It’s mid-May, but the weather feels more like a blustery March. It’s enough to make me start despairing that summer will pass us by yet again, but for now I’m still holding out hope that warmer weather is just around the corner. But if we can’t have warm sunshine in reality, we can at least […]
{ 4 comments }
I was scrolling through my Instagram feed last week and saw a photo from New York City of bunches of rhubarb piled high at a farmers’ market. ‘Rhubarb is at the Greenmarket!’ the caption read. ‘Just one stall is selling it. Get here quick before it sells out.’ Commenters on the photo were rushing over […]
{ 5 comments }
One of the first songs I learned to play on the piano was ‘Hot Cross Buns’. I was six years old, tapping out my first quarter notes, looking at the lyrics and wondering what a ha’penny was. It wouldn’t be until I moved to Ireland in my twenties that I’d actually eat a hot cross […]
{ 6 comments }
If stinging nettles grow in the Midwest, I guess I was lucky never to have had a run-in with them. The first I ever heard of stinging nettles was the summer I lived in Washington state, when I watched a girl roll up a leaf and eat it raw. I’d already had my first painful […]
{ 12 comments }
If you only learn how to make one Irish recipe, learn how to make soda bread. If you visit Ireland you’re bound to have it at some point, either served at breakfast in a B&B with butter and jam (my favourite way to have it) or a slice or two alongside a bowl of soup. […]
{ 53 comments }
Growing up in the American Midwest, Fat Tuesday was a bit of a non-event. I’d be vaguely aware that it was Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but in Illinois it was just another winter day. In Ireland, though, it’s called Pancake Tuesday and it’s a big deal. At my local grocery store, one of the […]
{ 6 comments }
There can be no higher calling for homemade marmalade than to be thickly spread on toasted good bread with a mug of strong tea served alongside. I didn’t grow up eating marmalade in the States — in fact, I can’t remember ever having it there — and it’s been a bit of an acquired taste, […]
{ 9 comments }
One of my best college memories is the summer I spent canning with my co-op housemate Rich. The house had a CSA subscription, our own small backyard garden plus a plot in a community garden, so there was a lot of fresh produce around, even more than the 30 to 40 people who ate at […]
{ 42 comments }
As the new year gets underway, I’m just like everyone else I know these days – worried about money, a little scared about the future and nervous at what the coming year might bring. I’ve stopped reading the papers (again), put off by all the doom and gloom and financial crises I don’t understand. Instead, […]
{ 73 comments }
“So how do you like your steak done?” I asked the group watching my demo two weeks ago at Salon du Blog in France as I made my first dish of steak sandwiches with a Cashel Blue butter. “They like it rare,” said Bernadette, our translator, driver, sous chef and all-round helper for the weekend […]
{ 32 comments }
