Cully & Sully love doing dinner parties. For us, these come in many different shapes and forms from Sully's trojan efforts to seduce a beautiful girl to my - "get my friends to clean up the garden" barbeque… (and cook my dinner!)
I am more inclined to use easy recipes that I know in my head. Other recipes come from doing the Ballymaloe Cookery course. I fortunately have access to really good quality ingredients from the gardens but local farmers markets are springing up everywhere now. You can often do really good & simple stuff really fast (but not always really cheap!) by shopping cleverly in your local farmers market. I like to get the whole cooking thing done in as short a period as possible. In fact, the cooking often doesn't start until the guests arrive, albeit, not always the intention!
Sully on the other hand is great cookbook man, follows instructions religiously & wants everything explained to him in detail including what the dish should look and taste like! Regularly, the preparations will start days in advance and advice he will seek from every available source. Amongst his favourite people to ring are (fighting for first place) Cully or his mum, then Ivan, best known around here for his pigeon recipe! AKA our chef and ex-chef/owner of the late, but great, Grapefruit Moon (yes, after the Tom Waits song) restaurant in Ballycotton. These options are followed closely by most of Cully's chef friends in and around Ballymaloe.
Above all, cooking for your mates should be a jovial event, and yes, we mean the cooking. On the other hand we have to leave the rest of the entertainment in your capable hands. By the way, be sure that enough people stay around to help you do the dishes!
Bon Appetite, Cully
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