weekend bites

This week I’ll be eating… crab. I’ll try to get hold of some whole ones because I love the brown meat from the main body even better than the sweet white meat of the claws. The claws are fiddly to pick (and I use a small hammer to get inside them) but there’s a great sense of achievement when the shell is fully cleared out and you can mix the two kinds of meat. I add black pepper and lemon juice at this stage, no need for salt. The annual charity auction at the Hospices de Beaune in Burgundy is one of the highlights of the French wine year. The 2017 sale took place last weekend and raised over €13 million for causes including brain research, a new record. One lot, of two barrels of Corton Grand Cru, sold for €420,000 or €700 per bottle. The buyer is said to be Maison Albert Bichot for a Chinese collector. Mary Conway, of Sligo, won the National Brown Bread Baking Competition at the Ploughing Championships. Her outstanding loaf is made with buttermilk, wholemeal flour, wheat bran, oat bran, wheatgerm, honey and cream and you can now buy it in Aldi’s 130 stores nationwide. Mary’s recipe is used by bakers Stapleton’s of Roscrea. I keep a loaf in the freezer so I can have a fresh slice with my boiled egg. While big brand beer still dominates the Irish market, craft brewing is powering ahead with market share moving from 0.6% in 2012 to 3% in 2017. This may not look like much but when you consider how the multinational brewers have fought tooth and nail against ‘real’ beer the achievement of our 72 craft breweries (there were only 15 in 2012) is amazing. I’m reminded that when Liam Lahart and the late Oliver Hughes launched pioneering craft brewing Porterhouse Group 20 years ago, people said it would never last.