lovely videos from perennial plate

How do you choose the land or the sea? Longtime deep sea fisherman turned goat farmer, Gabriel Flaherty of Aran Islands Goats Cheese​, doesn’t have to, the sea surrounds him and runs through his veins.

severine in ireland

For our friends in Ireland (or those that plan to be there this spring) Greenhorns founder and executive director Severine von Tscharner Fleming will be presenting at Litfest : the Food and Drink Literacy Festival, in Ballymaloe. Ballymaloe, it’s a pleasure just to say the name of the place, so we can only imagine how magical it is in real life.

Severine will be talking about the farmer’s life along with Alice Holden at this years Festival in May, which will bring together authors, chefs, foragers, farmers, educators, gardeners, and bloggers to share ideas on food.

You can find out more Litefest HERE.

 

ballymoe litfest, ireland, may 19-21

Friends in the UK! LitFest – A Food and Drinks Literacy Festival is taking place this year on the weekend of 19-21st May 2017 in Ballymoe, Ireland.

The full program of events is now published so check it out and book the events that you’re interested in here…

Litfest is the only festival of its kind in Ireland and has created an important hub for food and drinks enthusiasts worldwide to meet and share ideas with each other.

Check out the list of fantastic participants who will be taking part at Litfest17. And buy tickets here!

position at cooking school in shanagarry, county cork, ireland

Position Vacant

Ballymaloe Cookery School is looking for a new staff member to join our team in a varied, exciting role.   The successful applicant will be expected to be flexible, willing to pitch in wherever necessary, though they will have defined duties.

We are looking for someone who ideally has attended our 12 Week Certificate Course or a number of our short courses and therefore has an understanding of how the school works, its ethos and its staff.  However any applicant will be considered.

This is a varied role consisting of

• some general office work including answering the telephone, dealing with queries and contacting potential students for bookings.
• Social Media participation.  Taking an active interest in our presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and anything else that might arrive!
• Writing on our blog.  We have lots and lots of things happening which need to be written about on our website.
• Some marketing duties selling cookery courses and team building packages.
• Getting out and about to take photographs of what is happening with the farm, gardens, students and staff.
• Dealing with Students and Members of the public in a hospitality role.
• Some evening events as needed.

We will be very interested in working with an applicant’s prior experience to put it to full benefit.

Some of the following criteria would be helpful.

• Experience managing and communicating over multiple Social Media channels.
• Experience of general office administration.
• Some experience in a Marketing / Sales Role
• Proven ability to write and find different styles.
• Hospitality experience in Hotel or Restaurant.
• Experience working at an open estate where public are welcome
• Bachelor Degree or Similar.
• Some experience working in a kitchen
• Experience working in a horticultural environment

Ballymaloe Cookery School is a world class brand, teaching students from around the globe how to cook and how to treat the food they eat and produce for others with respect.

We are continuing to strengthen our position as a innovative and leading cookery school but also continue to branch out into other areas making the Ballymaloe Cookery School a must visit destination for anyone interested in Food who is travelling to Ireland.

Most likely you will need to already have visa to work in the EU before applying.

Help can be given to find accommodation in the area for the successful applicant.

Please send CV / Resume with cover letter explaining why you would be interested in the position to Toby at toby@cookingisfun.ie or by return email.

We will try to respond to everyone who applies but may only be able to contact successful applicants.

Toby Allen
Ballymaloe Cookery School

podcast spreads a brief history of butter in ireland

 

“If you have this much milk on your  hands, you’re likely to make good use of it.” Ireland, with its lush vibrant farmland, was once the global hub of butter production. Food comes from and for people, and dairy is embedded in the history of the place as it weathered the Middle Ages, British colonization, and perhaps its most formidable enemy, the anti-butter movement of my parents’ generation. The earliest vernacular writing on milk, cheese, and butter comes from Ireland, dating back to the early Middle Ages. Today, it is an indispensable everyday food for many and a living, changing account of Irish culture.

Butter Enthusiasts and skeptics alike: listen to the Eat This podcast, “A Brief History of Butter,” HERE !

 

farm hack in ireland!

Notice, good ideas that are in English reverse engineer the English empire!

Made partly from repurposed bicycle parts, rollerblade wheels, and an old exercycle, the Rootwasher cleans twenty kilograms of roots in under five minutes and does not require any electricity to operate. A five-acre vegetable farm harvests up to 250 kilograms of root crops per week, including radishes, carrots, turnips, potatoes, parsnips, and celeriac. Washing the roots by hand can take about three hours per 250 kilograms, and is very unpleasant in cold weather. The bicycle-powered Rootwasher provides the farmer with gentle exercise and helps makes washing roots fun.

To read more, click HERE!

 

 

what is commitment? what is art? what is agrarianism…

Grizedale Arts is an arts organisation based on the historic site of Lawson Park farm, above the Coniston valley in the Lake District.

The organisation is a curatorial project in a continuous state of development. Our current site, Lawson Park, is run as a productive small holding and working farm house, with a multifaceted programme of events, projects, residencies and community activity. Central to our ethos is the aim of implementing a more valuable function for art through a unique, cross-disciplinary education programme with a range of activities – all of which function to develop contemporary art in new directions; working beyond the Romantic and Individualist frameworks that have dominated thinking of the past 200 years of art history. Underpinning this programme therefore, is a philosophy that emphasises a use value for art; promoting the potential for art and artists to experiment and affect change in practical and effective roles, as a central tenet of wider culture and society.

The Grizedale Arts programme actively engages with the complexities of the rural environment. Rather than focusing on creating a finished art product we concentrate on the process, and the dissemination of ideas to a wider audience. In doing so, we typically work alongside the local community of a project to develop and realise work with artists – consequently the projects often challenge the artists as much as the local (participatory) audience. The activities are often fed into a major annual project or event that allows public access to the Grizedale’s process; as something that introduces artists’ thinking into everyday life, situating active contemporary arts alongside the culture of the rural environment.

To read more, click HERE!

kerrygold ballymaloe litfest of food and wine!

20-22 May 2016

The Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine is a weekend filled with fascinating facts, inspirational stories, intriguing discussions, incredible knowledge, fantastic music, fabulous dancing and of course, delicious food and drinks.

It is the only festival of its kind in Ireland and has created an important hub for food and drinks enthusiasts worldwide to meet and share ideas with each other.

To learn more, click HERE!

irish food art chick

Katie Sanderson is a chef on the move. For the past five years she’s been putting on imaginative food events in locations around Ireland: a café for artists in a Dublin gallery; raw food dinners in a forest in Wicklow; a seaweed-themed restaurant in a boatshed in Connemara. She’s nomadic in her home life too. When we track her down, Katie is doing a residency in the newly-renovated stables behind Dublin’s wonderful Fumbally café. This means that for the next six months she’ll be sleeping in a communal area above the development kitchen, with the life of a busy café humming around her.

To read more, click HERE!

2015 ballymaloe cookery school schedule is live!

image via santafetravelers.com

Ballymaloe Cookery School, a Slow Food culinary institute that sits on a 100-acre farm in County Cork, Ireland, has just put out their course schedule for 2015. Some highlights are a course on raw food, one about homemade butter, yoghurt, and cheese, and another on dynamic vegetarian cooking.

Also don’t forget about their 12-week certification course!

Read the full schedule HERE.

You can also order copies of their course listings to put out at your business or distribute to friends HERE.

irish farmers very direct at ploughing championships

President says young farmers need land

Helping young farmers to access land is the greatest challenge facing modern agriculture, President Michael D Higgins said at the opening of the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co Laois, yesterday.

He said Irish farming had changed “profoundly” since the championships were last held in Ratheniska in 1943, and there were many challenges facing the sector.

“Enabling young farmers to access the land they need to make a living in agriculture is the greatest of all of these challenges.

“The current age structure of Ireland’s farming population is a big issue. Only 6 per cent of Irish farmers are under the age of 35, and that is why I seek out and welcome and encourage those young people who are there.”
Read the rest here.