About the Book
My Wild Atlantic Kitchen: Recipes and Recollections is a compilation of Maura O’Connell Foley’s favourite recipes created throughout her career in Kenmare, County Kerry spanning over six decades. The dishes contained in the book follow Maura’s ethos of keeping food simple, cooking with care and using the best available local produce.
Several years in the making, this book is a comprehensive collection capturing over 250 recipes of the food Maura has loved to cook throughout her life and successful career as cook and restaurateur. My Wild Atlantic Kitchen features stand-out dishes from the first tea shop she and her mother Agnes opened in 1961, The Purple Heather Restaurant and Piano Bar, The Lime Tree Restaurant, Packie’s Restaurant and also from Shelburne Lodge which she continues to run today with her husband Tom.
Maura’s recipes are seasonal, classic and carefully organised into eight chapters in the book: Breakfast, Starters, Fish, Meat, Vegetables, Desserts & Baking, Sauces, Stocks & Staples, as well as a dedicated section on Dinner Parties. Examples include Drop Scone Pancakes with Dry Cured Bacon and Apple Syrup, Confit of Duck Leg with Pear and Ginger Salad, Twice Baked Hazelnut Goat’s Cheese Soufflé, Seafood Sausage with Beurre Blanc, Smoked Cod Cakes, Beef and Guinness Casserole, Dover Sole Stuffed with Atlantic Prawns with Brandy & Cream Sauce, Chocolate Pots, Irish Barmbrack & Butter Pudding and, Spicy Apple and Rum Pudding.
Working in close collaboration with Kenmare based graphic designer Eamonn O’Sullivan of Anchor Studio, the project was very much a labour of love, with Maura and her family undertaking the task of lovingly creating a beautiful book that would be a testament to her years of hard work and dedication to her craft. Not only a cookbook, My Wild Atlantic Kitchen features Maura’s culinary recollections and stories woven throughout accompanied by over one hundred photographs of her recipes captured by Lynda Kenny of Visual Feasts and Maria Bell. In keeping with her love of art and the Irish landscape, the book includes photography by nationally renowned landscape photographer Norman McCloskey, illustrations by artist Christine Bowen and paintings from internationally acclaimed Irish artist Pauline Bewick adding a unique artistic component.
