{"id":188957,"date":"2025-12-13T02:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T02:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/188957\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T02:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T02:11:08","slug":"ill-do-the-usual-shop-but-i-try-to-shop-locally-and-seasonally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/188957\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ll do the usual shop but I\u2019 try to shop locally and seasonally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ll get up around 8am and the first thing I\u2019ll do is make a coffee. I like my coffee, so I\u2019ll buy nice coffee everywhere I go and my family and friends buy me coffee as gifts. I\u2019ll take our dog Buddy for a walk in Tourmakeady Woods \u2014 a fabulous loop walk with a waterfall about four minutes from my home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">09.30<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I\u2019ll usually do the local parkrun or I\u2019ll volunteer at it. It\u2019s amazing that we have this parkrun so near my home because the area has a tiny population of around 1,000 or 1,200 people at any given time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I\u2019ll usually walk or run it or be involved as a volunteer. My kids are into running and athletics, so that got me into it but I also like the fact that it gets me out and gives structure to Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4891556_11_articleinline_Kathleen_20Flavin_20Author_20Photo_20_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Kathleen Flavin, head chef Foxford\" title=\"Kathleen Flavin, head chef Foxford\" class=\"card-img\"\/>Kathleen Flavin, head chef Foxford<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">10.30<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A few of us will go for a coffee at the local coffee van, Caife Glas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">11.00<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I\u2019ll head home and have some breakfast. I don\u2019t overthink it \u2014 it\u2019ll be granola or poached eggs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">11.45<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">My kids are involved in a local swimming club, so I will drop them off and then head off to do the shopping.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">13.00<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I\u2019ll do the usual supermarket shop that everyone does, but I\u2019ll try to shop as locally and as seasonally as possible. We are lucky that my mother, who lives next door, is a fabulous gardener and grower, so we get fresh vegetables from her throughout the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I\u2019ve a couple of apple trees which are great at this time of year and I always try to get to the local butcher. I\u2019m lucky too that I have access to all the lovely jams and chutneys on the Foxford shelves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">If I wasn\u2019t at home on a Saturday I\u2019d be anywhere that has an amazing food market. I was recently in Madeira with my sisters and visited the most incredible food market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">15.00<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I\u2019ll collect the teenagers and then drive back to the house where we\u2019ll start thinking about preparing dinner. At this time of year, we\u2019ll probably have a curry or beef tacos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">18.00<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">If I have people coming over for dinner, I\u2019ll marinate a piece of meat or fish and grill it and have lots of seasonal salads on the table so people can help themselves, have a glass or two of wine and a chat. I have four sisters and two brothers, so when people come to visit, it tends to be a big gathering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            Everything in the new book is designed to be simple and seasonal.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A lot of the recipes are made from one seasonal ingredient \u2013 say, beetroot, that is really beautiful at a particular time of year. For autumn and winter, there are a lot of lovely recipes for soups and then there are recipes for things like power balls that you can keep in the freezer and have with a cup of coffee or tea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The salads in the book are the most asked for things in the Foxford Cafe. You can make a full meal of a frittata, salads and a nice bread or make aspects of it \u2013 everything in the book has been on the menu in some form or other. Everything is tried and tested and the whole concept is that you\u2019re bringing a taste of the Foxford Cafe home. I was diagnosed with coeliac disease just five years ago which has probably influenced my recipes a bit, but I always had a lot of coeliac-friendly recipes on the menu at Foxford \u2013 from fish cakes to sweet treats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">20.00<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In general, as the week has been so busy, we tend to stay at home on a Saturday night. If we were going out we might go to Bar One in Castlebar or to Kenny\u2019s Bar in Ballintubber.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">We are board game geeks, so we might play a board game after dinner \u2013 usually Catan or Ticket to Ride.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">22.00<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Everyone will head to their separate quarters to watch their own thing as we all have different tastes. People always ask me if I watch food shows on television, but I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t need to be watching Masterchef after a week in the kitchen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">23.00<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I enjoy reading and will read anything and everything. I recently re-read the entire Harry Potter series as well as  No One Saw a Thing by Andrea Mara and  The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Kathleen Flavin has been head chef at the Foxford Cafe since 2010. She trained as a chef in GMIT Galway and has spent over 25 years working in commercial kitchens, from five-star hotels to fine dining restaurants. Her first book FOXFORD Cafe Cookbook is available in all good bookshops and from  <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/foxford.com\">foxford.com<\/a>, \u20ac24.95<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ll get up around 8am and the first thing I\u2019ll do is make a coffee. I like my&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[86271,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-188957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-my-saturday","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}