It's funny cos it's true
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Back to the Food Future
This isn’t good food, it’s fantastic food. The Irish have forgotten the power of preserving and this is a big wake-up call. Lip-smackingly gorgeous duck confit that is an absolute bargain and a doddle to prepare.
Disclosure: I received several of these products for free and did not pay delivery.
Quite a while back Laurent of Confit de France contacted me and a bunch of other foodie bloggers about his new ecommerce store which was selling a variety of preserved French foods including confit, pate, rillettes and foie gras.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, March 8, 2009
How safe are your pictures and documents?
I’m sure you bought a USB stick or portable harddisk with the best intentions in the world but how often do you actually backup irreplaceable files? How would you feel if those wedding pictures disappeared in a puff of smoke?
That’s why I consider online backup a must-have. I only recommend two services and the one at the top of my list is PutPlace. This low-cost solution by an Irish company is simple to set-up and then you just forget about it.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Thursday, February 26, 2009
Kilkenny Alive is the future
I’ve been saying it non-stop for two years; if your business is not online, you are heading for extinction. I don’t care whether you are a butcher, baker or artist, start selling online now. Too difficult or pricey? Check out these guys or these guys.
But more than “normal” business, the move of media online is accelerating all the time. Traditional newspapers across the US are going bust and the Voice group in Ireland couldn’t get traction.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Wednesday, February 18, 2009
I do love a bargain
I’ve mentioned Twitter many times on this blog. Bit by bit, it is going mainstream. It’s a great way to hang out online (or on your phone via SMS or mobile web) with people you like and who can fit their thoughts into 140 chars.
But Twitter has a ton of practical uses too, one of which is saving money. My buddies in Nooked have created a ryanair_ork account there which publishes some great special offers regularly on Ryanair flights from Cork.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Help with Blog Research
Sinéad Cochrane of Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology is doing a survey of bloggers and those who read blogs. It would help her a lot if you took part. It’s very short and you could win a prize! Start here
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, January 26, 2009
TB Hospitals in Ireland
I made a quick mention of the old TB hospitals in a blog post about BCG almost two years ago. As far as I know there were lots of them. Peamount, which we drove past many times, opened in 1912 and there was also Cappagh and others.
I just got a lovely email from someone who was in such a hospital in the 1950s wondering if I’d got any feedback. Unfortunately I hadn’t.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Saturday, January 17, 2009
Sick as a large whale
We decided to head down and look at the poor dead whale in Courtmac this evening. Totally unprepared of course. Hundreds of cars down there, traffic mayhem, tons of people out on the sand taking pictures. Unfortunately we were a bit late with darkness falling and the tide was coming in fast. So only myself and Oisín ran out to grab some quick pictures. We might pop down at a better time tomorrow.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Thursday, January 15, 2009
Pork and Sons Review
I was given this lovely book for Christmas 2007 and finally finished it last month. What initially appears to be a coffee-table resident turned out to be one of the best books on food I’ve ever read.
The title says it all. This is a book about pork. Every single bit of the pig gets a mention and use. The author, Stéphane Reynaud is the grandson of a village butcher from the Ardeche plateau in France.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, January 11, 2009
Get your Irish Blog Award Nominations in
It’s that time of year again to get your nominations in for the Irish Blog Awards. The ceremony is being held in the lovely Cork International Airport Hotel on February 21.
irishblogawards1 The number of wonderful Irish blogs increases daily and I can’t keep up with the flood of high quality writing out there. There are plenty of categories to nominate in, but you don’t have to do all of them.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Thursday, January 8, 2009