Our annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration of good food and good company took place this year at Larkins Lakeside Pub and Restaurant at Garrykennedy, Nenagh on the 17^th of March. There was a welcoming reception at 5:30 and the dinner commenced afterwards.  
 

The event had a star studded cast of visiting chefs including the famous Colman Andrews of Gourmet and Saveur fame in New York.  Colman is a big friend of Tipperary and our foods and we love having him in our kitchen.  Darina came also and brought her Ballymaloe magic.  Darina is our international Slow Food ambassador and a great fan of our Tipperary Slow Food group. We were delighted that she came to our event.  We had one of Spain’s most famous chefs called Maria Jose San Roman. Marie bailed us out at Alicante for the Volvo Ocean Race when Good Food Ireland needed a kitchen.  Maria is famous all over Spain as the “Saffron Queen”.  She runs a string of cutting edge restaurants in Spain and she has world wide acclaim.  This was Maria’s first trip to us and she was very excited!  Chef Maurice Keller of Arlington Lodge in Waterford and my colleague in Good Food Ireland was also a guest chef.  Maurice made some of his great breads which we have been showcasing at the Volvo Ocean Race stops for Good Food Ireland.  Enda Conneely of Inisoir came with his great west coast fish tradition. Enda used local and sustainable Burren Smokehouse products for our starters.  This was Enda’s fourth visit to us and has become a tradition.  Mairead Cadell of the local Peppermill Restaurant helped with her great colcannon experience.  Mairead made 450 portions of colcannon for our Blas an Fhomhair celebration last September.

The menu consisted of a Slow Food feast in the “Pota Padraig” tradition of exuberance on St. Patrick’s Day.  We  celebrated our local pork and bacon tradition with free range and organic pork from Crowe’s and Ladybird Organics.  We celebrated our great cheese and dairy tradition with Barbara Harding’s first new country butter and with Mossfield, Cooleeny of Ireland and Baylough cheeses.

This event was supported by Shannon Development and Good Food Ireland, who are seriously committed to developing food tourism in Nenagh and North Tipperary.

Music and dancing in the Larkins style continued throughout the evening.  Larkins Pub and Restaurant is a lovely, cosy venue with very committed  owners, Maura and Cormac Boyle.  We had a magical evening of great food and celebration at the Garrykennedy pub in the style of Naomh Padraig.