As many of you know, we're taking two weeks off from jobs and business to recharge our batteries and catch up with our sleep. We chose our favourite place in Ireland: West Cork. We've been visiting the West Cork area for quite a few years, but it was until last year that we trully did a foodie tour of the place. It was absolutely fabulous as with the help of the local twitterati, we found foodie spots everywhere! We had amazing food, met with other food bloggers, visited food producers, went to country fairs and foodie events and we loved every minute of it. We found the trip deeply invigorating and inspirational, so this year, we came with a similar vibe.
We rented one of the many holiday cottages around the Glengarriff area. The house has a small but functional kitchen with an electric hob, an oven with grill, a fridge and a microwave. This allows us to go food hunting during the day and come to the cottage to cook a meal if we feel like it. It's the perfect arrangement, above all as we are only about 4 minute drive from Manning's Emporium, which is one of my favourite food shops in Ireland. I love the friendly service, the knowledgable staff and their fabulous cheese & cured meat counter; truly heavenly.
Armed with a food guide and our smart phones, we've been driving through little villages and mid size towns for the last few days. We started our trip with a visit to our friends in Old Farm in County Tippereary, where we went mushroom foraging and enjoyed some fabulous food with them. We then gently drove to a tiny town called Kildorerry in County Cork, where we stopped for a delicious lunch & tea with the lovely Caroline Hennessey from Bibliocook and her family. We had packed our DVD player, but left all our DVDs behind, thankfully Caroline has a fabulous DVD collection herself, so we got a loan of a few TV series and some great movies, which we will use in quiet nights and rainy days.
Eventually, we made it to Glengarriff on the Bank Holiday Monday and we've been treasure hunting for the last four days: buying food, eating out, cooking and hunting for food props and kitchen gadgets (both vices of mine). So far I have bought six victorian dinner plates, a beautiful bowl, a white enamel plate, a crepe pan, a cake tin, a 1960's book on Mexico, an antique plate, a triffel bowl and a new raincoat, which I desperately needed. We have eaten fabulous food, mainly seafood as it is so fresh here and we have been at three local markets and several antique shops.
Internet reception is close to non-existant here, so I'm taking loads of pictures, but posting very little, but will have a lovely collection of photographs when I'm back in Dublin. In the meantime, here are a few I took so far. Till then...
