Darina Allen
Darina Allen is a renowned Irish cook, food writer, teacher and television presenter. For many years, Darina cooked with her mother-in-law, Myrtle Allen in the kitchens of Ballymaloe House Hotel and restaurant. In 1983 she and her brother Rory co-founded the Ballymaloe Cookery School in the midst of 100-acre organic farm, extensive gardens and greenhouses.
She has been awarded Cooking Teacher of the Year by the International Association for Culinary Professionals. A founder member of the Irish Slow Food movement and founder of Ireland’s first Farmers Market.
Darina is widely travelled and famously passionate about beautiful fresh organic ingredients and local produce which underpins the philosophy at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. Students come from all over the world, not just, to learn cooking skills, but to be immersed in the unique farm to table experience.
Darina has written 20 books, a number published by Kyle Books, including BALLYMALOE COOKERY COURSE (2007) and IRISH TRADITIONAL COOKING (2012). FORGOTTEN SKILLS OF COOKING, published in 2009, won The André Simon Award for Best Cookbook.
Most famously, Darina presented nine series of her hugely popular television series, Simply Delicious, for which she wrote a number of tie-in cookbooks, including SIMPLY DELICIOUS CHRISTMAS (1989), SIMPLY DELICIOUS FISH (1991) and SIMPLY DELICIOUS VERSATILE VEGETABLES (1994) all of which were published by Gill & Macmillan in Ireland.
30 YEARS AT BALLYMALOE was published in 2013 by Kyle Books. A new edition of SIMPLY DELICIOUS CHRISTMAS was published by Gill & Macmillan in October 2014. Kyle Books published GROW, COOK, NOURISH (2017) SIMPLY DELICIOUS THE CLASSIC COLLECTION (2018) ONE POT FEEDS ALL (2019) and HOW TO COOK in 2021.
THE NEW BALLYMALOE BREAD BOOK will be published by Gill Books in 2023.
Darina Allen lives in East Cork in Ireland with her husband Tim, surrounded by her children, grandchildren and students from all over the world.
Website: www.ballymaloe.com
Instagram: @darina_allen