And the winners are...

Thank you for all the competition entries and your enthusiasm. Choosing was hard. But the winners are...

Niamh Mannion for the Food and Wine Blogging event tickets.

My Favourite Things for the Good Fats, Bad Fats tickets.

Please can you make contact with the LitFest box office (info@litfest.ie) ASAP and give them your name, email and address so they can send them out to you!

And the winner is...

Guess what? My latest book, 30 Years at Ballymaloe, won the Avonmore Cookbook of the Year at the Bord Gais Irish Book Awards last week.

It was actually a total surprise.The whole thing was televised, and very glitzy. In fact it was such a surprise that I didn't even have a speech prepared, but I blustered through it. I do want to say special thanks to Avonmore and Bord Gais for sponsoring these awards.

I was in very good company: Rachel’s Everyday Kitchen and Catherine Fulvio’s The Weekend Chef were also shortlisted as were Neven Maguire’s The Nation’s Favourite Food, Kevin Dundon’s Modern Irish Food  and Ross Lewis for his beautifully produced Chapter One – An Irish Food Story.

The other bit of excitement we had this week Rachel and I were on Brendan O'Connor on Saturday Night, our first interview together! 

If you’re doing your Christmas shopping at the moment, you can order a copy of my book and I will sign and put a special personal message in it for you too. Or of course you can get it on Amazon!

We're running a great competition which is open to the 16th December - just name the year that a number of images featuring me in my trade mark glasses were taken, and win one of 30 two-and-a-half day courses here at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. For more details see our website. 

And don't forget Rory O'Connell's Master It, which I personally think is the cookbook of the year. Yes, he’s my brother and you may well be thinking ‘well she would say that, wouldn’t she?’ but that’s what I truly believe. His long overdue book is a real gem.

And on the subject of books, I’d also I'd like to draw your attention to a semi-secret gem that you might not have come across yet, The RainbowWay: Cultivating Creativity in the Midst of Motherhood, a new book by Lucy Pearce, a long-time friend of the family.

Garden Festival Winner

Many congratulations to our day pass winner, Emily Rainsford Ryan. We look forward to welcoming her to the Ballymaloe Garden Festival on either the Saturday or Sunday, on the weekend of August 31st.

 Do check out the complete programme of events here. And remember we have the Big Shed full of food and plant stalls, family fun and live music as well.

I hope to see many of you there! Fingers crossed for sunshine!