Christmas Hampers & a Christmas Competition

Win a Country Choice Hamper (value £100)

For a very special Christmas treat our winner this month can look forward to a Country Choice Hamper (value £100), with the contents selected by Peter Ward of Country Choice in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. The hamper will include everything to make your christmas store cupboard complete: anchovies, piquillo peppers, pure vanilla extract, mace blades, a half bottle of Muscat de Rivesaltes with a good ripe cheese to match it, some dark bitter 70% chocolate, harrissa, polenta, cous cous, dry cepes, lentilles de Puy, some handmade US Caesar Salad dressing, some two-and-a-half year old Parmesan, carnaroli rice, amaretti biscuits and some decadent Country Choice glacé orange slices for dipping in chocolate. This hamper has the full imprimatur of Peter Ward's meticulous sense of choice: there is no one else so adept at sourcing great foods for the festive season. Of course, there can only be one winner of our competition, but disappointed folk can console themselves by ordering one from the man himself:  www.countrychoice.ie

To win this hamper simply tell us what day does Christmas fall on....?

Email your answer to: Sally McKenna

Competition Results

Congratulations to the winners of last month's competitions. We received an unprecedented response to the competition, but there was only one bottle of balsamic vinegar, and that was won by Des Kilbane in Galway.

Our other competition, asking for translations for our Italian menu of the month generated some interesting responses. First in was Eric Moroney from Dalkey who translated "al profumo di bosco" ­ from memory! ­ to mean "scented with wild mushrooms". Eric turned out to be a good friend to the newsletter and has contributed a mouth watering insight into the foods of Andalucia, in Southern Spain, where he lives for part of the year. He sent us this lovely little overview of foods from this region.

Another correspondent replying to this competition was Heather Sweetnam who translated profumo di bosco as "scent of the forest", ie the smell of wood, leaves, mushrooms. Robespierre, she translated as "Filet de boeuf emince". Having exhausted our splendid library of books and having been unable to source these translations we asked her, what was her secret? "The internet" she replied, advising us to be "obstinate and dogged" in our research. Her Italian information was sourced from http://home.earthlink.net/~ggda/linksto.htm She also recommends sites like Ask Jeeves and The Electric Monk, "you would be amazed at the replies you'd get from sites like these". "Basically, if you are determined, and if you surf long enough you should get a result!"

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text © John & Sally McKenna
illustrations © Ken Buggy