Food

Walk this way: new food tour of Stoneybatter

Food File: Try a walking food tour in Dublin 7, a fermentation workshop and celebrate with a Dalkey shop

Lilliput Stores, one of a number of stops on a new walking food tour of the Stoneybatter neighbourhood in Dublin 7. Photograph: Eric Luke

Marie Claire Digby
Fri Mar 31 2017 - 08:00

Best foot forward

Fab Food Trails, which has been guiding visitors and locals alike around Dublin and Cork’s culinary gems for the past nine years, has launched a new series of neighbourhood walks. The first is set in the hip Stoneybatter area, with trails in the Liberties and in the Camden/Aungier/Richmond Street area currently in development.

The Stoneybatter walk, which will take in a selection of local food and drink businesses including Love Supreme, Proper Order, Bí Urban, Lilliput Stores Cotto and Cowtown, launches officially on April 15th. It runs from 1.30pm to 4pm and the €55 fee includes seven or eight generous tastings along the way. fabfoodtrails.ie

Pamela Cooney in On the Grapevine in Dalkey: celebrating 18 years in business, the shop is offering 18 wines at the price they were selling for when they first opened on April 1st, 1999. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Wild things

Fermentation may be trendy now, but April Danann has been experimenting with wild fermentation for more than a decade from her base in west Cork, overlooking Roaring Water Bay.

“No one told me it was almost impossible to capture wild yeast,” Danann says, reflecting on how she created her first “symbiotic colony of natural bacteria and wild yeast” by hanging glass jars containing molasses on a strip of brown paper at various locations in her garden. After 30 days the jars had liquid in them that smelled like vinegar.

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“I was able to start creating a range of fermented products just from this one small batch of wild yeast. I simply applied what I knew in science and recreated it in nature. I am a true believer in the power of fermented foods to feed the gut, fix it and create a healthy environment for the good bacteria we need to digest our food properly and maintain good health physically and mentally.”

On Thursday, April 6th, she will be doing a wild fermentation workshop at the Crawford Gallery Café in Cork. Participants will learn the basics of several methods of fermenting foods, taste lots of fermented foods including sourdough, sauerkraut, ginger-bugs, herbal-infused apple cider vinegars and kombucha, and take home their own sourdough starter. Tickets are €75 and places can be booked online at aprildanann.com.

Wine at 1999 prices

The On The Grapevine Wine Bar and Shop in Dalkey is selling wine at 1999 prices, from today until April 8th. This is not a joke. Gabriel and Pamela Cooney are celebrating 18 years in business in the south Co Dublin village by offering 18 of their most popular wines at the price they were selling for when they first opened the doors on April 1st, 1999.

For example, Zenato Ripasso will be on sale for €12.68 (normal price €24.95), and Lawsons Dry Hills Sauvignon Blanc will have a price tag of €12.68 instead of €21.95.