Diarmuid and Donal Ó Drisceoill's tribute to the English Market is a remarkable book, part scholarly treatise, part celebration of an everyday part of the Cork experience. I had always wondered why it's called "English". It seems that nobody knows for sure, but it is probably because it was established by the Protestant (or "English") corporation. In any event, it soon became as Irish as the bells of Shandon (also Protestant, as it happens) and Murphy's stout (now owned by the Dutch).
The Cork playwright Johnny Hanrahan sums up the English Market very neatly. "In its layout," he writes, "in the kind of encounters you have with stallholders surrounded by religious icons, dead birds, cheeses you could build houses with, with your brother, the man from the tax office, your old teacher, fourteen screaming teenagers and a bemused foreign journalist, a camera crew lost forever in a sea of Corkonians, all talking at the top of their voices, the Market is where it's at."
Serving a City treats the English Market with the respect and the affection it deserves. And the pictures, past and present, are even more evocative than the excellent text. Serving a City: The Story of Cork's English Market, is published by Collins Press, €27.95. Tom Doorley
GONE POTTYAlix Gardner's cooking courses offer to take you from gloomy January and February weather to more colourful climes. Around the World Cookery, running on Wednesday evenings, will take you from the red curries of Thailand to the pecan pie of the Americas, back over to Asia for an Indian, and to Italy for bruschettas and roast peppers.
Gardner aims to cook the food that you get in restaurants: you spend two hours in her kitchen on Waterloo Road in Dublin, cooking two courses to take home, where, "hopefully, someone has a bottle of wine waiting".
Classes are deliberately informal, with no more than eight in each class.
Gardner is also taking courses in healthy eating, but stresses that it is "not too healthy" as she doesn't really like to think of a world devoid of coconut milk and sticky toffee puddings. She charges €700 for 10 lessons, including all ingredients. See www.dublincookery.com (01-6681553). Nicoline Greer
TV DINNERS Video podcasts are the way forward for restaurant reviews, say Graham Kinsella and Dave Jackson, founders of the restaurant directory www.goeat.ie.
This new website has all the expected features such as listings, customer reviews and dining-out offers, but what makes it different is the new podcast feature, which takes cameras inside the restaurants and gives you a feel for the places in a way that words alone sometimes cannot.
The clips can be viewed on the move on the new video iPod, via the iTunes Music Store, or on PCs and laptops via the Goeat website. The first video review features the Japanese restaurant Aya; forthcoming reviews will include The Vaults and Wagamama. See www.goeat.ie. Marie-Claire Digby
SHERIDANS SALE To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Sheridans Cheesemongers, in Dublin and Galway, is offering its 10 favourite products at half-price from December 1st to 10th. The reduction applies to five cheeses - Blue d'Auvergne, Comte, Mont D'Or, Ardrahan and Coolea extra mature - as well as to quince paste from Spain and Raudii Corvino Merlot 2003, to accompany them. Also on sale are Grevigiano mini salami; and pork-and-prune terrine and basil pesto, both from the Sheridans kitchen. Marie-Claire Digby