VACATION DETAILS

Traveling Spoon

A warm and loving couple, Sharon and Andrew make you feel like part of the family the moment you enter their home. Andrew runs the family-owned dairy that produces milk for the famous Kerrygold butter! Sharon’s biggest passion in life is cooking for her family and friends. Her cooking knowledge has been gained through years of experience, first from her mother and then as she worked in the hospitality industry all over the world. Her interest in hospitality took Sharon all the way to Singapore to open an Irish pub. Sharon is known to brew her own kombucha and milk kefir and makes soft cheese and yogurt from milk produced from their farm. Sharon lives in a farmhouse with her husband and three children who are equally enthusiastic in the kitchen. She and her husband Andrew run a seasonal grass-fed dairy set in the heart of Golden Vale. They farm beside the famous working monastery, Glenstal Abbey, and are close to the Wild Atlantic Way. Join this food-loving family for a traditional homemade Irish meal in their country home in a pastoral village outside Limerick. You will share your meal with Sharon and Andrew and their children (when in town) at a farmer’s table over delightful conversation and laughter. Your meal will consist of an appetizer, a traditional Irish main and potatoes, a side vegetable and homemade Irish bread. Some of the main dishes that Sharon loves to cook are stews of root vegetables and wild venison (hunted in the woods by their neighbor), roast pork with apple cider sauce, or the family favorite, Irish bacon (from the local butcher) served with leek and potato mash, parsley cream sauce and sautéed green cabbage. You will conclude your meal with a dessert such as chocolate fondant (a dessert that her daughter Caragh specializes in) or a tarte tatin (made from homemade butter). Feel free to go for a walk through the woods after to digest your hearty, traditional Irish meal. If you book a cooking experience, join Sharon at her spacious farm kitchen to learn to cook an authentic Irish meal created from family recipes. Your hands-on cooking class will last about two hours during which you will learn to cook three Irish dishes from scratch, including learning to bake a traditional Irish soda bread and perhaps even churning your own own butter from milk from the farm. Then sit down together to enjoy your home-cooked Irish meal. Please note that if you decide to make a stew (and you chose the dairy farm tour), you might start your cooking class before breaking for your farm tour to take advantage of the time it takes to prepare the stew. Sharon and Andrew also offer an optional add-on of a farm tour of their farm; note the farm tour is only offered between March and October.