Things are hotting up at tasty festival

Enjoying a head massage by the pond in Fitzgerald Park, still savouring the exquisite aftertastes of some Ballymaloe crab paté washed down with a 30-year-old sherry, as a string quartet plays in the background — it is hard to imagine a finer place to be on a Friday afternoon than the inaugural Irish Examiner Food Festival.

Factor in the company of a complete stranger around these parts over the last few months — the sun — and a staggering display of wares from Cork’s top restaurants, food and drink producers and retailers, and a “walk in the park” becomes more akin to a gastronomic pilgrimage by the River Lee.

But not everyone is happy to kick back and relax in the sun, for among the contented nibbling and drinking punters lounging on bean bags, listening to former You’re A Star contestant Pat Fitz, it is possible to pick out at intervals some visibly unrelaxed men and women — the chefs!