2024 is in the bag. Done, dusted, completed it mate.
While it’s taken what feels like seven years to navigate the past 12 months, it’s been great fun on the food front this year.
Personally, I’ve been out and about a lot more, my newsletter has slowly taken off (with weekly content you won’t find here on the blog), I managed to just about fill a year with five-minute-ish podcasts, and I’ve written more about food in the last 12 months than I have in the previous four years.
To that end, I’ve put together a rather informal ‘best of’ my year and if 2025 lives up to the planning, next year’s edition should look rather different. Let’s get stuck in.
Kitchen gadget of the year
The Sage Barista Pro (RRP €829) made its way into the kitchen about this time last year, worst case the first week of January. I’d been promising myself an upgrade to my now 12-year-old Krupps Nespresso Citiz with Milk and the Barista Pro has delivered in spade. While I’ve been getting used to weighing, grinding, tamping, pre-heating, and all the cleaning, re-filling and descaling that comes with owning a machine of its type, it’s been an almost daily use.
I picked up the machine on a deal that netted me around €200 off, but a trip back today to the shop I bought it in shows me its still available at around €729. Sage have retired some models in the past year and loaded up on more, but this will be guaranteed to get me through the next few years.
Just don’t ask me for any kind of latte art. Ever.
Meal of the Year
It’s not often that we get to go out and drop the guts of €400 on dinner for two, but in May this year, that’s what myself and Mrs. Ken On Food decided to do as we both have a birthday in the month.
Having booked it a month or two in advance, The Lady Helen at Mount Juliet has long been on the cards for both of us to make a night of. While we refrained from going the whole hog and adding the wine pairings (we still had to drive post-meal), it didn’t take in any way from the atmosphere, the welcome, meal in itself and more importantly, the three or four hours we got to spend across the table from each other – no distractions, no phones, just food and chats. Very bleedin’ pricey and damn delicious food, but you get what you pay for in this game.
Tasting menus (standard and vegetarian were running, at the time, around €160pp), and there may have been a cocktail or two in the lounge before taking up our table at the window.
Opening of the Year
For every restaurant or eatery that closed in Kilkenny this year, another one popped up in its place. Among openings this year in the city alone this year were Xpresso (Dublin Rd.), Oh! Donuts (High St.), Chingon (Ormonde St.), Ember (Ormonde St.), Bovine (Ormonde St.) Scalini (Kieran St.), Caffe500 (The Parade), and The Chocolate Garden (High St.). Mountain View expanded its operations too, taking over Petronella on The Butterslip from Frank and Marian Curran while the Kilkenny Design Centre’s food offering got an overhaul under The Wright Group with the launch of The Castle Café.
However, the opening of the year for me has to go to the husband and wife operation that is The Pink Box on Parliament Street.
In September this year they did a limited run luxury box mixing sweet and savour pastries including a, lemon meringue brioche, rhubarb and Irish strawberry crumble Danish, peach and elderflower croissant, pork, bacon and Inch House black pudding roll with a quail egg and Ballymaloe Relish, double Irish farmhouse cheese and streaky bacon cruffin and a tortilla brioche with aioli and layers of Irish spud.
It’s a tidy operation with a most friendly welcome any time you’re in. Their pastry offering is on the higher end of things but you won’t be left disappointed or hungry.
Festival / Event of the Year
I’m going to be totally biased here and say that Savour Kilkenny gets my nod for food festival / event of the year. It’s a tricky one to build out year-on-year but with visitor numbers up, restaurants packed for big-ticket dining events and the general craic and buzz of the festival market on the Parade, despite the muck weather early on Saturday and again on Sunday, all the stops were pulled out once again.
Book buy of the Year
This is a bit like picking your favourite child but I’ve had some good pickups this year. I’ve been slowly-but-surely adding to my Blasta Books collection, though it could be March/April this year before I’m fully caught up with a few purchases to go.
Anna Cabrera and Vanessa Murphy’s Tapas was my first book purchase of 2024, quickly followed by Caitlin Ruth’s Funky (January 2024), while Paul Flynn’s Butter Boy (September 2023) was one of the last books bought this year. Ottolenghi’s Comfort and Sprout & Co.’s Saladology have also taken up residence on my office shelves in recent weeks.
For the sheer amount of reading material alone, Butter Boy nicks it late.
A foodie first (of the year)
In a foodie first, as highlighted in the final edition of The Week In Food for 2024, I pickled some cucumber and having consumed said cucumber over the past few days, I’ve been left wondering why I never did this before.
With the aid of a bottle of vinegar, some of my windowsill chillis, some sliced garlic and a few notes scribbled down during one of the Savour Kilkenny demos this year, I’ve got a jar of pickled cucumber in the fridge and I may well need to do the same to some red cabbage before I’m back in work. There aren’t enough Kilner jars in the house for this craic.
Recipe to follow in a few days with feedback most welcome.
I could go on, but that’s a wrap
In the immortal words of my weekly newsletter closing statement, that’s a wrap.
I could go on, but I run the risk of turning this into a more serious end of year list. We might leave that for 2025. Needless to say, but 2024 has been a blast. I’ve had plenty of food chats in the real world, on radio, I’ve loved getting up early on Sundays or staying up late on Saturdays to pen The Week In Food and record the podcast. I’ve had a lot of great meals out, discovered new traders, watched restaurants open and close, cooked loads at home and nicely throw myself back into all things food.
Sustaining that for 2025 will be the fun part but for now, and to wind out the year, thanks for reading over the past 12 months and hopefully you’ll be entertained again across the next year.
If you would like regular updates by way of email, the next edition of The Week In Food drops on Sunday 5 January and you can subscribe for free here. And if you want to chat at any point, drop me a note on Instagram or find my contact details here.
Happy new year indeed!
