Compiled by MARIE-CLAIRE DIGBY
Lifting the lid on casseroles
Connemara potter Stephen Price makes this versatile dual-purpose oven-to-table casserole (€110). Once you’ve cooked your meltingly tender tagine or stew, you can take the lid off, invert it, and use it as a serving dish for the accompanying rice or couscous. It’s available from Gourmet Pots, near Schull, Co Cork (086-8846953).
Enjoy a real US-style barbecue
Barbecue is taken very seriously in some US states; there’s no random sausage and burger flipping in those parts, instead professional “Pit Masters” wrangle whole beasts into tender submission. You can get a taste of barbecue US-style next Saturday, July 23rd, when Michael Corcoran, formerly of Arizona, now living in Clonakilty, does a demonstration right outside Foodgame cafe and food store on 10 South Lotts Road in Dublin 4 (11am-3pm). Corcoran runs a barbecue catering business (see mikesbbq.ie), and has recently started making and selling his own brand of barbecue sauce. He also makes hot dogs using his own recipe, using pork, herbs and spices. “We will be charging €5 for the hot dogs, and we will be serving them on Bretzel Bakery buns with rocket that we get every Saturday from Penny and Udo Lange at the Pearse Street Co-Op market,” says Foodgame proprietor Ross Staunton.
Slated for a comeback
Husband and wife team Edward and Tara Hammond are spearheading a revival of interest in slate as a surface on which to present food, as well as finding lots of other culinary uses for it. Their company, Slated, produces stylish cheeseboards, coasters, placemats – and this witty tray with knife and fork handles (€45). Tara comes up with the designs, which Edward then cuts by hand, before handing over to Tara for the cleaning, sealing and finishing process. Stockists include 64Wine, Glasthule; Louis Mulcahy, Dingle; Liberties, Westport; Perryville House, Kinsale; The Trinket Box, Lusk; and you can buy online at slated.ie.
Book of the week
The Sorcerer's Apprentices: A Season at el Bulli,by Lisa Abend (Simon and Schuster, £17.99)
As el Bulli, arguably the most famous restaurant in the world, prepares to shut its doors in its current incarnation in a couple of weeks, this access-all-areas story of a season in the kitchen where talking and eating are strictly forbidden, makes fascinating reading. The story is as much about the stagiaires – the highly qualified chefs from all over the world who leave well-paid jobs in prestigious restaurants to work for free, and worship at the altar of Adrià – as it is about the food they prepare. For the duration of the 2009 season, Abend closely observed the workings of the kitchen, and the interactions of the chefs. Her commentary is as as sharp as the knives they wield.
Called to serve
Catherine Fulvio, who is in the throes of finalising a forthcoming RTÉ television show, as well as running a full programme of courses at her Ballyknocken Cookery School in Co Wicklow, is the first guest chef from outside the US to be invited to cook at the annual Taste America event in Washington. She will be cooking for members of the House of Representatives and Senate on Capitol Hill on Thursday, August 3rd, and the theme of the dinner will be "farm to table". The invitation to cook at the event came as a result of her appearances on NBC's Todayshow. Fulvio will be using Irish artisanal products in her menu.