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Posts Tagged ‘Warm Snug Fat’

A post earlier in the week by Clare over at An American in Ireland set me thinking.  Clare was commenting on how the food blogging community in Ireland has blossomed over the past 3 years.  There have been so so many achievements by so many.  And how true that is.  However, it also struck me how bad we, Irish, are at praising each other.

We need to learn from our American cousins!

So here is my tribute to the Irish blogging scene.

As I wrote recently this blog was three years old on 14th October and we had a very happy birthday present indeed, nothing could beat winning the Best Lifestyle Blog Award!   Over the last three years I’ve met some lovely people via the blog, twitter and facebook…. some of whom have become what I reckon will be lifelong friends.  There really are some great people involved in the Irish blogging scene.

I volunteered to help collate the nominations in the recent Blog Awards Ireland.  Not too tasking a job really, just putting nominations into a spreadsheet…. but….. when you’re over a third of the way through and something happens to the memory stick and you loose everything you’ve entered!  Well there were rude words and lots of frustrated curses at the computer.   So it was back to the start!

And this is where those lovely blogging people came to my aid!  Thank you to Wendy over at My Chef At Home who had finished her entries so she came to my assistance, and between Wendy and help from my neighbour I got the list finished in time for the deadline.

However, I have to tell you one of the biggest distractions when collating all those blogs was having to have the discipline not to go and have a sneak look see.

Gosh, there are some brilliant blogs!  I want to share with you some great blogs I’ve come across.  Some are new to me and some I’ve been following for a while.  Some bloggers I’ve met, others I am looking forward to meeting someday.

We are a land of dreamers, writers and beautiful imagery…. most definitely a nation of Saints & Scholars!

The view from Cork Screw Hill

The view from Cork Screw Hill

For photography that will make you so hungry just looking at the images, it is no wonder they are regularly featured on the big food photography site Foodgawker.  Check out these three ladies… how they produce such amazing photos, considering that they lead busy lives with small children about!

Well done ladies…. I envy your patience to style the photographs so beautifully!

This next blog, is just truly stunning photographs of nature.  I am so envious of the photographs.  What beautiful imagery of this lovely country of ours.

For adventures in gardening and a great sharing of knowledge.  I am enjoying the fun, the recipes, and the learning with all these gardeners – some of whom I have never met.

I have been known to have the occasional rant here on this blog, so it is good to know there are others out there who like to rant too!  So here I’ll share with you a lady and gentleman who like to tell it like it is!

  • Maggie at Food Born & Bred writes so well about the way our food has, and is, evolving.
  • The curmudgeon over at Head Rambles…. who does his best to hide his soft side 🙂

So saving the best til last well done to all these ladies who have achieved so much.  You should all be so proud!

  • Colette at Cakes, Bakes and Other Bits… who got not 1 but 2 recipes printed in A Modern Irish Cookbook by Goodalls
  • Lily at A Mexican Cook in Ireland who this year has taken a stall at the Honest2Goodness market and is selling Mexican
    food on line! No excuses!
  • Lisa over at Nenagh Gal, who has just launched the most amazing on-line Isle Magazine
  • Lorna, Irish Farmerette, who despite being one of the busiest people I know, joined forces with two other great ladies and organised the Irish Blog Awards this year!
  • Mona (and Ron, aka The Chef) of WiseWords what with running a busy household, study, work and this year launched their book ‘The Chef & I’
  • Sharon of FoodFancies who despite all the talk of doom and gloom and recession – has gone for her dream and opened her own cafe

This is just a little snippet of the Irish blog scene.

I could keep going on here forever.  If I’ve missed you out, please don’t be insulted.

However, if you’d like to spread some lurve … why not tell us all about your favourite Irish blogs?

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The first/inaugural Galway Food Festival is taking place this weekend.  For weeks now we’ve been watching as the plans and agenda for the weekend has developed.

Then, of course, family stuff got in the way and we thought we wouldn’t be able to go!  Disappointed!

However, at the eleventh hour we got a chance…. family aren’t arriving until Sunday, so Saturday morning we had a quick look on line to see what was happening in Galway, and spotted two debates we wanted to attend.

Quick dash about and we were ready to head off.

The two ‘debates’ we wanted to attend were one on GM and the other was entitled The Role of Blogging and Social Media in Food Culture.

We arrived just in time for the GM debate, which wasn’t really a debate in that the organisers could not locate someone to come and argue the pro-GM side.  I wonder why?

Seamus Sheridan

Seamus Sheridan who is now the Green Party’s spokesperson on Agriculture gave his views on GM – putting forward that it is hard to be totally against GM when we are sitting in a first world country and if GM can produce a flood resistant rice that will feed millions in a third world country – have we the right to stop it?

He also put forward the argument that GM can be beneficial in the medical industry.

There were others that joined in the discussion, but as no-one introduced themselves, I cannot tell you who they were.  It was a very short period of time to discuss such a major issue, and some aspects of GM were skirted around.  It would have been good to have more hard facts discussed.

The bottom line for people seemed to be

  1. the ethical issue,
  2. the biodiversity issue,
  3. the ‘unknown’ facts.

The room was packed to the gills with people who, I believe, were already on the ‘no to gmo’ side, as a lot of nodding in agreement was going on.  Where will it all go from here?  I don’t know.  Will those who were there make their views heard?  I hope so.

Next up was the debate around ‘social media and blogging’.  The panel for this debate was made up of JP McMahon of Cava Restaurant,  bloggers Mona from Wisewords and Anne Marie from Warm&Snug&Fat and, finally, a chap called Richie – whose site I didn’t catch, but who encourages restaurants to use social media.

WarmSnugFat, Richie, WiseWords

The topics covered ranged from food/restaurant critiquing, Trip Advisor, dealing with negative comments, the role of blogging for restaurants and food producers, the ability to connect with suppliers and customers alike via social media.

There was very little interaction from the audience which was a pity, I felt.

If I could make suggestions to the Galway Food Festival committee for next year’s event, and I am sure there will be an event next year.

  • It might be nice for any speakers at these debates to be asked to introduce themselves before they make their point.
  • And in the case of the second debate I attended, it would have been convenient to put the names of the panel on the powerpoint with the names of the blogs/sites.  (There were whispered questions along the back row for such information 🙂 )

Once the debates were over it was time for some fun.

We managed to have a lovely chat with Mona, The Chef and the kids…. hearing all about tooth fairies and the fear of teeth not growing back!

Then it was time for a wander around the stalls and grab a quick (very late) lunch, so what better than some lovely sausages from Castlemine…. they were very delicious – almost as good as our own 🙂

Castlemine Farm Shop Sign

It was wonderful to see such vibrancy and a terrific buzz about Galway, and so many people out and about enjoying and talking about food.

Galway Food Festival

Don’t you just love this little table top bbqs?

Sunday was spent with family, and today, Easter Monday is a slow day!

Hope you’ve had a good Easter and enjoyed your weekend. 🙂

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