Some precious slices of Glebe Brethan

I’ve been working late tonight, filing my wine column copy before I head away for a break in the new year, listening to the meditative sounds of Blue of the Night on Lyric, sipping a drop of Priorat wine and snacking on Glebe Brethan cheese with my boyfriend’s sister’s home-made green tomato chutney.

The chutney tastes even better with the knowledge that it is one of just a few precious jars made from this year’s crop. But the cheese is particularly precious. Though still available in the likes of Sheridan’s, it won’t be for long. Its producer, the late, great cheesemaker David Tiernan, tragically passed away all too early this year.

I wrote an appreciation of David’s life and work in Food&Wine Magazine after his death, and struck up a correspondance with his brother during the year. Last week we met for a coffee and Seamus gave me a gift of a generous piece of David’s gorgeous cheese. I’ve been eating my way through it over the Christmas break, and toasting David’s memory each time I pour a drop of fine wine to match it. It went particularly well with an Arun sourdough sandwich featuring another winner of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards, Coopershill House smoked venison.

It is sad that David’s beloved herd of cows which he built up over the years should now be sold and living in other fields. They must miss him. But it’s heartening to think that they will have many more mornings like the one captured by Ella McSweeney when she filmed David releasing them back into the fields after a winter sheltering in sheds. 

Below is what I wrote about Glebe Brethan 11 months before David’s untimely death for a St Patrick’s Day focus on winners of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards 2012. [You can read the full post of March 2012 here with details of other award-winners.]

It is followed by an edited version of what I wrote for Food&Wine Magazine after his death.

Glebe Brethan Cheese: If you love Comte from France’s Jura (I do) you’ll love this gruyere-style cheese produced by Co Louth dairy farmer David Tiernan. I had the pleasure of David’s company over the awards lunch, and a nicer dairy farmer I have not met. He told me he was surprised by the passion he has discovered for cheese-making since he began it in the mid-noughties. He spoke in his quiet, understated way about the magic of walking his cows up a lane at 5am, knowing that they’re about to give him the milk to produce 45kg wheels of thermophilic cheese which will be taking shape in round moulds by noon. And his lovely wife Margaret told me of how she liked to grate Glebe Brethan onto fried potato rosti, or serve it cubed in fresh salads. All of which made me love Glebe Brethan cheese even more than I already did. The cheese itself is creamy and complex, fruity when young and getting nutty when older. How old you get it is a matter of luck, as David tends to sell it according to demand. But he does say that every year he gets a little bit better at making this cheese from the raw milk of his Montbeliarde cows (a special breed native to the Jura) and that each year it can mature that little bit longer. Better you say David? I like the sound of that.  

Glebe Brethan cheese, one of the greats of Irish farmhouse cheeses

In memory of David Tiernan, as published in Food&Wine Magazine

On Monday 25th February 2013, on what should have been the 55th birthday of the late and much lamented David Tiernan, many of Ireland’s broad family of food producers, promoters, writers, chefs and farmers travelled across the country to Dunleer, Co Louth. They came to pay their last respects to a man who described himself, with well-placed pride and in a very particular order, as “dairy farmer, cheesemaker and seller of raw milk”.

That evening, an extraordinary toast was made at a gathering of many of Ireland’s finest chefs. It was the AGM of Euro-toques Ireland, an organisation founded in 1986 by Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe House – once described by David as his “greatest inspiration” – and committed to seeking out the very best of Irish food and supporting the very best of Irish farmers and food producers.

Into gleaming champagne glasses David’s precious raw milk was poured. Precious not just because since 2010, David Tiernan has been one of a handful of Irish raw milk producers to brave the Irish authorities’ resistance to the sale of unpasteurised, unhomogenised milk. (Indeed, thanks to the quiet determination of David and friends Ella McSweeney, Kevin Sheridan and Elisabeth Ryan of the Campaign for Raw Milk Ireland, the sale of raw milk looks set to become carefully regulated rather than banned.)

Nor precious simply because David’s unique milk made him one of the few producers to have been honoured twice by Euro-toques in their annual food awards. (He received his first in 2006 for his exemplary gruyère-style Glebe Brethan cheese and another in 2011 for his raw liquid milk.)

What made that golden-hued, creamy-textured liquid in the champagne flutes most precious was the man who had produced it, a man described by his brother Seamus Tiernan in that morning’s eloquent funeral eulogy as “an ordinary man who in so many ways was extraordinary”.

Eloquence runs in the Tiernan family. On Glebe Brethan’s website, David’s cows are lovingly described. “The Montbeliarde is beautiful in shades of dark chestnut with distinctive cream patches. She has a steady gait and inquisitive nature searching the hedgerows for the sweetest grasses and herbs.” She also produces extra creamy milk which is higher in protein and fat, a factor which lead David to found the Montbeliarde Cattle Society of Ireland in 1997.

David said that the proudest day of his life was the day his wife Margaret brought twin sons James and Leo into this world. He also took a familial pride in his closed herd, built up on his fourth-generation farm from two cows imported back in the mid-1990s. As cheesemonger and close ally Kevin Sheridan observes, “He was so proud of that land and his cows, and so he was proud of the milk they produced. He was never surprised when someone would say how good it was or how it was the best milk they ever tasted; he would just nod.”

They suited eachother, David and the herd described on his website as “solid and stoic in appearance, serene and placid in nature and never in a hurry”. He might have been describing himself, and his steady, unhurried journey to becoming one of Ireland’s most highly regarded artisan food producers. No matter that David came to cheesemaking less than ten years ago – to the likes of Kevin Sheridan “it always felt like he was one of the originals, representing everything that Irish farmhouse cheese aspires to”.

But David remained a dairy farmer, first and foremost. The cheese and the direct sales of milk were vehicles: an albeit meticulously crafted means to the treasured end of continuing his farming legacy. “While everyone agrees that his cheese is absolutely outstanding, what was really unique about David,” suggests Ruth Hegarty, Secretary of Euro-toques Ireland, “was that he recognised that what he was doing – and what had been done by his family for three generations before him – was really special.

“He recognised that their milk deserved to finish up somewhere better than in one huge vat in a creamery to be pasteurised and homogenised and packed on supermarket shelves, with little return for the farmer who had done everything to the highest standards and produced something of great value.”

As Secretary of the Irish Food Writer’s Guild, I had the personal pleasure of David and Margaret’s company during the Guild’s 2011 Irish Food Awards lunch. They were there to collect yet another award for his wonderful Glebe Brethan cheese. He told me he was surprised by the passion he had discovered for cheesemaking and that his cheese was getting better every year. He spoke in his quiet, understated way about the magic of walking his cows up a lane at 5am, knowing that they were about to give him the precious milk to produce what Kevin Sheridan describes as “those huge wheels of cheese, each one special, packed with the complexity of his land, his cows and himself”.

David Tiernan was a dairy farmer by birth, and at heart. But through his too-short life he developed the accumulated skill and craft of an artisan, displayed the singular soul of a poet, and won friends and admirers countrywide with what was the charm of an Irish country gentleman in the truest sense of those words. Kevin speaks for so many when he says, “We will miss his beautiful cheese, but we will miss David, our friend, so much more.”

David once said he would “walk to Cork for Myrtle Allen”. It may have surprised him to have known how many of the Irish food community would and did cross the country to pay their lasting respects to him. He was, for so many, one of the greatest inspirations: a true legend from that land of legends, Co Louth, and one of the most extraordinary of ordinary men.

RIP David.

But in the meantime, there’s a little gathering tonight in Ranelagh’s Taphouse which might be of interest if you’re in the hood, and if you like the sound of free beer and cheese?

Brewer’s Gold, a washed rind organic cow’s milk cheese

The people from Knockdrinna Farmhouse Cheese in Kilkenny have put their heads together with the Little Milk Company and some of Ireland’s best craft brewers, and come up with a new cheese called ‘Brewer’s Gold’. It’s made by Helen Finnegan, Knockdrinna’s award-winning cheese-maker, with organic cow’s milk cheese from the various organic farmers who supply to the Little Milk Company, and its rind is washed in various Irish craft beers and ales including O’Hara’s Pale Ale, Dungarvan Brewing’s Red Ale, and Eight Degrees’ Red Ale.

If you fancy trying some of the cheese alongside some winter craft brews, there’s a launch party tonight (December 12th) in the Taphouse from 6.30pm. All are welcome, so maybe see you there?

And yes, I am reliably informed that there will be free beer!

If you’re feeling nostalgic for the good old days, pop into Donnybrook Fair this coming Friday (13th – shh) for a good old-fashioned free feed. I have to warn you, there won’t be any Findus pancakes. But there will be complimentary mince pies, smoked salmon, chocolates, cheeses and mulled wines to be enjoyed across stores on Baggot Street and Morehampton Road and in Stillorgan and Greystones.

They’ve even released their schedule so you know when to get your skulk on:

• Donnybrook Fair, Baggot Street, 11am–3pm, Friday 13th
• Donnybrook Fair, Morehampton Road, 11am–4pm, Saturday 14th
• Donnybrook Fair, Stillorgan,  11am–4pm, Saturday 14th 
• Donnybrook Fair, Greystones, 11am–4pm, Saturday 14th

And a happy minced pie to you too!

So, in no particular order, here follows my Fantasy Festive Food & Wine Wishlist (as it appeared in IMAGEdaily today, only with links, and some pix in case my words don’t cut it for you):

1.     A very generous voucher for Ireland’s Blue Book, which just celebrated its 40th anniversary with the addition of Thornton’s Restaurant (where the canapé bar is one of Dublin’s most underrated food-fun nights out); the remote Clare Island Lighthouse (a spectacularly located guesthouse overlooking Clew Bay); and Liss Ard Estate in Skibbereen (which has the coolest magical-mystery gardens, complete with an otherworldly Irish Sky Garden where humdrum clouds are elevated to works of art). Now when I say ‘a very generous Blue Book voucher’ I would of course graciously accept any kind of a Blue Book voucher. Especially if it came with the latest glovebox-friendly copy of Georgina Campbell’s Ireland Guide or the McKenna’s Irish Food Guide, so I could be sure to eat well en route too.

Some view, huh? That there’s Clew Bay.

2.     A full set of Riedel’s ‘varietal specific’ wine glasses so that I could have the perfect glass for every wine I drink, whatever the grapes or style. (I attended a Riedel tasting recently and their glasses really do make an incredible difference to different wines.) The only problem is that, with separate glasses for Cabernet or Pinot Noir, Riesling or Chardonnay, and so on, I’d really need a bigger kitchen to keep them all in. And logistically, that would involve moving out of my tiny apartment, which I’m really rather fond of. So to avoid all that hoo-ha, I’d settle for the Syrah set, the most versatile of the lot.

3.  A year’s supply of one of the following:

a)     Pata Negra Iberico ham, to be delivered to my door by a swarthy Spaniard. (Failing that, a voucher for Black Pig in Donnybrook might do it, and I could go collect my own whenever supplies run low, and pick up a bottle of something delicious while I’m at it.)

b)    M&L Szechuan’s chilli-fried green beans. (Or failing that, a new stainless-steel wok from the Asian market, a supply of dried bird’s eye chillies and the recipe for said green beans.)

c)     Green papaya salad, like what used to be on the menu at Diep Le Shaker restaurant and what I could have lived on in northern Thailand. (Or failing that, a mandolin slicer and a voucher for the Asian Market so I could get a fresh supply of unripe papaya, chillies, nam plaa fish sauce and limes to make my own.)

4.     Speaking of mandolins, I’d also love a new Microplane grater, which happens to be the best grater in the world. I left mine at a party (don’t ask) and I really miss it for everything from grating Parmesan to finely grating garlic (beats crushing it by a mile). Okay, if you have to know, it was my own party but in a rented place and we were cooking and I thought I couldn’t cook without my Microplane. That’s how much I love it.

That’s what I mean by Microplane

5.     A case of Highbank Medieval Cider, because I know that it’ll probably be sold out by Christmas if it isn’t already. If you haven’t tried it, look out for it next year: it’s an amazing new honeyed cider that is sweet at first and then dry thanks to the tannic apples. Or failing that a mixed case of Irish craft beers and ciders. (A year’s supply is harder to define, right?)

6.     A wine course. If I hadn’t already done the WSET course run by Cooks Academy (‘Dublin’s School of Food & Wine’) and tutored by the brilliant Liam Campbell, I’d do that all over again. It was such a treat to go in every week, taste different wines and learn about different styles from all over the world. (WSET stands for Wine & Spirits Education Trust, a global professional wine educator, but they offer courses at all levels from introductory to Masters of Wine.) But seeing as how I’ve done the WSET thing, I’d go for a voucher for Ely Wine Bar’s weekly Thursday night wine tastings, which are only €15 a pop and give you a chance to taste some gorgeous wines you mightn’t otherwise try.

7.     A pair of stockings from Avoca (have you seen them? Cute or what!) stuffed full of hot and salted Pulparindo candy bars and fizzy cola bottles and Wham bars. (There’s a reason that tangy green papaya salad is my favourite dish ever.) What are Pulparindo bars? They are the penny sweets of gods, courtesy of some Mexican genius who thought to turn tangy tamarind into a sweet candy, and to flavour it with salt and chilli. Bam!

chilli-hot, salted and tangy tamarind – that’s what I’m talking about, right there

8.     A stainless steel stove-top moka pot for home-brewed coffee, possibly from Coffee Angel on South Anne Street, who seem to sell every kind of coffee accessory you could possibly want, not to mention every kind of coffee. (My current favourite is their Kebel Demersa from Ethiopia which tastes like Turkish delight, in a good way.) Oh and they’re also selling really sweet little stocking filler snowflakes made out of Finnish birch for €6, 100% of which goes to Barnardos. Sweet.

9.     A voucher for Inis Meain Restaurant & Suites so I could go back and recreate one of the best short breaks I’ve ever had. And maybe I could go towards the end of their season and they’d let me stay on and write that novel I always thought I’d get around to. It’d be the perfect stop for it, and the food is pretty darn spot on too. (I could do island lobster and fresh spuds on a daily basis. No problem!)

The Inis Meain Breakfast Box, delivered to your door early morning to be eaten whenever. That’s my kind of breakfast.

10.    An essential cookbook. Maybe Darina Allen’s 30 Years of Ballymaloe, which just won Best Irish Cookbook at the Bord Gais Energy Book of the Year awards. Or From Lynda’s Table by Lynda Booth of Dublin Cookery School, where I did the life-affirming one-month cookery course a few years back. Or Ross Lewis’s startling Chapter One: An Irish Food Story. Or whatever cookbook looked fun and interesting and solidly written. I wouldn’t mind which one.

Whichever.

I’m really very easy to please.

Honest.

The Chapter One cookbook, a soulful thing with very beautiful photography by Barry McCall

But all that frustrated culinary inspiration does make me look forward all the more to this coming Friday’s Guerrilla Gourmet Club, described as a “one night only popup autumn harvest dinner”, when I’ll have some of the season’s best ingredients cooked in suitably elaborate style. The dinner takes place in the The Royal College of Surgeons at 7pm, Friday 15 November, when they will serve a menu created by Ross Golden-Bannon (my ex-editor, formerly of FOOD&WINE Magazine) and Temple Garner of San Lorenzo in Dublin’s Georges Street (formerly head chef at The Mermaid Café and head chef/founder of Town Bar and Grill). I love Temple’s cooking. It is full of big generous flavours and executed with subtle skill. Perfect for the generously flavoured ingredients of this time of year.

Ross and Temple’s terroir-based menu focusses on celebrating the best of local. ‘Terroir’ is a wine term used to capture the relationship between geography (in other words, place, soil, climate, weather, aspect) and people (farmers, growers, producers and even consumers) and the end product (wine, or in this case, food). In the Guerrilla Gourmet Club’s own words: “Terroir is not just about great taste it’s also about flourishing local economies. Together a band of small local business are a strong buffer to economic difficulties. The Guerrilla Gourmet Club aims to amplify this message through terroir dinners created by high profile chefs, in unusual settings.”

The dinner costs €75 and for that you’ll enjoy a drinks reception with local, seasonal canapés followed a four-course meal with wine. There’s also a tasting of 8 Degrees Brewing beers at the start of the meal and Highbank Organic Dessert Cider at the end – both of which happen to be amongst my favourite craft brewers in Ireland at the minute. The evening promises to be a sociable affair, and if you’re going with a gang they can seat you together (make sure you give them advance notice).

I’ve had a sneak peak at the menu and it includes gorgeous seasonal treats like pheasant consommé with Madeira, truffle and foie gras tortellini – just the kind of elaborate dish I would love to be cooking up with my stash of autumnal mushrooms, if I had the time this week. Instead, I’ll just have to slum it with shiitake soup, and look forward to Friday’s feast!

For further information, email guerrillagourmetclub@gmail.com, or see www.facebook.com/theguerrillagourmetclub. To book, go to https://guerrillagourmetclubrcsi.eventbrite.ie

My favourite from 8 Degrees Brewing: their Howling Gale Ale

Next Tuesday 30th October, five of Ireland’s hottest young chefs will compete in Stage 2 of the annual Euro-toques Young Chef of the Year competition. It’s a big deal for up-and-coming chefs (previous winners include a fellow called Neven Maguire, who you may have heard of since) and a cleverly run competition emphasising all the things core to Euro-toques values: creativity, authenticity, seasonality and a commitment to the celebration of local food producers.

A baby-faced Neven (or babier-faced, to coin a phrase?)

The five finalists will be cooking up a Samhain-themed feast (for those without the cúpla focail, read ‘harvest-themed’) in Cooks Academy on Dublin’s South William Street, and Holy Mackerel has two pairs of tickets to give away to the 1.30pm–3pm slot for anyone who fancies a free, late, fabulous lunch.

Guests can visit each of the finalists at their separate workstations where you can watch them whip up  taster dishes for your delectation, each representing that finalists take on ‘the best of Irish cooking today’. Each dish has been specially created to highlight one hero producer from the finalist’s local area and all the main ingredients have been sourced within a 50 mile radius of where the chefs are based.

Last year's winner, Kamil Dubanik of Knockranny House Hotel

The young chefs come from some of the most prestigious restaurants in the country: Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud (Ciaran Elliott), The Greenhouse (Jack Moriarty), Locks Brasserie (Keelan Higgs), Springfort Hall (Jack O’Keeffe) and The Malton (John O’Connor).

Some of the treats in store include Carlingford oysters with a set leek gelée, potato cream and mignonette sauce; and Jack McCarthy fresh blood black pudding with Ballyhoura apple espuma, Ballyhoura mushroom powder, pickled carrot and Longueville cider jelly.

The legendary Jack McCarthy's legendary black pudding

So, how to win a pair of tickets for this treat of a pop-up feast?

If you’re free to come along next Tuesday at 1.30pm, simply email susie@insightconsultants.ie with the words ‘Euro-toques Samhain Feast’ in the subject bar, tell her you read about it here on Holy Mackerel, and that you’d like to go. First two emails win a pair of tickets each, so what’s keeping you?

Last year's finalists, pans at the ready... Kamil Dubanik, Knockranny House Hotel; David Magaeen, Restaurant Victoria; Kyle Greer, No 27 Talbot Street; Margaret Roche, The Cellar Restaurant; Micheal Harley, Rathmullan House & Aisling Gallagher, Ballynahinch Castle

We’re going slightly off-piste next weekend with the first of what will hopefully be a lorryload of For Food’s Sake cook-out events. If you’re familiar with what we’ve been doing at For Food’s Sake, you’ll know we started off with a year of regular bi-monthly food discussion nights in The Sugar Club last year, dotted with a couple of foodie movie nights where we cooked up food inspired by the films we were showing.

This year we’ve been mixing it up a bit and we’ve taken For Food’s Sake events over to the Science Gallery for the Edible exhibition, and up to Donegal for the Inishfood festival. Now we’re off to the pub for some grub.

The pub? Toner’s on Lower Baggot Street (www.tonerspub.ie), who have the hugest, weirdest beer garden we know of, complete with an enormous sheltered room with a TV and a roof but only three walls. There’s also lots of no-roof action going on should the sun come out to play, so all in all it’s perfect for our mixed-up rain-sun-rain-sun days.

And the grub? Well, that’s up to you.

Here’s the deal: next Saturday 11th August, we’re rolling several party-sized barbecues into said beer garden, rounding up some food producers along with samples of their barbecue-friendly products, and then inviting YOU and yours to join us between 3pm–7pm for a barbecue party. And the best bit? You get to supply and cook the food!

It’s up to you what you cook. You could bring the simplest home-made burgers or the most elaborate marinated fish dish. Sweetcorn or hotdogs, salads or salsas… dinner for one, or a taster for all. We’re just supplying the set-up: it’s up to you what you make of it. Think Street Feast with cooking facilities and one of Dublin’s best bars on tap, or think urban picnic with lots of lovely randomers – but just please think of joining us.

View of the Burren from top of Corkscrew Hill

There are places we dream of escaping our daily lives to. One of my favourite fantasies is spinning out the M6 towards Galway, taking a sharp left at Oranmore and hitting the coast road towards the Burren, preferably ending my journey in the beautiful Gregan’s Castle in Ballyvaughan where ex-Tannery head chef David Hurley has taken over the reigns from chef-extraordinaire Mickael Viljanen (who has gone to The Greenhouse in Dublin).

The only drawback about going somewhere like the Burren to completely unwind is that I would feel guilty if I didn’t get out and explore the surrounding landscape. Guilt can be the hardest thing to escape from, even when it’s misplaced.

The gateway leading into Gregan's Castle

Last weekend myself and a couple of friends escaped to guilt-free Longford. Yes, Longford. Or Viewmount House just outside Longford town, to be exact. We had no idea if there were great things to discover on our doorstep and didn’t really care to find out. We were quite happy to make Viewmount House’s reception rooms, suites, restaurant and gorgeous gardens the extent of our world for our short stay there.

(Okay, so I since did find out that Viewmount House is close to Strokestown House, the Famine Museum, Belvedere House, Clonmacnoise and Newgrange – but thankfully not until we had happily wasted many aimless hours.)

We went because I had been hearing great things about the restaurant for a couple of years now. VM Restaurant has been open four years, with head chef Gary O’Hanlon at the helm and a strong team behind him, including Slovakian sous chef Daniel Skukalek, who was named 2011 Knorr Student Chef of the Year, winning a prize of a trip to Noma in Copenhagen.

I was expecting great cooking, but I wasn’t quite expecting the sheer stylishness of the setting. From the balance of period-piece furniture against perfectly pitched dusky pink and teal blue wallpaint to the immaculate lawn, burbling water features and wandering garden paths, the place oozes charm. Owners Beryl and James Kearney told us they’ve been they’ve been living in the 1750s house and lovingly restoring the it since the 1990s. And it shows.

Gardens at Viewmount House, a labour of love

By the time we gathered ourselves in the restaurant bar for a glass of Mount Difficulty Pinot Gris while we perused the four-course menu (€55, with a complimentary fifth course for residents staying in one of the 12 rooms) we felt we had well and truly escaped and were ready to be spoilt. And spoilt we were.

After a little complimentary taster of Thornhill duck breast with powdered curry oil and cherry pepper mayonnaise, and lovely homemade breads with a red pepper hummus dip, we were on to starters proper. I loved my Lissadell mussels cooked in a coconut green curry broth with coriander, scallions, slices of juicy shiitake mushrooms and cubes of pineapple that added great texture and a note of subdued sweetness. As with the rest of the meal to come, an elegant balance proved to be this kitchen’s signature stroke – along with an ability to integrate some unlikely pairings into a cohesive expression.

Mussels in green curry broth with pineapple & shiitake

Opposite me, Clare Island organic salmon had been cured with juniper and pink grapefruit, and served with pickled herb stalk and puffed capers. But it was the starter of star anise and orange-cured duck leg confit that stole the show, with waves of flavours that just kept on coming. Gary told us that the garnish for this dish has changed several times (currently a nicely pitched, blush-pink ragout of beetroot, mushroom, tarragon and sherry) but the cured confit has been a star dish on the menu for several seasons. And long may it remain there.

Taste of Midlands salad with Kelly's organic cream cheese

For our middle course, we went for a Taste of the Midlands Salad, featuring roast pear, Rogan’s whiskey-smoked bacon and Kelly’s organic cream cheese flavoured with eggs yolk, mustard and scallion. Next, a complimentary palate cleansing jelly of Martina Burns’ elderflower & wild strawberry topped with Glenisk organic yoghurt. Martina is the wife of local farmer David Burns, who supplies his legendary sweetcorn to the likes of Chapter One. Gary recently nominated David to win an EirGrid Euro-Toques Food Award 2012.

Wild strawberry and elderflower jelly with Glenisk yoghurt

Then – because we really were being spoilt – another little taster of lobster with charred Malibu-infused baby leek (yep, the booze, and yep, it worked), wild artichoke (teensy and intense) and carrot and lime purée.

Lobster with Malibu-charred leek

For mains, I found the will to look past the first option: Friendly Farmer Chicken (another 2012 EirGrid Euro-Toques Food Awards winner) cooked ‘sous vide’ with 36-month Parmesan cream, garden peas, shallot and chorizo nage and gnocchi. I may have to return for that dish, or for the salt-fried Donald Russell 28-day dry-aged sirloin, served with mac’n'cheese made with Crozier Blue and Glebe Brethan macaroni, and a tomato and piquillo pepper jam. One of my friend’s had the steak – and I can still taste that mac’n'cheese.

Another friend went for the Clare Island salmon, cooked at 60ºC so that it was wobblingly moist but with a glistening crispy skin. Its presentation put me in mind of a summer’s day on which the sun has made a garden explode with colour: bell pepper risotto, avocado, peas and shoots, and little rockets of purple cauliflower ready to lift off the plate. Gorgeous.

60ºC salmon with bell pepper risotto

My main course was my favourite, I’m glad to report. Little moist discs of canon of Roscommon lamb, beautifully seared and pink inside, with a flavour and texture delicate enough to savour but hearty enough to make for an utterly satisfying feed. It came with basil and hickory smoked cherry tomatoes bursting with flavour, wild artichoke paste, pickled oyster mushroom, roast garlic, bone marrow and a bagna couda jus (a Piedmontese classic featuring anchovies, garlic and olive oil). Jaysus it was good.

Roscommon lamb with incredible cherry tomatoes

I’m really not sure how we did it, but we soldiered on and finished the meal with a dessert of crème caramel with various renditions of tangy sea buckthorn, dill and carrot, including a blackened carrot cake crumb.

Crème caramel with sea buckthorn, carrot and dill

If all that sounds like a lot of different flavours to take in over the one meal, well it was. But the over-riding impression was of a judicious balance within each dish, and of an imagination held in check by consideration of what the diner might want rather than what the kitchen can do.

Gary O’Hanlon’s cooking is very different to Mickael Viljanen’s, but experiencing it for the first time last weekend in the surprisingly beautiful Viewmount House reminded me of a very special meal shared on a very special week-long escape to the Burren years ago, looking out from Gregan’s Castle dining room over the lunar landscape sweeping down to Galway Bay.

That outposts of great Irish cooking such as these should exist in the most unlikely of places is another great excuse to go exploring this green island of ours.

p.s. We came home via Kildare Village Outlet where we did a spot of shopping (I picked up a bargain Le Creuset pot which I’ve needing). I’m sorry to say we didn’t have room to sample any of the fantastic food being served up at the Good Food Ireland pop-up food stall. You’ll understand why. But with a choice of Jane Russell’s sausages, Waterford bacon blaas with Boyne Valley Blue cheese, and Country Choice Hereford beef ciabatta, if you’ve been looking for an excuse to visit Kildare Village, the current Chic Summer Festival (until Sunday 29th) might just be it.

Fermanagh is such a surprise to those of us who, like me, had spent years satisfied with the love of the west and the rest of Southern Ireland. Fermanagh is different to the windy wilds which I rated as the best of Ireland’s charms. There’s something more pastoral about it, what with the hundreds of islands and many lakes and rolling wooded hills between them.

It’s totally charming and well worth a trip over the border, should you be one of the many Southern Irish folk who rarely go north except to stock up on cheap booze or for a trip to Belfast city.

The Queen was in Enniskillen yesterday, doing her smiling, nodding thing as consummately as we have come to expect of her. She didn’t get to hang about for too long, which is a shame because there’s lots of great eating and drinking to be done in the area, not to mention sightseeing and outdoorsy activities.

This October there’s what sounds like a great cultural festival taking place. The Fermanagh Live (www.FLive.org.uk) programme includes comedy, children’s competitions and workshops, literature, music of all sorts including classical, brass and folk, theatre, film, visual art exhibitions and much more. Dónal Lunny, Andy Irvine & Ardal O’Hanlon are some of the names that caught my eye.

If any of this has piqued your interest and you’re thinking of  taking a look for yourself, below is a flavour of what the Fermanagh Lakelands (www.fermanaghlakelands.com) have to offer foodwise, written for a recent supplement in The Irish Times.

I didn’t include Neven Maguire’s MacNean House & Restaurant in Blacklion, Co Cavan, but it’s a short drive. Nor did I include the magical Belle Isle Castle which presides over it’s own private island and boasts an excellent cookery school offering residential courses as well as shorter affairs. Nor did I include the new Kitchen Academy cookery school located in Enniskillen town and run by Chef Joe Kelly. But I did include lots of suggestions for eating out, so you can rest assured you won’t go hungry.

1. Eating en masse

Whether you work up an appetite in the water or on the greenway, Fermanagh has plenty of fun choices for feasting with friends.

Franco’s Restaurant, Queen Elizabeth Road, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6632 4424, www.francosrestaurant.co.uk

This well-run operation delivers quality local food in an upbeat ambience, and its broad food offering makes it a good option for a crowd. Think contemporary pizza toppings, home-made marinades and locally sourced organic vegetables alongside Donegal seafood, Fermanagh lamb and 26-day dry-aged Kettyle beef.

Dollakis, Cross Street, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 66 342616, www.dollakis.co.uk

Locals head to this award-winning Greek bistro when they need a holiday fix – at any time of day. Authentic Greek treats like pikilia platters or cinnamon-scented stifado cooked with local venison sit side by side with crowd-pleasers like mixed grill with Greek salad.

Lusty Beg Island Restaurant, Boa Island, Kesh, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6863 3300, www.lustybegisland.com

Work up an appetite from any number of group activities offered on this private island including canoeing, archery and off-road driving, and then work it off with the likes of seafood chowder and smoked wild Irish salmon, beef and Guinness pie or ginger-spiced fishcakes. (Enquire about group bookings for everything from family holidays to hen / stag parties or weddings.)

The Bush Bar, Townhall Street, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6632 5210, www.thebushbar.com

Whether it’s burgers and beers with the match, wine and nibbles in the rooftop garden with views of the River Erne, or a three-course dinner followed by cocktails and a live band, there’s something for all the gang in this buzzed-up venue.

2. Table for two

Top off a special day exploring the hidden charms of these stunning lakelands with an intimate evening at one of the area’s excellent fine-dining options.

The Catalina Restaurant, Lough Erne Golf Resort, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6632 3230, www.lougherneresort.com

Talented chef Noel McMeel has long been a passionate champion of local artisan producers. He combines this rooted sense of place with skillful delivery of classic and contemporary dishes in the elegant setting of the Catalina dining room with its impressive lakeviews.

The Terrace Restaurant, Westville Hotel, Tempo Road, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6632 0333, www.westvillehotel.com

Two brothers have joined forces to put this new culinary destination on the map, with owner Nicky Cassidy leading the friendly front-of-house service while his brother and chef Gavin Cassidy heads up the kitchen. Expect flashes of fine dining inspired by Gavin’s time at MacNean House and l’Ecrivain.

Café Merlot / Restaurant No., Church Street, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6632 0918, www.russellanddonnelly.com

Two acclaimed food offerings now nestle under the roof of one of Ireland’s great pubs, Blakes of the Hollow. Begin your evening with a drink in the original Victorian front bar before ascending for fine-dining at Restaurant No. 6 – or settle in to the vaulted Café Merlot Wine Bar for classy contemporary cooking.

Watermill Restaurant, Kilmore Quay, Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6772 4369, www.kilmorequayclub.com

Perched on the shores of Lough Erne, boasting water gardens and a 50,000 litre aquarium, it’s no surprise that the likes of warm lobster salad should take pride of place on chef Pascal Brissaud’s menu. Home-grown garden produce also feature alongside extravagant Kettyle dry-aged beef served Rossini-style with truffles and foie gras.

3. Family-friendly feeds

Fermanagh’s lakelands are fertile grounds for family outings, and there are plenty of casual eateries with treats for all ages.

The Sheelin Tea Shop, Derrylin Road, Bellanaleck, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6634 8232, www.thesheelinteashop-bellanaleck.co.uk

It’s all about attention to detail in these beloved Tea Rooms adjacent to the impressive Sheelin Irish Lace Museum. Artisan baker Julie Snoddy crafts her baked delights from carefully-sourced local produce such as Fivemiletown Creamery butter, cream and cream cheese and local honey. The result is a sweet little piece of heaven.

The Horseshoe & Saddler, Belmore Street, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6632 6223, www.horseshoeandsaddlers.com

With activity menus and child-friendly cups for younger diners and signature Saddlers steaks for their chaperones, the recently renovated Saddlers bistro is well-tuned to the needs of all its punters. A keenly priced early bird offering runs from the early hour of 5pm.

FiddleSticks Restaurant, Customs House Inn, Main Street, Belcoo, Co Fermanagh, Tel. +44 (0) 28 6638 6285, www.customshouseinn.com

The pretty village of Belcoo lies at the foot of Cuilcagh Mountain overlooking Lough McNean and the Famous Hanging Rock. Here you’ll find the family-run Customs House Inn, an award-winning gastropub whose menu ranges from finger-lickin’ chicken wings to family favourites such as roast chicken with colcannon.

The Thatch Cottage, Main Street, Belleek, Co Fermanagh, Tel: +44 (0)28 6865 8181

Boasting the county’s only original thatched roof, the listed 18th-century building provides a picture-perfect setting for traditional treats such as homemade scones and cakes, hearty soups and freshly made sandwiches. You can even pick up some fishing tackle or hire bikes for the afternoon.

You can download a visitor guide here which includes lots of local restaurants, or visit www.fermanaghlakelands.com.

PANEL A unique flavour of Fermanagh

If you’re looking to sample truly local flavours, you need look no further than Pat O’Doherty’s Black Bacon. As with any true dry-cured bacon, the traditional and natural curing process ensures no shrinkage in the pan and none of the white residue that inferior bacon can leave behind. Pat uses rare-breed pigs such as the all-black Wessex pigs and black and white Saddlebacks alongside Gloucester Old Spots and Tamworths, and takes his time with a three-month curing process.

But it is the fact that these lucky pigs are reared on their very own private island on Upper Lough Erne where they are free to roam and feed on the wild herbs and grasses that gives Black Bacon its truly unique flavour. Visitors can arrange a trip out to see the pigs on their Inishcorkish home, or simply pick up The Fermanagh Black Bacon Cookbook with a packet of black bacon from O’Doherty’s Fine Meats in Enniskillen.

Where to stock up on local and artisan produce

O’Doherty’s Fine Meats, Belmore Street, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, www.blackbacon.com

Pat O’Doherty’s famous butcher shop selling award-winning burgers and bacon

Orchard Acre Farm, Lisnarick, Co Fermanagh, www.orchardacrefarm.com

An open organic farm offering everything from cookery classes and seasonal events to tipi holidays.

Russell & Donnelly Deli, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, www.russellanddonnelly.com

Just the spot to stock up on nibbles, wines and craft beers for an impromptu picnic

Ulster Farmers’ Mart, Tempo Road, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh

Farmers’ Market on the last Saturday of every month

Farmer’s Food Market, Tesco Carpark, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh

Farmers’ Market on the second Saturday of every month

**The gorgeous photos above are courtesy of www.fermanaghlakelands.com which is worth a browse for more ideas.**

which I picked up in my local food market, the lovely Dublin Food Co-op in Newmarket Square, along with a bunch of beautiful flowers from the Sonairte stall for just €5…

…just cos they always make me happy and remind me that it actually is summertime, sunshine or no sunshine.

Back at home, while snacking on a bit of Oisin Farmhouse goats’ cheese on seeded rye bread (also both from the Coop), I had a browse through three of my favourite cookbooks: Yotam Ottonlenghi’s Plenty, Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian & Sally Butcher’s Veggiestan for some ideas. (That’s Sally with her book…)

Sally Butcher with her Veggiestan cookbook

Then I put those aside and cooked.

I softened some shallots in a bit of butter and rapeseed oil, added some grated ginger, sliced garlic and red chilli and various spices from the Patel gift set a friend gave me. Together with a booklet of (mostly meat-based) recipes, the set includes various ground and whole spices and several spice blends or ‘masala’. I wanted something tangy so went for a generous pinch each of ground cumin and coriander  and twice that of their tandoori masala blend. I cooked those gently for a couple of minutes until it was smelling really good and then I tipped in the guts of a tin of chopped tomatoes, spooning out the flesh and leaving behind some of the excess juice.

While this cooked away, I roasted slices of the aubergine drizzled in a little rapeseed oil, grated half a cucumber into a colander set above a bowl to drain and cooked off some quinoa (I could have gone for rice but quinoa ticks the box as both a grain-like accompaniment and a source of protein). Once the tomatoes had lost their rawness, I added a little more grated ginger, to be sure to have an upfront ginger heat as well as the background flavours. (This is something Irish chef Paul Flynn recently said he often does for one-pot dishes to ensure layers of flavour, adding the likes of garlic as a base and a final seasoning.)

Finally I finely chopped some fresh mint and mixed this with the drained cucumber and some natural yoghurt, seasoning well with salt and pepper. Then I built myself a little bowl of nutty quinoa, tangy sauce, roast aubergine and minty raita, and tucked in. (I was too hungry to take a photo, sorry!) Warming, cheering and wholesome, it was just what I had been wanting.

And what of my leftover cucumber water?

With the sun dancing in and out just enough for it to feel like a sort of summer again, I mixed myself up a salad of kiwi and galia melon and dressed it with the cucumber juice, a small squeeze of lime and a swirl of Highbank Original Irish Orchard Syrup. This apple-based syrup that is one of my favourite condiments going, being an Irish-made sweetener made from indigenous produce that brings extra flavour while it sweetens. The dressing worked really nicely, the cucumber giving a lovely fresh lift to the melon. I reckon it’ll taste even better tomorrow.

Without the kiwi and lime the same salad would probably make a great accompaniment to Parma ham, or diced very small along with a tart green apple could work really well with some smoked mackerel too. I’ll be trying it again as the mood takes me.

p.s. for those of you who really prefer to cook with recipes, here’s what you need to make the above:

for the roast aubergine with gingered tomatoes

1 aubergine

1 tin chopped tomatoes

3 shallots, finely chopped

2–3 garlic cloves, sliced

1 red chilli, sliced

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon Patel’s tandoori masala

for the minty raita

1/2 cucumber, grated and drained

2 handfuls mint, finely chopped

2–3 generous tablespoons natural yoghurt

for the melon and kiwi salad with cucumber, lime and apple syrup dressing

1 small galia melon

2 kiwi

3–4 tablespoons liquid drained from grated cucumber

1 very small wedge of lime, or to taste (go easy)

Highbank Orchard syrup, to taste (about half a teaspoon)