This has been a long day. Up before dawn and headed off to Dublin in good time to talk about cookbooks on the Marian Finnucane programme. Then straight home again, making a round-trip of...oh, God only knows. Fermoy-Dublin-Fermoy at any rate. We ate beef stew from the freezer which gets better with time sub-zero and, to start, a fabulous souffle of ricotta, Dubliner and rocket as we watched the Alan Bennett evening on BBC2. Pure pleasure.
Darina Allen phoned to say thank you for the mention on MF. She is a national treasure, as AB is in Britain. And her book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking is a REAL book, written with knowledge and passion. Spent half an hour in Waterstone's this morning considering how much rubbish is published in the guise of cookbooks.
Plans are afoot to launch a website: part blog, part restaurant guide, part guide to great places to buy food and support brilliant producers. When I say "afoot", I mean I have some partly legible notes on the back of unpaid bills and redundant envelopes. But at least it's a start!
If anyone has any suggestions for the best value fizz, white and red wines in the multiples for Christmas, I'd be very grateful. This is for a seasonal special on RTE television. Has anyone been trawling Lidl and Aldi?
Probably a bit late for this but Dunnes are doing a Vega Real 2007 (Ribera del Duero) for €8.60.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the blog Tom - you're a fine writer, communicator and always add some interesting nuggets of culinary and horticultural wisdom to your posts including the politics of food, of course.
Rgds,
Steve Rawson
PS
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