weekend bites

This week I’ll be eating… our own sweetcorn, grown in the polytunnel and kept very well watered during the hot weather earlier in the summer. No corn is fresher than your own, plunged into boiling water only seconds after picking. Boiled for five minutes and served with butter and black pepper, it’s one of the best things you can eat. I also like it anointed with lime and chilli butter, wrapped in foil, and cooked on a barbecue for about 10 to 15 minutes.

I had a press release during the week promoting vegan ‘cheese’ and vegan ‘pesto’ and other animal-free products. It exhorted me to get excited about the fact that Madonna, Serena Williams and Lewis Hamilton have all taken the vegan route. Actually, I don’t care. It’s hard enough to get full nutrition on a vegan diet, and that’s before you consider how over-processed and chemical-laden so many vegan foods are. Healthy? You must be joking.

Food lovers will be flocking to the Airfield Estate Festival of Food next weekend, 8 and 9 September, in Dundrum. Entrance is free and there are no vouchers or even booking required for the myriad events taking place in this little bit of heaven, 38 acres to be precise, set in the south Dublin suburbs. There will also be a best in show competition, open to all, for homemade brown bread, homemade jam and hottest home-grown chilli. You can get a full list of what’s happening at airfield.ie

Last weekend’s Dalkey Lobster Festival was a roaring success, bigger and better than the five previous ones. Fellow restaurant critic Ernie Whalley and I had a risotto cookoff, both of using crab but in different ways. Mine was based on a weird and wonderful recipe by Paul Flynn that uses oriental flavours, even soya sauce and sesame oil. Ernie’s was absolutely classic and Italian. Our audience tasted both and voted and the result was a draw!