Imen McDonnell - The Farmette Cookbook: Recipes and Adventures from My Life on an Irish Farm

A joyful celebration of life on an Irish farm. A super, chic book written with the appreciative eye of an outsider who reminds us of the sheer pleasure of living on a dairy farmrearing a few table fowl, planting a vegetable garden and an orchard, rediscovering the satisfaction of using homegrown Irish produce to make truly delicious and creative food for family and friends.

Darina Allen, founder of the Ballymaloe Cookery School and award-winning cookbook author

A beautiful story of an American city girl falling in love with a dashing Irish farmer and the food that she began to create once settled in rural Ireland. With recipes for everything from Nettle, Sweet Pea and Turf-Smoked Ham Soup to Irish Stout and Treacle Bread, this evocative cookbook will have you wanting to don your wellies and your best apron to grow, cook, and preserve Imen-style.

Rachel Allen, Irish food personality, bestselling cookbook author, and teacher at the Ballymaloe Cookery School

There is magic in Imen McDonnells new book and in her story. Her dedication to uncovering Irelands rich food culture and cultivating her own shines through. Youll want to dive right in, start cooking, and build your own fairy tale.

Sarah Copeland, author of Feast, and Food Director, Real Simple magazine

The Farmette Cookbook is a lovely combination of personal tale and transportive recipes, and it makes me want to come to Ireland tomorrow. In a world full of culinary flimflammery, Imen McDonnell is the real thing: wonderful storyteller and creator of delicious recipes with a traditional edge, all mouthwateringly evocative of this magical place she now calls home.

Elissa Altman, author of Poor Mans Feast

It was Imens endearing and touching personal writing on all things Irish that first drew me to her beautiful blog. Her personal journey into the history of traditional Irish recipes is celebrated throughout this carefully considered cookbook. Filled with stories of old and inspirations from Irelands exciting new cooking scene, Imen is putting Irish farmhouse cooking firmly back on the map.

Donal Skehan, Irish food personality and author of Kitchen Hero and Fresh

Imen has beautifully captured the rich heritage of Irish farmhouse cooking and cast a twenty-first-century spell on it!

Catherine Fulvio, author and award-winning proprietor of Ballyknocken House & Cookery School

Imen takes traditional Irish cooking to the next level with her American curiosity and ingenuity. She weaves big-city cravings, like pot stickers, tacos, banh mi, harissa, pizza, and more, with traditional comfort food made from scratch. Imens brave leap of faith and love is a boon for the rest of us: we now have this charming book full of stories and recipes I cant wait to make.

Susan Spungen, founding food editor of Martha Stewart Living

If you have not yet visited Ireland and tasted its authentic foods, youll want to after reading Imens new cookbook. Living on an Irish farm has never looked this attractive. What a charming and delicious book!

Batrice Peltre, author of La Tartine Gourmande

ABOUT THE BOOK

To many, Imen McDonnells life reads as a modern fairy tale. Happily going about her business as a young American woman embarking upon a successful career in broadcast production, she was introduced to a dashing Irish farmer and fell instantly in love. In short order, Imen found herself leaving behind her work, her country, her family and friends, to start a life from scratch on a centuries-old family dairy farm in County Limerick. The Farmette Cookbook is more than just a cookbook, its a chronicle of Imens journey, embracing her new identity as a farmers wife, discovering new tastes, feeding her family and finding her way around the Irish kitchen, where traditional cooking trumps quick and convenient. Here, Imen shares her tried-and-true classic Irish recipes, infused with a contemporary American twist: from her Best Brown Bread, Fish-n-Chip Pie, and Richards Proper Irish Coffee to Farmhouse Buttermilk Beignets, Hot-Smoked Burren Salmon Tacos, and an Irish Hedgerow Shandy. Highlighting farmhouse skills (such as butter and cheese making) and the use of local, wholesome ingredients, Imen invites us into her kitchen and her world, through stories and recipes, for a taste of the Irish countryside.

IMEN McDONNELL is a contributing food and lifestyle writer and photographer for Cond Nast Traveler, The Irish Farmers Journal, and Irish Country Magazine. In a former life, she spent her days working in broadcast production while living in New York, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. She now resides with her husband and son on their family farm in rural Ireland and shares stories of farm life and food on her popular blog, Farmette.ie. Imens modern Irish recipes have been featured in The New York Times, The Irish Times, The Sunday Times (UK), The Los Angeles Times, Saveur Magazine, and more. When she is not cooking, writing, weeding, or photographing, youll find Imen in the farmyard with her husband and son, milking cows, feeding calves and chickens, or just plain loving up their two donkeys and very amusing Airedale terrier, Teddy.

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Text and photographs 2016 by Imen McDonnell

Food styling by Sonia Mulford Chaverri and Imen McDonnell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McDonnell, Imen.

The Farmette cookbook: recipes and adventures from my life on an Irish farm/Imen McDonnell.First edition.

pages cm

Includes index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-4018-8

ISBN 978-1-61180-204-7 (hardcover: alk. paper)

1. Cooking, Irish. 2. Country lifeIreland. I. Title.

TX717.5.M334 2016

641.59417dc23

2015026646

For Richard, Geoffrey, and my Father

This book is also dedicated to my late mother-in-law, Peggy McDonnell.

Peggy was extraordinary for many reasons. I spent so much time as a student of her gentle teaching in the kitchen and listening to stories of farming, past and present, over an afternoon cup of tea and slice of cake. She always treated me as if I was her own daughter, a gesture for which I will forever be grateful. Peggy taught me much about Irish cookery, but mostly she reminded me to always be kind and generous with your heart. Peggy passed away just as I began writing this book, and we had planned on putting the book together as a team. Writing this book has been bittersweet.

It is with Peggys guardian spirit and all of the great memories we have that these words and recipes grace these pages.

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