Food file

Compiled by MARIE-CLAIRE DIGBY

Taste of the sea

We’re surrounded by sea water, but we buy our salt from the UK and further afield. As you reach for those pricey Maldon crystals, look a little further along the shelf and you might see an Irish alternative. Aileen and Michael O’Neill have a fish farming business in Castletowbere, Co Cork, producing abalone for the export market, and since last year they have also been making Irish Atlantic sea salt, which is now available in some Superquinn and SuperValu branches and independent food stores.

Although the raw material is free, it’s a pricey business turning sea water into boxes of salt crystals ready for the table, hence the retail price of €4.99 for 250g. It takes a week to transform the sea water into flaky, white salt crystals, which are harvested by hand, dried and packaged. “I’ve been surprised by the level of local interest as I saw it as more of an export product,” Aileen says. She has also had interest from the US, Scandinavia and Germany.

WEBWATCH lillyhiggins.blogspot.com

How could I not have discovered this wonderful, stylish food blog until now? Lilly Higgins, sister of the comedian Maeve Higgins, is a Ballymaloe-trained cook and graphic artist whose blog is a visual and gastronomic delight.

She studied design for six years and gives her love of colour and pattern free rein in her exquisitely decorated cakes, which she then photographs on her extensive collection of antique and modern china. And the icing on the many cakes? She has just got a book deal from Gill Macmillan.

Book of the week

Recipes that Work– that's what we really want from a cook book, and it's also the title of Kevin Dundon's new volume of tried-and-tested favourites, published this week by Collins (£20/€24). Interestingly, ingredients are listed in metric, imperial and US measurements, and there's a handy list of UK/US cooking terms at the back that reveals, for instance, that what we know as Little Gem is known as Boston lettuce in the US. The promise is that these are recipes that you can confidently cook, even for a special occasion, and know that they'll work first time.

Chocaholics delight

A tour of the Coca-Cola bottling plant used to be one of the more popular junior school outings in Dublin – for the post-visit, buzzed-up kids, if not their minders. Now there’s Tayto Park in Ashbourne, Co Meath, with its promises of “bags of adventure”. And from next Monday, the new Butlers Chocolates visitor centre in Clonshaugh, Co Dublin will be offering 90-minute tours that include a film, a tour of the factory showing how the chocolates are made and packed, and a chance to complete the decorative work on a chocolate figure to take home, under the guidance of a chocolatier. There will also be copious product testing along the way, of course. The Chocolate Experience tour is open to chocaholics of all ages and costs €12.50, including the take-home goodies.The visitor centre is near the M50/M1 junction near the airport. See butlerschocolates.com.

mcdigby@irishtimes.com