There is abundant evidence to prove that Irish salmon is safe for consumption, writes Richie Flynn

SMOKED salmon is the easy part of Christmas. Throw it on brown bread, with lemon and black pepper, and the innocents will think it’s posh and that you’ve spent a lot. 

Celebrity chef Darina Allen and the international Slow Food organisation have clashed with Bord Iascaigh Mhara over its proposed 500-hectare organic salmon farm off the Aran Islands.

A new film festival is to be held in Cork next October — a month before Cork Film Festival.

I'M just back from the 2012 edition of the international Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre, Slow Food’s biannual event which brings together small-scale farmers, artisan producers, fishermen, experts, academics, chefs and young people from over 160 countries.

Madagascar Vanilla at one at the Terra Madre event.

MIDWAY through every 12-week certificate course at the Ballymaloe Cookery School, we all pile onto a bus and go on a foodie tour.

The Menu relishes any opportunity to spice up his dining with a bit of pizzazz.

A BUSY National Organic Week has left the sector buzzing. Plenty of well attended events, some new research, promising policy developments and upcoming opportunities have emerged.

ALL Slow Food events have an educational element as well as a hedonistic one. So when we gathered in Lismore recently we started our evening at Michael McGrath butcher’s shop on Main Street. We were all anxious to learn from this man whose skills have come down through four generations – his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

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.

Organic marmalade oranges: Contact Caitriona Daunt to buy her organic marmalade oranges on (086) 3623918 or visit her at her vegetable stall at the Midleton Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings or at Mahon Point Farmers Market on Thursday mornings.

East Cork Slow Food upcoming event.

THE wide variety of fish and seafood caught in Irish waters has been highlighted by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) through the publication of a cookbook by Georgina Campbell, the food and hospitality writer.

IRELAND’S largest Slow Food festival got under way last night and is set to welcome celebrity chefs, politicians, food experts and thousands of visitors to the south-east in the coming days.

Old Time Threshing at Ballymaloe Cookery School in association with Slow Food on September 9.

Cardiff’s restaurant scene is on the ascent.

I READ with interest Brian O’Mahony’s article headlined ‘We must question our rushed eating habits’ (Irish Examiner, December 6).

THE notion that we are cash-rich and time-poor is being pushed at us relentlessly. If we believe the experts, we have no time to do anything anymore.

Join Frank, Annie and Robbie Krawczyk, in cooperation with West Cork Slow Food, for a Gwiazdka, a Polish christmas feast at Summersalt Restaurant, Ballydehob, Co Cork, on Wednesday, December 6 at 7.30pm.

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.

ANOTHER convivial Slow food event - I’ve just had the best fun wending my way up to the top of Lough Ine Hill - my daughter and my well-toned friend from boarding school powered their way ahead, I adopted a more leisurely pace.

THE highlight of this past week was the visit of the founder of Slow Food International, Carlo Petrini, to Ireland. This organisation could be described as the Greenpeace of gastronomy — the antidote to fast food culture.

EAST CORK Slow Food Convivium was established in August 2002 and its latest event was a Slow Food dinner at Café Paradiso in Cork on August 21.