When an all-star chef comes to visit
Though rare as hen’s teeth, there are occasions when even The Menu flags, reclining on the couch, eating cold baked beans straight from the tin dreaming impossible dreams of Michelin star chefs rustling up a little something in the kitchen.
An impossible dream, that is, until food blogger Helena Moloney’s brilliant brainchild, an auction for the chance to have Helena and Michelin star chef Martijn Kajuiter of Ardmore’s Cliff House Hotel come to your home, and cook a seven course meal with six complementing wines for up to six guests. For a fantastic cause, Pieta House centres for the prevention of self-harm and suicide, bidding (starting at €200 but now long past that this figure) closes on May 4. Bid at helenaskitchen.net or send an email to helenamoloney@gmail.com
Another deserving cause, another brilliant fundraising notion sees Cork Institute of Technology and English Market Traders hosting a cooking demo on May 1 in aid of Cork Penny Dinners, with guest chef Rory O’Connell of Ballymaloe creating a four-course meal using local produce from the market with plenty of opportunities for tasting and acquiring recipes. Cork Penny Dinners have been serving hot midday meals plus sandwiches and fruit, all for the price of a coin, since the 1840s, with the 850 weekly meals all funded entirely by voluntary contributions.
Tourism & Hospitality building, CIT, Bishopstown, 7pm on May 1. Tickets €20 from the English Market.
Connemara Mussel Festival on the glorious Renvyle Peninsula, Co Galway, celebrates one of The Menu’s favourite foods. Taking place on May 4-6, the festival features three tonnes of mussels and all manner of activities but look out for the Seafood Gala Dinners and the demos by top chefs. www.connemaramusselfestival.com.
Riverfest, running from May 4-7, celebrates all that is great about Limerick but The Menu is especially keen on heading Shannonside for a spot of nosebag with the ever popular amateur competition, the Great Limerick BBQ firing up on George’s Quay, with over 100 teams competing. There’s also a continental market and a Masterchef cookoff featuring the pros from Limerick restaurants. www.limerick.ie/riverfest/
Every Thursday, The Menu and Daughter head to Mahon Point Farmers Market, ostensibly to shop but in reality to tear off chunks of Arbutus’s exceedingly fine saffron and almond ring and dunk it into cups of equally fine coffee. The Menu enjoys Arbutus’s range of breads almost daily but only the ‘Ring’ will do of a Thursday — a brioche-like crust, a softer, sweet interior, plaited through with sugary almond paste and saffron. It is currently banned in our household on the grounds that it is impossible to resist. That’s no problem, as The Menu and Daughter scoff it all before returning home.
