A Letter From Amanda

I must admit my Irish gene pool is definitely embracing the autumnal crisp mornings and slightly layered fashion attire. And with this cooler air, I find myself spending a little more time in the kitchen, ravenously enjoying the therapeutic connection food can give to my inner being. Choosing in-season produce, prepping flavoursome ingredients and cooking a lot more varieties of food, I do declare that I’m enjoying eating a lot of food, too. Not that that’s anything surprisingly unusual – some days, I think I have holes in my shoes!

The main ingredient I’m loving is chocolate – indulged in at any given time of the day, because, you see, April, to me, is a month where all chocolate boundaries get thrown out the window. Lucky I’m on the first floor!

This month, you have my permission to eat chocolate for breakfast (who doesn’t dig a hot chocolate?), lunch (a little chocolate ball will help cleanse the palate) and dinner (skip the main and head straight to dessert), as well as a few midday snacks in-between

(maybe a choc o’clock brownie) . Our chocolate overload feature, page 26, will definitely entice your tastebuds into believing that there truly is only one food group.

Now, on a more serious note, and just between us, there’s actually more than one food group – there are five in total and, unfortunately, chocolate isn’t one of them. But protein is and, this month, to counteract all that chocolate, we also have seafood coming out our ears! We have the Easter seafood bonanza, page 14, that showcases a massive variety of sustainable seafood favourites, from oysters ( yes, please) to a dreamy creamy risotto that will have your heart spinning! And for a true family favourite that everyone will adore (and ask for more), see the fish cake feature, page 88.

Within the pages that follow, I’m more than confident that you, too, will find your own therapeutic connection with food. I still remember this fabulous quote from one of my all-time fave movies, Forrest

Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”