Competition now closed and the winner, drawn by random number generator, was Majella O’Shea. Congratulations Majella and thanks for the memories all of you who entered. It’s a Monday afternoon. I’m sitting on the deck in Duncannon. Two Peking Ducks are roasting on the Big Green Egg. Diced Wexford new potatoes are slow-cooking below them in the duck fat. The Hoi Sin sauce that I adapted from a recipe on Kitchen 72′s...

Well its about time that I revealed the answers to the last competition on the blog and some of the things I learned along the way – like the fact that two of the ingredients were not what I thought they were and it took readers of my blog to put me straight! Here are the answers to those fiendish questions. Who am I and what am I used for? 1. Chinese cooking wine – liao jiu Cooking wine  – liao jiu – is an essential...

Competition time! – [Competition now closed – winner to be announced shortly!] Well it’s the May bank holiday weekend and the sun is shining here in Duncannon, Co. Wexford. Today our grandson Dermot Gao O’Neill is 3 months old. I’ve just been speaking to him in Beijing on FaceTime or, rather, he has been staring in some bemusement at me on the screen of an iPad… Now I’m in the mood for a long walk down...