There are two Japanese knives lying between coffee cups on Nuala Cullen's kitchen table. They are amazing-looking implements, all edge and glitter, with well-worn wooden handles, and they are astonishingly light to pick up. One has a vertical line of Japanese characters engraved on its sharp, sharp blade, which makes it look like some arcane haiku. Nuala brought them back from Japan.
"These are the items which I use most in the kitchen, without a doubt," she says, handling one. "They're really, really sharp knives. Oh, I've bought lots of gadgets over the years, which I've used once and then left - things like juice extractors, garlic presses, parsley choppers - and it's quicker in the end to do all those things by hand. Especially by the time you've washed all the gadgets." The first experiment which Nuala Cullen ever conducted in the kitchen was an attempt at the peppermint cream. "I was about six, and it was during the war, so sugar was rationed. I found the sugar rations and tried to make these peppermint creams. The result was a terrible sticky paste. I had to thrown it all down the loo in case my mother discovered it."
Nuala went on from this culinary debut to write a cookery column for The Sunday Tribune. She was also one of the founder members of the Irish Food Writer's Circle, which had Theodora Fitzgibbon as its first chairman. The days of peppermint creams have been left behind. Her favourite recipes now are Braised Pheasants with Irish Whiskey Sauce, and Crab Soup with Saffron.
Both of these can be found in Savouring Ire- land: Cooking Through the Seasons, her book of recipes which has just been published by Gill & Macmillan, with accompanying photographs by Michael Diggin. "Irish crab is extraordinarily lovely and sweet and it's really underrated in this country," she enthuses. Savouring Ireland is divided into four sections, one for each season. Each section works through starters, main courses, desserts, and baking, with the ingredients reflecting what is in season at that time of year. There are lots of classic recipes here, some of them with an unusual twist, such as Spring Lamb Cutlets in Pastry; Hake Baked in Paper.
Other straightforward classic recipes in the book include: Irish Stew, Wexford Colcannon, Longford Cakes, Spiced Beef, Black Pudding Patties, and Barm Brack. There are also some intriguing-sounding recipes, among them are: A Bowl of Bishop, Cats' Tongues, and Rose Petal Vinegar. And that gourmet scribe, Patrick Kavanagh, would surely have been chuffed to see an avocado and gooseberry dish by the name of "Green Fool".
Nuala is also interested in a more obscure area of food history. "I'm fascinated by 18th-century food," she explains. "I've done some consultancy work for corporate banquets. Those 18th-century banquets, they were what we'd call now two three-course meals. The first lot would be soup, meat, pudding, and the second course would be lighter; with fish or fowl and jellies.
"The set-up then was that plates got left on the table. You weren't served. And people didn't tend to pass the dishes round like they do now, so you could be stuck eating mainly from the dish in front of you, whatever that was. In the novels of the period, there are constant complaints about food - Maria Edgeworth has a lot of it, and Thackeray.
"I haven't seen that film, Titanic, yet, but I want to go and look at how they did all the food scenes. They had some amazing budget, and they knew what the menus were, so they were able to recreate it all. They even got the china remade by the original suppliers!"
As well as providing her with those wonderful knives, Japan is also the place which provided Nuala with her strangest eating experience. "They serve these minute little fishes as a delicacy," she explains. "You're supposed to dip them into soya sauce and then let them wiggle down your throat. They're alive. I could see them all wiggling in the bowl. I just couldn't eat them like that. I had to stun them first. But Louis, my husband, he loved them."
Louis wanders into the kitchen and comes up with the name of the little wriggling fish: shiro uo, beaming happily at the memory.
"The Japanese chefs aim at perfection," Nuala says. "They tend to have quite limited menus, which they cook over and over again to perfection. It's like painting on a plate. You might get a little bit of fish in a basket. Then, when you look at it, the basket is made of seaweed, which you can also eat. Their food is full of surprise and delight."
Her own kitchen, like Gaul, is divided into three parts - each one equally-inviting. Open the door and there's a lovely airy room with couches, bookshelves and armchairs. "This is where at least half the cookbooks are," Nuala says. The main body of the kitchen is beyond an archway, where all the cooking goes on. The centrepiece of this area is an old kitchen dresser, which was given to her as a gift. At the far end of the kitchen is a bright nook with a round table, which overlooks the garden. This is the sort of kitchen that you would happily spend all your time in.
Some of the cookbooks on the shelves get taken down and spread out on the table. "Cookbooks are such interesting social and economic documentaries. War cookbooks, for instance. Nobody would want to cook from them now, but the ingenuity is amazing - what they managed to concoct out of very little." Nuala's favourite cookbooks include Eliza Acton; "she was pre Mrs Beeton. And Mrs Beeton. Also Jane Grigson. And Elizabeth David, of course. One never gets to the bottom of her," she says, delightedly.
"What's the best thing I've ever eaten? Eggs with spinach in the Dolphin Hotel. I don't remember what I had before it, or what I had afterwards, but that dish was divine. But I think there's too much emphasis on food trying to achieve sublime levels all the time. You just can't have that experience all the time. By definition, food can't be sublime all the time."
Savouring Ireland: Cooking Through the Sea- sons, by Nuala Cullen, is published by Gill & Macmillan at £12.99.