Something about Mary: Mary Dowey is holding introductory wine appreciation classes at her home in Rathgar, Dublin on Wednesday evenings for six weeks, 7 p.m.-9.30 p.m., starting on October 13th.
A set of six tasting glasses is included in the price of €275. Book soon, because places are limited to 10 people. All details are on www.winefeast.com, e-mail mdowey@iol.ie, or call 01-4907536.
BREAKING OUT
If the Hotel Grand Villa Tuscolana (above) in Frascati just outside Rome sounds like a mouthful, its table is even more muscular. Dining there in "La Rufinella" on a recent Sunday along with locals, the six-course dinner menu started with carpaccio of octopus, continued with dry salted beef, salads, prawns, home-made pasta and sea bass, and concluded with a vanilla parfait and wild summer berries. The talented chef, Maurizio Santori, is a Milanese, who worked in London and in Kenya before being enticed back to Italy by Tuscolana's maitre d', Francesco Torrente. He does not use butter, nor does he fry anything. The villa has been the breathtaking location for a number of Irish weddings recently. wwwHolidays2pescara.com are the agents. Deirdre McQuillan
WAY TO GO
Packaging olive oil in tetrapack cartons is one of those blindingly obvious ideas that make you wonder why it hasn't been done before. Exposure to light causes olive oil to deteriorate, so the new containers for ArteOliva oil from Spain are a welcome innovation. The eco-friendly containers are lightweight, easy to grip and will keep your oil in tip-top condition, preserving its flavour and aroma. ArteOliva olive oil in tetrapacks is on supermarket shelves now, selling at €5.49 for the regular oil and just 26 cent
more for the extra virgin variety. The packaging design is easy on the eye too. Marie-Claire Digby
VERY DISHY
Driving up in their shiny white camper van emblazoned with images of fresh produce and a snappy black "Cully & Sully" logo, Cullen Allen and Colum O'Sullivan are quite serious about their just-launched range of upscale prepared ready-meals. They are produced in France using recipes from Ballymaloe House, where Cullen grew up and learned to cook. (Myrtle Allen is his grandmother.) The meals-for-one come nicely packaged in a cute earthenware bowl, and use "real" ingredients (butter, cream, potatoes, fish, herbs, etc.) The range includes: shepherd's pie; classic chicken tarragon; superior fish pie; Atlantic salmon in sorrel sauce; very mild chicken curry; chicken Basquaise with tomatoes and sweet peppers; and North Sea cod in lemon-zest sauce.
Find the meals, selling at about €4.95 each, at the refrigerated-foods section of selected Super Valus, Centras and Superquinns. www.cullyandsully.com, 086-6076030 or 086-6058471. Elizabeth Field.