Posts Tagged ‘Pat Whelan’

If I had to sum up my personal philosophy on life I think I could reduce it to one word and that’s ‘balance’. While it sounds simple, achieving perfect equilibrium on the scales of life requires quite a degree of focus and discipline. I’m not perfect and many times fall short of my set balance […]

I totally understand if the headline, “fat free sausage” caused a wrinkle in your brain. After all the very idea of a fat free sausage is practically an oxymoron. Personally I never thought I could use those words together in a spoken sentence, let alone actually taste one in reality but that day has finally […]

The other day a request came across my desk inviting me to speak to a group of potential start up business about running a food business. One of the headings they asked me to speak on was, “How to keep the offering fresh”. This had nothing to do with shelf life or meat refrigeration. It […]

It never ceases to amaze me the number of teenagers that can’t cook or at least claim they can’t. They certainly won’t starve as they are capable of placing cornflakes in a bowl, pop tarts in a toaster, a ready meal in a microwave or ordering a takeaway, but when it comes to long term […]

It was inevitable, the dreaded return to school and routine had to happen eventually but why so early? The government have not only picked our pockets of spare cash but they’ve shortened the summer holidays by at least a week! Remember the days when the school year began on the first Monday or Tuesday after […]

I had the most wonderful afternoon recently, at a long table dinner in the glass house at Ballymaloe Cookery School, Shanagarry, Co. Cork. I’ve been at the cookery school a number of times before, but this time we received a guided tour of the school and the gardens both formal and vegetable by Darina Allen. […]

Over 6,200 new jobs could be created in Ireland if households each spent €4 more every week on Guaranteed Irish goods and services, a new survey has claimed. Carried out by Amárach Research on the impact of Guaranteed Irish on the economy, the study indicates that the average Irish household spends just under €16 a […]

The problem with common sense is that it’s not very common at all. A truism that appears more relevant today than at any other time. I don’t think I have ever heard as many people concerned with price, value and money in general and we all understand the unbearable burden that financial pressure can bring. […]

It’s hard to believe that some of our most common and versatile foods today were once viewed with great suspicion and sometimes grown purely as ornamental garden fruit because they were thought to be fatally poisonous. For a long time this was the story of the common tomato. There it sat, ripening on the vine, […]

I’ve been doubly blessed this week by two different people who both gave me a bunch of home grown rhubarb. I was thrilled; my rhubarb cup was truly running over. There was far too much for me and I couldn’t find anyone else at the time to share it with, so I took it all […]

Given that I work with meat and am known as a general food lover, I suppose it is hardly surprising that the subject of food comes up in my conversations a great deal. I’m often asked for advice about cuts, preparation and cooking and while some will just indulge and join me in a nice […]

A new Japanese restaurant has just opened in Clonmel. It’s good to welcome new businesses but I get even more excited when they are offering something new. Now I have no intention of attempting to explain Japanese food in one newspaper column. First of all I wouldn’t have the knowledge and secondly, like any nation […]