LAST week I brought a beautiful basket of new seasons Swiss chard into the Midleton farmers market. Juicy white stalks and lots of green with leaf. It’s two beautiful vegetables in one.

Thrifty Tip: Place sprigs of thyme into the pockets of clothes to protect them from moths.

Jean Pierre is head chef at Chez Panisse in Berkley, California, for six months of the year. During the summer months he lives in Bordeaux and teaches cooking classes.

ARTO DER HAROUTUNIAN’S name may not be familiar to many but for those with a penchant for North African food, it’s a name worth noting. Arto was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1940 and grew up in the Levant but came to Britain with his parents as a child and remained there for most of his life.

OH MY goodness, the weather would drive you to the drink. I am often at a loss to know what to cook for supper, one minute there is thunder and lightning and flash floods, within half an hour one could be searching for a deck chair to enjoy the scorching sun.

IN JANUARY 2002 a tall gangly irrepressible girl with thick dark curly hair and a wonderful gappy smile arrived at Ballymaloe Cookery School in a cute little Renault Deux CV.

THE Farmers’ Market movement is coming of age – it’s now over 12 years since Myrtle Allen and I first set up our stalls in Cork’s Coal Quay side-by-side with fish smoker Frank Hederman, vegetable grower Caroline Robinson, Klaus and Hannah Balz with their beautiful bunches of fresh flowers and a couple of other brave souls.

CLAIRE PTAK makes wonderful cakes. It all started when she was little girl in Point Reyes, California – every time her Irish grandmother visited they baked cakes together all day long.

These are like Oreo cookies. This recipe makes six logs. You can scale it – icing quantities would need to be adjusted also.

Claire Ptak’s Candied Flowers