Joe McNamee talks to Arun Kapil the founder of Green Saffron and an evangelist for spices, about his latest book.

AVE we Irish got a taste for spices or what! Thirty years ago, when I first started the Ballymaloe Cookery School, garlic was still considered by many to be daring and exotic.

THERE’S never any shortage of cookbooks at this time of year. Publishers know they make great gifts, as do those who give gifts they want to last.

Despite the summer stretch in the day, The Menu feels nothing short of a turbo-booster for the bould Neidín will enable him to attend every last one of an ever-increasing proliferation of food festivals around this glorious island.

The Cork-based spice company Green Saffron has doubled the number of employees from six to 12 in the last two years.

Food producers from across Cork and Kerry will gather for a regional ‘food summit’ next week to explore ways of boosting an industry which has the potential to create up to 2,500 jobs over the next eight years.

Stumping up for Smorgasboard

AS the value of Irish food and drink exports approaches a record €9 billion in 2011, the key contribution of Jameson Irish whiskey was recognised last night when it won the Bord Bia Food and Drink Export Award.

WE HAD another terrific guest chef at the cookery school recently.

THE food world, and particularly those of us who love spices, are all a twitter on hearing the news that Indian cook and actress Madhur Jaffrey has just written another cook book.

This is Arun Kapil of Green Saffron’s delicious recipe. He sells all the spices mentioned at his fragrant stall at Mahon Point Farmers Market on a Thursday and at Kinsale Farmers Market on a Tuesday.