COOKING HOLIDAYS:If you thought our contribution to cuisine was coddle, colcannon and crisp sandwiches, it's time to take a home-cooked culinary break. There's a great menu of options to choose from, writes SANDRA O'CONNELL
SHARON MURPHY has travelled the world as a chef on posh yachts, and now offers cookery classes and accommodation at her holiday home Kilcoe Cottage ( kilcoecottage.com) in Ballydehob, west Cork. The Dublin-born adventurer runs terrific cookery weekends, with topics ranging from the Joy of Baking (her chocolate cake is the stuff of legend) to Thai Cooking Made Easy.
A weekend course, plus full-board accommodation, costs €345 each based on four sharing.
There's no accommodation at Just Cooking ( justcooking.ie), Bernie and Mark Doe's cookery school in Firies, Co Kerry, but it's near Killarney where there's no shortage of places to stay and, with a little notice, Bernie can get you a good rate.
The couple, each of whom has more than 20 years’ experience in catering, built a state-of-the-art teaching kitchen beside their home three years ago and have been packing them in ever since with everything from intensive cookery weekends to drop-in classes open to all-comers. Evening classes range from €35 to €75 and there’s a waiting list for many, so book early.
In Dublin, Vanessa Greenwood's Cooks Academy ( cooksacademy.com) has settled into its new home in South William Street. The move opens the previously Dún Laoghaire-based school up to a whole new swathe of city dwellers, as well as those from further afield who want a culinary break in the capital.
Greenwood began teaching by accident, giving demos to friends and family, before growing it in a suitably organic fashion. Now it’s a serious business, with an 80-seater demonstration theatre and hands-on facilities for up to 72 people.
A week’s course costs €395 or you can opt for weekend workshops from €150, with many culinary topics to choose from.
The school has a partnership arrangement with Brooks, a boutique hotel just around the corner on Drury Street, with BB for two from €140.
Wicklow is always worth visiting, but for foodies there is the added attraction of Ballyknocken Cookery School ( thecookeryschool.ie) at Catherine Fulvio's house.
The Cookery Getaway includes welcome tea and cakes, BB on Friday night, plus a cookery class, morning coffee and lunch for €174.50 per person sharing. If you’ve a non-cooking partner, they pay €60.
Beautiful Belle Isle ( belle-isle.com) in Fermanagh has one-day courses with simple themes ranging from Taste of the Orient to the Italian Kitchen. It also has a practical workshop to get you out of an impending hole, entitled One Complete Dinner Party From Scratch. Like party pieces, everyone should have one.
Prices start at £130 (€156) a day. If you are doing one of its longer courses, you get a special deal in its self-catering cottages.
Kevin Dundon's Dunbrody House ( dunbrodyhouse.com) in scenic Arthurstown, Co Wexford, is the place to go to be well fed, but increasingly it's the place to go to learn how to cook well too.
Dunbrody Cookery School has a great range of classes, from Vegetarian Cuisine to Seafood and Shellfish, plus my favourite, if only because there’s so little washing up, One Pot Wonders.
Expect to pay around €175 for a one-day course, not including accommodation, or €325 for two days, with a five-day Master Class on offer for €695. If there’s a group travelling, bring the cost down by staying in the lodge rather than the hotel. This costs €400 a night and sleeps up to six.
For something a bit different, the Boghill Centre ( boghill.com) in Co Clare is promoting a Clare Food Trail and Cookery Discovery Week, involving cooking, farm and producer visits, nutritional workshops and food-themed walks in the Burren and beyond. Taking place in May and in June, the package starts at €830 per person.
Celebrity chef Clodagh McKenna may have moved on to kitchens new but the Cookery School ( villageatlyons.com) at the Village at Lyons, near Celbridge, has well-known cooks ready to take up their spatula in her place. These include Oliver Dunne, Michelin-starred chef of Bon Appetit in Malahide, Louise Lennox from RTÉ's The Restaurant, and Marie McGuirk of the Irish Country Woman's Association.
Demos start at €25, while a day course is €140. Make a night of it and stay at one of the Village’s White Stable Suites, with rates starting at €90 per person sharing.
If you fancy having someone else do the culinary legwork, check out the Limerick Strand Hotel ( strandhotellimerick.ie), where executive chef Tom Flavin is organising a special tasting dinner with matching wines on April 18th, in the company of wine grower Gregory Barbet of Loron et Fils.
Overnight packages start from €105 based on two sharing and you get a gift from Flavin’s range of pantry products, The Secret Ingredient. Strip off the label and you can pass it off as your own.