PEOPLE are flocking to food fairs around the country.

EVERYWHERE I go, every dinner party, every pub, every chance meeting, the topic of conversation is always the same — recessionary chit-chat and endless whinging about the hopeless ineffectual politicians.

WE HAD a lovely invitation to spend a few days in the Bordeaux area with some French friends whose family have been making wine in the Pessac-Leognan, St Emilion, Margaux and Entre-deux-mers area since 1880.

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.