Bookshelf: The Farmette Cookbook

Recipes and Adventures from My Life on an Irish Farm

ABOUT THE FARMETTE COOKBOOK

American city girl marries Irish dairy farmer; cooking, growing, foraging, fishing, preserving, and baking ensue: 150 delightful classic Irish recipes updated for the modern home cook. 

The Farmette Cookbook documents Imen McDonnell’s extraordinary Irish country cooking journey, which began the moment she fell in love with an Irish farmer and moved across the Atlantic to County Limerick. This book’s collection of 150 recipes and colorful stories chronicles nearly a decade-long adventure of learning to feed a family (and several hungry farmers) while adjusting to her new home (and nursing a bit of homesickness). Along the way she teaches us foundational kitchen skills and time-honored Irish traditions, sharing wisdom from her mother-in-law and other doyennes of Irish cooking. We learn the ritual of Sunday lunch, pudding, and tea. We go along with her on wild crafting walks–the country version of foraging for wild edibles. We visit her local fishmonger to see what we can create with his daily catch from the sea. Along the way we see how she’s deviated from classic Irish recipes to add contemporary or American twists. 

The Farmette Cookbook is a compilation of tried-and-true recipes with an emphasis on local, fresh ingredients and traditional Irish kitchen skills, which for Imen have healed homesickness and forged new friendships.