THE REAL DEAL

There’s good news this month on the hospitality front for West Cork’s Skibbereen.

With a saddlebag full of chocolate and a straw bonnet on the bould Neidín, The Menu is taking to the highways and byways once more.

The Menu is taking his brain out of the vaults once more for its annual airing at The Great Irish Foodie Quiz 2014 (Oct 7@7.30pm). 

Time once more for A Taste of West Cork Food Festival (September 5 to 14), celebrating the produce and food culture of The Menu’s spiritual hinterland of West Cork, kicking off with a Taste of West Cork Gala Dinner at the Inchydoney Island Lodge and& Spa. 

SALLY MCKENNA has just published a book that really needed to be written, it’s called Extreme Greens and it’s all about seaweed and sea vegetables, how to find them, how to identify, how to harvest sustainably, how to cook, how to preserve, it’s great.

Harvest Heaven

ARD CARRAIG is a development that keeps it simple – superior quality houses built for spacious comfortable living in a small development in a little piece of paradise.

CARMEL SOMERS, owner of the iconic Good Things café in Durrus developed her love and appreciation of good food in her childhood “while surrounded by lavish roast dinners, meticulous baking and too much butter”.

AWARDS are two a penny these times, so much so that they often come and go with minimum publicity.

Damien Enright recommends events for Biodiversity Week.

Cork Free Choice Consumer Association: On February 28 at the Crawford Gallery Cafe you can learn how to grow your own fruit and nuts, when to plant, how to prune and care for apple and nut trees, raspberries, strawberries, etc. With Paul McCormick and Jacinta French of Woodkerne Nurseries, John Baker, Caroline Robinson and other experts. Admission, €6, including tea, coffee, etc.

THERE are too many hotels that are just big buildings with lots of bedrooms, Ireland’s leading food and accommodation critic claimed yesterday.

SLOW FOOD West Cork and the Schull ICA recently teamed up to host an event where guild members and their friends and local farming families could meet the foodmakers who sell at the local farmers’ markets.

West Cork Food and Drink Fair at Mannings Emporium, Ballylickey on June 19 & 20 — today there will be a Food & Drink Quiz and on Sunday cooking demonstrations with Carmel from Good Things Café, Durrus and Ivan of Grapefruit Moon in Ballycotton. Special Guests John & Sally McKenna.