Category Archives: Events

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 2, 2014

Posted under

Awards Winners, Events, Great brands and producers

Comments

7 Comments

Meet The Cheese Makers – April 5th @ 6pm

Next up is cheese. Obviously a strange one for me as I haven’t tasted cheese since 1990 but it is the food I miss the most 🙂

Timing
Date: Saturday 5th April 2014
Time: 6pm (sharp’ish) for 2 hours or thereabouts.

Venue: Highbank Orchard – http://www.highbankorchards.com. You will also be able to sample and buy from the wonderful range of Highbank Ciders – Proper, Medieval and Drivers.

Map showing entrance to Highbank – https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zFi7I69FJBfk.kkTe3qWzL_98

Link to buy tickets (only €5 to join us)

Who?

Meet The Cheese Makers Biabeag

From right to left:

Siobhan Ni Ghairbhith – St Tola: Irish Organic Goat Cheese, Co Clare
Siobhan’s approach to cheese is probably best captured in this piece from the McKennas “The cheeses can seem to taste entirely elemental, for Ms ni Ghairbhith uses organic methods, and doesn’t pasteurise her milk.”
Website http://www.st-tola.ie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sainttola

Tom Burgess – Coolattin Cheddar: Mature Raw Milk Cheddar, Co Wicklow
Tom’s Mature Raw Milk Cheddar is a  a gourmet experience of aroma, texture & full flavour which develops slowly from sweet fruit to a full nutty note.

Website http://www.irishcheese.ie/members/coolattincheddar.html
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoolattinCheddar

Helen Finnegan – Knockdrinna Cheese: Mature Raw Milk Cheddar, Co Kilkenny
Helen is a local hero and most recently her Knockdrinna Gold semi-hard goats cheese at the 2013 British Cheese Awards where it was named ‘Best Modern British’.

Website http://www.knockdrinna.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knockdrinna

[Thanks to Aoife, TheDailySpud for permission to use her shot of Helen]

What happens on the night?
We will get to hear from each of our guests who will share their stories and passion for cheese with you, the audience, driving the questions and discussions. While we talk we will get to taste some samples of their award winning cheeses while their makers explain the subtle tastes of each one.

The makers will also have cheeses available to buy downstairs while you are enjoying the Highbank juices and ciders.

Curious about what the evening might be like? We had Meet The Bakers on 25th January

 

 

Its €5 to join us. Click here to book.

If you want to be sent an email when events are scheduled click here http://eepurl.com/JXUBj

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 26, 2014

Posted under

Events, Great brands and producers

Comments

2 Comments

Meet the Baker – fun and informative. Thank you.

Last night was fun. And really informative for us all. Declan, Joe and Josephine did a wonderful job of sharing the passions that drive them and educating the audience on the importance of real bread. And the taste – with samples constantly being cut and distributed :-).

Thanks to Alec Taylor for shooting this fixed camera video of the event so that a wider group can enjoy this event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIA91eA238c

Thanks to Ken McGuire for shooting some photos and allowing us to use them.

readbreal-15

readbreal-3

readbreal-28

 

Some thanks

To Sarah and Eleanor in The Littler Green Grocer, Ken McGuire and finally Padraic and Irene from The Gourmet Store who encouraged and advised me on this first event setup. Josephine’s breads are stocked in The Little Green Grocer and The Gourmet Store and Declan’s breads in The Gourmet Store on Fridays and Saturdays. 

 

Mick Burke who provided the stage which allowed everyone to see what was going on. To my brother David and friend Larry who helped on the night.

To the 60 of you who booked tickets and turned up last night – you made it great for the 3 bakers with your interest and questions 🙂

Finally thank you to Julie & Rod – my good friends and organic producers who made their wonderful premises available to us and did so much to make this event so wonderful.

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 30, 2013

Posted under

Ethical Food, Events

A couple of #realbread videos – feel that passion

This one is from Declan Ryan of Arbutus Bakery. Taste, time and hard work overnight. You can meet Declan together with Joe and Josephine on 25th Jan on the grounds of Irelands biggest organic apple farm.

And this one is great – I came across it on youtube earlier today. Jack is well known in Killorglin apparently and carries the passion for real bread making going back a long which. Enjoy it!

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 1, 2013

Posted under

Ethical Food, Events, Great brands and producers

Comments

1 Comment

Meet the Bakers

This is up on a permanent page here.

Realbread Poster V3

First in a new series which I am experimenting with to see if there is interest. Starting with a series of foods which I personally enjoy – so thats bread, coffee, beer and chocolate.

keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

November 4, 2012

Posted under

Ethical Food, Events

Wild And Slow – Wicklow 10th & 11th November 2012

One of the byeproducts of my time at TerraMadre last week was the pleasure of meeting Evan Doyle, proprietor of Brooklodge.

He is one of the Slow Food people helping to organise next weekends celebration of wild food which takes place in Macreddin village in Wicklow.

Looks like a great event for anyone who enjoys their food. The lineup of food stalls and tastings is complemented by a wide variety of workshops – all free to enter once you have paid the 5 euro daily charge to get in. You can download full workshop details here – WILDFOOD WORK SHOPS 2012 FINAL DETAILS.

Booking can be done via this form – WILDFOOD WORK SHOPS PRE-REG FORM2 2012

For me interesting ones would be:

Back to the Basics A workshop where Darina Allen, Ballymaloe, will focus in depth on the traditional methods of preserving as used by our grandparents for pickling, drying and potting that gave them tastes of summery fruit in jams well after the trees were bare, cured meats and fish in the darker months, and allowed them have vitamins and minerals while nature slept.

Blackberries and beyond. Ireland has 327,258 km of common Irish grass verges and hedgerows. In this workshop, Evan Doyle, Ed Hick and Biddy white Lennon will concentrate on what is available there for free, where to look for it, and when it is best harvested, using the Wild&Slow templates to bring participants through each season.

Much about Mushrooms. Guiding through six months of annual mushroom harvesting, Bill O’Dea, informs the workshop on the Top Ten Irish edible wild mushrooms, when to look for them and most importantly…where to find them.

This is a shot from the first Wild and Slow event in 2011

The event website is here.

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 4, 2011

Posted under

Events

Comments

1 Comment

Tipp Food Producers Christmas Extravaganza featuring Rachel Allen

It’s been quiet here on BiaBeag – my day job has been keeping me away from my artisan food addiction. Wednesday evening will see a brief revisit when I attend the Tipperary Food Producers evening in Clonmel as part of the twitter panel there.

From their website:

Rachel Allen, who is part of the world famous Ballymaloe Cookery School in East Cork and who is well known from her regular Television shows and for her bestselling cook books, will prepare a variety of delicious dishes for the Tipperary food showcase. As well as her unique take on traditional Christmas favourites, she will also be offering exciting new ideas using the finest of local ingredients.

 Tipperary Cheese and wine will be served at the informative Christmas Cookery demonstration. Clonmel-based wine expert, Gary Gubbins of Red Nose Wine, will be giving guidance on wines to accompany the variety of dishes from the cookery demonstration. Well known food blogger Imen McDonnell, will give a live butter-making demonstration.

 “I am very excited about coming to Tipperary to do this demonstration. Tipperary food has such a fantastic reputation and the local producers are doing great work to promote this wonderful asset. I will be doing traditional recipes but there will be a few surprises thrown in there too” said Rachel Allen.

Looking forward to it – if you are there please say hello 🙂

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 31, 2011

Posted under

Events, Great brands and producers

Comments

3 Comments

Savour Kilkenny Food Market – some of the people behind the food

That was a great weekend and after the Foodcamp on Friday I relaxed a little and just enjoyed walking around and chatting to the artisan food producers around the market on the Parade.

This is a view of the market from one of the surrounding buildings. Against the backdrop of the Rose Garden and the Castle over 70 passionate food producers gathered to share and sell their wares. For a change this post focused on those people and not brands or packaging.

First up in this post – Mag Kirwan and Marian Flannery. Mag is a food producer, member of the Savour Kilkenny Committee and co-organiser of the Foodcamp with me. Marian is the person primarily responsible as festival organiser for the delivery of the event. Both did amazing work.

Moving on 4 sets of couples who work together in their businesses – and really lovely people to chat to as well. Julie and Rod Calderpott have an organic farm for many years and Julie came up with Orchard Syrup last year. Another apple based product about to launch too – but Mum’s The Word.

Audrey and Norbert make chutneys in Dunhill, Waterford and as with the 2 above I have never seen them without a smile on their faces.

A steady stream of people queued to taste the 2 beers on tap from Grainne and Tim Walsh from the Metalman Brewery in Waterford. Very tasty pale ale.

Michael and Paul are another organic business and brand and so well respected in the food sector for their range.

And Now. The Award Winning Helen Finnegan – voted Supreme Cheese Maker……stop – check out this post for more. It was lovely to hear John McKenna on Friday evening talking about how he had come across Helen 8 years ago when she was studying cheesemaking and just how special it was to move in that short space of time to winning that title against tough competition with over 600 unique cheeses to battle against.

One of the nice things about starting this blog (nearly a year ago now) is constantly coming across really strong brands which I had never been aware of. Gee’s Jams is one of those, started by Helen Gee 12 years ago.

A mere 6 years old is Tess’s Homestyle Baking, a Kilkenny based business and this is Paul Doyle who is one of the co-founders.

Cakes, cupcakes and various other delights are the speciality of Mary McEvoy. She was a little shy around the camera!

A completely new brand to me at the market was Prue & Simon’s and this shot is of Prue Rudd with a customer.

That’s it – the best part of artisan food festivals for me. Chatting to and hearing the stories of the producers. I missed loads of them in that round up!

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 16, 2011

Posted under

Events

A foodie and with an interest in/curiousity about vegetarian? Just the thing for you

Slightly off topic with this one but hey – you will have to excuse me 🙂

Just over 2 years ago a small group based in Cartoon Saloon initiated a monthly gathering of people who would bring and share vegetarian food with each other. Brilliantly (because Kilkenny is a small town) this group has kept going and has a core of 20 to 30 people who turn up most months to celebrate good and tasty food with a twist.

The people over in Savour Kilkenny have happily taken us into the fold this year so the regular monthly get together has moved back a week and will be happening on the Sunday evening 30th of Savour – details on this page or Facebook event here.

It should be said: loads of families and kids turn up – very welcome. And quite a number of non-vegetarians do too – very welcome. Just bring a vegetarian dish along with you! If you are staying for Savour and don’t have cooking facilities then buy something nice instead – juice, eats or wine maybe?

And if you are a food producer who does vegetarian or vegan products would love to have you share with us 🙂

Any questions just give me a call  – 086 2300702

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 15, 2011

Posted under

Events

Cork Food Forum coming up 7th November

I was asked to mention this and very happy to. This is an annual event in Cork, put together by Bullseye for the Cork City and County Enterprise Boards.

Aimed at food producers (and those aspiring to do so) it is a free event and features:

Topic: Healthy Food for All: possible by 2020? ELLA MCSWEENEY

Topic: Opportunities for artisans with Musgrave Ireland. PAULINE BROWNE – Musgrave Retail Partners Ireland

Topic: From Drimoleague to Oxford St: A Small Irish Producer’s Export Story. TADHG O’DONOVAN – Glenilen Farm

Nice balance in that line up. You can book here or FoodForum2011 for more info.

Keith

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 4, 2011

Posted under

Events

Foodcamp 2011 @SavourKilkenny. What is it and why would you enjoy it?

We ran Ireland’s 1st foodcamp as part of Savour Kilkenny last year and everyone really enjoyed it. Why?

Because the free day brings not only the usual suspects from the food sector in (food producers, chefs, critics/guide writers and journos) but also gives equal credence to foodies – whether bloggers or not. The common bond is a passion for and love of good food and that makes everyone peers throughout the day.

The core of the day is 24 speaking slots where anyone at all can take one and share their passion or experience or skill set or opinion. Only one rule – and it is not about the quality of your slideshow. It is No Selling – speakers cannot do a sales pitch to their audience. We all know just how annoying that is.

Beyond that you don’t even need a slideshow if that is not your thing. You can talk, gestate and use a whiteboard if you want. Whatever you are comfortable with.

The other thing which we experimented with last year and which worked really well was the community lunch. A bit hippy but we asked everyone attending to bring food to share. Could have flunked but turned out to be an amazing culinary feast 🙂

We are finishing the day with a food fight – chucking the normal panel discussion out the door and having a bit of fun instead. More next week on that.

If you have any questions just ask me – otherwise would love to see you on the day and to hear you share something with the rest of us too. Register here.

Keith