I just tasted a range of ‘de-alcoholised’ wines, ie drinks that are made like wines and then have the alcohol removed before being sold in wine bottles to be drunk in place of actual wine.

Tasting notes for the whites range from ‘furry peaches and cream with hint of dead mouse’ (a Californian Chardonnay) to ‘gone-off buttermilk’ (a ‘Premium’ German beauty). The rosé was like ‘milk teeth on steroids’ (White Zinfandel) and the red a straight-up ‘gross’ (Californian Merlot).

Thankfully I had some left-over cold plain pasta on hand. And mouthwash. And actual wine. I can still kind of taste them but I’m happy knowing I will NEVER HAVE TO DO THAT AGAIN!

Apparently people buy this stuff and not just to serve it to people they have a pathological resentment against or something.

Remember Schloer? I do. And would much rather drink it than furry peaches and dead mouse cream. Weird that.

Once I got over the involuntary gagging reflexes, the one upside of tasting the above offenders was that they made the Torres Natureo Muscat (‘tangy Schloer with rose petals and peach’) and Torres Natureo Syrah (‘fruity and almost wine-like!’) taste amazingly well made in comparison. At least they kinda retained some of their original varietal flavours. And I didn’t have to leg it straight to the sink once I tasted them, just in case.

I’m not saying I’d drink these two Spaniards myself, cos personally I think life’s too short and wine is too tasty and I don’t mind drinking proper apple juice if I have to drive or something (or preferably my new favourite low-alcohol choice, Stonewell’s Tobairin, which is just 1.5% ABV and full of zingy craft cider attitude and goes great with curries, of which more anon).

But if you were on antibiotics maybe and really missing having the odd glass of wine with dinner, or if you were in early pregnancy and hoping no-one at the dinner party would notice the small print promising ‘less than 0.5% ABV’, or if you were obsessed with getting bikini-skinny and seduced by the promise of ‘fewer than half the calories of normal wine’, then I could see how you might actually not mind drinking those two ‘once-was-a-wine’ beverages.

So now you know.

Ah the charmed life of a wine writer. Tasting all the muck so you don’t have to.

You’re welcome.

Tobairín from Stonewell: all the cider tang with little of the alcohol zing and no threat of gagging reflexes

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

Can you smell that picture?

But of course there’s more to beer than fizzy lager, as we are discovering now more than ever with the recent revolution of Irish craft beers. And there’s more to Indian food than  famously hot vindaloo from southern Goa or roganjosh from Kashmir which straddles India, Pakistan and China and from where much of what defined ‘Indian’ cooking in British culture originates.

Last weekend I went to the unlikely location of Ardee, Co Louth to learn more about the kind of cooking you might find on the streets and in the homes of Bangladesh. (Read on for details of this Thursday’s Bangladeshi street food and Irish craft beer night – or this autumn’s Bangladeshi cookery classes which will keep off in September.)

Comeragh Challenger

In case you don’t know (I didn’t), Bangladesh is poised at the northernmost coast of the Bay of Bengal, with India’s Calcutta to its west, Nepal to its northwest and Burma to its southeast. It is hemmed in by mountains and coast, so as you can imagine, the Bangladeshi are fond of their seafood. So much so that this is what Sarajit Chanda was marinating for dinner that night for him and his Donegal-born wife Sarah Nic Lochlainn (who he met in a restaurant in Sydney while both were on their travels):

Clogherhead octopus marinating in Asian spices

The couple moved to Ardee in 2005 to set up Fushcia House, and have garnered a loyal following in that time, including local curry aficiandos who come every Friday for the thali (a traditional tasting of many dishes, sort of like a curry version of a bento box) and food critics such as Tom Doorley who helped put Fushcia House on the map. Sarajit and Sarah may not be brave enough to feature Clogherhead octopus on their varied menu, but you will find the likes of red snapper alongside crowd-pleasers like Ma Chanda’s Chicken Curry (which you can also make at home, now that the couple have launched their range of Aruna sauces).

The makings of Ma Chanda's chicken curry

I joined a group of food bloggers to get a preview of some of the dishes that will be served at this Thursday’s Bangladeshi street food and Irish craft beer night (Thursday 12th July, 7pm, €50 per head). The evening will be hosted by Tom Doorley and will feature treats from many of the new breed of Irish brewers including Trouble Brewing, Stonewell Cider and Dungarvan Brewing Company (that’s one of their seasonal brews above, the Comeragh Challenger).

Sarajit loves to demystify Asian cooking, translating familiar names into direct culinary terms. I learnt that ‘roganjosh’ means “boiled in its own oil” and that ‘bhuna’ is a highly reduced sauce (and the preference of the Muslim palate, while the Hindi palate prefers a saucy sauce). I learnt that ‘tarka dhal’ denotes a lentil dish in which the spices have been fried separately and then mixed in with the simmered lentils. And I learnt that that ‘bhaji’ and ‘pakora’ are essentially the same thing with different names, and that at its most basic ‘bhaji’ means fried, so that making aubergine bhajis can be as simple as rubbing them in spices and frying them in hot oil.

Incredibly tasty and simple to make aubergine bhajis

(For those who like a little more direction: Cut 1 aubergine into finger-width rings; rub with a paste made up of 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, a pinch of salt and 50ml water; fry in a few tablespoons of rapeseed oil until golden; and drain on kitchen paper.)

Sarajit was full of interesting tips too. Anyone who is serious about cooking Asian food knows that the key is in cooking the spices properly – undercook them and they won’t release their fine flavours; overcook them and they will burn. New to me though was the trick of soaking your dry ground spices such as turmeric, cumin, coriander and chilli powders in a little water for up to an hour beforehand (or even just a few minutes) and adding as a paste to the hot pan. This is what Sarajit does for his famous Ma Chanda’s Chicken Curry, an aromatic combination of whole spices such as ginger, garlic, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves together with the dry spices listed above.

Bengali-spiced spinach with prawns, whipped up in minutes

Sarajit insists that authentic Asian dishes can be super-simple to make even when they are full of complex flavours. Indeed his lamb roganjosh was one of the simplest one-pot dishes I’ve ever seen demonstrated, involving lashing all the ingredients together in a big heavy pot, setting aside to marinade if you’ve time, and then stirring over a medium-to-high heat for 20 minutes.

(The ingredients? 700g cubed lamb, 200ml yoghurt, 2 chopped tomatoes, 1 chopped onion, 1.5 tablespoon garlic-ginger paste, 6 bay leaves & 6 cardamom pods, 1 tablespoon ground coriander, 1 teaspoon each chilli powder, turmeric & salt, 1 cinnamon stick and 2 tablespoons rapeseed oil.)

Lamb roganjosh in the mixing

That’s the complicated bit. After that, just loosen it with about 300ml of water, cover and reduce heat to a low simmer. Fifteen more minutes and you’ve got yourself a dinner.

And if you’re worried about making the rice, don’t be. Sarajit’s trick is to boil fast in loads of water (7:1 parts water to rice) and drain once cooked. You do have to rinse basmati rice at least three or four times first to get rid of the starch, but that’s the bulk of the work. And you need to bring it to the boil from cold water (adding rice to hot water will cause it to clump), but to speed things up you could bring the rice to the boil in half the water and then top up with the other half of the water straight from a just-boiled kettle. Drain the rice as soon as it is al dente so that it doesn’t overcook and get claggy in the colander.

Lamb roganjosh, two simple steps later

If you’d like to meet Sarajit and Sarah and taste their curries, get yourself to Fuchsia House Restaurant, Ardee, Co Louth this Thursday 12th July for 7pm (call Sarah on 041 685 8432 to let her know to expect you, or email sarah@fuchsiahouse.ie). You can ask her for details of September’s cookery classes too.

Or if you’d like a taste of Sarajit’s home in the comfort of yours, you can pick up one of the ranges of Aruna sauces now widely available in the chilled cabinets of many foodstores around the country – and named after Sarajit’s formidable looking mammy, Aruna Chanda, in honour of the woman whose home-cooking remains the holy grail for her Louth-based son.

See www.aruna.ie and fuchsiahouse.ie for more details.

The reason it seems fitting is two-fold. The first is that the farmhouse cheesemakers were the original artisan food producers here in Ireland, at least in the sense that we understand the moniker today. Of course, on one level we’ve always had artisan producers in the form of our butchers, our bakers, our butter-makers. Long before farmers’ markets became de riguer we had Country Markets bulging to the rafters with fine fresh produce, preserves and baked delights. And of course we’ve had farmhouse cheesemakers for as long as we’ve had excess milk to use up before it sours.

But in terms of having a sector of artisan food producers to speak of, it was the cheesemakers who led the way. The Veronica Steeles and Giana Fergusons, the Jeffa Gills and Bill Hogans. These food heroes fought the good fight and paved the way for all the food producers that followed. They argued their case in farmyards and courtrooms alike in order to doggedly, determinedly carve a space in our culture where we might grant ourselves permission to really cherish and appreciate our food. They were the pioneers of the food culture flourishing today, a culture we are beginning to be rightfully proud of. They led the way for all the charcuterie makers, the chocolatiers, the smokers… and the craft brewers.

Of course we’ve been brewing beer here in Ireland for a little while, but the rise of a vibrant craft brewing sector is a development as recent as it is welcome. It’s just brilliant to see events like the recent Irish craft beer weekend in the RDS prove that there’s a rising tide of breweries lining up to quench our growing thirst for craft beer.

And so – symbolically speaking – it’s fitting that the cheesemaking vanguard of artisan producers should join forces with the latest foot soldiers in the good fight, the craft breweries. But it is also fitting in the sense that a well-made beer is a most appropriate beverage with which to wash down a well-crafted cheese. True, wine and cheese works well too, but not as universally as we tend to think, and certainly not to the exclusion of other beverages. I recently enjoyed an intriguing Slow Food tasting of Mexican mezcal and Irish cheeses, and finished another dinner party with a smorgasbord of cheeses and beers.

When choosing wine for food, we look for acidity to cleanse the palate, but beer’s carbonation plays a similar role, making it a refreshing pairing with naturally creamy cheese. Whether pairing cheese with wine, beer or even mezcal, balance is key – and that could be balancing like with like (such as a young Bluebell Fall’s goat cheese with a crisp and subtle Tom Crean’s Lager from Dingle Brewing Company, as suggested by food blogger Caroline Hennessy on behalf of Bord Bia) or it could be contrasting opposites (such as a sweet and savoury play of Stonewell Cider and Mount Callan Cheddar).

If you’d like a chance to try out some flavour combinations you may not have thought of or sought out, some of the highlights of this weekend’s festival include:

• Carlow Cheese & Carlow Brewing Company tastings on Saturday’s Halloween farmers’ market in Carlow town
• Eight Degrees Brewing and Horgan’s (distributors of farmhouse cheeses) team up at Ballyhoura’s outdoor mountain bike event
• Peter Ward of Tipperary’s Country Choice foodstore is holding events at Limerick’s Milk Market and at his store Nenagh
• Cloghtoberfest in Tipperary will weave cheese-tastings into their jazz-fueled celebration of local craft beers

If these events whet your appetite, there’s a whole weekends-worth of festivities, and they’re detailed on Bord Bia’s website here. Now all they need is a fitting appetite to appreciate them. Over to you.

WHEN? Saturday 24 (noon-midnight) & Sunday 25 (noon–10pm) September

WHERE? RDS, Dublin 4 (Industries Hall)

WHY? We Irish have always been known for our brewing (and distilling) but we’ve been slower to join the movement towards craft beers and microbreweries than our UK neighbours or our US cousins. That’s been changing, and there are now enough craft brewhouses to warrant a full weekend’s festivities. Some of the exhibitors will probably be fairly familiar, such as O’Haras, Porterhouse, Galway Hooker. Then there’s some who have been getting some recent attention, the likes of Metalman, Dungarvan Brewing Company, and Trouble Brewing. But there are other names that are new to me at least: Brew-eyed Brewery and West Kerry Brewery. You’ll have a chance to taste them all, and talk to their producers. There’ll be food onsite from the likes of Gourmet Burger Kitchen, and lots of entertainment promised: music, comedy and magicians.

HOW MUCH? €10 per day (tickets on the door), which will get you a souvenir glass filled with half a pint of free beer. After that, you and your glass are on your own: so stock up on ‘Beer Bucks’, each of which is worth €2.50, and gets you another half pint each.

CONTACT? www.irishcraftbeerfestival.com

WHAT? The second annual Lughnasa Beer Festival, brought to you by Deveney’s of Dundrum, one of Dublin’s leading purveyors of specialist beers from Ireland and around the world. From pilsners to porters, ales amber and ales pale, from krieks and blondes to weiss beers and stouts, there’s something for everyone here.

WHEN? Friday 19 August, from 5.30pm til 9.30pm (don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of soakage in store, with food from Siam Thai, Pieminister and Hog-Roast.ie.)

WHERE? The Pod complex, Harcourt Street, Dublin 2

WHY? To showcase some 300 beers from over 30 importers and producers. As organiser Ruth Deveney puts it: “Off-licences and small breweries across the country have been battling to stay afloat in recent years as the market continues to be saturated by large multinational retailers…This festival allows small and medium sized breweries and traders to promote their offerings. It also encourages consumers to explore a range of beers beyond canned commercial lager.”

HOW MUCH? €20 which will get you three Festival Punts to spend on your beers of choice and a branded commemorative festival glass in which to drink them. See below for info on buying tickets in advance, or chance your arm at the ticket box in The Pod complex from 4.30pm Friday.

CONTACT? Read Ruth’s blog posting here for more information, or see www.beerfestival.ie for info on buying tickets in advance, available through Paypal and eventelephant.com. Tickets are also available from Deveney’s of Dundrum (and Rathmines), The Vintry (Rathgar), Redmond’s of Ranelagh,  Jus de Vin (Portmarnock) and Sweeney’s of Glasnevin.