Food file

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Powerhouse of energy

Eunice Power, one of the driving forces behind the Waterford Food Festival, appeared to have a clone over the weekend, as she kept popping up all over the place – giving a baking course at the Tannery Cookery School, looking after guests at her Powersfield House BB, and cooking up a giant paella for customers at the farmers’ market.

Power, who also runs a catering business, was one of many customers at the market stocking up on Triskel fresh goats’ cheese made by Anna Lévêque in Portlaw. Lévêque, who was named “2010 artisan of the year” by the Bridgestone Guides, had been having difficulty keeping up with demand for her cheese, but she now has more milk to work with, and is supplying Sheridan’s Cheeesemongers. Which is good news, as it’s the perfect cheese to use in Eunice Power’s goats’ cheese and apple dressing.

“At this time of the year, the addition of a few wild garlic leaves (two or three) to the dressing gives it a wilder flavour and a pretty green colour. The dressing is beautiful with purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus or as a dressing on a Baby Gem or Cos salad with spinach leaves and thin slices of Granny Smith apple. I use Crinnaghtaun brambly apple juice when making this, as it has a unique, bitter-sweet flavour, and it’s local,” she says.

Eunice Power’s goats’ cheese and apple dressing

100g mild creamy goats’ cheese

86ml apple juice

1 garlic clove chopped (or a few wild garlic leaves)

Maldon sea salt and pepper

Place the goats’ cheese, apple juice and garlic into a blender and whizz until combined. Season to taste, and chill until needed.

Sushi from locavores

One of the fastest-selling foods at the Waterford Food Festival farmers’ market was the sushi made by Madeleine Murray and Marie Carney of Pure Sushi in Kinsale, Co Cork, which was so popular that they were sold out by 2.30pm.

Carney, a solicitor, and Murray, an archaeologist, met two years ago, when both returned to Ireland after living abroad. As well as becoming great friends, they tried to come up with a business plan that would keep them gainfully employed. As they’re both obsessed with food (Murray once managed Liston’s deli in Dublin), there was a good chance that this was where their energies would be directed. Having spotted a gap in the market for sushi, they took Pure Sushi on the road, doing the festival circuit in Cork last summer, and haven’t looked back.

As well as making conventional sushi, nigiri and sashimi, they have some more unusual offerings, such as sushi rolls made with beetroot and organic goats’ cheese; Rosscarbery black pudding with apple and honey mustard, and smoked eel with rhubarb chutney. Garnishes include their own home-made pickles, including a lovely pink pickled radish with coriander seed, star anise and cider vinegar.

They have a stall at the Mahon Point farmers’ market in Cork on Thursdays, and at Kinsale food market on Tuesdays, where their sushi sells for €7 (any six pieces) and €10 (10 pieces). The pair are committed locavores. “If we can’t grow, produce or source it ourselves, we make sure we buy it from local people who can,” they say, and the provenance of their ingredients is impeccable. They also do outside catering, and run sushi-making parties in clients’ homes, supplying the ingredients and equipment as well as the know-how.

See puresushi.ie.

Book of the week

Our Daily Bread: A History of Barron's Bakeryby Roz Crowley, photographs by Arna Run Runarsdottir, £25

Barron’s Bakery has been supplying fresh bread in Cappoquin, Co Waterford since 1887. Esther Barron now runs the business with her husband Joe Prendergast, and she still uses the bakery’s original Scotch brick ovens. Roz Crowley interviewed more than 100 people associated with the bakery for this book, and the stories from family members, staff and customers make for fascinating reading. There are recipes, too, and it’s available from the bakery or online at barronsbakery.ie.

Boys on tour in Dungarvan

What happens when you put chefs Richard Corrigan, Mark Hix and Paul Flynn (left) in the kitchen together? General hilarity, quite a bit of alcohol consumption, and cracking good food.

Corrigan and Hix, major players on the London restaurant scene, signed up for a one-off "meet the chefs" dinner in Paul and Maire Flynn's Tannery Cookery School as part of the recent Waterford Food Festival – on the promise of a day's fishing on the Blackwater, and a few drinks. "I've kept my side of the contract," Flynn said, as his co-chefs downed a pre-dinner rhubarb Martini cocktail before introducing their dishes – bacalao with lobster from Corrigan, ox cheek braised in Black Rock stout from Flynn, and rhubarb and cider jelly from Hix – to the sell-out crowd who squeezed around the school's giant dining table, as well as filling another table in the demo kitchen. The Londoners brought their friend, Financial Timesfood writer and former chef Bill Knott along for the craic, and the fishing.

There was lots of banter with the guests, and a few not-for-repeating stories, including an insight into Hix and Corrigan’s antics at the Great British Menu finale in the British ambassador’s residence in Paris a couple of years ago – culminating in an all-night session, including a pitstop for whelks and mayo at 5am, before boarding the Eurostar for the return journey to London.

Food festival diary

If the Waterford Food Fair, with its cookery demos, foraging walks, bus tours to visit food producers, seaweed talks, and bustling farmers’ market, has given you an appetite for more food-related fun, mark these events in your diary: Sunday, May 15th – Carlow Food Heroes Festival, Step House Hotel, Borris, Co Carlow (programme details at stephousehotel.ie); Friday to Sunday, May 20th-22nd – Wexford Food Festival (wexfordfoodfestival.ie).