Instead, normal people like you or I are paying far more attention to the simple enjoyment of a meal at a restaurant, a trip to the cinema, or a day out with the kids at a local folk park or historic site.

Not only are our tastes returning to the simple, but our palates too.  Good food is no longer about how good looking the chef is, where the exotic fish egg on a cracker was flown in from, or even if your dish manages to explode in a plume of flavoursome smoke on your plate.

Nowadays what makes an ideal meal is the provenance of the ingredients, the simple marrying of flavours, the perfect company and that je ne sais quoi that simply melts on your tongue and warms the cockles of your soul.

Does this sound good to you? If so, Food & Wine Magazine have an amazing opportunity for a dedicated follower of food to join their reviewing team.  All you have to do is send them 150 words on your favourite foodie experience, explaining succinctly why it makes it onto your favourites list.  The word count is strict, and watch your spelling and grammar, but if they like your style and substance, you could be chosen as part of their reviewing panel, charged with the terribly onerous and arduous task of eating out once or twice a month.

Send your submission to foodandwine@harmonia.ie with ‘Restaurant Critic’ in the subject line by 5pm Friday, 8^th June 2012.  Good luck!

Image from http://www.harmonia.ie/rotya/

Yes, I’m comparing a dish to knickers.  It must be the sun here in France.  But seriously, this one is going onto my hostessing repertoire.  Who wants to slave over a spitting pan with a hangover at 8am, willing the sausages to brown, the eggs not to burst and the black pudding to stop simply blackening?

Simply pop these babies into the oven while steadying yourself with extra-strength coffee, and fifteen minutes later your guests can feast their eyes and bellies on a pretty but dead simple brekkie.

This is eggs, bacon and mushrooms.  Ta-da.  Happy Sunday morning.

PS:  I first saw this on – surprise, surprise – Pinterest, but I just tried to recreate the image myself with ne’er a computer in sight.  The proper recipes are available by clicking on the images.

Ingredients

• · Large Portobello mushrooms
• · Eggs
• · Streaky bacon, cooked & chopped
• · Fresh sprigs rosemary (thyme would do fine too), pinch of black pepper

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C and clean the mushrooms carefully with a damp cloth. Do not simply run under the tap, as all that water stays in the mushroom and seeps out during cooking, which is quite frankly, not pretty.  Think murky-grey-puddle-in-your-oven not pretty.

2. Place mushrooms onto baking tray and add smattering of fresh salt to each (will help with the water problem)

3. Crack the eggs open and tip them carefully into the base of the mushrooms.  Sprinkle chopped rosemary and black pepper on top and steadily place on the middle tray of the oven.

4. Cook for about twenty minutes and check eggs are done to required firmness before removing.

5. Carefully lift onto plate (or slate as I’ve done) and top with chopped cooked streaky bacon and some fresh herbs with garnish.

6.  Go back to the coffee and rest easy with the Sunday Times.  Job done.

Top Tips: I’m thinking about mixing it up a little next time, adding a small disc of black pudding or dollop of wilted spinach to the base of the mushroom before baking – anybody try anything like this? Let me know!

I still remember my first time in an aeroplane – it wasn’t all that long ago, as I was born in the eighties, when most people couldn’t afford a paper plane, never mind tickets to get on a real one.

One of the differences between this recession and that one is that now we can afford the plane tickets, but the downside of this is that a trip to the airport and a flight on an airplane are fast becoming a sort of tortuous obstacle course which you must complete in order to get to that much-coveted balm to the recession soul – sun.

Today I took part in just such a Hunger Games-esque ordeal and flew to France on a budget airline.  While undergoing this cruel test of survival and surveying my fellow freshly-stunned cattle at the airport, a few thoughts popped into my head

1. Seriously, you are going to be in the air for 55 minutes. You do not need the eyemask, litre bottle of water, Uggs, Juicy tracksuit and oversized sunglasses.  You are not a Kardashian flying from LAX on a Lear Jet. You’re leaving Shannon airport in the rain, for Manchester, and on Ryanair.

2. Yes, the seats can go back.  That doesn’t mean they should.  I can also smack you in the face when you launch an anti-knee attack with your plastic bucket of a seat. Doesn’t mean I should.

3. There is no sound in the world more annoying than the mother-effin’ trumpet telling us that we’ve landed ‘on time’ again when those of us with a brain not confiscated by the Gate Gargoyles know that the airline has overestimated all of their flight times.  For the record, in the Gastronomics.ie Official Sizing Standard, I’m a size 0 and on the Gastronomics.ie Beauty Scale I’m a supermodel.  When you make up your own facts and boast about them, it sounds a bit silly, right?

4. Oh sweetheart. I know it’s your first time going to the States. But it’s not the J1-bearing passport clutched in your snowy white hands or the moving in packs of twenty that gives it away.  Nor even the wailing mother on the other side of the barrier.  It’s the GAA jersey.

5. I think security queues in airports aren’t long because of understaffing and overcrowding.  I actually think it’s a concerted effort on behalf of the airport authorities to give the idiots in the line the absolute maximum chance to read the signs, watch the procedures, take staff advice and get ready. Because I can guarantee there will be one thundering numpty at the scanner going “What? But it’s my favourite bottle of jumbo-value shampoo!!”

6. During one particularly unpleasant check-in, the Gate Gestapo conducted their usual border crossing process with a level of hostility not seen since checkpoint Charlie.  I was barked at and ordered to put the Irish Times comfortably sequestered under my arm into my miniscule carryon bag or pay €40 to put my paper in the hold. Sometimes I really do wonder if there is some sort of Manchurian Candidate programme going on back at O’Leary HQ.

7. I’d like to see the rule book that says all stag parties must be dressed as nuns / priests / elvis reincarnations, indulging in endless rounds of man-hugs, teetering unsteadily on the edge of alcohol poisoning and emitting curious quasi-sentences such as “Get it in” “Get in there” and “G’on my son”.  At 7am.  With the business commuters.

8. It seems gratuitously cruel to force us to listen to the unnaturally buoyant pre-recorded messages or barely intelligible staff mutterings over the airplane tannoy while also making us turn off our Ipods.  They can put a man on the moon; surely they can fix this.

9. And on a final note, a word to the wise.  Listen up chatty old ladies, bored non-readers and Valium-popping nervous fliers.  When your fellow traveller puts in his / her earphones it’s airline language for “fu*k off”.

Images via http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7560582/Ryanair-increases-baggage-charge-by-33-per-cent.html

Anyway, this is a fab, quick summertime recipe from Food 52 that’d go beautifully with some cous-cous, rice, or even just a plain salad, as the flavours are full and fresh and speak for themselves.  It’s a good lunchbox filler too, as it’s still delicious cold.

It’s a great week-before-payday recipe too, as all you need to buy is a chicken and fresh yoghurt, the majority of the rest of the ingredients are lurking at the back of your pantry, dying for a day in the sun!  It’s also pretty healthy once you choose the low-fat yoghurt option, although all that careful calorie saving probably went out the window with the glass of perfectly-matched Riesling that went along with it!

Tip: if you eat a lot of Indian food at home, invest in a jar of the garlic & ginger paste you can buy for half nothing in the ethnic stores – it’ll cut out a lot of chopping / peeling / grating time and give you the authentic restaurant taste!

Ingredients

• 1 large chicken, halved down the centre
• 3 garlic cloves (or 2 tsp paste)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Seeds from 6 cardamom pods + 1 tsp black peppercorns + 2 tsps sea salt + 1 tsp ground coriander + 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 cup yoghurt (low-fat variety was perfect)
• 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger (see above re paste)
• 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Fresh coriander leaves, to garnish

Instructions

1. Grind cardamom seeds and peppercorns in a mortar with pestle to a fine powder. Add salt, coriander, cumin and smashed garlic to the mix and drizzle in olive oil to form a paste. Stir in yogurt, ginger and lemon juice and your marinade is done!
2. In a large bowl, slather the chicken in the marinade, ensuring every inch is covered, even underneath the skin and in between the folds of the wings.  Pour remaining mixture over the chicken, cover, and leave to marinade in the fridge for between 3-24 hours (I left mine overnight, it was perfect).
3. Remove chicken from fridge and leave in room temperature for 20/30 minutes before roasting.  Preheat oven to 220C. Place chicken breast-side up in a baking pan or cast iron pan. Bake in oven until thoroughly cooked, about 45-55 minutes should do it.  Watch out for blackening, if this is getting too pronounced, spoon some of the mixture up over the skin and reduce the temperature.
4. When finished, remove from the oven and leave it to rest for 15 minutes before carving.  Try not to eat each wing as you carve, as I did….finger lickin’ good

Kicking off this Thursday 26th and Friday 27^th, the first production in the series is a comical one-woman show entitled “The Candidate” by Gina Moxley, in which the fabulously glamorous and talented Frances Healy features as a young woman recalling a holiday romance with a difference…involving a local TD no less!

Supported by Limerick Local Heroes, the shows (based on the hugely popular Bewley’s Cafe Theatre in Dublin) are designed to fit perfectly into the average lunchbreak, beginning at 1:05pm and ending at 1:50pm sharp. And with tickets costing just €10 to include soup & a sandwhich, this sounds like a highly enjoyable and recession-friendly way to support local arts and kick off the weekend in style!

Pics via Limerick.ie and The Savoy Hotel Limerick

You begin your evening meal with Oysters a la Russe, accompanied by the most delicious Chablis. From there you and your fellow diners enjoy Consommé Olga with a drop of sherry. Having finished the consommé, a dish of Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce is gently placed in front of you, followed shortly afterwards with filets Mignons Lili, although the gentleman from Texas seated to your right opted for Chicken Lyonnaise instead.

Trying not to wince, you straighten your back against the velvet-covered chair in an attempt to better accommodate your ever-tightening corset. You survey the next course arriving, wondering where you will find the room for the Calvados-Glazed Roast Duckling with Applesauce, served with Chateau Potatoes and Minted Green Pea Timbales. You decline the offer of Burgundy with this course, preferring to finish instead the enjoyable glass of Bordeaux from your fourth. This earns you a disapproving glance from Mama, seated across from you, but you avert your eyes and continue the pleasantries with the young man at your table.

From there you enjoy the brief interlude of Punch Romaine and notice for the first time that the vibrations underfoot have become stronger, as if the speed had increased. The genial American assures you that it is merely part of the plan to reach land faster and sooner than anybody else. Mollified, you return to the serious business of dining, continuing with Roasted Squab on Wilted Cress followed by Asparagus Salad with Champagne-Saffron Vinaigrette.

Having just returned from a season in Paris, you opt to ignore the Pâté de fois Gras Celery, but readily accept the delicate glass of Sauterne poured for you and move right along to your favourite part of any meal – dessert. A ring of waiters appears around your table, plates held aloft, and on the nod of the Maitre d’, the dishes descend. Your Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly is delicious, but you eye greedily your mother’s Chocolate Painted Éclairs with French Vanilla Cream. The eleventh course is served from a trolley, as choices of cheese and assorted fresh fruits are proffered, with a welcome return to the champagne.

Sipping the refreshing liquid, you watch as the American gentleman chooses a cigar from the open box presented by a steward and orders a port to accompany it. Mama’s pointed glance across the table announces the end of your evening and bidding adieu to the male diners – who rise from their chairs to say goodnight – you retire to your luxurious cabin, where you will enjoy but a few hours sleep before an iceberg would rip through the seemingly impenetrable hull of the ship you are asleep aboard, and bring to a crashing end your time on the magnificent Titanic.

If you’d been on board the Titanic this night, 100 years ago, you might have been enjoying at this very moment just the type of scene painted above. The details of the menu come via a rather unlikely but thoroughly enjoyable Amazon purchase I made some time ago, entitled ‘Last Dinner on the Titanic’ by Rick Archbold and Dana McCauley. As you can see from the sheer length and breadth of the dinner described above, it is no surprise that an entire book can spring from the details of the menus from which first, second and third party passengers chose their daily meals.

It really is an absolutely captivating read, with enthralling details of the period including descriptions of dress and manners and even mini-biographies of some of the passengers, ranging from the famously wealthy to the poverty-stricken in steerage. The book not only displays the full menus as they were crafted at the time, but also provides modern interpretations which could be just about managed in a kitchen without staff, given enough time. The idea behind this is that families or friends could host their own ‘Titanic evening’, with each guest bringing a course. It’s a fabulous idea, and one I would love to undertake some time.

To help us along the process, the book also features detailed recipes, which give a fascinating insight into the tastes and fashions of the time. I’ve included below one such recipe as featured in the scene above, if you would like to see any of the others just leave me a comment and I’ll post it if the authors don’t mind (I will just detail one or two as a sampler, the book has easily over a hundred – I’d 100% recommend buying it if you can).

Filets Mignons Lili

Ingredients

• 6 filets mignon (2.5lbs)
• 1/2tsp each salt and pepper
• 1tbsp each butter and vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 6 foie gras medallions
• 6 cooked artichoke hearts, quartered
• 6 slices black truffle (optional)

Sauce

• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 large shallots or ½ onion, chopped
• 1.5 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• ½ cup each Cognac, Madeira and red wine
• 3 cups homemade beef stock
• Salt and Pepper

Potatoes Anna

• ¾ cup melted unsalted butter
• 5 medium baking potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced
• 1 tsp each salt and pepper

Instructions

Sauce:

In saucepan, melt 1 tbsp of the butter over medium heat; add shallots and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes until softened.  Stir in tomato paste, bay leaf and rosemary until well combined.  Stir in cognac, Madeira and red wine; bring to boil.  Boil for 10 minutes or until reduced to about ½ cup. Stir in beef stock. Boil for 15 minutes or until reduced to about 1 cup. Strain into clean pot, set over low heat and whisk in the remaining butter. Season to taste. Keep warm.

Potatoes Anna:

Brush 11-inch oven-proof skillet with enough melted butter to coat. Arrange potatoes in overlapping circles, brushing each layer with enough butter to coat; sprinkle each layer with some of the salt and pepper; press top layer gently down.  Place pan over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes or until bottom in browned.  Cover and bake in 450F oven for 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender and lightly browned on top. Broil for 1 to 2 minutes until brown and crisp. Let stand for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, sprinkle meat with salt and pepper. In large skillet, melt butter with vegetable oil over medium heat; add  garlic and cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes; increase heat to medium-high and add filets mignons. Cook, turning once, for 10 to 20 minutes or until well-browned but still pink in the middle.  Remove from pan and let stand, tented with foil, for about 5 minutes.  Wipe out pan and return to high heat.  Add foie gras and cook for 30 seconds per side or until golden brown.  Romove from pan and reserve. Gently toss artichoke in pan juices and cook for 2 minutes or until heated through.

Cut cooked potato round into 6 portions and place 1 piece, upside down, on each of the 6 heated plates; top with a filet mignon, followed by a slice of foie gras and a truffle slice (if using). Ladle suaec around edge of plate; garnish with artichokes. Makes 6 servings.

Tips; Because this sauce is a reduction, the beef stock must be homemade if the sauce is to thicken properly.  It is better to use two skillets to cook the meat than to crowd the filets.

Ps – I’m much too time-pressed this weekend to cook this tonight, but I will post pics as soon as I’ve an afternoon and a few bob to spare.  Promise!

It’s what happens when a typical modern Irish woman (read: insanely busy) juggles slightly too many balls in the air while attempting to be that multi-limbed goddess of family, home and work that exists mainly in our over-wrought imaginations.

Eventually, one of the balls comes crashing down, and she forgets the bananas in the banoffee pie.

My lovely guests last weekend, Emily and Mike of the beautifully calming  and creative From China Village (seriously read it, better than Prozac. Actually better than Prozac and wine. Now there’s a tough combination to beat) were gracious enough to laugh it off and kindly tuck in to the banana-less banana dessert.

But seriously, if you’d like a real Banoffee Pie recipe, simply look below, where my dear friend Marie (whose Banoffee recipe is famous down here) has kindly provided a proper recipe for this great low-cost entertaining treat. With crucial namesake ingredient and all.

Ingredients

• 3 large bananas
• 300g biscuits digestive biscuits
• 60g butter
• 350ml double cream
• 100g dark chocolate (to decorate)
• 400g tin of caramel (don’t bother making your own, honestly, it takes 3 hrs watching a tin of condensed milk boil!!! Really I dont have the time!!!!)

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a pan. Whilst the butter melts crush the  biscuits  (plastic bag and rolling pin would do the job nicely why would you complicate it more!!!!!). Preheat the oven to 180C.  In a bowl mix the crushed biscuits with the butter.
2. Transfer the biscuit / butter mixture into a round tin and press into an even layer. I do like the small individual dishes, it looks pretty!! And guetss love their own.
3. Place in the oven and allow to cook for 10 minutes to when it is lightly toasted,. Take out of the oven and let it cool.
4. Once is cooled, pour on the caramel evenly and place in the refrigerator  to cool and set .
5. Once chilled, slice the bananas and arrange them over the caramel.  Arrange it doens have to be perfect
6. Melt chocolate, and whip the cream until thick and spread over the bananas.
7. Pour the chocolate over the dessert ( get as decorative as you want ) and serve.

Two small adjustments I do and this depends on your guest; I swap a quarter of the biscuits for the bases with chocolate bourbon biscuits so you get a slightly choclolate-y base. Don’t swap all of them because it make the base too hard to break when eating.

Another alternation I do is crunch a Crunchie over the banoffie so you get a sweet topping instead of plain chocolate. These arent huge differences but they work.

(Ed’s Note: I took inspiration from this Marie and added Flake to the top! Well, inspiration and unadulterated laziness….;)

So I began perusing my lovely foodie friends’ blogs for inspiration, and settled on the imitable Italian Foodie. I must stress that her deliciously simple recipe is just a basis for the one below – I thoroughly mangled it, as you will shortly see.  But mangled in a good way, I think, as it certainly got rave reviews on the night!

Seriously. This was yumballs. And not too expensive either, as Lidl now do dried Porcini for just €2.99.  Plus, if you prefer vegetarian, just omit the chicken, the other ingredients more than handle themselves on their own.

Oh, and by the way, if like us, you like to mix movies and food, be sure to check out The Irish Times supplement ‘The Ticket’ where Aoife of the brilliant and funny I Can Has Cook will be hosting ‘Movie Bites’ once a month – last month it was Meatballs and The Godfather, next time I believe there will be lobsters involved…very intriguing!

Ps – re the movies?

1. Kill the Irishman – I’d have killed him myself to make this movie stop.
2. We Need to Talk About Kevin – do not watch with someone you might one day procreate with.
3. Anonymous – Shakespearean codswallop.  I fear she doth…..fall asleep.
4. The Help – great story, but not a patch on the book. Predictable, but true.

Serves six

Ingredients

• 2 cups Porcini mushrooms, rehydrated + 3 shallots, finely chopped + 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 5-6 cooked chicken breasts, diced
• 2 cups grated Parmesan + 3 cups crème fraiche + 1 cup double cream + 1 cup white wine
• 1 tbsp olive oil + 1 tbsp butter
• Fresh black pepper + pinch salt  + fresh oregano
• Dried/fresh tagliatelli, enough for six

Instructions

1. Cook pasta according to packet instructions.
2. Rehydrate the porcini mushrooms with some tepid water and heat the oil and butter over a medium heat.
3. Add the shallots and garlic and stir regularly until just starting to turn golden.
4. Drain the mushrooms, chop finely, and add to the pan with seasonings.
5. Cook for a couple of minutes and when mixture has softened and cooked, add cup of white wine and stir, scraping the bottom for yummy juices.
6. Fold chicken pieces into the mixture.
7. Mix in crème fraiche, double cream and one cup parmesan, and reduce heat.
8. Cook until thickened, but do not allow to boil.
9. Bring the pasta to the sauce and mix together (the Catherine Fulvio way!) and serve in bowls, topped with freshly grated parmesan.

I like India Knight, read her regularly in the Sunday Times and while she’s not my journo crush that is Camilla Long, I always enjoy her heart-felt pieces over my breakfast coffee.  Such a devoted follower am I that I even subjected myself to the ignominy of watching my cellulite get wrapped over and over again, leaving just pink pockets of flesh bulging through my mummified self in an effort to lose a miraculous 5 lbs before holidays. Because she said it worked. Never mind, to be fair to the beauty therapist, she hadn’t reached Miracle Module 2.4 in her beauty training – no amount of goo and bandages was going to make me thin overnight.

Hence, I buy diet books. Over and over again, as if the act of handing over cash and physically reading the book will transform my body. Usually, having read them, I will then undertake to follow the prescribed diet, quite often for two days, sometimes stretching to a whole seven. Then it’s Friday / Saturday / Sunday night and I’m reading something new and eating something horrific.

Anyway, back to the book.  I’m not going to lie, it was free. Came with a glossy magazine. In my humble opinion paying €7 odd for forty-odd pages of ads, one letter from the editor and a smattering of pseudo-feminist witterings isn’t for me, so I usually only buy them when the freebie is more appealing than the mag.  In this case, it was worth decidedly more.

The actual diet aspect is very achievable, and doesn’t require fennel flushes or mail order miracle berries.  It’s normal, healthy food for normal, busy women and includes tips on how to dress your shape and make the best of your body.  But aside from all that, it’s a bloody great read.

This was one of those books that you read while blow-drying your hair. Upside down. And while loading the dishwasher, splashing your feet with the contents of the whole day’s dishes and not caring.  Or prop up in front of your cereal and fly into torrent of irrational rage when the boyfriend moves the milk and your book crashes down.  Is it just me who does this?

Anyway, suffice to say I enjoyed the book, and you will too if you buy it / the magazine it comes free with – just maybe take it to the gym, not the couch like me

Image from Amazon.com

This is a relatively cheap (butternut squash is no longer the preserve of specialist grocers, thank heavens), healthy, low-cal and enormously filling soup – it really is a meal in itself rather than a starter or snack, great for those early spring evenings! Don’t forget the clocks change this weekend!

(Serves Six)

Ingredients

• 3-4 Butternut Squashes cubed (I used four but it became very thick) + 2 sliced red peppers + 1 roughly chopped onion + 1 large tomato, seeded & peeled (or handful of baby tomatoes) + 4 unpeeled garlic cloves + 1 small green chilli (optional)
• 1 can chickpeas (approx 400g undrained)
• Hefty glug of olive oil + fresh sage + 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper + pinch salt
• 2.5 pints vegetable / chicken stock (I think veg is more orthodox, but chicken was nyummy)

Instructions

1. Assemble the butternut squash, red peppers, green chilli, onion, tomato, garlic and seasonings onto large baking tray into a large baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and place in pre-heated oven at 180C for about an hour.
2. Bake for approximately 45 minutes until edges of pepper are darkening and butternut squash is quite soft
3. Empty vegetables from baking tray into large heavy bottomed saucepan, add stock, and bring to the boil.  (you might want to de-skin the garlic first)
4. Reduce heat and simmer gently for about ten minutes.  Add ¾ can chickpeas and cook for another ten minutes.
5. Turn off soup, and when slightly cooled, puree with handblender to optimum consistency (some like it lumpy, others smooth).

For the silly topping

• Handful Kale leaves + ¼ can chickpeas + half cup chopped chorizo

1. Spritz a frying pan with some low-cal spray or teensy drizzle of olive oil (chorizo will release fats), bring to medium to high heat, and add ingredients, stirring regularly until Kale has wilted and chickpeas have turned golden.
2. Arrange on top of soup and enjoy the colours!