Search Results for 'Dirk Flake'

THE GALWAY Earth Festival takes place this Monday. A co-operation of musicians, artists, and volunteers, it will seek to raise funds and public awareness of the local and global environment through music, food, lectures, and craic.

Eating only what is in season has many advantages, some quite obvious and some not so. The obvious advantage is that it is sourced locally and perhaps direct from the producer. This allows you to enquire whether chemicals were used in its production; it may even allow you to taste it first. Very importantly, it means your money is being spent locally. There are several Galway restaurants focusing on sourcing the very best local produce and they are the ones that deserve your support; they will usually list the producers in the menu and it shows a dedication to quality.

I am often asked whether drinking organic wines will stop certain reactions like redness of the face or nasty headaches. These are some of the reactions that certain people get when drinking wine and it is not very pleasant I’m sure. First of all, the theory: ‘organic wines’ have to be made from 100 per cent organic grapes. This is important as if you see a label that says ‘made from organic grapes’ this may mean that only 70 per cent or more organically grown grapes were used in the making of the wine. Organic wines are grown without any manmade pesticides or fertilisers. Historically there were tons and tons of this stuff used, and there are legendary tales from the wine regions about fertiliser salesmen who became very wealthy unloading disgraceful amounts of this stuff with sales pitches where they told each grape grower how their neighbour was using so many tons per hectare, etc. Organic wineries do not add bags of oak chips to add flavour and they use only a very basic and traditional method for making the wine.