John McKenna reviews maverick books by maverick people
There are books that should come with a Lifestyle Advisory sticker.
The sticker would advise the reader: “Be careful: this book will make you want to change your life.”
You've just opened Surf Café Living for example, and Jane Lamberth explains: “A year ago Myles and I spotted a 100-year-old cottage with a back garden overlooked by a beautiful mountain. It was rundown, damp and empty. It was exactly what we were looking for...”
In the second paragraph of The Lettercollum Cookbook, Karen Austin writes: “The plan was to live ‘the good life’: get away from pollution and traffic jams and try our hands at sustainable living. We had grand plans and no experience – quite a combination”.
You have got no further than page 15 of Gubbeen - The story of a working farm and its foods, and Giana Ferguson explains: “These people have become devoted members of the West Cork community, bringing their creativity with music festivals, Buddhist centres, art galleries, bookshops and, of course, organic foods and farming principles to this peninsula. We call it the Levant of Ireland”
Have you got your bags packed yet? Are you ready to take your grand plans, and your lack of experience, and create a seaside café, or a farmhouse cheese, or a West Cork bakery-come-Buddhist centre-come-organic farm.
Reckless optimism is out of fashion these days, but these three splendiferous books show what you can achieve if you enjoy a healthy dose of reckless optimism in your DNA. All three books share life stories, and stonkingly delicious food. All three titles show that there is no division between good food and the life well lived. In fact, their common thesis is that the one without the other is simply impossible: to eat well is to live well.
Jane and Myles Lamberth run Shells Café and Little Shop in Strandhill, near to Sligo. Their café is the iconic destination up there in the North West, in much the same way that the Lettercollum Kitchen Project is the iconic destination in Clonakilty, West Cork. The Ferguson family's Gubbeen farm has an iconic status unmatched by any other Irish farm.
And the story of all of these people is the story of the blow-in – the stranger, the surfer dude, the hippy, the iconoclast, the outsider. They show what richnesses arise when the homogenous nature of a society is turned upside down, and becomes a heterogenous society, a place of difference, where difference is valued.
Ostensibly, all three books are about food, modern Irish food. Realistically, all three books are about Irish culture, and about how individuals – crazy, inspired, creative individuals – can actually make a culture, how you can fashion and weave and colour a culture with the stamp of indelible individuals. These are mighty, mighty books: read them all, and read them all slowly, and carefully. Just don't expect to be the same afterwards.
Jane & Myles Lamberth: Surf Café Living (Orca)
www.shellscafe.com
Karen Austin: The Lettercollum Cookbook (Onstream)
www.lettercollum.ie
Giana Ferguson: “Gubbeen: The story of a working farm and its foods” (Kyle Cathie)
www.gubbeen.com
