weekend bites

THIS week I’ll be eating… the first of my main crop potatoes and for the first year I’m trying the highly blight-resistant Sarpo Mira variety from Eastern Europe. Opinion is divided about the flavour so I’ll be doing so with some trepidation. They seem to have resisted both blight and slugs, so that’s a bonus. And they are a good size and pleasant rosy colour on the outside.

MOSSFIELD, one of my favourite cheeses in the world, hails from an organic farm in Co. Offaly and has just been given the Waitrose trophy for the best cheese inn the specialist section of the International Cheese Awards, held in Nantwich, Cheshire. It’s an intense Gouda-style cheese made from milk produced in pastures at the foot of the Slieve Bloom Mountains. See www.wmossfieldmossfield.ie for more details.

ONE of my favourite Dublin restaurants, Marcel’s, has moved from St Mary’s Road in Dublin 4 to what used to be Il Segreto on Merrion Row just of the Green. Giorgio Casari, formerly of Il Segreto, has been installed as manager. Otherwise, it’s the same menu, same chef and same very comfortable orange chairs. The main difference is the addition of a rather fine bar.

THE use of glyphosate pre-harvest to knock back the weed content of cereal crops appearss to be increasing. Considering this weedkiller’s possible e role as a carcinogen, , I’m moving to organic flour and porridge from now on. I suspect I won’t be alone.