TasteFest Cork

Thursday marked the beginning of ‘TasteFest Cork’ a spectacular food festival featuring 15 of Cork’s top restaurants and their most popular menu items, loads of locally produced dairy products, from cream and cheeses to ice cream, cheesecakes and panna cotta. There were also local jams, relishes, sweets, meats, and pastries. You could even relax with a professional massage. First, I must say that the festival was brilliant! We had a great time, we spent several hours perusing the stalls, sampling delicious goodies, and watching demonstrations from celebrity chefs.

Toffee and Marshmallow Cheesecake with Crackling Praline
from Electric.

We were delighted with all of the free samples from the exhibitors, we sampled several varieties of handcrafted Irish Cheddar from Old Irish Creamery. We had previously purchased the Irish Whiskey Cheddar from our local supermarket, and we thought it was delightful, so we were eager to try their other varieties. They were all amazing, but we ended up narrowing our selection to three, Oak Smoked Cheddar, (because my husband goes nuts for anything smoked!) Vintage Red Cheddar, and our favourite Garlic and Herbs Cheddar. We sampled some delicious ham from Carroll’s. We also sampled yoghurt, and the most amazing vanilla ice cream from Glenilen Farm. We had loads more but those were my favourites!

Meringue and Cream with Organic West Cork Strawberries
from Cornstore.

As for the restaurants, the best (in my opinion) were the Spicy Chicken Wings from Boardwalk Bar & Grill, and the Fish and Chips (which happened to be my first experience with fish and chips…I have never really been a fish person) from Hayfield Manor. For dessert, which may or may not have been consumed before our entrees, my absolute favourite, and the thing I cannot wait to try to recreate was the Meringue and Cream with Organic West Cork Strawberries from Cornstore. However, in a close second for my favourite dish was the Toffee and Marshmallow Cheesecake with Crackling Praline from Electric

We also enjoyed a lovely cooking demonstration by Rachel Allen. I was simply delighted to watch her cook! I have tried a few of her recipes and have been amazed by the results, and she was so lovely in person! It was definitely one of the highlights. She made pan fried mackerel, panzanella, a bean and bacon salad, chocolate crème brulee, and a strawberry flirtini, The festival also had other demonstrations by some of Ireland’s top chefs. One of which I was extremely disappointed to have missed was Benoit Lorge from Lorge Chocolatier.

Overall TasteFest Cork had a great atmosphere, gorgeous food, and brilliant cooking demos. I do have to say the ticket price was a bit much, and the ‘Corkers’ was kind of a pain but in general the experience was fantastic!

Tantrums in Tesco...

Tantrums in Tesco…

Cooking in another country can be extremely over-whelming. So you can imagine having lived here for only a week or so and browsing through recipes online (or getting them from mom) then making the journey to the supermarket only to discover they don’t have the ingredient(s) you need. This concept caused many tears and tantrums, specifically in the baking aisle of my local Tesco and Dunnes stores. I never stopped to think about the many things that are available in the states that aren’t available here. So I would make the trip back home completely empty handed, depressed and homesick! I decided that Google was probably one of the best resources available to me at the time, so I started searching for things, and I discovered that many of the things I had been looking for, had been right under my nose the whole time, I just never realized that it was referred to by a different name here! I have compiled a list of many of the things that I had trouble with over the course of the past year, with hopes that it will help some one out there from having to go through the same thing I went through.

US Name	British Equivalent
Baking Soda	Bread Soda
Cornstarch	Cornflour
All-Purpose Flour	Plain Flour
Bread Flour	Strong Flour
Confectioner's (Powdered) Sugar	Icing Sugar
Raw Sugar	Brown Sugar (Demerera or Muscavado)*
Rutabaga	Swede
Zucchini	Courgette
Eggplant	Aubergine
Hamburger	Beef Mince
Swiss Cheese	Emmental
'American' Cheese	Singles
Heavy Cream	Double Cream
Steak Sauce (ie: A1, Heinz 57 etc.)	Brown Sauce
Cookies	Biscuits
Chips	Crisps
Candy	Sweets
Pudding	Custard
Jello (Gelatin)	Jelly**
Chicken Fingers (Tenders)	Chicken Goujons (Dippers)
French Fries	Chips
Ice Pops (Popsicles or Ice Cream Bars	Ice Lollies
Diapers	Nappies
Trash Bags	Bin LIners
Saran Wrap	Cling Film
Hot Cocoa Mix	Drinking Chocolate
Coffee Creamer	Whitener
Cilantro	Coriander
Buns (burger or hotdog)	Baps
Parchment Paper	Baking Paper+
Bandages (Band-aids)	Plasters
Scotch Tape	Sellotape

*Brown (Demerera or Muscovado Sugar) is more closely related to our ‘Raw’ sugar in the states, but there is also Light and Dark Soft brown sugar in Ireland & the UK that is the same as Brown Sugar in the states.
**Jelly in Ireland and the UK is typically found in a concentrated block of gelatin, but the directions are very similar to those of Jello. However, a powder form of gelatin is available, but it is typically of the sugar-free variety.
+Baking paper can also be substituted for wax paper, which is usually only available in specialty shops.

Now, there are some things that I wasn’t able to find an exact match for, so here are some of the items that I have experimented with that work well with making American recipes. I have yet to find tomato sauce, but what I have found that works well is Passata. Passata is made from tomatoes that have been pureed and sieved to remove skin and seeds. It is typically sold in jars and can be smooth or chunky depending on the sieving process. Along those lines, instead of tomato paste in most of my recipes, I substitute tomato puree, which is usually sold in small tins or tubes much like tomato paste in the states. Another thing that we have discovered is Jacobs Mediterranean Lightly Salted are similar to saltine crackers we would have in the states. If you’re looking for corn syrup…look no further than Golden Syrup, it’s not exactly the same, but it has a sweet taste and a thick viscous consistency, which makes it a perfect substitute for corn syrup. There are way too many examples for me to list here, but hopefully this will be enough to get you started in the kitchen! And if you are completely desperate for American Foods, Amazon has a variety of delicious American treats available here.

Making the Transition...

Ok...So your plane has finally arrived in Cork, you've got your baggage...NOW WHAT?!?!?! Well my first suggestion, if you haven't already, would be find a place to live. This can be a very difficult task indeed. A few things to keep in mind, most flats come fully furnished, with pretty much everything you need, now in some cases you will want to purchase your own things, as was the case with our first flat. It was a nice 2 bedroom flat at a reasonable price, located just north of the River Lee, but some of the things that were provided by the landlord, were unattractive at best. The dishes and pots and pans were practically unusable, so we did chose to pack up theirs and purchase our own.

A great resource for browsing available flats anywhere in Ireland is Daft.ie. This website is fairly user-friendly and straightforward. Select your location and amenities and search through hundreds of listings. When you find something that looks promising, ring them right away and setup a viewing with the letting agency. Be sure to check this site often, as it is constantly updated with newly listed properties. Once you have arranged a viewing with the agency, now's a good time to think about questions you have about the property. For example; what Internet providers are available in the area? Is the building gas? Electric? Or both? Is refuse included in the rent? If not, how much is it? Try to think of the most basic things that you use or do in your day-to-day life that you may have questions about. Be sure to write down your questions so you don't forget them. Also, when you're viewing the flat, you can ask the agent if the rent is negotiable (the worst thing that will happen is they will say no).

As an American moving to another country, here are some of the things that annoyed me about properties in Ireland. In most properties, the amount of storage space is extremely limited; primarily you will have a few cupboards in the kitchen, and the space under the bed, a property with closets is very rare, most likely you will have a built-in wardrobe with one or two bars for hanging clothes and one or two shelves. Throughout your search, you will probably never find a property that has electrical outlets in the bathroom. According to some online research and the experiences of a few friends; it is illegal to have an electrical socket in the bathroom. They say it is a safety precaution, but to me it's just a minor irritant. This can be extremely difficult to get used to, you may have to find an outlet in the corridor and place a small table and mirror (space permitting) for hair dryers, straighteners, curling irons etc.

All in all, living in Ireland is an AMAZING experience, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. The people are so friendly, the countryside is gorgeous, and there is a pub on almost every corner...what more could you possibly want? So if you're moving to Cork, or anywhere in Ireland, try to keep an open mind, it's an adventure, a brilliant chapter in your book of life. Try to maintain a positive attitude while your making the transition, trust me it will be difficult at times, you will have bad days, but try to keep your head up and it will really make your transition much easier and much more enjoyable!