Local businesses in Cork city have told a group opposed to a proposed flood relief scheme there that they are concerned about the future of businesses in the city centre if the construction goes ahead.

Is Cork still the culinary capital? Joe McNamee has his say – and profiles the restaurants that are doing it right.

This week’s must do, see and buy.

This year’s Macroom Food Festival (Sept 23-25) sets out under the thematic heading of ‘Blás na hÁite’, which is as it should be for the lovely Cork town and its glorious hinterland, heaving with some very fine producers, farmers, and growers, many of them great favourites of The Menu. 

Café Paradiso in Cork has been named the best-rated fine dining establishment in Ireland by theTravellers’ Choice Restaurants awards.

The Dingle Food Festival is upon us again (October 2-4). 

UCC lecturer Mary Morrissy says a proper writing course may have gotten her to that IMPAC nomination a bit sooner, writes Colette Sheridan

Kitty Scully hears the buzz around bees at the GIY AGM in Waterford.

I’m a rationalist with frequent bouts of spirituality.

Free meals — vegetarian curry — will be provided at Grand Parade, Cork, from 1pm tomorrow, as part of the Feed the City initiative.

While vegetarian curry may not be the most traditional of native nosh, The Menu shall nonetheless join the anticipated 5,000 diners on Cork’s Grand Parade at Feed The City (March 15), one strand of the city’s St Patrick’s Festival weekend.(www.corkstpatricksfestival.ie)

Just because it is a wonky shape or isn’t the ‘right’ size doesn’t mean a vegetable isn’t edible.

City officials have been asked to introduce designated alcohol-free zones across the city centre for Cork’s St Patrick’s Day festival.

There will be such a thing as a free lunch at the St Patrick’s Festival in Cork, as the city will be serving free vegetarian curry to up to 5,000 hungry visitors as part of a sustainable eating initiative.

FOOD writing did not begin in the 1990s, with the rise of the celebrity chef and their (often ghostwritten) glossy tomes of recipes and pretty pictures. Mesopotamian clay tablets dating to 1750BC had recipes inscribed in a complex writing form.

Great food writers must master more than one discipline, because food’s in every aspect of our lives

The people and events that shaped events in a West Cork harbour town are remembered in a book published this week.

Carl Dixon on how Cork Craft Month showcases local talent and initiative

Café Paradiso, 16 Lancaster Quay, Cork, cafeparadiso.ie; tel: 021-4277939

Barack Obama’s pastry chef and the co-founder of the world’s best restaurant are among a galaxy of global culinary giants on the menu for a major national festival next month.

DAIRY farmer Ned McCarthy from Kilnamartyra, Co Cork, has been in the yogurt making business only for the past five months, but already he has tasted success with his artisan Labneh Yogurt, winning the Best Emerging Food Product Award at the recent Listowel Food Fair.

The majority of Mardyke residents have been refused flood cover and had their insurance premiums doubled since the Cork floods of Nov 2009, a residents’ spokesperson has said.

THE traditional Christmas dinner leaves little to the imagination.

IT’S SUNDAY.

IRELAND’S restaurants employ more than 64,000 people and have a turnover of over €2 billion each year.

PRAYERS are being said for the full recovery of a former talented inter-county footballer who is being cared for in an American hospital following an attack.

IT STRUCK without warning, leaving a trail of destruction and human misery in its wake. The river Lee burst its banks in the early hours of last Friday morning after millions of tonnes of water were released from the Inniscarra Dam, eight miles west of Cork city.

IT could be in west Cork, with its mad, fuchsia-coloured walls outside.

A TOP vegetarian chef took the bull by the horns at the country’s biggest beef marts to tempt cattle farmers and dealers with his award-winning cooking.

From ‘Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me’ by Denis Cotter

From ‘Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me’ by Denis Cotter

DINERS across Cork will be able to help the homeless thanks to a novel fundraising initiative launched yesterday.

* Denis Cotter, Chef of the Year 2006, from the famous Café Paradiso, Cork, will be Cooking for Slow Food Members at The Gourmet Sore, Schull, next Wednesday, April 26, at 7.30pm.

Youghal Through the Ages: There is an Elizabethan Market at Barry's Lane today from 10am to 3pm with street entertainment.

MACKEREL are best eaten on the day they are caught. If you have more than you can eat, gut them, wash and chill in the fridge overnight. They deteriorate faster if the insides are not removed.

THOSE familiar with Ireland’s most innovative vegetarian restaurant will know just how good a chef Denis Cotter is. Even the most committed carnivores salivate at the fare on offer in Café Paradiso, the restaurant he and his wife, Bridget, opened in 1993.

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.

IT WILL be no secret to anyone that the Cork Market is one of my favourite places.