Joe McNamee shares some upcoming food events

The Menu is very much looking forward to the mingling with the 10,000 or so expected at Cork City Hall for the 2019 Cork and Kerry Food Market (November 1-2), a showcase for splendid food and drinks produced in the two counties.

Michelin star chef JP McMahon quotes the line to illustrate how our food choices have a tangible effect on society.

Drat, I’ve just discovered that I missed National Potato Day. It was on Friday, October, 4.

Chef Collab will be at Olivo restaurant at the Cork Airport Hotel in July and five Cork chefs have been chosen to take part.

GALWAY chef JP McMahon thinks it should be a national food. Food experts estimate it could create up to 200 jobs in coastal areas. And earlier this month, the Slow Food Festival in the Burren put it centre stage.

The Food on the Edge symposium (October 22-23) returns with a gathering of chefs and food personages, from home and abroad, assembling in Galway for talks, panel discussions, and masterclasses, led by joint MCs, chef/restaurateur JP McMahon (Galway), chef Matt Orlando (Copenhagen), and Sasu Laukkonen (Helsinki).

So passionate was she about Irish produce, she once carried a heavy suitcase stuffed full of locally grown apples on board a flight to New York where she had been invited to deliver a cookery class.

A Galway Councillor has described the move by the owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Aniar to close its doors during race week as a "rattle in a pram effort".

Catex — Ireland’s largest food service and hospitality exhibition — returns once more to Dublin’s RDS, on February 21-23. 

TASTE THIS

Valerie O’Connor talks to Tribal Foods owner, Liam Heneghan, on the healthy demand for spicy and vibrant fruits.

Time once more for Mystic Menu to ponder a culinary year ahead and, appropriately, for his first glimpse into the future, he is not taking stock but talking stock. 

THE REAL DEAL

Here's the best of tonight's telly.

Taking its inspiration from TED’s 15-minute talks, a bold new food conference has invited the world’s top chefs to Galway to discuss the future of food. Michelle Darmody meets some of the key players.

Real Bread Ireland is a grouping of the very finest Irish craft bakers determined to promote the traditional values of real bread.

The splendid Taste of West Cork food festival (Sept 4-13) rolls around once more with yet another celebration of the food culture of Ireland’s original larder and the mighty programme is more ambitious than ever, 140+ events spanning 32 towns and villages, along with eight islands, throughout West Cork. 

Food news with Joe McNamee.

JUST a week to go to the Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine May 15-17, there’s a mouthful! 

The Connemara Mussel Festival (May 1-3) picked up one hell of an accolade last year.

CHEF OWNER, of Michelin starred Aniar restaurant in Galway, JP McMahon keeps a lot of balls in the air. 

The phenomenon of comfort eating is well established but many of us don’t realise how much our brain influences our attitude to food, says Jonathan de Burca Butler

CAN you trust a wine score or tasting note? One of the more animated discussions at the Ballymaloe Literary Festival was on the subject of wine competitions and point-scoring for wines.

Irish craft beers are worth toasting

Nessa Robins has finally got round to putting her popular blog, Nessa’s Family Kitchen, onto the printed page in a new book, Apron Strings (New Island Cookery), a mixum-gatherum of recipes, household tips, party and picnic ideas and cockle-warming tales of family and friends and her efforts to feed ’em all. With this former nurse also furnishing a list of natural food-based home remedies, it’s the class of tome a body could wind up consulting from the crack of dawn to the dead of night. www.apronstrings.ie

Vintage rally to launch new cider

The Menu’s Grá for Gaillimh has been well-documented over the years and nothing has given him greater pleasure than to watch its rise as a culinary destination.

I LOVE the glamour and romance of old railway hotels.

Bite, 29 South Frederick Street, Dublin; Tel: 01-6797000; bitedublin.com

Ireland’s culinary star was in the ascendancy last night as two restaurants in Galway and Dublin were confirmed as having received coveted Michelin Stars.

The West is very much awake for The Menu as he hightails it off down to Heir Island, West Cork, for Firehouse Bread’s splendid wood-fired oven bread-making course.

TAPAS, a conversation-friendly cuisine — with its sociable portions and focus on ingredients — should be a good fit for Ireland.

BY NOW, we’re used to restaurants talking up local and seasonal ingredients.