The Guardian Food and Mouth Blog has the most rigorous article on roast potatoes that I’ve seen anywhere: they try four different recipes with three different varieties of potatoes, resulting in twelve different types of roast potato.  You really have to respect that level of commitment to spuds. They try recipes by Delia Smith, Nigella [...]

Like many people, I’ll be looking to buy a few bottles of sweet, sweet booze for Christmas.  I only need to pick up a few for gifts and for the house, and don’t have a large enough order to warrant a trip to the North.  While doing some shopping in Dublin city yesterday I was [...]

Oh no, I’m so ashamed. Yesterday I brought to an end my recent poor diet of vegetable fat, salt and sugar with a healthy fruit and yogurt breakfast and a green vegetable stir-fry for lunch, followed by some nuts, juice and wholemeal bread as an afternoon snack. Then, just as I was about to tuck [...]

I tuned into the Pat Kenny show yesterday to hear the AMAZING I Draw Slow being interviewed. Okay, okay, I’m shamelessly plugging my husband’s band, but there was also a segment about how this will be the most frugal Christmas for many. As a result, people are hitting the €2 shops for the first time, [...]

Christmas work do’s are a funny affair. Depending on who you end up sitting beside at dinner, they can either go really well or just be brutally boring. In either case I always looked forward to them – free meal after all. Then of course, there’s always someone who gets too drunk. I remember one [...]

When I posted about Christmas turkeys the other day, many people commented on how they find turkey to be unpleasantly dry and bland.  It’s a widespread complaint alright, and many of us grew up with Christmas turkey that had all flavour cooked out of it by over-zealous mammies and grannies.  The same applied to the [...]

Thanks to all of you who entered our Oxfam Fair Trade Christmas Hamper giveaway: the response was great, and we’re delighted to announce that the following two people will be receiving hampers stuffed full of luxurious Christmas treats: Lynn McCormack and Denis Teeling You can still shop online at the Oxfam Fair Trade Online Shop [...]

The older I get, the more debilitating hangovers get. They can be outrageously painful and quite often I become really stupid; I have been known to walk into walls, even run into them. What’s worse is during Christmas I usually meet up with people I haven’t seen in ages and instead of being witty and [...]

In today’s Pricewatch column, Conor Pope tastes four varieties of Christmas pudding, and gives the highest rating to Aldi’s Specially Selected version.  This is handy to know, as I will need to get a small Christmas pudding for our Christmas dinner, but have no intention of tasting it myself.  I’m really not a fan of [...]

Getting the roast potatoes right on Christmas day is always a challenge because there are a million and one other things to do. I have the answer – or at least Heston does. From his book ‘In Search of Perfection: Reinventing Kitchen Classics’, Heston Blumenthal’s recipe for roast potatoes is the best I have come [...]