News
APRIL 2008
I am now selling some delicious new food items from British producers.
You can order these from me or buy them at a Demonstration Day.
I was so impressed by these products, I just had to buy some and now I use them in my cooking all the time.
Cornish Sea Salt Co is the only British sea salt harvested straight from ocean. The clearest, turquoise waters that boast a Grade A classification in terms of water purity. Just wide open seas... Next stop, America!
Rapeseed Oil has the lowest saturated fat of any culinary oil and less than half that of Olive Oil. In recent years Mediterranean produced Olive Oil has tended to overtake sunflower and vegetable oils in popularity and has been perceived as a healthy alternative. However Rapeseed Oil in fact naturally replicates a diet of low saturated fat found in olive oil and good essential omega oils normally obtained from fish. It....
- Contains the lowest saturated fat content of any oil - less than half that of Olive Oil.
- Has 10 times more Omega 3 than Olive Oil
- Is a good source of Vitamin E.
- High in monounsaturated fats
- Contains no artificial preservatives and is trans-fat and GM free
- Is suitable for a variety of diets – vegetarian, gluten-free, Kosher and Halal.
Other News...
In March 2007 I took a trip to Kolkata in India with my dear friend Margaret to help organise an Irish Food Festival! This was in aid of the street children of Kolkata and with the Irish Charity The Hope Foundation. Hope was founded by Maureen Forrest, one of the most incredible women I have ever met.
Recently The Hope Foundation has registerd in Britain and I have been asked to become a director. This is quite an honour for me. If you want to know anymore about Hope, or indeed donate some money please
click here for more information and to go to their website.
...or contact me directly.
Here are my thoughts on the trip and alongside some photographs of the children, literally before and after they are helped by these wonderful people who work with Hope.
"I met Margaret about four years ago while I was filming for BBC UK Food. One of my more memorable trips – although the whisky consumed may have hazed that memory a little!We kept in touch, visited each other regularly and are now the greatest of friends.
So when I received an email one morning with these few chosen words - ‘How would you like to go to Kolkata and organize an Irish Food Festival? – I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. If you know Margaret, this sort of random slightly mad email is quite normal!
So, recipes were written, ideas organized and we skipped continents to Kolkata the City of Joy.
Now, the City of Joy may well be its name. On arrival however, all five of my senses were deeply assaulted and it became for me the city of stench, extreme poverty, confusion, madness and desperation.
After I’d spent time there, on leaving it became the city of many layers – poverty, excessive wealth, huge industrial growth, denial, filth, beauty, gracious people and the place of my most recent love affair.
Everyone I have spoken to since my trip and who have experienced India in some way, say they too fell head over heals in love with the country. I don’t know how it happened. It just did. It crept up from behind.
So, we arrived.Fought and tried to respect the old fashioned traditions that keep women out of professional kitchens, so we could organize the food festival. Debated with two of the rudest food writers I have ever met – their denial of the poverty and their lack or interest in The Hope Foundation saddened me enormously.
We were driven in the Hope Ambulance around the city to see the work Hope do. We visited one of many unregistered slums – a sight that will stay with me until the day I die. No one should ever live like that. I saw many awful things, but the sight of ten children and four adults living in an eight foot square shambolic hut was just too much. Surrounded by hundreds of flies, truly disgusting filth and numerous diseases, I found it hard to comprehend that for these people there is absolutely no chance of ever escaping the misery. We are so lucky and we all need to occasionally stop what we are doing and remember that.
We visited the houses that Hope have bought and built. The schools where the children of the slums are being given the education they deserve. We met all the children helped by Hope.
The children. The reason we came.
These abandoned children, often raped and beaten, undeniably starved of love and food, are gathered up from the streets by Hope. They are then given unconditional love, clothes, warmth, cuddles, food, education and snuggly beds. They are the reason that Hope will keep going and why people will continue to give their love and time so generously. They are also the reason I will continue to go back to Kolkata and organize annual fund raising Irish Food Festivals with Margaret.
And what an excellent reason that is."
These three pictures are one of many I took of the children on the street. They literally live on a patch of pavement, that they call home. Vulnerable to many terrbile things.
This is a picture of the Boy's Home and below the boys. Gorgeous children, who when at play are just like any child from anywhere in the world. Little scallywags!
This little chap was very insistent that I take a photograph of him next to his bed - the first he has ever had.
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Maureen Forrest in the Blue sari, me in the middle and Margaret Browne on the right. This was taken at The Hope Ball, held in Kolkata on St Patricks Day to raise money and awareness for Hope
Margaret and I in our Saris. Securely pinned into our knickers!