It's not my fault, I can't help it. It must be some sort of pre-determined biological imperative. It's inexorable, ineluctable, remorseless - I'm turning into a grumpy old man. I get grumpy with government over-regulation, I get grumpy when I find motorways with 40 mph speed limits, I get grumpy with the Luas and I get very grumpy when people mess with the food I eat. I simply don't want pre-packaged, pre-flavoured, pre-parcooked foods. I want natural, simple, honest and genuine food. There are times when I shake my fist hopelessly at the heavens and cry out 'Is that so much to bloody ask for?'

So what is it that makes us yearn for yesteryear? Honest yeomen ploughing with a pair of horses, hens pecking under an orchard, a pig in the yard, milk-maids in the dairy and God in his heaven - God be with the days. And what do we get today? A 'ready to microwave' pineapple pizza, burgers made of bits of cattle we used to throw away, milk with no cream, bread that goes mouldy before it goes hard, eggs with thin shells and pale yolks, vegetables and fruit that look perfect and have no taste and hardly any vitamin content. No wonder I get grumpy.

But then, just as you reach a nadir of profound disillusionment with the food chain, you get a lift. Wicklow, you may know, is full of people who embrace alternative lifestyles. There are old hippies, young new-agers, homeopaths, aromatherapists, feng shui practitioners, channelers, healers of all kinds, rebirthing gurus and a fair sprinkling of eccentrics and social misfits. So it's a good place to live. It's also home to farmers' markets and people who grow and eat organic foods, of whom the best-known is Marc Michel. Marc has been growing things in Tinna Park since he was a strip of a ten-year-old. It's a passion with him. His organic farm shop has been a Mecca for many of Wicklow's denizens for years and his produce turns up in various specialist grocer shops. But recently he's got a new venture - a cafe that serves organic food and wine.

Call me an old hippie, but that sounded good to me. I decided that it was exactly the place for lunch one windy, sunny day. With my daughter Isabella, her friend Dave and my friend Sarah Owens I drove down to Kilpedder to try an organic lunch. A very large greenhouse houses the cafe. At one end there's the farm produce and racks of other organic goodies, at the other end there are those combination wooden tables and benches made for outdoor living, some with large umbrellas over them. For a while we sat outside on the decking in the sun, and later, when it clouded over, we moved inside.

The menu is simple and is on a blackboard. On the day of our visit it had these dishes listed: a pumpkin, carrot and courgette soup; a tian of roasted Mediterranean vegetables; pan-fried wild salmon; a Caesar salad; an organic beefburger; a roasted vegetable salad and a chicken liver parfait with pear and date chutney. Most of these dishes were priced around €10, the burger and the salmon a little more at €14.95. We could also have picked a simple snack of bread, various dips and a glass of wine, which was priced at €7.95.

We spread ourselves around the menu a bit, Isabella picking the roasted vegetable salad, Dave and Sarah went for the wild salmon and I chose the beef burger. Choosing the wine was easy, there was an organic white and an organic red to choose from, both priced at €19.95. We had the white. There's no need to order mineral water here, you can get a carafe of Tinna Park's own spring water, which really is good to drink.

Now carefully prepared fresh food isn't fast food. Don't expect an instant palate gratification. Relax, enjoy your wine, admire the splendid 150 year-old Italian olive tree that stands in the middle of the cafe and before you know it the plates will have arrived. And very good food it was too - not just genuine and organic and healthy - but tasty and well made. The salmon was lightly cooked with a crisp slashed skin and there's no doubt that salmon out of the sea tastes very different from the farmed variety. Bella's roasted vegetables were properly cooked and seasoned and my burger (cooked nice and pink as I'd requested) was excellent. But my serious praise has to go to the chips which came with the burger. They were heaven on earth. Hand-cut from organic potatoes, fried in sunflower oil, they were like the chips my Italian granny used to make. Stupidly I said this out loud, and then watched helplessly as other hands moved across the table and stripped my plate of chips. I stared at my empty plate to a chorus of 'you're right, they're amazing chips.'

Despite having a large chunk of my lunch stolen from me I was happy to finish with a coffee as was Dave, but the girls wanted desserts. There were three to choose from at €6.25, a chocolate and pear tart, a strawberry tart or plain and simple strawberries and cream. Needless to say the strawberries were from the farm. So we all tasted a pear tart and a strawberry tart, which ended our meal on a high note.

The great pleasure in all of this is being able to see your food on your plate and in the fields surrounding you. The food on the plates here has made almost no journey at all - it goes from the farm to the kitchen to the plate, which is about as perfect a food chain as you can envisage. Everything that doesn't come from the farm has a provenance provided - you know exactly where your food has come from, a rare enough thing these days. If you're planning a Wicklow drive on a good day, take a detour to Kilpedder.