"I wish I were sitting in my parents' walled garden in Slane, on a sunny day, surrounded by my family, catching up on all the chat and helping to prepare the lunch. Kevin and Vonie, my parents, love having everyone come home to sit around the table.
On a recent visit home, we enjoyed an amazing striploin of organic beef which had been hung for 31 days. Mum had marinated the beef in a concoction she whipped up the day before. While the beef grilled slowly, we had the most amazing crab claws that my friend Ross had brought. My parents grilled these on the barbecue and served them with melted butter and some garden herbs.
Then Dad walked up the garden with a charred mass that, once carved at the table, revealed itself to be the beef - cooked to perfection regardless of its smouldering exterior. Mum served some lovely local potatoes, samphire and chermoulla with it. The samphire was something new to most of us at the table.
But I'm not, so . . . I'd ask a few friends over for dinner at my place in the Liberties in Dublin. I normally cook something simple, such as a chicken roasted with herbs and lemons, a large salad, some root vegetables I would have added to the chicken while it was roasting, and a crispy baguette to mop up the juices. Nothing reminds you of home like a roast chicken."
In conversation with Marie-Claire Digby
Jo'burger, the restaurant in Rathmines, Dublin 6, that Joe Macken set up with his father, Kevin, recently won the X Factor award in the Food & Winemagazine restaurant awards. Another branch is to open in Blackrock, Co Dublin.