the country involving tastings, pairings and demonstrations.

All these beers and cheeses have individual stories behind them and every time I eat an Irish cheese such as Glebe Brethan (a gorgeous Gruyere type cheese) I think of David Tiernan out milking his cows that morning in all kinds of weather and muck and madness. Because that's the reality of farming; it's tough, often disheartening but also rewarding for people like David when you're making a product as good as his at the end of the day. The picture left is of the cheese room at Ardrahan; a small Irish business but one creating crucial employment in rural areas [I particularly love the St. Bridgets cross on the wall; a big feature of my childhood as my parents came from the wetlands around Lough Erne]
And this is what it's all about; small family businesses and the personalities, places and stories behind them. According to John McKenna, eminent food writer here and editor of Bridgestone Guides - "We are dealing with the most bespoke artisan foods in the world here. Craft beers have the ability to take you into the brewer's highest aspiration; that potent wish to make a drink that evokes their work. They are being treated as the wines of Ireland. The farmhouse cheeses convey the good things of Ireland; pure food; fine milk, and content animals, about sharing and hospitality, and the creativity of a determined individual on a small Irish farm, stamping every cheese with the signature of their personality. It is marvellous to see them being enjoyed and appreciated together"

Check out the video below which will give you a really good picture of what's going on in Irish cheese and beer, and for my many foreign readers, its a pretty good account of what the inside of an Irish pub looks like. Though I suspect, many of you guys know that already hahaaa. Happy eating and drinking x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1QVWkFQKjo

Fat tax adds 6% to price of cream; supermarket charges 17% more, just for the hell of it. The Denmark fat tax experience

Yes sometimes I moan about supermarkets, but I never thought they could have an active role in mucking up public health policy.

I recently did a report on RTE radio about Denmark's Fat Tax. Instead of the expected trend in consumers purchasing high calorie foods, what I found was that retailers there are using the tax to fatten their bottom line. A price survey of eight supermarkets carried out by weekly Danish newspaper Søndagsavisen with co-operation from the Tax Ministry, revealed that prices on many fatty foods were significantly higher than warranted by the tax’s introduction.

For example, while Skat – the Danish Tax and Customs Administration had calculated that the price of sour cream would increase by 6.6 percent due to the fat tax, the spot check revealed that at supermarket Aldi the price of sour cream was raised by a whopping 17.3 percent.
Aldi was the worst offender in the study, with the supermarket raising prices on 9 of the 10 inspected products by more than what could be accounted for by the new tax. Lidl was also an offender - they had increased the price of sour cream by 15.1 percent more than warranted by the tax. Both of these firms operate in Ireland and in fact are growing their share of the grocery market here.

The Danish Consumer Council’s reaction was “Supermarkets can determine their own prices, so it is not prohibited, but it doesn’t look good.” Yes, it sure doesn't look good. Politicians there have now said that there needs to be a debate on “whether there are ways to protect the consumer.”

In all my analysis of fat taxes and obesity measures around the world I was probably naive to overlook the huge issue of how these taxes are delivered - via the supermarkets. As there is yet no regulation on supermarkets in Ireland, going down a sugar tax or fat tax route could put us in exactly the same postition as the Danes - being fleeced. There are also supermarkets in Denmark who are not charging the new tax and trying to gain competitive advantage. So basically, the public health measures expected from the tax are at the whim of the companies who deliver them.

Later this winter we should have legislation here on a proposed new supermarket ombudsman and the possibility of at last protecting both consumers and food producers. After giving a witness statement at an Oireachtas Committee on this back in 2009 it's getting critical that something finally be done. Successive governments here have shirked their responsibilities on the issue. The Danish example just goes to prove that if you have no legal framework to work with the supermarkets on pricing then you may as well be throwing public health measures down the pan.

If you want to hear my discussion with Pat Kenny on the Danish fat tax dilemma it's on the following link; scroll down to November 1st and you'll see my name and the Fat Tax item.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_patkenny.xml

What's Ireland Eating... that's a good question

Last night our documentary which aired last May was repeated on RTE again. It came out of the book Philip and I wrote about food, and discussions we still have about global food systems, food safety, supermarkets, farming and the quality and price of what goes into our gobs. If you missed it the documentary will be on the RTE player and free to view for the next month or so at the link below;
http://tinyurl.com/6kdww6z

The documentary was made following a television proposal I wrote of Basketcase; What's happening to Irish Food, which was the book Philip Boucher-Hayes and myself co-authored back in 2009 (Philip is an RTE journalist and also my husband). On the left is a picture of us working happily together for the publicity of the book. Just remember I said the word Publicity, although in actual fact we work pretty well together... we'd want to - after one book, one documentary and countless other projects including two children it's simply the way it has to be. Although Philip was rubbish at finishing his section of the book on time - procrastinating brilliantly by putting up Christmas decorations that took two months to complete. At one point we were going to write in the dedication "We hope you enjoy this book, and if you find some of it quite not up to scratch you should see our Christmas decorations - they're fabulous".

We are currently preparing "What's Ireland Eating 2", and hope to start filming in 2012, so I'll keep you posted on the programme and give some hints towards what we're covering, all I can say for the moment is.... chicken. Happy eating folks

Denmark's Fat Tax - one month old and already gone badly wrong

After a fabulous Friday spent at Savour Kilkenny I'm firmly back in the real world after discovering a food news shocker today. I should have known that after a lovely interlude of chatting with author Colman Andrews about locavores, eating Goatsbridge trout and Knockdrinna cheese with fantastic wine pairings in Mount Juliet, things would come down to earth with a bump via my old nemesis - the supermarkets.

Tomorrow morning I'm reporting on the Kenny Show on Fat Tax and how Denmark is reacting to its first month under the new expensive food regime. Aside from the expected consumer complaints about more expensive processed food, dairy and meat products, the real shocker is that the supermarkets there have taken complete advantage of the new law and are charging as much as 15% more on products such as butter and cream, on top of the 6% or so mark up from the fat tax itself.

This is profiteering on an outrageous scale and again there's no measures or legislation to stop them. Not only are the Danish chains involved in this desception but also Aldi and Lidl which operate here in Ireland. Sometimes I think I'm far too cynical about supermarkets but this new piece of skullduggery in action blew me away. And what would happen here if a fat tax was introduced? Exactly the same thing, particularly as we've no supermarket ombudsman or protection from this sort of practice.

What's the point of having any kind of public health policy if supermarkets use it as a tool to rip off consumers? I'll be going through it in detail after 10am on RTE radio one tomorrow and will put an audio link up here on the blog later.

Irish food, embarrassment of riches or plain embarrassment?

This is Donal Skehan, isn't he lovely? More on that later. This Friday I'll be locking horns in a debate with some premier Irish and international food writers at Savour Kilkenny. The topic is "Irish cuisine - embarrassment of riches or plain embarrassment?" Funnily enough I could debate either side of this but on Friday I'm on the "embarrassment" bench. Can't wait; I've got some great hideous Irish food examples lined up; the pub sandwich in the bag, rubbery, watery chicken in a wrap, the ubiquitous beef or salmon dinner - so awful they named a racehorse after it. Whatever side you might ally yourself with it's sure to be an entertaining debate. And hey opposition, don't think for a second you've a chance in hell of beating us.

Savour Kilkenny has a brilliant line up of food events - demos by Donal Skehan and Catherine Fulvio (above and right), food trails, wine workshops, children's cookery, blindfold sensory dining and a foodcamp on the Friday. Going to festivals is one of the nicest parts about writing about food and farming for a living. It's where I meet people who farm and produce food, other food journalists and all kinds of people who just like cooking and eating. Whether you write as I do for print or television it's still a solitary job. So going on the road; hanging out in windy fields with farmers and laughing with people at food festivals is where you see it all come together.
It's also where you see changes happening in the way food is presented and discussed. Five years ago in Ireland food festivals were all about food on the plate. Now they focus increasingly on where the food is coming from. What's the point offering a dish with tiger prawns intensively farmed in Vietnam, frozen and flown here god knows how long after they were harvested, as Irish Food? Unfortunately we still see this kind of thing in many good restaurants around the country. More and more chefs are realising the value of local ingredients, cooking accordingly and food festivals are thank god, following suit.

I spent five years producing Ear to the Ground - filming in stifling hot chicken houses, cold milking parlours and on wild wet mountainsides amid hundreds of black faced sheep. Learning how food is produced and handled at its early stages is essential to understanding what we have here in Ireland in terms of our food potential. Having visited factory farms in Holland, Belgium and documented GMO farming nightmares in Thailand and Vietnam, it's often sadly the case that don't know how lucky we are here, and how good and "clean" our foodstuffs are.

If you are near to Kilkenny this Friday drop into the foodcamp at the festival - it's a series of workshops where food professionals (chefs, producers) mix with foodies (journalists, bloggers, consumers) and agencies learn and share with each other. There's a day of speakers and discussions planned from 09:30 through to 15:30 running in 4 simultaneous rooms.

The day finishes with the Food Fight debate at 3:30 chaired by John McKenna of The Bridgestone Food Guide, the debate poses the question:
“Traditional Irish Cuisine – an embarrassment of riches or just an embarrassment?”
On the embarrassment side are:

Colman Andrews – Journalist, founder of Saveur magazine and food writer
Suzanne Campbell – Journalist, author and broadcaster
Regina Sexton – Author "The Little History of Irish Food"

On the opposite bench are:
Birgitte Curtin of the Burren Smokehouse
Kevin Sheridan, food campaigner, Sheridan's cheesemongers
Catherine Cleary – Journalist and food writer, The Irish Times

I'll keep you posted on how we get on and how soundly we trash the opposition. Happy eating x http://savourkilkenny.com/

Fat tax: outrageous infringement of our right to eat, or a tool to tackle an obesity crisis

Ah the fat tax. We're all doomed. My weekend packet of McDonnell's crisps could be 20 cent more. My couple-of-times-a-year fish and chips might set me back an extra two euro. But more importantly, what about the massive amount of cheese and whole milk I consume? The pizzas I make myself, the bakewell tarts with local eggs and apples. The chocolate, em, lots of it.

This is the problem; a fat tax doesn't just tax junk food, it potentially taxes all foods that contain saturated fats. In my own humble opinion I think my diet is pretty wholesome and fairly healthy. But is that healthy diet going to yet another part of my life that seems to cost more money daily? Or is a fat tax worth levelling at all of us, and at many types of food in order to tackle what is a clearly out of control obesity problem.

Earlier this month Denmark was the first of our neighbouring states to introduce a fat tax - making goods like butter, pizza, crisps, oil and processed foods more expensive for the consumer. Anything with more than 2.3% of saturated fat gets taxed. The idea is that if something is more expensive, we eat less of it. To be fair, this has worked in the past; alongside huge negative health messages about cigarettes, making them very expensive has not just been a huge cash earner for the Government but a deterrent to their use. Look at it this way, if a packet of fags costed two euro many people would smoke a hell of a lot more than if (as now) they cost close to a tenner.

Some onlookers say the Danish tax won't work; making foods more expensive won't change behaviour as sweet foods, chocolate or the odd MacDonald's is a treat and people will still consume them whatever the small price rise. The real sufferers of obesity in Ireland tend to lie in lower income groups, so is penalising them fair, or will it force them to change their food habits?

All we can do is watch and see how the Danish fat tax works on people's eating behaviour. It seems that the obesity task force in Ireland is looking firstly at taxing sugary drinks - a fat tax is not yet on the table. Below is a piece I wrote this week for the Irish Times outlining the Dane's plans. Read and weep, rejoice or whatever you feel, I'd love to hear your comments x

The Irish Times Tuesday, October 18th

Suzanne Campbell

THE FAT TAX: HOW IT WORKS IN DENMARK
Methods of taxing the rising tide of obesity are being debated around Europe following the initiative of Hungary who began penalising high calorie food and drinks on September 1st, with Denmark introducing a “fat tax” earlier this month.
The Danish tax operates as a surcharge on foods such as butter, oil and pizza which contain more than 2.3 per cent saturated fat. For consumers, these foods now carry a levy, calculated at €2.15 per kilogram of saturated fat, meaning that the cost of a pound of butter has increased by about 20 cent.
With an obesity rate of 9 per cent, Denmark is far below the European average of 15 per cent, while 23 per cent of Irish people are considered to be obese. Denmark and Finland have already levied taxes on sugary drinks, while Hungary brought in a wide ranging “fat tax” on foods, soft drinks and alcohol in a bid to tackle its 18.8 per cent obesity rate.
British prime minister David Cameron suggested earlier this month that the UK could follow Denmark’s lead, and from January 1st France is to introduce a tax on sugary drinks which will add 2 cent to every 33cl can.

While taxing sugar-sweetened drinks is being discussed by the Special Action Group on Obesity in this country, Minister for Health James Reilly says there are no plans for a “fat tax” on high fat, salt and sugary foods “at this juncture”. But, in response to a recent parliamentary question, Reilly said that he plans to ask the country’s fast-food operators to include calorie details on their menus.

For many Irish food manufacturers, a “fat tax” is an unwelcome vista. “Under the Danish measures, Irish cheese and milk would be taxed as they contain more than 2.3 per cent saturated fats,” says Catherine Logan, nutrition manager at the National Dairy Council.
“But we have to remember that people eat whole foods rather than just single nutrients.”
Could there be a workable solution that doesn’t penalise nutritionally valuable foods such as dairy produce? “There are alternative ways of taxing and with something like cheese you could come to an agreement where it is defined differently,” says Dr Martin Carraher, professor of food and health policy at City University, London.

His suggested measure for Ireland is to tax “processing” and, in doing so, favour foods that are produced locally. “You can do this as long as you don’t provide a barrier to trade.”
His suggestions would be welcomed by many Irish food producers, but without a change of direction from the Minister for Health, the prospect of an Irish “fat tax” in the near future is still an unlikely one.

Get your game face on

This is Damien Hannigan the deer stalker. Like many of you, I thought deer stalking had something to do with hats, but that probably says more about my fondness for the work of Treacy, Jones et al than my understanding of the role deer stalkers play in the food chain.

Deer stalking simply means following a deer through the landscape for a couple of hours before shooting it. While many might wince at the idea of Bambi facing a high calibre rifle, this is the reality of where wild venison comes from. As deer herds in Ireland expand and need selective culling I feel it's a valid way of catching a superb wild food and is practised by licensed hunters such as Damien in a humane way.
Deer stalking is all about craft, and as Damien says when you're about to pull that trigger you have to ask yourself - is this the correct animal to shoot? Is it male or female? Is it in the correct season for its species ensuring it is not in calf or feeding a calf? Is it an animal that is infirm or injured and so should be taken out for welfare reasons? All these considerations come into play before a shot is taken. If the animal is right, the deer in Damien's cross-hairs becomes venison on a plate, and a more lovelier, richer, winter food you'll have difficulty finding.

As it's currently the season for venison I thought writing about deer; both hunting them and eating them is timely so I interviewed Damien about deer stalking for a piece in The Irish Times; you can read about his intriguing sport below. His picture of where venison comes from is relevant to anyone who enjoys game and traditional Irish foods. And if you're new to venison I would urge anyone going to a restaurant these winter months to look for it on the menu and enjoy it.

Last weekend at Restaurant FortyOne in Residence Club I had the most wonderul venison cooked by chef Graham Neville. Listed on the menu as "Loin of Wicklow venison, tubers, sprouts and wild heather sauce" it was tender, deeply flavoursome and beautifully seasoned and cooked. After meeting Graham that night and enjoying the entertaining company of Jean Baptiste the restaurant's expert and lovely sommelier, I was delighted to see the team win Georgina Campbell's Restaurant of the Year award the following day. It's a well deserved win and as I'm always banging on about local, seasonal food, this place is doing it well and the food really is mouthwateringly good. Restaurant FortyOne is in a private club but open to non-members. You won't find it the cheapest of menus at this level at the moment but among the many chefs playing the "authentic" and "local" card, Graham is doing a brilliant job. It is lovely lovely food.

True Characters

The Irish Times, October 1st, 2011,

Suzanne Campbell

Damien Hannigan , deer stalker, from east Cork
The night before I go on a deer stalk . . . I begin by checking the weather, then I prepare my equipment. When stalking deer you need quiet clothing that doesn’t make noise; so I wear moleskin trousers and a jacket that doesn’t rustle. People think you need camouflage but actually colour isn’t important as deer are colour blind. What’s more important is movement; any little movement will attract their attention.
You might be out for five or six hours and not shoot any deer but being up on a mountain at dawn is special in itself. This month is the beginning of the season in Ireland for shooting male deer, and last week I was stalking deer in Kerry and looking down off the mountain into Kenmare Bay, the sea eagles were flying and there was wildlife everywhere; foxes, badgers, red deer and sika deer.
“ Glassing” or surveying the landscape with binoculars . . . is usually the best way to spot them. Then you follow the animal, moving slowly and keeping away from high ground. In the last couple of hundred yards you literally get down on your hands and knees, moving the gun ahead of you as you crawl along. Then you position yourself to get a clean shot. You aim for the heart and lung area and hopefully the deer will drop.
Good binoculars are important . . . You could spend around €1,000 on them alone, but I have mine 10 years, so they’re worth looking after.
When you cull the animal you have to bleed them immediately . . . Then you gut and gralloch them, which means taking out the entrails. Bringing the deer down the mountain is the hardest part, they can be over 60kg in weight.
Culling keeps the population at a healthy number . . . but since the recession came there’s a lot of poaching going on; people shooting deer at night using lamps. They sell it to game dealers and get cash in hand. It’s unbelievably dangerous as they don’t know what’s on the other side of the ditch; it could be cows, horses or someone’s house. It’s a matter of time before something goes wrong.
I handle about a thousand queries a year from the public about deer . . . as I’m secretary of the Wild Deer Association of Ireland. It can be anything from film companies wondering what species of deer should be in a film, to people wanting to use antlers as material for buttons.
It’s extremely rare that people react badly to culling deer . . . in 12 years I’ve only had one hate mail; generally the response from the public is a positive one.
My grandfather and father were hunting people . . . and I got into it through them. People who stalk deer are no different to anyone; they are builders, farmers, teachers, guards. Someone joked to me recently that we must be all Rambo types, but the reality is it isn’t a macho thing at all. I think we’re mainly people who love the outdoors.
I don’t get paid for doing what I do . . . but I spend more time doing stuff related to deer than most other things. I try to stalk twice a week, and then I’m often out visiting landowners, or doing training and safety courses for hunters; it’s non-stop, thats what my wife would tell you.
Over the 23 years I’ve been stalking deer . . . I’m constantly learning. It requires patience but also makes you think on your feet as you’ve to judge the land, the animal and the shot you have to take. When you’re close enough to take a shot you have to judge if this deer should be culled. Stalkers have a lot of respect for deer.
I don’t sell the deer I shoot . . . I eat most of it myself and give it to family and friends. On Tuesday evening I had venison lasagne for tea. It tasted great but then I’m probably biased.

For more info check out www.wilddeerireland.com and www.residence.ie

The pig kids

Ah, pigs and teenagers. Two words that probably occur in the same sentence more often than we'd like to admit. The state of my teenage bedroom drove my parents into a apoplectic frenzy. But I'm much tidier now, I swear.
These two lads - Patrick and Hugh McInerney are some of the most enterprising teenagers you're ever going to meet. From their house in Kilkenny they run a business breeding and selling rare breed pork. I talked to them at length earlier this week about their mini-enterprise and was amazed at how professional and forward thinking they are. If I had half the vision and business cop-on of these two boys I'd be a very happy camper indeed.
It's amazing that all over Ireland and despite the recession, little businesses are cropping up and whirring away. In the food sector, small businesses are actually doing very well with a Bord Bia survey showing that food entrepreneurs have a healthy outlook on how not just the rest of 2011 will treat them but how well their business will do in future years. The McInerney boys' story is a great one. At heart they are lovely charming lads with a love of animals and great heads on their shoulders as my father would say. Check out my full interview with them in the Irish Times today...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazine/2011/0924/1224304437138.html

We've less money, so why are we still eating organic food?

Here's some lovely pears that were brought to me today by a friend from Kerry. Grown in her parent's garden they are as organic and free from pesticide as they come. This is the kind of food you find "along the way", just like blackberries in the hedgerows, or a few spuds from your neighbours garden. But it wasn't always the case that we valued this kind of food.

Alongside expensive marble kitchens and Michelin starred restaurants, in recent years, buying organic food in Ireland was symbolic of wealthier times. But was buying organic just an example of conspicuous consumption or are consumers still committed to paying more for what is perceived as healthier food? With the recession, sales of organic produce have declined in Ireland, but not so badly as we might have expected.

In fact between 2009 and 2010 organic sales in Ireland fell by about 5%. This happened after huge growth in the sector - from 2007 to 2008 sales in Ireland increased by 82%, reaching a value of over 100 million euro compared to €57 million in 2006. So we had this huge boom and then not a crash as you might have expected, but a slow down. And if you look at 2010 in detail, six months into the year the rate of decline eased and in the second half of the year several categories (breakfast cereals, yoghurts, savoury snacks and vegetables) actually grew in value and volume of sales.

In terms of how many of us are buying organic food. Bord Bia’s research reveals that 45% of Irish grocery shoppers purchased an organic product in the last month, 7% up on last year.

92% of Irish adults purchased organic products over the past year and the Irish organic sector is currently valued at €103 million. Sales are also good in Europe and on the rise for our export markets, charging ahead in Italy with a rise of 12% this year and also in Russia.

So even in these tough times, we’re still buying more organic food than in the UK for example. In the UK sales in 2010 fell by 12% so the sector took a big hit. The fact that organic food in Ireland wasn't hit as hard as in there (despite our worse financial circumstances) may be because we are more connected to the notion of farming and growing food. This is what I like to think anyway, hopefully it's the case.

Last Friday I talked on this subject on RTE radio's Pat Kenny Show. It was organic week and around the Irish countryside farm walks, barbeques and foraging days were being held to celebrate the growing of organic food in Ireland. It's great to see that in spite of our financial meltdown consumers still see the value of buying organic, where it's possible. Not all of my food shop by any means is organic. I make a choice first to buy local meat and veg, and if I buy imported veg where there is no Irish equivalent I try to buy organic as they have less pesticide (or hopefully) no pesticide residue.

In terms of dried foods like pasta or tinned kidney beans it's often easy to choose an organic item for just a few cents more. In these cases I choose the organic option, again believing that the less pesticide residue I can keep out of my body and my kids, the better. Recent research revealed that Roundup, one of the world's leading pesticide brands was found to be present in rain, so I think I'm making the right choice. Our environment is full of toxins from industry, farming and materials such as plastic which we use constantly in our daily life. I'm a pragmatist and a realist about food and farming, but if I have the choice to keep a little of it at bay by eating organic food, then I take that opportunity, even if it costs me more.

If you are interested in organics have a listen to the full interview. The item can be listened to below, the podcast is the third item down. Happy eating!

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/2011-09-16.html

Waterford's soft white bread known as the "blaa" is applying for EU protection, but why aren't more Irish foods doing the same thing?

Going the way of the blaa

The Irish Times - Saturday, September 10, 2011
SUZANNE CAMPBELL

EU protection is being sought for Waterford’s blaa bread roll, in line with that for champagne. Shouldn’t other Irish foods also apply?

WATERFORD’S distinctive floury bread roll, the blaa, could soon rank with such delicacies as Parma ham and feta cheese if it is granted protected status for its regional characteristics. If the blaa achieves the EU’s standard of protected geographical indication (PGI) it stands to gain from being a unique product, like champagne, which is protected from imitation.
Yet while many Irish foodstuffs are produced using local ingredients or methods, few of our artisan foods have gained or even been submitted for PGI status. Research indicates that the PGI designation brings with it considerable economic and environmental benefits. An EU report found that French cheeses with PGI sold, on average, for three times the price of other cheeses. It also found lower unemployment in areas that produced these foods.
Consumers appear to be switched on to the value of PGI foods, too. According to the research they perceive food with PGI as more trustworthy.
So why aren’t more Irish food producers applying for this designation? Britain has about 50 foods, including the Cornish pasty and Cumberland sausage, protected by PGIs.
One of the difficulties is that the application process for PGI takes at least 18 months. “The words ‘time’ and ‘detail’ come to mind when you apply for this scheme,” says Dermot Walsh, one of four bakers who came together to apply for protected status for the blaa. “We had help from Bord Bia, the Taste Council and the enterprise board, but it’s a long journey. It took the Cornish pasty nine years to get protected as a regional food.”
Also, getting a food’s geographical origins and properties protected is more feasible for groups of food producers than it is for stand-alone brands.
Sergio Furno of Cashel Blue says, “As we are the only people producing Cashel Blue cheese, if we applied for and won a PGI, then anyone in the region around Cashel could start making a ‘Cashel Blue’. So, by not applying, we remain in control of the brand.”

HOW IT WORKS
Protected geographical status (PGS) is a legal framework within the EU that allows countries to protect the names of regional foods. Protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI) and traditional speciality guaranteed are designations within this framework.
Four Irish products have already gained PGI status: Timoleague brown pudding, Clare Island salmon, Imokilly Regato cheese and Connemara hill lamb.
A PGI product must come from one region, have a specific characteristic of that region and be processed or prepared there. To gain PDO status, a product must be wholly produced in a specific region.
Because the flour for the blaa comes from overseas, Waterford can apply for PGI status only.

Eating, talking, learning and possibly crying

Yes I'm getting around this week, in fact, it's quite ridiculous. Just like boyfriends and busses all arriving at the same time, it's pretty much the same with food events. Even for me, five in one week is quite exceptional. After cooking for 85 people last Sunday, (including kids and dogs), the week just past saw a plethora of food events; a fabulous madness of eating, debating, learning and being wowed by what's going on in Irish food.

In reverse I'll start with the GIY Gathering which starts tomorrow in Waterford. The city has had a great food festival on throughout this week, and this Saturday and Sunday, the Grow it Yourself movement is having a huge shindig - a conference, workshop and street feast all in one.

The GIY movement has been a huge success in Ireland with all credit due to Michael Kelly who left city life, literally, to start a rural smallholding in Waterford. He got stuck in, planted seeds, grew food and as with all of us, learned a few lessons along the way. After realising that growing your own veg and keeping hens and pigs were activities being shared right across the country, Michael set up the first Grow it Yourself group in Waterford so that local people could get together, share tips, stories and probably cry a bit over what the snails were doing to their crop. Since that first group set up in 2008, Michael has established GIY communities across Ireland, with new member groups cropping up continually, providing a social and learning resource for people starting their own vegetable gardens and who want to connect with others.

The movement has been a spectacular success and tomorrow I'm delighted to be asked to speak at their conference in Waterford on the topic of "Can GIY save the world?" My talk will be about the success of urban gardens all over the world, the return to growing your own food and how to live a life less reliant on supermarkets and to be ultimately more food secure. For more info check out http://www.giyireland.com/

For a run through of the weeks other food entertainments I'll have a few further posts up in the next few days. What's most remarkable about all the activity going on in Irish food at the moment is that it seems to be really touching people, and not just foodies. I feel in a sense that many people are reconnecting to the amazing agriculture and food producers we have in this country and finding ways in which to interact with it more. But if you still believe it's impossible to live without a weekly shop and vast amounts of imported foods, come along to my talk tomorrow, and I'll prove you wrong.

Outstanding in the Field - less Condé Nast, more the real deal

Who doesn't love a picnic, especially when it looks as gorgeous and as simple as this: one field, one long table, with all the food on that table supplied by local farmers and food producers.

I first came across the "Outstanding in the Field" long table dinners a couple of years ago via Condé Nast. Typically Vogue, or whatever publication I spotted it in, was wooed for the same reasons as everybody else - beautiful images, beautiful food and a brilliant but simple idea, executed with elegance and chutzpah. It made great editorial, and great images sell magazines. But behind the gorgeous visuals and were a bunch of genuine hardworking people: Outstanding in the Field were the real deal.

Started in America in 1999, Outstanding in the Field began as a series of long table dinners on farms in California. The key was to bring local food to the table in places where local food wasn't available in shops and supermarkets.

This is still something very relevant not only in the US but in Ireland. Plenty of us live within two to twenty miles of a farm, but haven't the first idea of how to actually buy the food grown there - saving the miles of travel, food spoilage, and the need for a middleman in the shape of the big retailers who control most of what we eat.

So the idea of the long table dinners was to bring together both consumers and producers of food. Very simple, and it's both surprising and sad that such a thing is a rarity in the way we all eat and procure food. This is something I try to do myself but the routes to market for farmers aren't always simple and connecting your produce with people who want to buy it is often difficult. Last week I bought half a lamb from my neighbours farm in Newcastle County Wicklow. It will be cooked this weekend for a lunch in our house that will feed around 60 adults - quite a task that I am, em, meant to start preparing for today.

We all have to start somewhere, and the Outstanding in the Field dinners have grown from a small group of enthusiasts into a huge food advocacy movement. Since their beginnings in California they've hosted long table dinners on farms and rural locations all over the world. They've had events in barns, in libraries, museums and on beaches. The theme of each dinner is to honour the people who bring nourishment to the table; and everyone sits down to eat together.

For the first time, the group are coming to Ireland and hosting a long table dinner at Ballymaloe in Cork on the 5th of September. Their message is particularly relevant at the moment as the US is currently the locus of so much bad news on food and farming - the "Ag Gag" bill banning journalists from recording inside factory farms and the huge dominance of the meatpackers (it's said now that Cargill isn't part of the food chain, they Are the food chain). In the US, campaigning for alternatives to "Big Food" have given birth to movements like Outstanding in the Field, and hopefully what happens in the US can have an influence on food advocacy here.

Check out more on the event and the organisation at the link below. As far as I know there are still tickets available. I'll be there, and am going to enjoy every minute of it. And for those of you who fancy a piece of Wicklow lamb, check out www.sweetbankfarm.ie
http://outstandinginthefield.com/events/2011-tour/

For more on the dinner and Ballymaloe Cookery School - http://www.cookingisfun.ie/

Enough procrastination, time for me to get into that kitchen..

Scandanavians are cool. They eat musk ox, forage on beaches and turn local food into two Michelin stars

For anyone who likes food, the saving-your-pennies dream trip has to be to Noma in Copenhagen, voted best restaurant in the world earlier this year. Chef and founder is Rene Redzepi (pictured left) who not just turns out exceptional food on the plate, but advocates supporting local produce and the farmers who produce it, building his reputation particularly on using foraged ingredients.

Noma is now justifiably world famous; apparently the day it was voted number one the restaurant received 10,000 bookings overnight, making the chance of getting a table there fairly slim. And you can understand why Noma is considered pretty unique; founder René Redzepi makes the point that his restaurant is not about olive oil, foie gras, sun-dried tomatoes and black olives. Why should it be - it's hundreds of miles from the Mediterranean. On the contrary, he uses foods from Denmark and the Nordic regions to create their famous dishes: Icelandic skyr curd, halibut, Greenland musk ox and berries.

Redzepi also uses "old" ingredients such as grains and pulses in new ways - something I recently encountered in Cliff House (the Michelin starred hotel in Waterford) which served hake on a barley risotto. After all, who said risotto has to be made with rice? Barley is a traditional Irish food, used in stews and brewing but more recently to be found in animal food. Bringing back what we've discarded as unfashionable and serving it up in a new way as chef Martijn Kajuiter is doing at Cliff House is the way forward for Irish food.

Over in Copenhagen, Noma's prices are considerably more expensive than at Cliff House - Noma's twelve course lunch tasting menu is 187 euro. Not the cheapest I would admit but this kind of food is a very rare treat. What's more important is the ethos behind it which perfectly matches where we should be going with food. Why should Irish restaurants serve tiger prawns, curries or even mozzarella - all are notable foodstuffs from other regions of the world and if they're not grown here, why should we be shipping them thousands of miles to arrive frozen and stale onto our plates. This is also a custom which ignores the great foods we have on our doorstep - lobster, langoustine (Dublin Bay Prawns) award winning Irish cheeses of every kind and all types of meat from venison to quail.
What Rene Redzepi is doing at Noma is where all Irish chefs should be going.

In a recent interview Rene described his involvement in the MAD foodcamp coming up in Copenhagen at the end of August - Mad is the Danish word for food. The camp is a symposium about food, foraging and enjoying yourself - Redzepi calls it the "Glastonbury of Food". Earlier this year Donal from Harry's restaurant in Inishowen, Donegal put together a similar event, bringing food enthusiasts and food producers together. So now I not only nurse an incredible lust to visit Noma, but also have to cope with missing out on what is sure to be one of the world's greatest food events. Next year, next year, next year is all I can say. And after my planned trip to the Olympics in London next summer where the biggest MacDonald's in the world is said to be installed, I think I'll be badly in need of some decent grub.
Mr. Redzepi, I may be coming your way. And Donal from Harry's, bring on Inishfood #2

Stick to what you do best, believe in yourself and the passion will shine through. Finally, I visit the legend that is Ballymaloe

Breakfast at Ballymaloe House is the kind of breakfast you dream of. Gooseberries and pears from the garden nestle alongside natural yoghurt. The yellowest of eggs from hens on the farm fight for room alongside sausages, bacon, and puddings from pigs slaughtered and cured by a local butcher. A fragrant bunch of sweetpeas watches over the fresher than fresh orange juice and selection of home-made breads and scones.

As a seasoned examiner of hotel breakfasts who harasses waiters with "where does the raspberry jam come from?", breakfast at Ballymaloe was up there with some of my Great Food Experiences. In fact it's best if you eat breakfast here not to go to another hotel within a short space of time, or in fact ever. Simply because few meals are going to match this standard, and that's even before I get started on the Blackwater salmon and Ballycotton lobster at dinner.

It was last week that Philip and I found ourselves in Ballymaloe; we visited the hotel, cookery school and farm for a speaking engagement on our book Basketcase; What's Happening to Ireland's Food? and the follow-up documentary What's Ireland Eating? which aired a few months ago on RTE. Doing these talks is seldom hard work as the reaction and energy from people interested in food and which direction Irish food is going is so wonderful to be around. If anything, every time we speak at a food event together or separately, I learn so much from the people in the audience and take away many personal stories from farmers, food producers and enthusiasts. These chats have led to relationships with people from all over the country (in fact all over the world) and have informed a big part of my journalism. Indeed, they should all watch out, or they're in danger of appearing in the follow up to What's Ireland Eating? which looks to be on the cards.

But more important than the opportunity to eat the wonderful food at Ballymaloe, was the chance to spend time with Darina and the Allen family. It's so rare to meet someone who is truly so passionate about food, farming and the environment, or someone who is so steeped in the tradition of good food but also au fait with the realities of the global food highway we operate in. So many hotels and food businesses "greenwash" what they are doing; they market themselves as authentically Irish, organic, sustainable etc. But what's written all over Ballymaloe and Darina herself is that this farm is the genuine article. In fact, after filming with Ear to the Ground on farms from Belgium to Vietnam, I can safely say there are very few places like Ballymaloe, it is a remarkable farm and a beacon for Irish produce, organics and for the sheer quality and correctness in the way it produces food.

We all know Darina from her books and television series, but what you don't get to see on television is the way she moves through her garden, puzzling over how many days it will be before the blackcurrants are just right to eat. In almost the same breath she remarks on supermarket legislation and what upcoming changes might mean for Irish producers.

Darina's and Tim's breath of knowledge on farming, gardening and production of every type of foodstuff from cheddar cheese to cob nuts is remarkable, and the gardens they have built surrounding the cookery school at Ballymaloe are incredibly beautiful. Pictured above is Darina showing Philip around one of the formal gardens; box hedging encloses vegetables, herbs, lavenders and ornamental planting. Food is in evidence everywhere; chickens peck amongst the trees, garlic bunches hang from the mental struts of the greenhouses and everything from cabbages to cherry tomatoes are grown on the farm. From the milk of two Jersey cows they are currently making cheese. In fact, if there was ever a model for self sufficiency this is it.

After a tour of the farm we watched Rachel Allen giving a demonstration at the cookery school. The Ballymaloe courses are world famous, and it's possibly the only cookery school in the world located on an organic farm. As someone passionate about food and farming, I had always wanted to visit the cookery school and farm, but somehow I felt I would be let down by the experience. I felt it might be "chinzy"; inauthentic, that the Ballymaloe experience could be marketing over matter; a Cath Kidson version of River Cottage. As farming and artisan food is currently so vogueish, it's often hard to tell what's real and who is pulling the wool over your eyes.

But Ballymaloe is real. You know if you spend as long as we did talking about deep litter systems for cattle and compost making that this is a farm which knows what it is about. It is also a food message which is not a cutesy one, but a real one. Everything is done properly. It has an old fashioned workmanlike feel about it. Correctness and workmanlike approach might sound like something from a past age but it really pays off in terms of working with the environment and with livestock - it's a quality that was beaten into me from riding and working with horses. It's also something I learned from my parents farms, and something I always look out for when I visit farms, food or tourism businesses. Over-ornamentation or faux "Irishness" does not make up for bad farm management, poor quality food or mass produced ingredients. And thankfully customers aren't stupid. In my experience food businesses that fail to do things properly, fail themselves.

No corners are cut at Ballymaloe; it's the real deal. At its kernal is a message of quality; growing local ingredients through generations of experience producing food in East Cork. If there's any message or ethos I took away from Ballymaloe it's to stick to what you are doing, believe in it, and passion will shine through. So much of our lives and consumerism itself is built on precisely the opposite. What's lovely about Ballymaloe and so pertinent to all of us is that we produce great food in this country. Finally we are taking more notice and Ireland the Food Island is punching above its weight. Like Ballymaloe, food doesn't have to be complicated to succeed. It just has to be true to itself, and real.

Summer vegetables, at last...

It's summer time and there are berries to be picked. Our crop of raspberries is fantastic, as are the blackcurrants but the majority of our vegetables grew miserably. I lie, they didn't grow at all. Complete disaster teaches you good lessons - most of the seeds failed to germinate because the temperature where we live (on the bed of a valley) was too cold for them. Then some late frosts killed any survivors. So a month after starting three different varieties of tomato, basil, coriander, broccoli, lettuces, and other crops not a single one had germinated. Not a smidgen.

So it was back to basics, and learning about the newer, colder conditions of where we now live. So I planted round two of my seeds, abandoned most of the tomatoes and we now have a small crop of vegetables. When you grow even a tiny amount of your own food you realise how insecure the whole business is, and how placing all of the responsibility of providing us with food in the hands of big business may not the best idea in the world.

At the moment I'm looking at America a lot and the crazy stuff going on in their food sector. After revelations this week that Tyson, one of the biggest food brands in the US was caught bribing vets in their Mexican meat plants to pass unfit meat as edible, we also had the new footage of animal welfare abuse at a pig plant. On top of that food safety and farming budgets are being cut in the US and as one writer said recently in the New York Times, public health and food safety are now seen as "liberal issues". What? Liberal? So now you're left wing if you want to eat a burger and expect to be alive an hour later? America's food environment can be truly hairy stuff and it's something I'm currently researching for a piece. At the moment the piece is looking very long, believe me.



I'm also working on a new project on Irish food which is very exciting, I can divulge more on that at a later date. At the moment it's in its infancy so alongside looking after the new baby I'm digging away on that. One thing that's lovely at the moment is that the weather has turned a bit more summery and I am spending more time in the garden. As you can see from the photo above some of our second crop of lettuce are coming on well and the radishes have also grown strongly. The peas are looking good and the hardier herbs such as thyme, rosemary and parsley survived the move from our former house. Somebody bribed them, obviously.

It's also lovely to see the summertime finally kick in (lets face it it'll be gone in a week or so) and our neighbouring farmers getting a chance to cut silage for Winter fodder. Again, I've learned from them that "our side" of the valley is colder than the other side - they get two cuts of silage over there whereas in the fields surrounding our place one cut is all you'd get. This is because with less light and a slightly cooler temperature the grass grows more slowly. Again, even in the space of a hundred yards, the conditions that produce food change. And this is why we should appreciate the stuff more and think about the work that goes into it. Last night as we finished the baby's last feed at 1am my neighbouring farmer was still towing bales of silage out of the field pictured below. Producing food is a hard job, and as I learn every summer, if I had to grow everything I eat myself I'd be very poorly fed indeed.