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Great Grated

So, how do you make the fastest fondue in the country? Simple. Just buy a pack of Bill Hogan's grated Desmond cheese, then follow the instructions on the pack: wipe the inside of a saucepan with a clove of garlic, heat a glass of wine, add the grated Desmond, stir gently for 5 minutes, then get stuck in with the starch of your choice: some potatoes, slices of good bread, maybe some roasted vegetables. It couldn't be easier or more foolproof, and you will find packs of grated Desmond in good shops and wholefood stores, waiting for you.

Kinsale Speciality Food Symposium

The great and the good turned up and toured out to get wet at Kinsale for Bord Bia's Speciality food Symposium. The rain didn't deter big crowds touring what quickly became known as "The Compound", where the artisans had established their marketplace, whilst in the symposium itself, Nina Planck, founder of London's farmer's markets, wowed everyone with one of the sharpest, hippest speeches the crowd had ever seen. Also very amusing was Colman Andrews with his analysis of regional foods, who reserved his scorn for those who practice bad fusion food, or, as Colman prefers to call it, pastiche food.

Star of the show, however, was Nenagh's very own Peter Ward, who set the place alight with a passionate speech. This man has so much star quality that we're just waiting for the news that Peter has been signed up to replace George Clooney and to star alongside Julia Roberts in a romantic comedy about the adventures of a rural grocer. Script by Richard Curtis. Steven Soderbergh to direct, a Miramax production, coming soon to a cinema near you.

You shall have an organic fishy

With wild salmon becoming as scarce as intelligence in American foreign policy, Anthony Creswell of Ummera smoked salmon has powered ahead and secured organic certification for their smoked fish. Using organic farmed fish allows Ummera to have consistency of supply, and to offer the salmon at a good price; less than the wild fish, but more than the standard smoked salmon using farmed fish. The fish team up with Israeli sea salt, raw cane sugar from Brazil and oak sawdust from Nottingham in England: the result is ace.
www.ummera.com

Bringing home the bacon and the clichéd headline

Quite one of the nicest things we have tasted recently has been Rosscarbery Recipes bacon steak. Bacon what?!

Yep, bacon steak, an ingeniously cured pork steak, made by Willie and Avril Allshire of Caherbeg Free Range Pork in West Cork.

The beauty of the steak is that it cooks in seconds after you slice it into medallions, it goes with a zillion things, and kids go crazy for it. Food this good isn't supposed to be that easy, but here is a food that lets you in every way.
www.caherbegfreerangepork.ie

Big Smokie

Yes, we know. On Saturday mornings you like to lie in bed and disappear under the duvet. Get up early to head to a market? Are we nuts?

But, there is more than enough compensation to make it worthwhile to get up early on Saturday to head to a market, because the marketers have things you simply can't get anywhere else. For example, you might be able to buy Fingal Ferguson's bacon in a range of shops, but you will have to meet Fingal at the Skibbereen market in order to buy his excellent sausages (match the sage and onion with some lentils) and, in particular, what they call Big Smokie: the enormous wheels of extra mature, smoked Gubbeen cheese which are only sold via Fingal's market stall. Worth getting out of bed? Worth staying up all night, actually.