Conor’s Bandon Blog

I’m always happy to see local initiatives get an online presence to extend their reach. My attempt to create a blog for Bandon Farmer’s Market three years ago fell flat due to my lack of consultation with the standholders to ensure buy-in. So it is great to see the new site launch with all the details you need. Check it out here and don’t forget it is on every Saturday morning.

I love bread. Can’t put it any more simply than that. So when I hear that someone who lives just up the road from me is now making craft and organic breads and they are selling them at the Bandon Farmer’s Market every Saturday, well that make me very very happy.

Check out the alphaomega blog for a list of their current products. I’ll be checking out the bread.

I set-up the Bandon Farmer’s Market Blog quite a while back. Progress has been slow with getting vendors to use it and I think this is mainly due to them not being familiar at all with [a] blogging and [b] the idea that they can write something and it appears immediately. I’ve learned a lot in trying to get one or two people set up on it. The main lesson was that if you are not web-savvy, many things which seem obvious to me can actually be insurmountable hurdles to others.

I set the blog up on wordpress.com but to be honest, Matt, Donncha and the boys need to make the whole sign-up process far more slick and user-friendly for non-techies. Simple things like the Terms and Conditions page threw some people. I never read those pages and always just tick the box but some users were clicking on the link, getting freaked out by the legalese and not going any further. The whole group blog sign-up is just wayyy to clunky for non-techies.

In any case, we should have Di Curtin, one of the organisers, motoring on it very soon. Anthony from Ummera has been the main contributor to date and Cork Coffee Roasters have signed up but not posted yet. I hope bit by bit that the other vendors start making use of it.

Check it out and subscribe to the RSS feed or email updates if you want to keep abreast of what’s happening in the market. I encourage all readers of the blog to post comments and questions on it to extend the conversation beyond Saturday mornings!

If you want to try out the world of blogging, I highly recommend the new free Windows Live Writer tool for creating your content. It works with almost any blogging site. Check out WordPress.com to get an actual blog (also free). One of the main developers is from Cork you know!

Just to show one of the neat things that Live Writer can do, I was able to insert this map of Bandon with a few simple clicks.

tags: Windows+Live+Writer, WordPress.com

Do make it down if you haven’t been before or haven’t been in a while. There are a bunch of new great stalls.

Julian from Bubble Brothers also pointed out in a comment on the Ummera Blog that there will be wine tasting in Urru on Saturday too. So maybe wander down there after the market and check it out.

tags: Bandon+Farmer’s+Market, Ummera, Urru, Bubble+Brothers

I finally made it down to the market last week after missing three in a row. A lot of the usual stalls were missing presumably due to holidays etc and it was a quick dash and grab by Fionn, Sibéal and I.

More stunning steaks from Aherns, some interesting and tasty Portuguese salt from Ummera, some veg from the veg man and some brot from the  Baking Emporium in Dunmanway and I was done.

It struck me that it may be worthwhile for the organisers to do a few surveys at the market. I’d love to know some facts like:

• Are you very local, local, passing through or a tourist?
• Is this your first visit?
• How many times have you been here?
• Are you regular?
• Will you be back?
• What do you buy?
• What are you favourite aspects of the market?
• What are your least favourite aspects?
• What is it missing?
• How often would you like to see the market happen?

For me, I think the market is superb but there is a definite tendency to the high end of things. I would love to see more basic produce suppliers there like the veg man but selling at supermarket cost or below (due to the lack of a middleman).

I’ll post the next set of dates for the market when I find them out. I didn’t know a few of the recent ones were happening until the day before. All in all it has been a great few months for the market and I see it getting better and better.

tags: Bandon+Farmers+Market

I’m not just saying that because it’s my local one. They keep adding really great stalls. I think the most important one is Ahern’s organic meats. It’s a bit easy to miss them because all the meat is in a freezer trailer and they just have a small table with the product list and prices. I got two t-bones and a bunch of burgers off them. Looking forward to BBQing them today in the rain.

Cork Coffee Roasters were doing a stunning Iced Latte. They told me that they were not selling well. I was shocked. Iced Lattes are up there with penicillin and the transistor as the 20th Century’s greatest inventions. A life saver on a hot day. Bandonites and Bandonians should do themselves a favour and run down for a large one in two weeks time. In fact, I told Catherine about them when I got home and she zoomed down in the car to get one. She had two small comments on them – she’d prefer crushed ice and she’d prefer them to be even bigger!

I got the usual bunch of stuff and a few unusual bits like Quinoa salad. The Baking Emporium now have a new Spelt Muesli Crispbread which I got. Looks lovely.

A few piccies of my booty (in the non-Jennifer Lopez sense):

T-Bone and Crispbread

Choccie Heart, Tartlet, Sonia’s Pickles, Milleen’s Cheese, Quinoa Salad

Eggs, Sunblush, Hummus

Rye and Buttermilk bread

technorati tags:BakingEmporium, CorkCoffeeRoasters

Blogged with Flock

Saturday was showery and windy but that didn’t seem to deter the crowds to the Farmer’s Market in Bandon. I popped down with big sis Fiona and babba Fionn. Before I headed out I had been reading a great article on the “old” market in the Bandon Opinion. Well worth seeking out, particularly for the description of the overwhelming stench of s***te that used to accompany the market in the old days.

I took along my new N70 to snap a few pictures but I only managed to take a few. Apologies to any stall owners who have not been photographed yet.

First stop was the Baking Emporium from Dunmanway. These people make one of my fave products which we buy all the time in supermarkets around Cork – crisp breads. But these are not your average ryvita, they are packed full of flavour and texture and make the basis for a great lunch. There were none of those on display yesterday, just a great selection of interesting looking breads and cakes. I heard one of the people behind the stall say “nay” to one of the others. “ah, they must be Dutch” I thought. Then they spoke more and I realised they were German. I guessed they might be Schwabisch from the “nay”. Sure enough, the customer beside me said “my husband will be thrilled to hear you are here. He is from Stuttgart too”. It turns out she was also German and a big chat auf Deutsch ensued. I stood there remembering the summer of 1988 when a bunch of student engineers from UCD headed to Stuttgart, stayed in a campsite near Neckar Stadion for a while, then got rooms in a studenten wohnheim and worked in the kitchens of an altenheim outside Esslingen. I bought some lovely rye bread and mini-tarts. I had a sambo later with the bread and further reminiscences of salami sandwich breakfasts came to mind!

I was gasping for a cup of coffee and the Cork Coffee Roasters stall was exactly what we needed. Great lattes and some fine looking biscotti and kettle popcorn too. I got some of their ground coffeee the previous time from Urru but forgot yesterday. Dumbass.

I hadn’t got to Sonia’s Pickles the last time and made a beeline yesterday. She gave me some tastes of ones involving peppers, aubergines and pinenuts. It was a tough choice and many could be bought in either nice looking jars or bigger plastic tubs for the same money. I got two types and sis got a lovely looking rosewater jelly.

After not spotting them the last time, there now seemed to be eggs everywhere! I got some fine looking free range O’Briens ones. Fiona got some chicken liver pate from the same blokes.

I rounded the visit off with more super-delish choccies from Gwen’s.

Sis bought some great veg which had the reassuring mud still on them. Her only negative comment, which I agreed with, was that it was a pity that there are no fresh meat vendors there. There are guys who do their own organic beef at Skibb and Midleton. It’d be great to get similar in Bandon. Is there also a guy over near Aherla who has a big Duck and Goose farm? I’m sure they would be popular.

It really does look like the market is getting better and better. All of the new stands add to the breadth of goods on sale and I think it has already become an integral part of the Saturday shopping for a lot of people. Roll on the next one in two weeks time.