Ummera’s blog has moved

For the last year this blog has been hosted by WordPress, which has been great.

We`are now running WordPress on our site at www.ummera.com so our blog can now be found at:

www.ummera.com/wordpress 

I look foward to ’seeing’ you there!

Slow Food Visit

This Sunday, December 10th, the Cork Convivium of Slow Food is having its festive lunch at Deasy’s Pub in Ring near Clonakilty; on their way they will be calling in on us at Inchybridge for a pre-lunch taster. I am just hoping that the weather forecasters have got their predictions all wrong for Sunday!

If anyone is interested in joining in last minute, phone Simone at 021 4505819.

We are madly smoking 7 days a week around the clock, so a brief interlude with maybe just a petite coup of a gorgeous wine from Febvre Wine Merchants will be most welcome!

Nepotism helps the world – to a tee!

Any hi fashion golfers looking for the best of clothing should definitely have a look at my nephew’s site, www.dressedtoatee.co.uk; I’m no golfer, but I do have one of his shirts and they are great!

Pouring Salt on troubled water……..

Last night I sent an email out to a number of our contacts in the Cork City area alerting them to our presence at Mahon Market tomrrow, Thursday. I mentioned in the emal our Flor de Sal and it prompted an email asking what Flor de Sal was and then a subsequent one asking if she could buy it online.

So, in a pro-active mood, I added the salt to our online catalogue. And there it is for all to buy!

I guess the waters around here must be pretty troubled given the sound of the wind outside tonight! And more to come on Saturday?

Dublin & Shop 2006

Day one over! Feet sore from standing up all day, head tired from being awake since 5 this morning!

A good show, with a diverse selection of products well displayed. If you are in the business and in Dublin on Monday or Tuesday you really should call in. And visit us on Stand K7.

Ummera at Shop 2006, Dublin

Crack o’dawn on Sunday morning, courtesy of RyanAir (and we won’t go down that route right now) will find me up in the skies en route to the RDS in Dublin for the Shop 2006 Fair at the RDS. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I will be at our Stand K7 from 11:00 to 18:00hrs.

Call by and say hello!

Smoking Eel…. well…. we are, not the eels!

We thought that we had smoked our last batch of eels last week, but on Tuesday morning we received 250 kgs of superb Silver Eels from Louch Gowna and Louch Outra. The size ranged from 400gms up to a Kg.

Reports are circulating that this will be the last year that Silver Eels will be commercially caught. Facts and figures are scarce, but the stocks are apparently some 80% less than they were 10 years ago. If this is the case, then fishing has to be stopped to give the stock a chance to recover. As with the wild salmon stocks, it is never quite so simple and many factors have contributed to the decline in eel stocks in Ireland and Europe. One report out today blames the amount of pollution such as petro carbons, oil & petrol leaks, in waterways is causing the breakdown of the slime on the eels’ body. Others blame the harvesting of the elvers as they swim back from the Sargasso Sea to feast in our lakes and rivers. The price that can be fetched for a bucket of elvers is astronomical!

 But despite all this doom and gloom, our eel fisherman tells me that stocks this autumn are excellent, and the number of very small eels is better than for many a year. So hopefully, not all is D & G!

The eels we smoked today look amazing and it looks as though we will have smoked eel available for a little longer.

Check out our ordering pages at ummera.com for Smoked Eel.

A Sunny Day for The Bandon Market perhaps?

A fortnightly reminder that The Bandon Farmers Market is on again tomorrow – and the forecast indicates fine and dry!

After four days in the past seven at two food shows in the UK, one in Bristol at the Organic Food Festival and the second in Olympia, London at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair, the thought of another day standing and smiling is going to be a challenge – but if the sun is shining then all will be well!

Hope to see you there!

New Ordering Pages at ummera.com

After weeks of burning midnight oil, diving into code books, and Master Classes in the challenges of php files, our new ordering pages are now live at www.ummera.com.

Modifications and improvements will continue over the coming weeks (and no doubt years!), but the base is there. The big change for us, and our customers, is that no longer is the price given for the product the final price. We have succumbed to the norm of having an ex smokehouse price and only at the check out will you get the shipping cost. This now means that an order can be made up of a mix of any of our products; the system calculates the total shipping weight and then gives the shipping cost. This, to me, is very clever, but I presume that it is far from new!

The other thing new about it is that customers will need to register, and guests are also requested to register. This way they can get get maximum benefit and so can we.

Any feedback is most welcome, both good (of course) and bad (most important).

Speciality & Fine Food Fair, Olympia London.

Weblogs tend to be tales of the past, however not here. This is the future……!

My earlier post ended in Bristol, but not for me; the Bristol show starts on Saturday and I will have to catch the train to London at lunchtime to set up our stand at The Speciality & Fine Food Fair in London. Then three days of talking and smiling, then home on Tuesday night.

If you have read this and are at Olympia, there will be a special draw for a side of smoked salmon for anyone who visits our Stand 545 and can say the word UMMERA backwards without prompting! Start practising!