Kieran 
It’s rare enough to get any kind of snow in Dingle, but last night, we had a few inches. There is a silence on a snowy night that’s amazing.
I stood outside and watched the snow drift down onto plants, the grass, the house, and even the cat.
Soon it will be time for summer, sunshine (hopefully), and ice cream, but it’s nice for now to enjoy a peaceful, snowy night in Dingle.
I was very remiss in not better publicising Caroline’s recent and excellent food series, made with Kevin Thornton (photo above), for Newstalk. However, all is not lost. After all, we now live in a world of podcasts and radio on demand!
If you want to hear some great radio on Irish food, presented by a bibliocook, go to the Newstalk Podcast Page. There you will find the whole series:
One of the ingredients used in a lot of Japense desserts is kanten, also known as agar-agar. It’s a gelling agent made from seaweed, and not only is it flavourless and vegetarian (gelatine is derived from animal products), but it’s high in fibre, and contains 0 calories. In fact, it spurred a diet fad in Asia, known as the Kanten Diet. In Japan, we found it as jelly cubes in desserts such as Anmitsu, sometimes served with ice cream, or in traditional Japanese sweets.
I brought back a packet from Tokyo, and when I saw a beautiful-looking punnet of raspberries in the supermarket, I had to use it! Here’s what I did:
Kanten Cubes with fresh Raspberry
Ingredients:
About 12 fresh raspberriesWhat to do:
PS. Agar-agar is most likely available at your local whole foods shop.
Since I’ve come back from Tokyo, I’ve been digesting what I experienced and thinking a lot about the huge range of premium food products on offer there. It was actually quite a shock in that for all of the wealth generated during the Celtic Tiger, we really don’t have super-premium-priced food here, outside of a few restaurants. Perhaps that is because we obsessed about prices non-stop during the good times, talking about “Rip-off Ireland,” and fuming if things weren’t cheap (except houses and salaries). Food seemed to bear the brunt of this, which is ironic, since Ireland simply can’t produce cheap food products – at least not compared to Poland, Germany, Argentina, etc., where the economies of scale are much larger and the costs much lower.
What few people seem to realise is that the prices of the best Irish cheeses, meats, etc., are actually quite low if you look at what super premium products such as those would cost in the US, France, Italy or the UK. In Japan, it’s a whole different level. From sushi to fruit to chocolate, there are so many different levels of price and quality that your head would spin.
Although you can buy chocolate in a convenience store for similar prices to here, you also have Aoki charging €12+ for a bar, or Noka, where a box of four tiny chocolates retailed for more than €20 (in the US it’s less, but still expensive). There are no Irish chocolatiers charging anything remotely similar. With oranges, you can buy normal priced oranges in Tokyo, and they go up from there, to about €15/orange. Of course there are also the €100+ melons (mostly given as gifts), and I paid €7 for a scoop of ice cream.
Now most Irish people would say – “€15 for an orange? What an absolute rip-off!” I, on the other hand, would wonder – “What makes an orange so good that it’s worth €15? I’d better taste it!” Most importantly, there are clearly people out there who would pay it. Yet, we certainly don’t have fruit at those prices.
The reason I’m writing this post is that tonight, at the checkout of my local supermarket, I was given a snide comment about the price I was paying for a piece of Gubbeen cheese, and it made me very angry. Are we all expected to buy the cheapest chedder on the market? I hardly drink, don’t frequent the bookie, and I don’t own a nice car or a holiday home. Even if I did, why shouldn’t I spend money on a good Irish cheese if I want to? I love cheese, I’m supporting an Irish producer making a quality product, and the truth is I’d pay even more.
I know that especially now that the economy is in tailspin, there are many people who cannot afford high priced products. However, to assume that there isn’t a place for an expensive cheese (or ice cream for that matter) that cheers us up and makes us feel good is pure ignorance. It would be great if more of us could appreciate, as the Japanese do, that a piece of sublime food, no matter what the cost, when it is produced, prepared, and served with love, is sometimes the very thing that can make bad times palatable.
Technorati tags: Ireland, Tokyo, chocolate, premium food
Those of you who know Ventry, know that it is rare to have waves on the beach there that are more than a ripple.
Yesterday, however, when I went for a late afternoon walk on the beach with the pregnant one, we were quite astonished to see quite a few members of Dingle’s surfing brigade packing up for the day.
Surfers in Ventry? It didn’t take long to see why – there was serious swell.
In fact, I have never seen waves there like it.
The day was bright and sunny, and yet the ocean was in fighting form. I guess the recent storm systems were working their way through.
We all enjoyed the spectacle, but unfortunately it looked like the erosion on the dunes was pretty severe. Still, the beach changes every year, and the next storm might bring all the sand back again!
Thanks to whoever nominated me for the Irish Blog Awards! As always, it’s wonderful to see the varied and interesting blogs out there! Best of luck to all of them.
I’ve been nominated in two categories: Best Food and Drink, and Best Business Blog. I have asked that icecreamireland be withdrawn from the business category, since I’ve already won it twice.
Here are the long list of nominees in the two categories, and they make good reading:
Tomorrow, we leave early to go back to Ireland, and I thought I should make my last post about sushi.
In terms of food, it’s what I will miss most. In case you were wondering, although we had many good meals, the best sushi we had was a lunch at the Tsukiji Fish Market (both photos) in one of the alleys and a heavenly dinner tonight.
We were lucky enough to meet a Japanese food writer on this trip, and she brought us to an old-school sushi place in a quiet part of town. There was no glitz or glamour here and no crowds, just a serious sushi master and the best cuts of the best fish.
If you’re in Tokyo, check it out: Katori-Zushi, 3-7-10 Kiyosumi, Koto-ku, Tokyo. It’s just by the Kiyosumi-Shirakawa metro station.
Technorati tags: Japan, Tokyo, sushi, travel, restaurant
Sometimes life is full of serendipity, and happening to be in Tokyo during Salon du Chocolat is a very happy coincidence indeed.
It seems that the “wakai josei,” or young Japanese women, are in the habit of buying chocolate for male friends, fiances, husbands and bosses during this time of year as a harbinger of happiness. (Irish woman please note – this is a very good idea!)
Actually, a Japanese friend here said that most Japanese men don’t like chocolate at all and that their sisters and mothers usually end up with the treats. That is a shame!
Many European chocolatiers are here, including Marcolini, Herme, Neuhaus, etc., and a number of Japanese ones as well.
We managed to meet Sadaharu Aoki, and my mother even got him to sign a box of chocolates for her.
I might have to go back tomorrow. Happy days for a chocoholic!
Technorati tags: Japan, Tokyo, chocolate, travel, salon du chocolat
