weekend bites

This week I’ll be eating… the last of the wild mushrooms. It has seen fairly mild and they are still around in the woods but dwindling. I’ve been shaggy inkcaps growing in a local lawn (and resisted the temptation!). Winter chanterelles and the lovely charcoal burner (which I’ve only recently learned to identify) will keep going for the next fortnight or so. Remember, don’t eat any wild mushroom that you can’t definitely identify! Ireland has had no mushroom fatality for the past few years. Let’s keep it that way!

The 2019 edition of Wilson on Wine, the third annual guide to wines in Ireland, compiled by wine writer (and my TCD classmate) John Wilson, has just appeared and it’s packed with exciting suggestions as to what we should be drinking. It’s available in bookshops and good off-licences at €12.99. It’s the ideal stocking filler for wine lovers. The only wine to appear in all three editions, incidentally, is Aldi’s Crèmant du Jura (see Wines below).

Hugh Maguire, the Smokin’ Butcher of Ashbourne, Co Meath won Supreme Champion at the Great Taste Awards in London last year for his smoked black pudding. This year his dry sweet cured collar bacon achieved three stars and a golden fork at the same awards. Both products are superb, I can attest, and are now available from Avoca, Sheridan’s Cheese, SuperValu, Fallon & Byrne and selected Dunnes Stores. They also appear in Selfridge’s food hall in London. the smokinbutcher.com.

If you distil whiskey, you have to wait three years before you can sell it as whiskey. If you distil gin today (as a vast number of brands are now doing), you can sell it tomorrow. I wonder if I’m alone in thinking that many of the plethora of new gins on the market are rather cheekily priced. The latest one I’ve tasted is called Chinnery Dublin Gin and it’s very good indeed, but I can’t see myself spending €54.99 on a bottle of it. Or on any gin.