Chef, author and television personality Eunice Power’s kitchen is just as you might imagine – a large, welcoming space with a curated mix of traditional and modern furnishings. She has an AGA in one corner mirrored by a larger workspace on the opposite side of the room. There is lots of natural light, an artfully arranged bouquet of late-autumn blooms from the garden and a seating area with a comfy couch. At the centre of it all is – and will always be – her kitchen table.

“The kitchen table is the boardroom here at the house,” she says, smiling. “It’s where we gather and chat. It’s where, for the past 26 years, I’ve fed my kids.”

The table could tell its own story. Made from the recycled pine of old church pews, it is a beautiful piece of furniture, but there are some tell-tale signs that it has grown up with children. Old bits of Tipp-Ex and sellotape markings tell their own story but there is something beautiful about these tiny bits of imperfection – the table has lived a few lives.

My Irish Kitchen Table

With this in mind, it’s little wonder that Eunice has called her first-ever cookbook My Irish Kitchen Table. Launched on 13 November, the book shares recipes Eunice has come back to time and again to feed her family, entertain guests and share with friends.

“It’s a mix of every day, accessible recipes that I have collected over the years,” she says. “What I love about them is you can go to your local shop and buy all the ingredients. Everything is simple and seasonal. For me, it’s a warm hug of a book.”

Accessible, yes, with craveable recipes like Dungarvan seafood chowder as well as spicy sausage pasta with capers, olives and feta, but My Irish Kitchen Table also carries that special touch of class consistently found in Eunice’s menus. It was this approach which has made her business, Eunice Power Catering, so successful over its almost-25-year lifespan, and the one which has set her most recent business, And Chips, apart from its chipper peers.

“I would just really love to see people cook [from scratch] a little bit more,” she says. “Often these days, when I pick up the Sunday paper or read a new cookery book, you see a lot of unfamiliar ingredients. For people who might not be confident cooks, these exotic recipes might put them off cooking.

“I want [this cookbook] to be used. My own copy is already smeared because I was baking from it this morning,” she adds, laughing.

“These are good, basic recipes and there’s lot of room for interpretation. It gives you the space to think about the recipe and then think about what you might have already in the fridge.”

Eunice also wants readers to think about what they can share. These recipes were made to be passed around the table, given to a special teacher at Christmas time or packed up and brought to a game of bridge.

“For me, the big thing about food is connection,” Eunice explains. “I meet so many people every day because of food – when I’m out shopping or having a cup of coffee in a local café. I feel that there is this epidemic of social isolation happening. I’d love for people to bake something and share it with their next-door neighbour. So many of us, today, don’t know our neighbours.

“Food is always a safe starting point for a conversation because it’s something we all have in common. And you never know, you might have even more in common once you start talking.”

Community vision

Eunice has long been active within her community and, in recent years, has taken on the role of CEO for the annual Waterford Festival of Food. Organising this huge event is no mean feat, especially while operating two other businesses, but at this stage in her life, it’s a passion project.

“I love my community,” she says. “My strong point is probably how I’m able to connect people, and I tend to use food as a connector. My work with the festival is something I absolutely love, and I don’t think I could have done it as a 20-year-old. You need experience working with different people, being in business yourself and understanding the pitfalls.

“I always want the festival to be something which raises local businesses and community members up. We do everything we can to make that happen each year and make it brilliant, and it works out each year because we have the trust of the community.”

Accessibility has been another overarching goal for Waterford Festival of Food, which was the result of Eunice attending a meeting for the national autism service, AsIAm. She vowed to make the festival an enjoyable event for everyone, including those with special needs, older people and carers.

“We did these little social stories explaining, ‘this is where you park, this is what you can expect,’” she says. “It wasn’t easy to do, creating these stories took a while. But it helps neurodiverse people know what to expect from the festival, and it helps take that anxiety away from them. We’re lucky, we have a past CEO, Claire Dalton, who’s an absolute whizz and she helped organise this.

“Another thing we did was a fast-track system,” she continues. “If you’re a carer, or if you have an AsIAm or sunflower [hidden disabilities] card, you go to the top of the queue. This also helps people be aware of the people around them. These aren’t big, complicated things but they are greater than the sum of their parts.”

Navigating loss

Eunice recently became a food ambassador for Tesco Ireland to champion the importance of local producers, growers, and suppliers who shape the flavour of Irish food. With that, her new cookbook on shelves across the country, another successful year of the Waterford Festival of Food under her belt and having recently been honoured with the Movers and Shakers Award at the Georgina Campbell Irish Food and Hospitality Awards, Eunice has every reason to feel proud.

However, the truth is, these past six months have been the most difficult of her life as she navigates the loss of her son, Jerome, who sadly passed away this past May. As much as Eunice has given to her community over the years, these last few months have been a time of need, and the community has rallied around her. She has nothing but appreciation for the love and support she and her family have been shown.

“It has been unimaginable, what has happened to us and our family – and to poor Jerome – and we really miss him,” she says.

“I think, when something like this happens, you go into ‘high alert emergency’ mode, and I stayed like that for quite a while. People have been so good to us, and I so appreciate it. Someone dropped a box of apples outside my door the other day. Someone else brought me a bag of carrots recently. That’s their way of asking, ‘Are you ok?’ And I appreciate it. It’s something that has to be worked through. There’s no easy way through it.”

It feels unfair to ask Eunice to unpack her emotions surrounding this loss – grief is a personal thing, and respecting her privacy is important – but she is graceful in her openness. She knows that others, including some reading this article, are going through or have experienced something similar.

“I am very much involved in the Today Show on RTÉ 1 and people have written to me [about their own loss],” she says quietly.

“For me, food and cooking is such a comfort, and that’s what I throw myself into. I am so incredibly grateful to the Irish food community, to my own community here in Dungarvan and to food itself for giving me this outlet and this passion.

“If I didn’t have that, I think this would have been a much lonelier time.”

My Irish Kitchen Table - Eunice Power; €22.99 published by Gill Books.