Welcome to November’s Food and Drink Club newsletter

It is the 10th year of Food Month, and the celebrations continue throughout the month. You’ll find additional focus on food and drink features from every department within the newspaper, and online at irishtimes.com, plus some fantastic competitions and reader events. We have also welcomed chef Gráinne O’Keefe as our new recipe columnist in the Irish Times Magazine.

Last week we published our Winter Food + Drink magazine, which included a guide to restaurants, cafes, bars and takeaways all around the country where good value can be found. Corinna Hardgrave and Joanne Cronin unearthed some gems in their research, and you can read their selection here.

The reader events that are a popular part of Food Month continue tomorrow, with a fitness and nutrition panel discussion with Leinster Rugby players, followed by lunch, at Saba restaurant in Dublin 2. A few tickets are still available and you can book here. On Tuesday the action moves to Fire restaurant, for a Meat and Greet with executive chef Richie Wilson and Irish Hereford Prime. A few seats are still available for this cooking demo and six-course menu with wine pairings, and can be booked here.

If you would like to meet our food columnist Lilly Higgins, you can join her for Coffee and Crafting at Books Upstairs on Monday, November 21st. And to celebrate the opening of their second Dublin branch, you can take part in a menu testing session at Chimac in Terenure on November 18th. Fried Chicken Friday at Chimac will include a chance to roadtest possible new menu additions. A few tickets are still available for this one and you can book here.

Finally, would you like to win a two-day trip for two to Bordeaux, including a private tasting and lunch at Château Magnol, the vineyard of wine-makers Barton & Guestier, plus an invitation for two to join a collaborative dinner with the Marbella Club and the K Club, including an overnight stay, and a chance to join K Club sommelier Lisa O’Doherty at a professional wine tasting event? You can enter here.

If you’ve missed any of the coverage so far, the print and online features that are part of Food Month at The Irish Times can be read here. Thank you for your much appreciated support of this initiative.

Read all about it

In this weekend’s Irish Times Magazine, Ali Dunworth meets some of the shopkeepers running much cherished neighbourhood speciality food shops. I am in Co Galway to interview the young couple running Lignum, the restaurant most hotly tipped for a Michelin star in 2023. Our new columnist Gráinne O’Keefe has some seasonal pumpkin recipes. Corinna Hardgrave eats at Chequer Lane, and gets a takeaway from Vice. Lilly Higgins is cooking a tomato soup with a difference, sopa de fideo. With the gift-giving season looming, John Wilson takes a look at some new whiskey releases.

Check in with us regularly at irishtimes.com/food for all the latest food and drink news, features and great dishes to cook. If you would like to invite family and friends to join the Irish Times Food & Drink Club, they can do so here. You can also follow us on Facebook here, and on Twitter here.

Thanks for reading.

Marie-Claire Digby