Bon Appetit and Gubbeen

So the new issue of Bon Appetit magazine has a feature on West Cork, with a photo of Giana and one of her roosters looking as cool as it is possible to look! Also quoted is Fingal, on the subject of an experimental Blood Mary sausage that he and his friends tried making last year.

My first reaction was bitter envy, that someone else wrote an article that could have been mine...(didn't I query them about this place over a year ago??) but then upon further reflection, I think, which is better - to have flown over to Ireland for a couple of days and visited Gubbeen for an hour or two, and tried to pack in all of the extensive West Cork food scene in just a few days - or to have lived at Gubbeen for almost two weeks, actually helped make some of the cheese, and sold it at the Skibbereen market too? I'm the one with the good deal, and how lucky we are to share in the life here for even just a short time.

This morning Reed sat and watched the entire time while a baby chick broke its way out of the shell in the incubator, a process that takes about half an hour or more, so this particular little ball of fluff has been christened Reed in his honor. When I came in to lunch today after spending the morning in the dairy, Reed announced "this is the best lunch I've ever had" and I had to agree, it was pretty great: Clovisse's carrot-apple-coriander-lime soup, Fingal's ham, Gubbeen cheese, Ballymaloe country relish, Fingal's sausage rolls, lots of fresh bread, and a winter greens salad that Clovisse made as well, with a lovely smoky vinaigrette dressing. Reed also polished off the duck liver pate but managed to leave a little of the Explorateur cheese for Giana. This is a French triple creme fresh cheese - clean and snowy white and unctuous on the palate.

I'll take a moment to note here that this has got to be one of the healthiest places for eating I've ever seen. In the dairy at breaktime, standard fare is plain crackers, apples and bananas, cheese, butter, and jam. To drink: tea and fresh milk. No chips, no candy, no soda pop, no crap. I don't know what the rest of Schull eats, but at Gubbeen, it's all good.