Swedish Summer and Boozy Bum Chicken…

It's been a little quiet on the blogging front for the last few days, but I have good reason! After a couple of crazy months, I can well and truly say I have switched my mind to the standby position.  We're spending some time in Gothenburg soaking up some Swedish sunshine and inspiration before work starts on the new book when I'm back.  It's given me a bit of time to work through the notebooks full of recipe ideas I've been writing over the last year and over the weekend I managed to whittle it down to a really solid list of tasty recipes.  The whole book writing process has always been a learning process and I think now I have a really good idea about how I want to write the next one.  In lots of ways there is a detachment between writing the recipes, testing the recipes, and shooting the photography for the recipes and so for this next book I want to combine all three and really give a sense of real life cooking as I work through the production process.  I'm planning on cooking and shooting everything chez moi, so the next few months I'm sure our kitchen is going to look like a bomb hit it! :)

Big Breakfast For A Big Week!

The excitement is definitely building at Chez Donal ahead of the show airing next week!  It's been a long time coming so it feels so weird to think that very first episode airs on Monday night.  For the last few days we have had some of Sofie's family over to stay so things have been fairly manic juggling entertaining, work, and a 2 day whirlwind trip to the south west of Ireland.  I tried to pick some nice little stops along the drive from Cork through to Killarney.  We had some really beautiful meals at The Fish Kitchen in Bantry Bay, Café Paradiso in Cork, and in particular and the real revelation for me was Chapter 40 in Killarney.  I'm fairly picky about making sure we end up in a nice restaurant, but I hadn't got a chance to pick a place for Killarney, so in the pouring rain we stumbled fairly bedraggled into Chapter 40 where we had a really fantastic meal.  It was top quality food with really fantastic flavours, for really decent prices. If you are down that way soon make sure to give it a try!

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My Paris Foodie Guide

My Parisian foodie adventure, you'll be glad to hear, went off without a hitch. Cooking for 500 outside one of the largest landmarks in the French capital for St. Patricks Day might sound like fun, but it's always nerve-wracking cooking for large numbers and there's a lot of prep work that has to be done beforehand to ensure everything goes to plan. Thankfully we had plenty of help from the amazing ladies at Bord Bia who organised the whole event and made sure everything ran smoothly. After all the work during the week, we had two days on Saturday and Sunday to take in the sights and sounds and, most importantly, eat everything in sight. I spent a week in Paris this time last year so I am fairly confident I can pass on some of my favourite foodie spots to visit. Paris really is a beautiful city which I fall in love with more and more every time. There is always something I haven't seen before to keep me interested. If you are planning a trip soon, these are just a few of my favourite places to eat, visit and indulge in.

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My NYC Foodie Guide

Following on from my NYC report last week, I couldn't move on with my life without telling you about the long list of places we visited during our stay. To be honest we didn't eat out at as much during the evenings because we were so full from all the eating we did during the day.  The main eateries I recommend here are great little lunch and breakfast stops which are ideal with the amount of walking you're likely to be doing. If you're a food lover and are planning a visit to the Big Apple, I hope this guide provides you with lots of great places to try.

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