Lovely Lamb

In my food column this month for The Gloss magazine I write about Spring lamb and a time for learning.

New born lambs are appearing in the fields around our house. This happens just as my friends and neighbours bear the weary eyes of long nights in sheds with bawling ewes, or bottle feeding the unwanted or third in a triplet set in the kitchen.

The valley I live in is mountainy marginal land and has very few cattle anymore. Most of the sheep farms have consolidated into a remaining ten to twenty farmers with their own home farm and sheds, who rent extra land from families that have left farming. Close to us the Hogans, McKees and Keegan's of @waterfallfarm shop are in the thick of the lambing season. In a fickle marketplace it's a business with price rises and crashes like everything else. Sheep are also notoriously tricky to rear and I've witnessed myself the old adage - the first indication of illness in a sheep is mortality. Yet the farmers still stay up all night, both men and women, to lamb ewes, to get the newborn started on feeding and nurse the ones not thriving.

Lambing season here is something both myself and my children delight in. The squeals of delight in response to newly born lambs bucking and skipping on their first day out on grass say it all. It's a pity that as a foodstuff in Ireland we are eating less lamb and it's now purchased by mainly older consumers. I love lamb. I buy half a lamb from the farm across the lane every year and for me it tastes like home.

 

This Edible Life  March 2014

One of my Spring pleasures - holding a new born lamb is unfortunately contraindicated to eating one. Not only are they too cute with their little velvet muzzles, early lamb can have a jelly-like texture and is much better killed at about five months old. While the garden eases into Spring I´m still cooking plenty of dark cabbage and have successfully converted all cabbage sceptics with my fabulous Gnocci with Savoy cabbage and Wicklow Blue or fried off with chorizo and garlic for an easy soup with vegetable stock and cream.

Around Dublin I´ve fallen in love with The Green Bench cafe on Montague Street (as if those pesky Dublin 8-ers aren´t served with enough great spots for a quick lunch). The serve lovingly-made take out for at your desk or if you´re like me - on the run from one venue to the next.  Super moreish is their wrap of citrus marinated feta with avocado, olive tapenade and hummus.

Not far away on Stephen´s Street, P. macs is a more comfy version of the cocktail zinc bars populating the South William street area. There´s lampshades straight from your grandmothers, patchwork armchairs and if you don´t feel like wearing towering heels it’s cosy for a quiet drink in the snug and some decent pizza. Another dress-down hide out for early evening is open downstairs on Dawson street. FAATBAAT serves a multitrip of cuisines – everything from Japanese ramen dishes to Malaysian “Drunken Prawns”. Their Go Go Bar is what this place is all about though with great tunes and decent cocktails.

Always a hot social ticket, the best food producers in the country compete on the 12^th March for a gong from my own parish – the Irish Food Writers Guild. The awards will be hosted by Derry and Sally-Ann Clarke in the wonderful L´Ecrivain. We have some stunning food and drink entries, all Irish artisan-produced but I am sworn to secrecy. Follow the winners and recommendations from the day at twitter @foodguild.

 

No better time than Spring to sharpen cookery skills. To mark her new book The Extra Virgin Cookbook, Susan Jane White is hosting an evening of cooking and tasting at Fallon and Byrne on the 12^th. Countrywide, it´s great to see many people I admire in food offering their expertise. JP McMahon, Michelin-starred chef and owner of Aniar in Galway has day workshops this month in “Nose to Tail Eating” and “The Whole Hen”. Down in Thomastown the inspiring Mag Kirwan is holding classes in smoking at her Goatsbridge Trout Farm.

Close to the beautiful beach at Termonfeckin in County Louth, the Tasty Tart Tara Walker has classes in cooking fresh fish landed at nearby Clogherhead and Foods of the Middle East, timely with the huge popularity of Ottolenghi. If you have a few bob ditch Ottolenghi and go to Beirut, one of my favorite cities for food - figs, hummus fatteh, baba ghanoui… Or closer to home check out Silvena Rowe´s cooking in at Quince in London´s Mayfair Hotel and her gorgeous book Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume: Cuisine of the Eastern Mediterranean

Wild goat. Euthanise, rehome or shoot?

Goat, Wicklow

Here up in the mountains sometimes even domestic animals pose a problem. We live within five minutes by car to the Sally Gap - a wild Wicklow upland known for its wandering sheep and possible store of dead bodies which appear from time to time buried in deep bog. It's also a place of outstanding beauty but a site near enough to Dublin for people to think that driving up there with unwanted animals is a good idea. How wrong they are.

Less than three miles away from the main cross roads of tiny bog roads in the Sally Gap is our place. At the moment we are paying the price for again living in an environment where people sometimes feel a loose or unwanted pet doesn't cause a problem. This week it's a (probably once domesticated) billy goat with full horns. He is  stressed, confused, and making our life pretty much hell. On the lane outside our house he is now challenging cars, chasing sheep belonging to our next door farmer into wire fences and freaking the crap out of all animals in the area including "rescue and rehab" - our two re-homed horses and ponies, one of which nearly landed me in hospital today by knocking me over on the road in front of a car. He's 600 kilos. I'm not.

The Sally Gap Wicklow, Ireland

Ringing the Gardai isn't an option. I've done so and they've said "not our job love". As anyone knows living in an environment like this there are few people or agencies around to help you out. In the past I've collected loose and abandoned horses on roads in my own trailer and on my own time. One of them resulted in me getting personal threats and night time visitors at home. The Irish Horse Welfare Trust is brilliant at rescuing equines on limited resources and pursuing prosecutions for neglect and welfare abuses. But with animals that come between the livestock and pet categories it's much more difficult. Often the code is in the country - don't call anyone, shoot it and say nothing.

If loose animals are quiet, the SPCAs might collect if the animal is already penned but again in this area of Wicklow it's tricky .Wicklow SPCA due to dwindling funds cant afford to collect and look after animals like goats. The DSPCA, they sometimes pick up animals outside Dublin but it depends on the nature of the job. A loose dog or injured swan is one thing. An injured cow or dumped goat is another.

Sheep in the Wicklow uplands

In the meantime my neighbour wants to shoot the goat. With 400 pregnant ewes out on grass it isn't a good time to have them harassed or running loops round a 20 acre field as they were doing yesterday and possibly early aborting.

Lesson here is folks... and I know I don't have to stress this to anyone who reads this blog - do not buy animals you can't cope with once they are fully grown. That cute kid goat at a country fair will grow into a 60 pound guy that is full of territorial and sexually aggressive behaviour with full horns to boot. Unless he's in an environment with plenty of space and is free to behave in his herding and domineering way, this animal is a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. It's sad to reminisce, but at the last house we lived in near Kilcroney in Enniskerry, the dumped animal of choice was pot-bellied Vietnamese pigs (killed) and decapitated deer; presumably shot for trophies. There was such a pile of rotting animals on the lane at one point that I rang up the council and they replied "Yeah, that's what people are doing. Get used to it."

This evening I found said goat now in the field next to our kitchen. Tomorrow I will have to make a call on it. My local farmer will shoot it if I tell him, or else I can leave the animal to take its chances. As you can imagine these kind of issues come on top of real life trundling on. I'm trying to finish up my food column for a deadline this week, I'm writing script for a piece with Pat Kenny (RTE radio one) on Thursday and a lecture for an Taisce for Saturday on genetically modified foods. We've small children sick with the flu and one of the horses suffering near fatal colic. Fantastic!

I'll let you know how it goes, and in the meantime, gather together your Christmas ham recipes for a piece I'm doing. Glazes; honey, mixed spice, marmalade, jerk Caribbean? I need the best and most tastiest of suggestions! x

Avoca's new venture: high concept, well-executed and beautiful

In my part of the country the Avoca brand is a bit of a food institution. When news appeared that the Pratt family were opening a new branch of their food/lifestyles business in Monkstown, South Dublin it was greeted with much glee by all who enjoy decent grub. The new outlet, in an area perfectly pitched for its customers is sure to be as consistently busy (even in planet recession) as their other food shops and restaurants.

For my foreign readers here's a bit of background: Avoca Handweavers (which the chain was originally named) grew from a cafe and crafts shop at the Avoca woollen mill in the small village of the same name in rural Wicklow. The mill is still there, as is the shop and cafe, but in the last decade the Pratt family who bought the business have extended their homewares, food shops and cafes to outlets all around the country. The shops have become food and homewares meccas; a great stop for buying a quick gift, picking up a set of meringue nests for an emergency dinner or grabbing a chocolate cake to die for en route to a childrens party.

What's interesting about the new shop in Monkstown is that there is now fresh fruit, vegetables and meat on offer. As someone who lives sandwiched between the Enniskerry and Kilmacanogue outlets I often run in to grab a salami for a pasta dish, goats cheese or some lovely Aine Rudden chocolate made in Co. Cavan. But I cursed the fact that picking up veg or fresh meat at the same time wasn't an option.In the Pratt's new venture fresh vegetables are on offer, there's a beautiful cheese room, rotisserie Irish chicken and most exciting of all a new butcher shop outlet from Pat Whelan from Clonmel.

Pat is a great believer in local food, farms his own cattle and it's great to see his type of quality beef landing up in my neck of the woods. The range of veg is the Monkstown outlet is gorgeous; all kinds of exiting things but one thing I'd like to have seen more of was Irish produce. I know that if you

want courgettes in December you're not going to find them grown in Ireland but I think there is more local vegetables available then what they are stocking at present. This could be an issue of availability - sourcing Irish is often confined to particular volumes and of course price, but hopefully in the future we'll see more of our local vegetables on the shelves.

Research shows that even in the midst of recession consumers like buying Irish. I think retailers should exploit this more and remember that "Irish" and "local" conveys a halo affect onto everything around it - a fascinating dynamic often abused by the large supermarkets but used to great affect by Supervalu and smaller independent shops. What the Monkstown store has plenty of is Irish pork from small farmers and producers, Irish Chicken and of course Pat's meat.

This is premium food in a premium location. The restaurant in this outlet, named Salt is superb, and booking is recommended - as usual with any new Avoca venture it was out-the-door busy. This shop is not the sort of place many are going to do their weekly groceries. At the same time retail such as this is crucial in re-branding Irish food as contemporary, authentic and desirable.

Avoca food always delivers on taste. It's not cheap but I don't think good value is about something being cheap. Cheap food is a downwards spiral for all of us as it narrows our methods of producing food into a "lowest margin possible" morass that ultimately resembles factory farming.

It's funny for me to write about Avoca as I feel a strange vested interest towards the place. Several of my friends work in the Avoca shops and restaurants near to me. I frequently have work meetings there as it saves

people travelling up the godforsaken mountain roads to visit me and my kids are well familiar with me landing in them in the door for coffee and cake. I wish them the

best in their new shop. To a degree we all should be proud of what the Avoca brand has achieved. It's a successful re-imagining of what Irish food and Irish retail should be. It's high concept, well-executed and always a pleasure to visit. Keep up the good work x

Spring Lamb from farm to fork

From Farm to Fork: Sweetbank Farm, Wicklow
The Irish Times 15/5/2010





WORDS: SUZANNE CAMPBELL
PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAN BETSON

To stressed out city folk, organic farming may seem like an idyllic occupation, but as Co Wicklow farmer Debbie Johnston explains, it's not all home-baked pies and eco-glamour.

ON A SPRING day, when the white cuddly lambs are frolicking in the fields, you could be forgiven for thinking that farming is one of the nicest occupations on the planet. At Debbie and David Johnston’s farm in Newcastle, Co Wicklow, the scene is perfect. From cut-stone farm buildings, the couple go about their work, managing 90 head of cattle, a summer fruit farm and their biggest enterprise – more than 100 organic certified ewes. But though it may seem a bucolic idyll, the Johnstons have just finished lambing, and they have a more realistic take on things.

“Lambing!” says Debbie. “The BBC did a week of television shows on it and we were just laughing watching it. For us it’s hard work, we’re exhausted now that we’ve got to the end of it.” Their ewes began lambing in mid-February. “My husband, David, does all the work. To be honest, I’m really the support crew. He goes in and out of the sheds all night and makes sure that every ewe is doing okay. You could leave them on their own but he doesn’t take that risk.”
And it can be a risky business. Debbie showed me two adorable orphaned lambs whose mothers had died. “It does happen, you do everything you can to avoid it but every farm will have a couple this time of year.” These two are well-loved characters, climbing up the fence to see us, or more accurately, to see if there’s any chance of a feed. It’s no surprise that the antics of an orphaned lamb are a current YouTube sensation.

But having cute livestock doesn’t necessarily pay the bills. Over the past year many farmers have been weeping into their mugs of tea as milk prices fell to below the cost of production, and beef and grain incomes weren’t much better. Then winter set in, which we’re only just emerging from. “In a normal year you expect your grass to be growing by St Patrick’s Day,” Debbie says. “This year was like nothing we’d seen before. We had no grass, we had to use up stocks of feed and spent days breaking ice on water troughs, sliding around the yard and praying for the weather to change.”

Luckily, spring seems to have finally arrived and it’s with spring lamb that the Johnstons have carved out a niche business for themselves. They sell direct to customers who come to their farm to pick up a box containing a whole or half lamb during the months May to October. “We did many things over the years to diversify. The land had been in David’s family for four generations but he saw the writing on the wall in terms of farm incomes dropping and knew we could no longer rely on producing the same thing year after year.”

The Johnstons’ first innovation was growing summer fruits, something they are still involved in. They opened a farm shop which they ran successfully for 10 years. “It was really lovely but we found most of our customers were coming to the coffee shop and not really buying our produce. The reality is you have to be selling what you grow, and when we costed the time and effort to run the shop, we called it a day.”

At the moment, a mix of beef, summer fruits and organic lamb is working well. “You always have to be thinking on your feet with farming, and what we do is to offer top quality, grass-fed lamb at a really attractive price. Our product is up to 30 per cent cheaper than the supermarkets and selling direct is a way of controlling what we produce, all the way to the customer. We are not waiting for market fluctuations or depending on someone else to set the price.”
Debbie keeps a close eye on the business end of the farm and the minute something stops making money, “that’s when you change your strategy. It’s hard when there’s such a drive to make food cheaper, but cheap imported food is a false economy for all of us. After all, farming and food employ 300,000 people in Ireland.”

What keeps her doing what she’s doing when margins are so tight? “Sometimes you really wonder why you keep going,” she says with a laugh. “But I do really love it and I still get attached to the livestock, I even get a bit sad when animals are loaded into the trailer.”
Nevertheless, attachment to their lambs doesn’t stop her giving me her top cooking tips. “Keep it simple,” she advises. “The flavour is there, so you don’t need much seasoning. I like to butterfly the leg, stick in some sprigs of rosemary and roast it on the barbecue. Or if you’ve a few people coming, use the loin of the lamb, tie in some herbs and cloves of garlic, pop it into the oven and serve with some new potatoes.” Cute or not, now I want to start cooking.
The Johnstons’ lamb is available from their farm at Tiglin, Newcastle, Co Wicklow. A half lamb is €85 and a full lamb is €190. A half lamb cut to customers’ requirements is roughly the size of an average freezer shelf.
See sweetbankfarm.com; tel: 086-1730497

FROM FARM TO TABLE
Ring of Kerry Quality Lamb is a group of 27 farmers who sell their lambs direct. All lambs are matured for a minimum of seven days and cut to the customer’s specification. ringofkerryqualitylamb.ie.

Fieldstown Farm in North Co Dublin delivers half or whole lambs, butchered to your specific requirements, to addresses in the greater Dublin area (whole lamb minimum for delivery). Customers from further afield can collect their order. irishfood.ie.

Lambdirect.ie is a group of eight farmers from Mayo who farm, butcher and sell their own mountain and lowland lamb. They offer cuts packed in sealed trays ready for the oven or freezer. This summer they plan to offer a barbecue pack. Free local delivery once a week in their van. Contact: Ray Cawley, Shanvallyard, Tourmakeady, Co Mayo.

Doolin Farm Direct supplies local limestone-reared lamb direct to the consumer through box schemes, on-line orders and farmers’ markets. Contact Alan Nagle, tel: 086-4014132, doolinfarmdirect@gmail.com.

Comeragh Mountain Lamb in Waterford offer boxes of lamb; a full lamb includes legs, shoulders, cutlets, loin and gigot chops, and mince. Recipes included with every delivery. comeraghmountainlamb.ie.