Cork City Slow Food Convivium is delighted to begin the Year with a fantastic event here in Cork. An opportunity to visit Declan Ryan of Arbutus breads in his Bakery for a discussion and demonstration of his wonderful artisan breads. Declan will take us through the history of bread making,the ingredients and their provenance.

Date Feb 28^th

Time 7pm

Venue Bakery, Mayfield Industrial estate.

Price members €5 non members €10

Bookings Simone at Interior Living, 11 Mac Curtain Street, Cork 021 4505819

Directions

Pass Silver springs and head for Mayfield. Pass shopping centre. Turn right after lights out Youghal road. After garage turn right into Industrial estate and it is well sign posted from there.

Lovely high meat content, smoked sausage. Got some last week at Blackpool Farmers Market. Spoke to Declan O’Flynns brother and he told me that they are working with a chef Paul Flynn on new reciepes which will feature key local ingredients, for example he said apples, fennel and of course local meats.

Paul Flynn, owner chef of ‘The Tanner’ Co. Waterford, has recently won Chef of the Year by Georgina Campbell’s Awards for Excellence.

The new sausages will feature at ‘Waterford Festival of Food’ in Dungarvan in April 2008. This is a new food festival aimed at highlighting the quality of Waterford food and farmers’ markets and hope this will help attract extra tourism.

You can buy the O’Flynn’s sausage range at the English Market and on Fridays at Blackpool Farmers Market (more info to follow).

From an email from Grace Fitzgerald of Slow Food Limerick & Regions

Thursday , February 21st and Friday 22nd, Slow Food Limerick in conjunction with Aubars and LimerickSpeedDating.com are bringing love to Limerick - gourmet style

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First day back after a break during Christmas. I was getting excited for the last few days thinking about other producers and stall holders and what they could have been up to over the holidays. The start of a new year is always an exciting time around the markets. Everyone comes back recharged full of new ideas for the coming seasons. New recipes, new stalls and new packaging, new additions to the farm, new events etc …

Yesterday I started back in Midleton Farmers Markets and I wasn’t disappointed. Everyone was in the best of moods and all had some news to tell.

So here’s some things i learned at yesterdays market:

Declan Ryan of Arbutus Bakery, has developed his own bread mix from his famed ‘Granny’ Ryan’s Soda’ recipe so those of us who want to eat Declan’s amazing West Cork Soda for breakfast, lunch and dinner can do so at home with out any fancy machinery or skill for that matter. It keeps for ages too so a great one to send to far away Irish Bread Fans

Eldest daughter Louise Murphy of Arsallagh Goat Farm, was full of news from the farm. Christmas time is always hectic at the farm. The farm is a family run with everyone involved in different aspects of the business Responsibility’s include but never limited to raising and caring for goats, milking and processing of milk, producing milk, yoghurt and a whole range cheeses, bottling, packing and labelling, managing sales to local deli’s, large chains and wholesalers, deliveries, unbelievable amount of Farmers Markets and along along building a family home. On the way they have picked some of the most prestigious prizes and honours in the Artisan Food World.

The first of this years Smoked Ardsallagh are already out on the stall. Unbelievable beach smoked flavour. Louise was delighted with it saying that it took two weeks to smoke because the air was so damp the smoke was heavy and stayed very low in the smoker.
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