A world of flavour
Mezcla: Recipes to Excite, a first solo volume for Ixta Belfrage following her collaboration in 2020 on Flavour with Yotam Ottolenghi, is a perfectly named cookbook. The 100 captivating and highly original recipes are inspired by her connections with Brazil, where her mother is from; Italy, where she lived as a child, and Mexico, where her grandfather lived.
“I’m incredibly excited to be sharing my favourite flavours inspired by a lifetime obsession with food and a childhood spent travelling around Italy, Brazil and Mexico. There are recipes for every mood in this book, from quick, midweek dishes, to longer projects for when you have the time to slow down and savour the process. The recipes celebrate fusion cooking, whilst the introduction is an ode to the countries that taught me to love food,” she says.
More than 60 per cent of the recipes are vegetarian, and the author says the majority of those are “easily veganised”, but you won’t notice the absence of fish or meat on those plates as there’s so much going on both with ingredients and technique. Mezcla: Recipes to Excite is published by Ebury Press, £26.
Fishy business
For something a bit different, sign up for a class or an outing at Howth School of Fish Visitor Experience, a fishing and maritime tourism attraction on the West Pier in the north Co Dublin village. There is a wide variety of educational and fun options, including behind-the-scenes visits to a working fishing pier, boat trips and seafood talks and tastings. Visitors can learn how to shuck an oyster, splice a rope, bone a fish, or learn more about sustainable and seasonal commercial fishing. Activities range from two hours to a full day, and the programme is available at howthschooloffish.ie.
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Chocolate delights
Georgia Quealy and Daniel Linehan’s Praliné Chocolatiers in Athlone suffered a setback recently when the company’s Instagram account was hacked. Unable to retrieve it, they were forced to open a new account, praline_chocolatiers, and build their following again from scratch, just in time for the launch of their latest limited edition collection. Summer Hues features four completely new chocolates, including their take on the 99 cone, which features a wafer base, creamy ganache and a drizzle of raspberry sauce. The beautifully boxed 16-chocolate collection costs €25, available online from pralinechocolatiers.com.
In Galway, Grainne Mullins’ Grá Chocolates has also released a new collection, inspired by summer blooms including rose, hibiscus, lavender and elderflower. Grá Garden costs €35, from Brown Thomas, Dublin or grachocolates.com.
