I have been cooking all my life. As a child of course my mother taught me, but primary school cookery classes were fantastic – the teacher had us baking Christmas cakes at age 11. Anyway right through secondary school and college I worked in restaurants and cafes doing everything from washing up to front of house, prep and cooking too.
I studied Product Design and later Furniture Design, going on to work for 10 years with design companies and manufacturers, and also lecturing in Griffith College and Galway IT. I won an award at the RDS Horse Show Craft Exhibition for a piece of furniture made from native sycamore and elm in 1996. However during boom-time Ireland, working in design wasn’t much fun. Good design which actually improves quality of life, vanished into an era of people just buying endless amounts of “stuff”. As my three children were born and time moved on, I wanted to find something more fulfilling, and more family-friendly.
We moved to Co. Carlow in 2001, and built a Swedish hi-tech low-energy house. We also had a little cottage that needed a job. I started experimenting with cookery classes for friends and family, and just decided to jump and set up a small cookery school. That was 2004, and now we have an expanded business with cookery school, market garden, and soon a farm shop selling not only Tasteworks products, but those from great producers around the area and neighbouring counties too.
I don’t just teach recipes, I teach people about ingredients, but about food production, how buying and cooking with seasonal foods is important. With this knowledge comes the confidence to just open the fridge and cook.
For those of you who would like to know more information about how Tasteworks came about, then at the end of this page I have a long and detailed account! Not for everyone but it means the information is there if necessary. Thanks for visiting the site, Christine Jordan.
Favourite recipe from my 1st cookery book!
My mother - looking fantastic at 84 in this photo earlier this year.
There has been a remarkable change in the Irish food scene over the past decade. We have happily absorbed and made our own some of the world’s most famous flavours and dishes. We have gained a confidence and expectation around food which has resulted in increased choice both in the range of restaurants around the country and in the availability of high quality ingredients. We have taken to eating out much more regularly, and hence have become more informed about ingredients and techniques . We are seeing a gradual backlash against plastic, chemically treated, processed food, while budgeting and being conscious of unnecessary waste.
Another change is the steady decrease in the ability of people to cook. Cookery programmes are on television most nights, but most viewers would just like to eat the food, not necessarily cook it. Ready meals are the favourite of many families, as busy schedules allow less and less time for home cooking. I am lucky to have a mother who is a nurse and who taught all the family about carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals – and she is a marvellous home cook. She never allowed junk food, deep fat fryers or Soda Stream machines into the house when we were children – much to the annoyance of my friends and I!
All my siblings (I have lots of them) can cook and we all love food, though we hate food snobbery and fads. I always use this example to explain my stance on food fashion – imagine if an exquisite Italian beauty who is a whizz in the kitchen decided to cook for friends, and shirked tradition by pronouncing that Parmesan is out of fashion…how absurd this would sound. Food fashion is a sign of insecurity – the need to be accepted by means of your choice of ingredients. Good food is about simplicity, balance, lack of pretention, good ingredients, all while avoiding being a food bore.
I do think that the advantage of being Irish and loving food is that we do not have a firmly entrenched traditional food culture and with that comes freedom. Our traditional dishes can be named on one or two hands. Countries such as France, Italy, Spain have restraints imposed by tradition – we are free to borrow from all around the world and develop our own ways. I don’t believe in discarding all our old ways though either, mind you hairy bacon doesn’t feature in my house too often…
My mother’s home was in Schull, West Cork and her family business (O’Keeffe’s) was instrumental in sparking off what is now a very established artisan food industry in the area. Her parents and grandparents had a bottling company, a bakery, drapery, dressmakers and tailors, bar and grocery shop all operating out of a beautiful old premises on Main Street with a quaint courtyard behind. Electricity was generated in their own powerhouse – an innovation of my great-grandfather who was an inspired engineer and boat builder.
In the 1960’s The Courtyard developed into a multi-faceted business. There was a fantastic restaurant, food shop and cafe run by my uncle and aunt Jim and Tiller O’Keeffe. There were little craft shops and a bakery in the old courtyard, making it a really lovely place to browse and buy locally produced goods. It was a lifestyle store before we knew what lifestyle stores were and was way ahead of it’s time to the delight of locals and holiday-makers alike. Jackie Bennett’s lovely coarse bread was so special and was made each morning using traditional methods in the coal-fired bakery. From an early age the thought of the summertime treat of that bread with Nutella helped me endure the annual 10-hour trek from Monaghan (and later Dublin). We would set off down to Schull in the no-such-thing-as-a-bypass days – all the family squashed into the Renault 16, stopping for a well-earned break in the Crock of Gold in Cahir. That chocolatey snack was one of the highlights of the annual holidays as Nutella wasn’t available in our local shop – Schull was way ahead of the crowd in the food stakes! Fresh cheeses and vegetables from The Courtyard shop, nectarines which were an exotic treat, fish from the pier and even big fat lobsters waving their legs angrily at me as we brought them home to cook for a family party – all these memories stand out for me as being very special. I know that these experiences with good food were absorbed when I was a young child, and acted as a catalyst for the development of my own skills and interests in cooking.
So anyway why did I set up a cookery school? I just love cooking, and it’s so easy, so I decided to teach others the same thing it’s as simple as that. I sometimes get the ‘Oh it’s easy for you’, just open the fridge and lash out something effortlessly, but it is easy if you know the basics and aren’t too ambitious relative to your knowledge and level of confidence. I wouldn’t dream of piping pate, or doing anything remotely fiddly, I am far too lazy for that kind of thing. Knowing what goes well with what is my strength and I would like as many people as possible to get the same sense of satisfaction out of producing their own meal that I do – instead of pulling off the plastic wrap before sending the ready meal to the microwave. These are not cookery classes that teach people how to re-create restaurant food at home – the classes are about living a simpler, less complicated life when it comes to food and cooking it. We all have to eat, in my opinion too much fuss is made about food in all it’s guises. These classes are simply about learning how to cook healthy, interesting food with ease. It’s about growing vegetables, supporting local producers, valuing farm foods direct from the person who made those foods, or collected that honey or whatever. This may be a mood of the moment for some people but it is just what I have grown up with, what I believe in, and how we live here.
I have a simple unpretentious system for classes - participants sit around a big stainless steel island and watch what I do – then eat the results. I do not have a big classroom where everyone is stuck in rows straining to see what’s going on. There are courses for complete beginners, and also for experienced cooks who are fed up doing the same few things all the time and who need a bit of inspiration. Breadmaking classes are hands-on as demonstration is not appropriate for these classes. Other classes are demo only though, as I have learnt through trial and error that people get very self-conscious cooking and chopping in front of strangers, they prefer to watch and listen then try everything out at home.
Good food makes you feel good, and everyone can cook if they are shown how. There is more info. below on how I have reached this stage. This was supposed to be a brief introduction to me – it was not intended to be a lengthy essay so apologies if you are bored senseless by now!
Christine (Cullinan) Jordan is a highly proficient cook who has been practicing her favourite hobby since she was a young child. She was influenced heavily by her mother who produced fabulous meals for the family. It was however the hard work of an inspired nun – Sr. Mary, in St. Louis Primary School Rathmines that really helped instill her love of food and cooking. Weekly cookery classes were available for all children aged 7 and up, and the level of skill reached at such a young age was extraordinary. By fifth class Christmas Cakes and puddings were being produced along with casseroles, pies, roast dinners, choux pastry buns and shortbread biscuits – and by mere ten year olds. Her family often had to wait for their share as the samples were usually munched on the way home from school. She particularly remembers eating a whole pineapple-upside-down cake while meandering along Leinster Road, only to come straight home into the kitchen and bake another one. By age ten or so, cookery books were being read cover to cover like novels, much to the bemusement of friends and family.
Upon leaving Loreto St. Stephen’s Green secondary school Christine spent five years studying her other great love – design – firstly a Diploma in Industrial Design in the Institute of Technology in Carlow and then a degree in Furniture Design and Materials Research in the DIT. Her cooking skills were very welcome when she was in college – regularly producing meals for groups of friends from very meagre ingredients. At every opportunity during the 1980’s Christine worked in restaurants – Pasta Fresca, Il Primo, the Ante Room in Baggot Street, Fat Freddy’s, Paddy Kavanagh’s, to name a few. Adele’s in Schull, and lots of places in the USA and Rome were great fun during summers away from home. From washing up to food preparation and baking – all were embraced with gusto.
To provide an income while studying she took on regular private catering jobs, mainly for dinner parties and family occasions. During the summer of 1994 an opportunity to take on the summer contract for the Clifden Boat Club Bar and Restaurant arose, and three months were spent happily churning out soups, savoury tarts, salads, breads, desserts, cakes, and biscuits – all made from local ingredients. A very encouraging review by Maureen Cairnduff in The Sunday Press confirmed what she always believed – the most sought after food is fresh, natural, and simply prepared from the best ingredients.
A successful career in research, furniture design, and interior design followed her time in college, after gaining recognition by winning an award at the EBS Crafts Show in 1995. Then her two main interests merged when she became a specialist kitchen designer working with mainly German and Italian brands. Lecturing in Griffith College Dublin and GMIT has given her extensive experience of teaching to both undergraduate and mature students.
She was guest designer on the television programme Beyond the Hall Door on two occasions, and also designed a room set for the programme producers’ first live show in The Point Depot in 2000. It was at this show that a range of free-standing kitchen furniture she designed was launched. She was also profiled in Upstairs Downstairs and Beyond the Hall Door magazines.
Christine and her husband moved in 2001 to Co. Carlow where Jim is from. Her life-long interest in all aspects of food production and cooking has led to the setting up of Tasteworks Cookery School offering adults and children a range of classes in a most picturesque setting on the banks of the River Barrow between Leighlinbridge and Bagenalstown. It is hoped that the interest sparked off at such a young age will inspire others to create fantastic food for their families and friends.
A year spent living in the USA from September 2007 to 2008 gave great opportunities to plan for the future of the business and to get fresh inspiration and ideas away from home. We are developing a market garden, herb beds,, children’s garden, wildlife pond, wildflower meadow, orchard, soft fruit garden and a polytunnel to supply the farm shop with fruit and vegetables year-round. We plan to sell local products also from some of the great farmers, food producers and craftspeople in the area.
