Compiled by MARIE-CLAIRE DIGBY
Food book of the week
Super Natural Every Day, Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen, by Heidi Swanson (published by Hardie Grant, £14.99)
Culinary heavyweights including Yotam Ottolenghi and Dorie Greenspan have rowed in enthusiastically behind this gorgeous book from the San Francisco-based author, whose blog, 101cookbooks.com, is one of the most popular in the US. It recently won a prestigious James Beard award, and it's easy to see why. It's a beautifully photographed and styled book – images taken by the author – that makes healthy, wholegrain, meat-free eating elegant and appetising, rather than worthy and, dare I say it, stodgy. As an example, the white beans and cabbage dish photographed on the cover also includes Parmesan, shallots, and tiny cubes of potato sautéed in olive oil. It's as delicious to eat as it sounds, and no, I didn't miss the animal protein that was absent from my supper plate.
Dairy in at the deep end
In its first week in production, Ballymore Farm Organic Dairy received an order from Sheridans Cheesemongers to supply a large quantity of organic raw milk butter for the recent Bord Bia Irish food promotion at Selfridges in London. "We sold out before the promotion was over and received very positive feedback. It certainly threw us in at the deep end," says Mary Davis, who runs Ballymore Farm in Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare with her husband Aidan Harney and business partner Joey Burke. The trio are making and selling organic milk, butter milk – brilliant for breadmaking and baking – natural yoghurt and handmade butter. They're currently also developing a flavoured butter using smoked sea salt. The farm produce is available in Nolan's of Kilcullen; Doyles in Dunlavin; Swan on the Green in Naas; Avoca, Rathcoole, Monkstown and Kilmacanogue; Cavistons in Glasthule; A. Caviston, Greystones, and Hopsack in Rathmines. See ballymorefarm.ie
Top food tweets . . .
Neven Maguire @nevenmaguire: What a great day was knighted at craft butchers by French knights very proud
Piero @ArtisanPizza_ie: A tasty tip for your tomato sauce - de cecco tins of filetti di pomodoro blended with salt and olive oil - delicious for pizzas or pasta
Glenilen Farm @GlenilenFarm: Homemade cheesecakes on special offer @SuperValuIRL and@CentraIRL- use our pop-up base add some fruit and you could have made it yourself
WEBWATCH: Mylittleparis.com
The prettiest website ever, with charming watercolour illustrations and finger-on-the-pulse info (in English as well as French) on shopping, beauty, culture, design hotels, and of course food and drink. You can sign up for a weekly email update to learn where the cool Parisians are hanging out, a recent example being Cédric Casanova’s gourmet grocery shop that features a single table you can book at lunch and in the evenings for what are described as “private gastronomic picnics”, for between five and nine people (€30 each). It’s in the 10th arrondissement, at 14 rue Sainte Marthe, just up from Casanova’s olive oil shop, La Tête dans les Olives, which also boasts a single dinner table, seating just five. Email picnic@latetedanslesolives.com for bookings.
New chapter for art
Chapter One restaurant in Dublin 1 is in the second phase of an art project that aims to showcase the work of up and coming artists by selecting two paintings each year, one for spring/summer and another for autumn/winter. The second painting in the series, which will hang in the restaurant as well as being reproduced on its menu covers, is this work entitled called Hold, by NCAD MA Fine Art graduate Damien Flood, who was selected for the Saatchi Space in London during Frieze 2008 and has also shown in New York.
