Paddy’s Day Food Parade
Places everybody. Parade coming through. A veritable feast of food and drink inspired by that most Irish of holidays, St. Patrick’s Day, is coming your way.
Yes, you’ll find a heap of soda bread amongst the parade participants and, yes, you’ll also see a distinct fondness for the combination of beef and Guinness (in fact, Guinness plus just about anything), but there are a few less-than-traditional surprises in there too – coconut faux-tatoes anybody?
Click on the links below to jump straight to your favourite parade floats or just browse the lot while sipping a cup of tea or perhaps a pint of the black stuff, given the day that’s in it. The running order includes:
- A Drinks float to kick things off.
- A jam-packed Soda Bread float.
- Potatoes, who, naturally, get a float all to themselves.
- A float with Starters and Side Dishes, mainly featuring the use of green vegetables.
- There’s a dedicated Beef and Guinness float.
- Quickly followed by a float which hosts plenty of non-beefy ideas for The Main Course.
- There is, of course, a float chock-a-block with Sweet Stuff for afters.
- And we round things off with a Cheese float.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who participated. As is a Spud’s wont, I have been humbled by the response. Now, if you’re sitting comfortably, let the parade begin!
(image from sweetlifebake.com)
Spud Sunday: Ancient Spuds, Modern Threats
Can it really be a year since my first, momentous Potato Day experience? A whole year since I travelled the picturesque byways of Leitrim to the annual celebration of the humble noble tuber at the Organic Centre in Rossinver? Apparently, yes, it was time to pack my bags and head west again.
Old Irish Lazy Beds: potatoes planted on the ground and covered with sods sliced from either side
The event makes for a worthwhile excursion if you are of a mind to plant potatoes or are generally interested in the how of spuds. They had around 20 varieties of seed potato on sale, advice for gardeners on dealing with the curse that is potato blight, demonstrations of old-style lazy bed planting, a potato-heavy menu at their cafe and, of course, the irrepressible Dave Langford with his collection of heritage potatoes. 100+ of his varieties were on display, along with a new and absorbing addition…
Killer Cheeses
There is at least one legend which holds that would-be assassins tried (but failed) to kill St. Patrick with poisoned cheese. There are a number of conclusions which we may draw from this, to wit:
- St. Patrick was fond of cheese.
- He knew a dodgy cheese when he tasted one.
Therefore, what better way to celebrate the feast day of our patron saint than to include a platter of Irish cheese as part of the Paddy’s Day Food Parade. And not just any cheese, but a selection of fine Irish raw milk cheeses, because I can guarantee, given that Louis Pasteur was far from born at the time, that St. Patrick’s cheese board would have been filled with nothing but cheeses made from raw milk.
Selection of Irish raw milk cheeses
We Have Ways Of Making You Eat
I think that my name is on a list somewhere. Some Italian food mafia list.
And make no mistake, they are out to feed me.
First, Milano’s invite me to come and taste their new Francesco Mazzei range. All of it. Two starters, a pasta dish and three pizzas. In one sitting.
Let me tell you that the word full doesn’t remotely cover it.
Milano's Francesco Mazzei Pizzas:
Calabrese (sweet, chili-hot and sausagey, the crowd favourite), Mia Sofia (a thin-based pizza blanca that is all about the mushrooms) and Rustichella (which, let's face it, people will love for the pancetta)
Then, when I had finished digesting that, they sent their guys around with dough balls and pizza from the new Milano At Home range (eh, don’t mind if I do, grazie mille). Perhaps they’re out to change my spudly ways (after all, with the noble exception of gnocchi, Italians don’t seem to go in much for the whole potatoes thing). Or maybe they wondered if I had opinions to share, which, when it comes to food, I generally do.
Spud Sunday: My First Rösti
The instructions for today’s Spud Sunday can be neatly summarised as follows:
- Open packet.
- Dump contents onto non-stick pan over medium heat.
- Cook until golden on each side.
- Eat.
The contents in question consist mostly of cooked, grated potatoes. The golden-hued result is Swiss rösti. But from a packet? I should explain…
Rösti, packet-style
Don’t Cry For Me
Argentina.
That’s where I was supposed to be today.
Wining, dining and (as it happens) celebrating my birthday.
However, next door in Chile, which was also on the list of places to visit, they have serious earthquake-type things to contend with, so it really was for the best that I steer clear of the region.
Rather than coming over all blue – tempting though that was – I thought that I would, instead, apply the colour green to the situation. St. Patrick’s Day will be upon us very soon and I fully expect the blogosphere to take on an increasingly pronounced Irish accent in the next couple of weeks. So, if you’re food blogging something with Paddy’s Day in mind, why not join me for a little Paddy’s Day Food Parade on the 17th.
Spud Sunday: Taking Up Smokies
When you get an invitation that has lunch at Eden Restaurant as part of the deal, you say yes and then ask questions later.
So it was that I found myself dining stuffing my gob at Eden during the launch by the Temple Bar Cultural Trust of their well-packed 2010 programme of events (which, I am delighted to report, includes the return of the Chocolate Festival, this time making a pre-Christmas appearance in December).
However, before the gob-stuffing got underway, I wondered did my fellow lunchers notice quite how much time I had spent staring at the menu? Or if they had caught the slight trepidation in my voice as I ordered the smokies?
Waking Up To Coffee
Time was when coffee in Dublin meant a mug of milky white coffee at Bewley’s, with nothing either grande or latte about it. Even so, it seemed like a big step up from drinking tea, if only because that’s what you did at home, morning, noon and night.
Then we got all fancy with our imported coffee culture: American styles, Italian names, and the spawning of a whole generation of grande skinny decaf drinkers. (And before I go any further, I should point out that I count myself in this – I have spent years with a takeaway latte cup welded to my hand).
Yes, we fancied, in our Celtic Tiger way, that we now knew about coffee. Who among us was willing to admit that, more often than not, we were drinking what amounted to the emperor’s new decaf?
But it's only coffee, right?
