I got caught a couple of times in Dublin's 'Operation Gridlock', that series of measures designed by the chaps in charge of Dublin's traffic whose purpose is to stop Dublin traffic from moving at all. Give them their due, it all seems to be working perfectly. I was in Pearse Street for close on three-quarters of an hour without moving, so the main aim of the plan, causing a gridlock, is in flawless operation. Fun though sitting in traffic jams is, I've done it twice this Christmas, so I may not necessarily want to do it again.

You will be reading this some time in quiet tranquillity of the New Year, but at the time of writing we haven't got to Christmas yet, so all the fun of the city's festive traffic is still to be availed of. Still, as I said, I've had a couple of goes at it, so I thought I might go somewhere that didn't involve traffic or parking problems. Inspiration came as I scanned the morning papers. 'Bray dirtiest town in Ireland', read the headline. I was thinking of Bray and that that wasn't necessarily my experience, when it hit me. All kinds of birds could be killed with the same stone if I took a trip to Avoca Handweavers in Kilmacanogue. Firstly I'd get to have quick drive on the only motorway in the world with a 40 mph limit - the one that goes from Kilmacanogue to Kilpedder - I could get a meal in the Terrace Cafe in Avoca Handweavers, plus I could do a whole lot of Christmas shopping.

Armed with my plan my wife and I set off for Kilmac and with consummate ease we got there, parked, and wandered through the food hall. Ok, it's not Harvey Nicks or Harrods, but for provincial Wicklow it's pretty impressive. It's got all of those high-value foods that come in beautiful packaging that are exactly the thing for Christmas prezzies, things like flavoured olive oil in fancy bottles, Spanish anchovies in Art Deco tins, a whole range of Carluccio's foodstuffs, fancy chocolates (see below), and a huge array of tasty tit-bits in jars. As an aside, I'm really puzzled why anyone would spend a lot of money buying rosemary flavoured olive oil. All you need to do is put a sprig of rosemary into a bottle of good, virgin olive oil and voila! Two weeks later you've made your own. Still, there were things on the shelves that got me spending my money. I grant you they were all Italian, but they really are very good to eat and they're made by people who actually care about what they put into the jars. I ended up with the Mongetto tuna stuffed peppers, which I've had before and they go really well with a chilled glass of prosecco or white wine. Then I got some spreads to put on crostini - artichoke, spicy sun dried tomato and porcini mushroom, perfect for the moments when you need a quick snack. I was happy to find La Bonissima balsamic vinegars from Modena, which are among the better ones available. Thinking about snacks had me buying the Mongetto marinated, hot peppers for putting on bruschetta, and lastly I bought a range of sauces for the sheer convenience of it. I assiduously avoid pasta sauces on the supermarket shelves since I haven't found one yet that I can't do better myself, but here I found a really good range of sauces from Mongetto again, the Mezzanotte, (midnight), artichoke, capers and olives. Armed with all of these wonderful goodies it was time to sit down and have a well-deserved late lunch.

There's something pleasing about the way they do the food in Avoca. It has that simplicity of 'what you see is what you get'. It's there, displayed on the counters, you can see the choices that are available for the day's lunch and once you've made your choice there's no waiting, you can have it right away and take it to a table. I made the same mistake that I've made here before, the one where you like the look of things so much you end up with far more food than you can actually eat. We took our place in a fairly fast-moving line of people, tray in hand, and moved along the food counters. The first thing that caught my eye was the ham and leek plait, which I knew I just had to have. Susie was taken by the caramelised onion tart and ordered that. Then I noticed a carrot and coriander soup on the blackboard, so I ordered that for myself. I realised that this was a blunder when what I assumed was a piece of pie that would be cut in half before I got it, came in its entirety onto my plate. That and three different salads as well, all included in the price.

There's wine available of course, but since this was the afternoon we both felt like something non-alcoholic, Susie drinking mineral water and me my favourite orange drink, Orangina. At the table the enormity of the portions became apparent to me as I tried without success to finish my soup and then my pie. Both Susie and I were delighted with our respective choices and we swapped forkfuls. What makes this meal worthy of comment is that it was produced at the height of the Christmas pressure in a very crowded shop. It's so often the case that when a place gets busy the underlying systems collapse, but here the standards were kept high despite the rush, and that impressed me.

As simple snack lunches go, this was very good. Decent ingredients and well-made pastries made it a pleasure to eat here after the hard work of shopping was over. The food bill came to just under €32 for the two of us.