The Menu: Bord Bia Marketing Fellowship Programme
Hardly a wet week into the New Year and The Menu’s predictions are already coming to pass with news that one of his hot tips for further success in 2013, Firehouse Bread School, on Heir Island in West Cork, has been shortlisted in the bread category at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, for the co-authored Bread Revolution, written by Firehouse’s Patrick Ryan and Duncan Glendinning, the winner to be announced at the Paris awards dinner (Feb 23). The Menu reckons Bread Revolution, a charmingly informal introduction to the art of breadmaking, featuring decent recipes and solid technical tips, is in with more than a shout. The Mystic Menu is now off to Paddy Powers to bet the house on…? Anything at all, really, now he is officially in the prophecy business. www.thefirehouse.ie
While The Menu would happily gad around Europe selling wondrous Irish produce, it appears he doesn’t quite fit the bill for the Bord Bia Marketing Fellowship Programme in association with the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School what with his pronounced allergy to study and a few other such impediments. Bord Bia is seeking applications from graduates with a minimum three years of work experience and an interest in business and development to fill 25 positions in a year-long programme working on behalf of Irish food companies overseas while completing an MSc International Marketing Practice. www.smurfitschool.ie/bordbia.
Whenever that lazy old stereotype about the Scots being a dour people is dragged out, The Menu has the perfect riposte — Burns Night! While the rest of the planet has decided that come January, the only thing for it is to ditch the nosebag and the vino and commence a regimen of grievous physical penance and tortuous mental contrition, an affliction known as ‘new year’s resolution’, our Scottish Celtic Brethren decide to near-enough stage a re-run of Christmas with a fine banquet in honour of the poet Robert Burns. There are a few seats remaining at one of the hottest Burns Supper tickets in this neck of the woods, the West Cork Burns Supper at the West Cork Hotel (Jan 25), a seven-course traditional Scottish banquet including bagpipes, haggis and the ‘wee dram’ – now, that’s The Menu’s idea of a fitness programme! www.westcorkhotel.com/ www.westcorkfood.com
The Menu oft tires at how culinary innovation mutates so rapidly into an epidemic of slavish imitation with little or none of the original craft, dulling utterly the delightful impact of the initial idea. The addition of salt to caramel may not be a new concept but it’s recent revival was a case in point and The Menu’s expectations of Chocolate Garden’s Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel were lower than a snail’s belly — so, imagine his startled joy as a brittle shell of good dark chocolate suddenly caved in under pressing tooth releasing a surprisingly liquid caramel, the balance between sugar and salt so sublimely judged. It’s the kind of thing one might be tempted to copy! www.chocolategarden.ie
