Fabulous Foodie Fixtures

Summer is a great time of year in foodie diaries. The country is brimming with abundant Farmer's Markets and Food Fairs and Festivals. Did anyone make it to Sheridan's Food Fair last week, the same day as the launch of The Point Village Market or the bank holiday weekend's fabulous Bloom in the Park? Bloom had a great 'Love Irish Food' area exhibiting some of their member brands. Speaking of which, there are also some great food initiatives going on now too. So, this is a bit of an all encompassing foodie round-up I guess.

The 'Love Irish Food' campaign has really taken off with more and more Irish Brands coming on board. They have a powerful message.. "Did you know that if just one third of households in Ireland (that’s 400,000) spent an average of €1.67 more on an Irish item each week for a year we would generate €35 million for the Irish economy". I remember the 'Guaranteed Irish' campaign launching in the 70's having a strong impact on me (and at such a tender young age!), something that is engrained in me ever since so it's good to see this surge or Irish pride and support for our own (struggling) economy once again. Just like old times eh? By the way, you can print off recessionista money off coupons on their site here.

Also, of course it's still not too late to grab tickets for next weekends Taste of Dublin. Check out their site for exhibitor and restaurant listings and chef demo timings also. Superquinn are sponsors of this years event. Check out their demo area where I believe you will be able to preview some of the snaps I worked on for their new upcoming cookbook.

Some Foodie campaigns going on at the moment include Bord Bia's Fish, Surprisingly Simple campaign. Hit the link to check out some fishy recipes. Also, their Best in Season competition for strawberry week is underway. Send a photo of you enjoying strawberries and you could win a €500 all for one voucher. The Irish Heart Foundation have linked up with Safefood and the HSE for their Healthy Heart Eat Out month this June. Their main message this time is 'small portions' (something I must admit I'm not great at but will be more mindful!). Participating eateries nationwide, which you can find listings of here, are encouraged to provide heart healthy choices on their menus.

Localmarkets.ie sounds like a very exciting prospect hopefully coming your way soon, unless you are in Cork, where the site has kicked off already. You can have a wide selection of local produce delivered to your door within 24 hours for €7.95. The service hopes to expand to other counties soon. Check out their site for more details.

'My chef at home' is a new to me website with contact details for the likes of chefs, cookery school, event suppliers and also artisan producers. Apparently they are going to put together a list of food bloggers also! Check it out. Also, check out the newly launched Kilkenny Food Trail for perhaps an Irish holiday this summer?

The Slowfood Sugar Loaf Club has organised a movie viewing on Sunday 27th June at 4pm at the big screen in Brookhall at Macreddin Village. "One food documentary, one food movie, together with slow nibbles, slow wine and slow friends". Contact aislingnicra@gmail.com to reserve tickets which are €10 for members and €15 for non-members.

Finally, are you all set for Streetfeast on the 18th of July? It sounds like a fantastic concept, organised by a group of young volunteers, to bring communities together through the medium of food! You can join one or organise your own, have it in a car park, community centre, your garden or well, a street. I'm loving the idea and am dreaming up decorating banquet tables with pretty fabrics, hanging bunting from the trees and of course...the food. Click the link for the lowdown.

Do you know of any other upcoming 'fab foodie fixtures' that I've missed out on?

Wexford Food Fair 2010

Keep the diaries free for Wednesday May 19th for the second Wexford Food Fair. The exhibitors list is brimming with Wexford pride with companies like Thai Gold, Wexford Home Preserves, Phelim Byrne's Cookery Academy, Greens Berry Farm and a couple of neighbours of mine down home, Stable Diet and Zanna Foods.

Yes, being a Wexford lass, ok yella belly as we're called, I'm proud to promote and be part of it. In fact this year I'm hosting fun interactive food workshops with 8-10 year old local school children (God help me!) on behalf of Safefood, which I am really excited about. My cutsie morning slot getting down with the kids is going to be big news and no way will I let it be overshadowed by the evening demonstrations from celebrity chefs (& friends) Neven Maguire and Phelim Byrne. Put down the milk lads, the apron is on and the knives are out!

wexford food fair

I'm just back from Wexford where (after having a sneeky much needed couple of days R&R) I was at a school fund raising Food Fair. Local food producers and suppliers had stands there, including Thai Gold and Carrigbyrne Farmhouse Cheeses as well as companies such as chef Phelim Byrne's fab cookery school and also Good Food Ireland. Phelim did a great demonstration to kick off the evenings events, followed by good buddy Neven Maguire who received a great welcome to Wexford. Hopefully plenty of money was raised for the local school.

Gordon Ramsay's Taste of Christmas...DONE!

I had a fantastic time in London the week before last, working on Gordon Ramsay's Taste of Christmas. It was organised by Brand Events and held in Excel in East London. I organised and managed Gordon's dems in the main theatre where we got through 14 dems over four days. I was helped by four fantastic crew - three of whom came from the cookery school Gordon is involved with, Tante Marie.

Me, Lisa, Sarge, Bianca, The Big G, Helouise
& Liam with two of Gordon's girls in the front.

Sarge (Mark Sargent) from Claridges also cooked and performed with Gordon in a hilarious Christmas themed production. Sarge was even unfortunate enough to end up dressing as a fairy and flying over the audience sprinkling fairy dust, need I say more. Each show, eight lucky people got the chance to come up on stage and be wined, gin'd (!) and dined while the chefs cooked. They had three yummy courses: roast chestnut, parsnip and apple soup (see recipe below), duck breast with braised chicory and almond sprouts and finally pear frangipane tart with ice cream.

Sarge making Christmas wishes come through!

Once we got over two very hectic rehearsals on the first day, I am very relieved to say that everything went really well. The big G didn't come after me waving any 'Kitchen Nightmare' tokens at least, phew!

Gordon Ramsay's Taste of Christmas, happy to say....DONE!
Now, pour me a Gin!

ROAST CHESTNUT, PARSNIP & APPLE SOUP

This soup is very quick and simple to make and is seriously delicious. I'm hooked on it! If you watched Cookalong on Friday night, this was the starter you would have seen Gordon cooking. It is adapted slightly from the recipe in his new book, Cooking for Friends.

Serves 4

• 50g butter
• 2 medium parsnips, peeled and grated
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 apple, cored and chopped
• 1 tsp curry powder
• Small bunch sage
• 250g roasted chestnuts, shelled, skinned and roughly chopped (vac packed are perfect for this)
  
• 800ml – 1 litre hot vegetable or chicken stock
• 100ml single cream
• Olive oil to drizzle
  
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Melt the butter in a wide pan and add the parsnips. Allow to cook out briefly before adding the celery followed by the apples.

2. Add the curry powder and tear in a couple of sage leaves.

3. Season with salt and pepper and allow to soften before adding the chestnuts.

4. Pour in the stock. Cover and allow to simmer for 4–5 minutes.

5. Remove the pan from the heat and pour in the cream.

6. Use a hand-held stick blender or a regular blender to liquidise the soup to a smooth and creamy purée (you may need to do this in batches if using a jug blender).

7. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

I Heart Belfast

I had a fantastic time in Belfast at the weekend. I was there with work but definitely managed to fit in a bit of play! I was working with a really lovely team at Belfast City Council who were hosting a great food festival there. I organised demonstrations in Georges Market on Saturday afternoon for celebrity chefs Paul Rankin and Nick Nairn. I hadn't seen the guys for ages (having not worked on 'Ready, Steady, Cook' for over a year now) so we had a great catch up.

I was put up in a very swanky hotel, The Merchant, which I totally loved every minute of (mood lit baths, chocolate truffles brought with the turn down service and gorgeous cocktails in the bar before hitting the town). Then, I met the team for a delicious dinner in Paul's restaurant, Cayenne, before heading out clubbing.

Slightly sore heads the next day, but the dems went really well. Emma-louise Johnson presented with enthusiasm and the chefs managed to draw a huge crowd, which is great for the market no doubt. They first of all cooked their own recipes, two of which are below. The second part of the dem was an 'against the clock, cook-off' using ingredients a punter had bought in the market, which was a lot of fun. As usual they blew everyone away with the dishes they came up with on the spur of the moment.

The boys working the crowd & Emma Louise doing her thang

So all in all, a fantastic gig to work on....just the small issue of all those boxes of equipment that still need to be unpacked, yawn!

here are a couple of the recipes from the event:

PAUL’S SEARED SQUID WITH CHILLI GREMOLATA AND BLACK PASTA

SERVES 4

450 g (1 lb) squid, about 10-12.5 cm (4-5 in) long

250 g (9 oz) black tagliatelle (or other black pasta)

2 tbsp light olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

175 g (6 oz) yellow and red cherry tomatoes, halved

CHILLI GREMOLATA OIL

2 large red chillies, finely chopped

4 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

Grated zest of ½ lemon

1 tbsp lemon juice

120 ml (4 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil

To prepare the squid, separate the head and tentacles from the body and discard the stiff cartilage quill. Cut the head free from the tentacles and discard. Remove the purplish skin. Clean and rinse the squid, then cut the large tentacles in half and the body into 1 cm (½ in) ringlets.

To make the gremolata oil, simply stir all the ingredients together. Heat very gently, set aside and keep warm.

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water until al dente. Meanwhile, heat the light olive oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. When the oil is almost smoking, add the squid and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 1½-2 minutes, until the squid turns from opaque to white. Add the tomatoes and continue to cook for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and keep warm.

To serve, toss the drained pasta in 2-3 tbsp of the gremolata oil. Divide the pasta between the warmed plates, then spoon over the squid and tomatoes. Drizzle with more gremolata oil and serve.

595 cals per portion
34 g fat per portion

Nick's Hot Blairgowrie Raspberry Souffle

400g raspberries

1 tbsp lemon juice

100g caster sugar

2 tsp crème de framboise

1 tsp cornflour

180g egg whites (about 6)

pinch of cream of tartar

Icing sugar, to serve

Press the raspberries through a fine sieve to produce 180g of purée. Put this into a thick-bottomed pan, add the lemon juice and reduce down to a thick jam, stirring from time to time and being careful not let it catch and burn.

Put 70g of the sugar in a separate pan. Melt it, then boil until it becomes a thick syrup (121°C on a sugar thermometer). To test without a thermometer, dip a teaspoon into the syrup and then quickly into cold water. You should be able to roll the cooling syrup into a ball between your fingers. But be careful as the syrup is exceedingly hot! When it has reached the right point, stir the hot syrup into the raspberry jam.

Mix the framboise and cornflour together and stir into the jam over the heat. This will help the jam to thicken. Turn the jam into a small bowl, sprinkle the surface with icing sugar and cover closely with cling film. This can all be done the day before and kept in the fridge. Return the jam to room temperature before using.

When ready to serve, preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4. Slowly whisk the egg whites with the cream of tarter until you can form soft peaks, then fold in the remaining caster sugar, taking care not to overwhisk. Lightly fold the whites into the jam, leaving thin traces of white visible in the mixture. Spoon into four buttered and sugared large ramekins, place these on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes.

Transfer the ramekins to plates. Dust the hot soufflés lightly with icing sugar. Serve immediately.

one very electric picnic

Well, it's been a couple of weeks now but i have finally got around to wiping the muddy memories from my wellies. I had a fantastic time at electric picnic; can you believe I landed a totally jammy job there? Rachel Allen was head-lining in the cookery tent (rock and roll!) and I went along to set up for her. Marty, the husband, otherwise known as 'the boy' (he'll kill me!), came along as my trusty assistant. So the camping gear joined the usual pot & pan paraphenalia in the car and we were off.

Rachel showed hundreds of revellers how to cook a quick gazpacho. Then she got some punters up to cook a posh steak & chanterelle dish with her. We won't talk about the very drunk punter who revealed his own hip flask of whisky for flambeeing while his long silky kaftan sleeves flapped around the flames, yikes! Then, while we handed out hundreds of umbrella clad cocktails, which marty had been busy making, Rachel finished off with some Flirtini cocktails. We also managed to rope in some guys from the Bacardi tent to come and do their very best Tom Cruise on cocktail making. HOT!

Our other foody feasts at electric picnic included a delicious lunch at 'soon to be in Dublin' Pie Minster, a 'not quite the same as the restaurant' pot of pad Thai in Diep and a yummy breakfast of cup cakes at the farmers market. Even the drunken burger (from Rocket and Relish) on the way back from rocking out with Franz Ferdinand on Saturday night was posh! Electric Picnic also created food awards in conjunction with Bridgestone Food Guides for the exceptional line up of food traders at the event. For those of you who don't know it, this is a muddy music festival we're taking about! Altogether a very flash music (and food!) festival.