HomeCooked Newsletter | May 2013

Hi guys!

Welcome to May, sunnier skies, longer evenings and best of all lots of wonderful new season produce!

This month it's all go with the new series of Kitchen Hero: HomeCooked, we are continuing to film before the show starts June 11th on RTÉ One.  We had a great week here in my own home kitchen cooking lots of baking recipes but it's also been so much fun to be out and about visiting festivals across Ireland.

The big news I've been waiting to tell you all, is that this month I'm launching my very own quarterly magazine online.  It's called Feast: A Dinner Journal and is a celebration of seasonal food which I've been creating alongside some very talented people over the last few weeks.  The first issue will be available online free for all on the 16th of May and you can sign up to be the first to recieve it here.

Kitchen Hero: Great Food For Less starts on Good Food Channel in the UK on Monday 13th of May with two back to back episodes at 7pm.  I'll be taking part in a twitter takeover right after the show on Monday night, answering questions via the Good Food Channel twitter page.

This month make sure to check out Delicious Magazine for my lemon and blueberry slices and Good Food Magazine for my Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches and recipes from the Kitchen Hero: Great Food For Less TV show.  This weekend the Irish Independent are also featuring the recipes from the food shoot myself and Kate Packwood from the Wild Flour Bakery put together, so make sure to pick up a copy.

Ballymaloe LitFest and a postcard from my mortifying/proud childhood…

Yes, I'm afraid to admit, that bespeckled boy with the tea towel on on his head, demonstrating how to make homemade pizza, is me... You may be wondering why the strange get up, but to me it was quite clear at the time, that with my jam jar glasses, I was a dead ringer for the Queen of Irish food, Darina Allen.  It made complete sense to set up my dad's video camera with the help of my best friend, dressed as Delia Smith, to present the forgotten episode of Darina's TV show "Simply Delicious: The Cook Off", complete with my best impression of Darina's dulcet tones.  Clearly it would have been a ratings winner!

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HomeCooked Cover Shoot!

Yesterday I was up very early to catch a flight to London to shoot the cover for my new cookbook.  I don't mind early mornings normally but a 4.30am start certainly has a bit of a sting in the tail.  A good nap on the flight over sorted me out and I was raring to go!  Martin and Lucy from Harper Collins design team had been planning and plotting cover concept designs over the last few weeks so it was great to see them finally come to life.  I was also very excited to be shooting with top photographer Myles New who has worked with Lorraine Pascale, Rick Stein, John Torode, Gordon Ramsey and many more. 

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