Food festival with a difference pops up in Cork city

A food festival quite unlike any other in Ireland kicks off in Cork today, and runs until Sunday evening. Design POP fuses art and design and food, and is based at the Crawford Art gallery, the Glucksman Gallery and Thompson House, as well as six temporary pavilions scattered across the city.

For those interested in the food strand, there are some really excellent events coming up. In addition, there will be a food market at Thompson House throughout the weekend, with vendors including Loving Salads, Frank Hederman, Basil and Cork Coffee Roasters, and Taste Cork will be doing tasting sessions there too (Friday and Saturday, 5-7pm ; Sunday, noon-2pm).

Thompson House on McCurtain Street is the headquarters for the food events and at 3pm tomorrow, you can listen to a panel discussion on The Importance of Process in Branding and Packaging with food entrepreneur Michelle Darmody of Cake Cafe; Stonewall Cider founder Daniel Emerson, Caroline Workman of Frank Hederman smokery, and Glenilen Farm's Alan Kingston.

Charcuterie expert Fingal Ferguson and designer Sam Gleeson share a passion for making beautiful knives, and they will be joining forces for a talk about that and the process behind it, at the same venue at 5.15pm on Saturday.

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On Sunday afternoon, Michelin-starred chef Takashi Miyazaki has two events at Thompson House. He will speak about his second restaurant, Ichigo Ichie, at 2pm and following that will join a panel including Ballymaloe Cookery School tutor and food writer Rory O'Connell and Paradiso restaurant owner Denis Cotter, for a panel discussion on Form, Function and Fresh produce.

Earlier on Sunday, at 1.15pm, you can join Irish Times columnist Lilly Higgins for a discussion about her work as a food writer, photographer, blogger and chef.

The full schedule of design and food events is online at designpop.ie.