Category: Recession

  • Camile Thai using crowdfunding to set up new restaurant

    Camile Thai is a Dublin takeaway chain that currently appears to be doing pretty well in their businesses in Rathmines, Dun Laoghaire, Phibsboro and Dolphin’s Barn.  They recently took the interesting step of launching a crowdfunding campaign to open a new branch.  I’m very familiar with crowdfunding for projects related to arts and charity, but…

  • Eating & Poverty: Miss South in the Observer Food Monthly

    The food magazine that comes with The Observer once a month is always impressive, but I was really impressed by the piece in last Sunday’s budget special by blogger Miss South of northsouthfood.com.  With admirable dignity and restraint, she tackles many of the lazy assumptions that people make about what it’s like to try to…

  • Cheap and Cheerful Christmas: Peter’s Article in Pricewatch today

    Our very own Peter has a great piece in the Irish Times Pricewatch section today on ways to enjoy a cheap and cheerful Christmas. He has tips for restaurants and good pub food all around the country.  There’s also recommendations for country bars that will arrange transport for their customers, alternatives to pub crawls and…

  • Post-Budget Savings on Wine

    So the 2013 Budget came out yesterday, leaving a trail of misery and desperation in its wake.  The €1 added to the cost of every bottle of wine is hardly the most significant or damaging change, but it’s probably still one that you’ll want to think about in the run up to Christmas. If the…

  • Superquinn Takeover: what do you think?

    You’ll all have heard the news by now about Superquinn being bought out by the Musgrave group, owners of Super Valu and Centra. On the positive side, it’s very good to hear that they have pledged to keep all 2,800 Superquinn employees in jobs.  On the downside, it could mean reduced competition in the Irish…

  • Fast food workers protest reduction in minimum wage

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDEBvnFA-Zw The fast food industry is a major employer of minimum wage workers, and it is also one of the few industries that sees increased profits during a recession.  Supermacs saw their pretax profit increase by 18% last year, yet they are still cutting their staff’s wages.  Advocates of cutting the minimum wage say that…

  • Mermaid and Gruel restaurants close in Dublin

    Two of Dublin’s most well-established restaurants closed over the Christmas period.  The Mermaid Cafe and Gruel are sister restaurants on Dame St, and according to the Irish Times, staff are still waiting to hear if they will reopen.  Gruel will be particularly missed for its excellent lunchtime ‘roast in a roll’ , cosy surroundings and…

  • A world without money

    Earlier this summer, I wrote about freeganism, where people salvage perfectly good food from being sent to landfill. It’s usually a sandwich or a carrot that was on the shelves just moments earlier, but was then deemed unfit for sale. In today’s Irish Times, Conor Pope has an interesting piece on Mark Boyle, a Donegal…

  • Living for free

    I have friends who very rarely, if ever, pay for their food. Instead, they go foraging through the skips and bins of Dublin city, picking up the mountains of perfectly good discarded food. It’s easy to sneer – ugh, eating from the bin? – but the food is usually well packaged or wrapped up; they don’t…

  • The Good Life Bandwagon

    Recently, I sent my partner on a course at Ballymaloe Cookery School, as a birthday gift. The course was called ‘How to Keep Chickens in your Garden’. Result? We now have three baby hens pottering around our back garden, soon to be producing lovely eggs for our family. Darina Allen has plenty of courses like this, like…