Showing posts with label sheep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sheep. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Tom Crean Base Camp. Eat. Drink. Sleep

 Tom Crean Base Camp. Eat. Drink. Sleep.

Special delivery! That's the brewery van in the background.

The young sheep rush into their new ground and the words con brio come to mind as they dash hither and thither and investigate their new surroundings on a grassy slope near Kenmare.


And the same words could well be applied to the enterprise at the top of the town’s Main Street painted blue and known as the Tom Crean Base Camp. Aileen Crean O’Brien, grand-daughter of the legendary Antarctic explorer, leads a team than runs a B&B, a restaurant and a micro-brewery, all under the one roof.


Aileen on Carrauntoohil. Pic from Tom Crean Base Camp.



Aileen and her family seem to have inherited the determination, endurance and enterprise of her grandfather. Indeed, in 2016 a bunch of them set off for South Georgia to see at first hand what Tom had experienced in his third trip to the region (this with the explorer Shackleton). 



They certainly experienced the real thing and Aileen ended up with a broken leg and they had to wait to get to Chile to get that sorted. And, on her return, she didn’t sit back and take it easy but resumed her duties as head of the kitchen. Staff, we were told, gave her and her crutch a wide berth for a while!



Bill, in the brewery

Friends had told us that Aileen is an accomplished cook, having learned the ropes in the kitchen at the town’s famous Park Hotel under the guidance of Michelin head chef Matt d’Arcy. They later married and opened their own restaurant but Matt’s untimely death meant Aileen had to leave the business while she raised her young family. She came back in 2009 and refurbished and renamed the restaurant and accommodation in honour of her grandfather. And it keeps expanding.



The latest enterprise is their micro brewery and that was our first visit on what turned out to be quite a day in Kenmare. We had booked our tour for 3.00pm and met our guide Bill Sheppard who co-founded the brewery with Aileen in 2019. The couple had met during one of her trips to India and they married earlier this year.


Bill was born in Chester in the northwest of England. He worked as a fire fighter in the London Fire Brigade and later graduated from Chester University with a degree in Archaeology.  Now he has retrained as a brewer and is turning out quite a range of Tom Crean beers, everything from the 1% Last man Standing to the Six Magpies Stout with lots of ales (pale and red and IPA) in between.


Most of the sales are direct from their premises and he also delivers around the town pushing his trusty sack-truck. But they do have a van. After all they have customers in other Kerry towns including, appropriately, Tom Crean’s birthplace of Annascaul. 


As Bill told us the story behind the brewery, we sipped from a number of the beers, including the St Bridget’s Lager; the saint was a brewer herself. Druid’s, the wheat beer, “celebrates the landscape” and another new beer, Kerry Surf & Turf, is a tribute to land and the sea. He reckons his 6 Magpie Stout is as good as any around and Aileen uses it in one of her beef pies.

Fish Pie


The cafĂ© here is a daytime venture, understandable as they also do B& B here and the day is long enough. So, from 9.00am to 4.00pm, you may have breakfast and lunch. After that, up to 6.00pm or so, there’s pizzas and a few specials as well. And all of this, at the time of writing, is in an improvised outdoor setting in the yard alongside the little brewery. Outdoor yes but well covered; it lashed when we dined after the tour and, while the place is airy enough, not a drop got through! Suppliers are all local and you can guess where the beer comes from! 


The highlight for me was “Star Seafoods Gratin” (Scallop shell, piped with mash, cod, salmon, mussels, vegges, seafood sauce, Cheddar Cheese, and Billy’s Mixed organic leaves, with fries), all in all a superb fish pie! CL meanwhile was quiet enough, concentrating on her very tasty Fish Cakes with Pineapple Salsa, Chips and Salad.  No shortage of fish in those cakes. By coincidence, Star Seafoods are a local Kenmare firm and we get quite a few deliveries from them here in Cork city, indeed, I saw them selling fish in Blarney yesterday, a very efficient outfit indeed. 

Fish Cakes


Both the starters were excellent as well: the Panko Coated Prawns (sweet chilli dip with Billy’s organic mixed leaves in a honey and mustard dressing) and the BBQ Chicken Wings (Indian Mint Dip - low fat Greek style yogurt with chilli and mixed organic leaves).

Newcomers, the Bonane Babes



Aileen, after her shift in the kitchen, then came out for a chat and that brings me back to the sheep. “Big day tomorrow getting our sheep for my front garden.  We finally got a herd number,” she told us.  “We produce our own electricity (P.V. panels provided by local firm Pro-Solar). and use the spent grain for dog biscuits (customers' dogs benefitted!) and muffins.  We will be able to feed the sheep the spent grain now and, later on, sell the lamb in the restaurant.  We are also awaiting our number for pigs and will do the same with them.  Really excited about it all.” The sheep, two boys and two girls, are settling in well and are already known as the Bonane Babes.


Quite an enterprise going on here. Quite a woman. Think her grandfather would be very proud of what Aileen and the family have accomplished here. And they’re are not finished yet!


Also on this trip: Three Days in Kerry, from Dingle to Kenmare. Check out the sights, the food, the hotels and B&Bs here.

Tour de Munster at the Base Camp last month. Pic from Tom Crean Base Camp.




Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Walking in Knockadoon

Walking in Knockadoon
Looking west towards Ballycotton. The tower is one of Ireland’s Napoleonic-era signal towers. There is a restored
tower near the Old Head of Kinsale. Walked here again on Wednesday 18th Sep 2019.
To get to Knockadoon and this lovely walk:
If coming from the east, via Youghal, follow the main Cork road. Turn left when you see the Ballymacoda sign and then turn left in Ballymacoda itself. If coming from Cork city, turn right when you see the Ballymacoda sign. There is an alternative when coming from the city. Turn right at the lights in Castlemartyr and then turn left in Ladysbridge - there is a sign there for Ballymacoda. Enjoy this fabulous walk in East Cork.
Still looking west. Ballycotton is in the distant haze.

The islands and lighthouse of Ballycotton


Ballycotton

Looking east to Youghal, its lighthouse and the mouth of the Blackwater.

That old signal tower.

Bales of straw

The signal tower again

Bales of straw in the fields

Flowers have faded. Now it's all about survival. Get those seeds out there for 2020.

The sky here is often criss-crossed with jet trails. But Wednesday (18.09.2019) was so fine that the
vapour vanished quickly in the dry atmosphere; the trails didn't last long.

Nearing the end of the western part.


Sheep here (and below) graze above the cliffs


Capel Island, also below, is at the eastern side (where you start the walk)






Monday, November 5, 2018

Taste of the Week. Velvet Cloud's Rockfield Sheeps Cheese

Taste of the Week
Velvet Cloud's Rockfield Sheeps Cheese
Aisling and Michael of Velvet Cloud

Mayo's Velvet Cloud are best known for their superb sheeps milk yogurts. It seemed that quite a few Irish chefs (including Martina Cronin at Blarney's Square) were just waiting for the product.

Gemma Murphy's use of it at Bellini's in the Maryborough Hotel was one delicious example. Her Warm Irish Carrot Salad with Charred Baby Gem, Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Yoghurt, Sesame, Lime and Honey Dressing was sublime and those carrots with that dressing were incredibly sweet. 

And now those same chefs are getting into Velvet Cloud's Rockfield cheese, also made from sheeps milk. It is a hard cheese. I was expecting something mild, a bit like the Basque cheeses. This Irish cheese though is different, a superb creaminess, a sweet nuttiness and then that sharp kick. So you can see why the chefs could get creative with it.

I met Michael and Aisling, the couple behind Velvet Cloud, in Cork a few weeks back and they are very happy about the way the cheese has been received. The cream coloured interior of this cheese becomes firmer and darker as the maturing period is extended and the flavour becomes nuttier. Supply of our Taste of the Week is fairly limited this year and Cork buyers can find it in On the Pigs Back. Should be more of it available next year and probably more stockists as well.

Had my few paragraphs above written when I saw this weekend Facebook post by Velvet Cloud:
This is unreal!! The first awards we have entered it into and Rockfield by Velvet Cloud semi hard sheep's milk cheese has won SILVER at the WORLD Cheese awards in Bergen Norway this weekend !!!. So proud of our senior shepherd and cheese maker Michael, very few know how hard he has worked and he so deserves this recognition.

Congratulations!!!!