FOOD FILE: Next time the sun shines, make the most of it by ordering a picnic to go from the Cake Café at the Daintree Building in Pleasants Street (01-4789394), or the Curved Street Café in Temple Bar, Dublin 2 (01-6796716).
As well as olives, sandwiches, home-made lemonade, strawberries and cream, shortbread biscuits and chocolate brownies, the baskets contain a blanket, napkins, crockery, and outdoors games including a Frisbee and a bat and ball. A list of the Cake Café staff’s favourite picnic places in Dublin, and a map identifying them, is also included. It’s a lovely idea, and it costs €14.40 per person (a deposit is taken for the basket). Up the ante by adding a bottle of chilled Prosecco for €20.
WEB WATCH
Say no to paper cups, and enjoy your picnic tipple in style. This carafe with its four classic glasses, designed by Kaptein Roodnat, is from Dutch design company Royal VKB. The glasses stack neatly in the neck of the carafe, leaving you with one hand free to carry other paraphernalia. It can be ordered at www.royalvkb.com and costs €17.95; five-day delivery costs €15.
A flavour of Italy
An unlikely but flourishing alliance between Macreddin village in Co Wicklow, home to the BrookLodge Hotel, and Armento, a quiet rural village in southern Italy (pictured), will be celebrated next Sunday (August 2nd) when a group of food producers from Armento will set up an Italian farmers' market alongside their Irish counterparts. The collaboration between the two villages came about when Aughrim woman Deirdre Doyle married Michele Canosa from Armento. A chance encounter with the owners of BrookLodge led to Canosa sourcing and supplying organic and artisan produce from his home town, in the province of Basilicata, to La Taverna Armento restaurant at Macreddin. The mayor of Armento will be among the group travelling to Wicklow for next Sunday's twinning, and his delegation will include a maker of organic raw milk buffalo mozzarella, a fresh pasta maker, organic vegetable growers and regional artisan food producers. The market will run from 1pm.
Chill baby
Cool boxes, or Eskies, are a means to an end when it comes to keeping picnic food chilled and safe to eat, but they're not exactly stylish. These fitfresh food storage bowls from Howard's Storage World have removable ice bricks built in, to keep food chilled while you're on the go, and they look smarter than your average plastic tub, too. The salad and fruit bowl costs €8.95. Howard's Storage World, Unit 215 The Park, Carrickmines, Dublin 18, www.hsw.ie