Get growing for goodness’ sake
In partnership with AIB, it targets community groups, schools and non-profit organisations seeking to finance their own food-growing project. The same programme funded more than 70 different projects in 2013 with grants ranging from €500 to €5,000. Applications are invited from any of the aforementioned with either existing or proposed growing space, schools can also apply for training services or equipment to kick-start a growing initiative. See www.giyinternational.org for further details and application forms.
The Menu is very excited at the prospect of an upcoming wine and tapas evening in Jacque’s Restaurant and with Oscar Bayo Contel from renowned Spanish wine company Gonzalez Byass as host, there’ll be an abundance of splendid sherries, to boot. ( www.jacquesrestaurant.ie). Seaweed Guru Sally McKenna (of McKenna’s’ Irish Food Guides and author of Extreme Greens: Understanding Seaweed), gives a fascinating talk/demo (March 6), at Ballymaloe Cookery School on this most wondrous marine plant, all in aid of Slow Food East Cork Education Project ( www.cookingisfun.ie). Congratulations are in order to CIT Bar Management student Patrick Curran who took second place in the National Hospitality Cocktail Challenge with his very splendid cocktail creation, The Honeypot ( www.cit.ie). The Dublin-based Guerilla Gourmet Club with the strong emphasis on native Irish produce, host another pop-up dinner, this time in the very stunning King’s Inns dining hall (Feb 28), with an intriguing menu including tandoor-spiced Achill Island mutton and canapés of fresh oyster with whiskey mist. ( www.facebook.com/theguerrillagourmetclub). The Annam Supper Club’s next evening (March 1), is all about parathas (stuffed Indian flat breads) with salutary cocktail included in the very reasonable €35pp (byob), The Menu is already ironing his sari ( www.annam.ie). Finally, Multiple Bl•s na h…ireann Award-winner (Supreme Champion, 2010), Iain Flynn, of Flynn’s Kitchen, has hung up the skillet and pulled down his farmer’s market stall canopy for the very last time as he heads for culinary pastures new. He shall be sorely missed by his many customers, but The Menu looks forward greatly to encountering ‘Citizen Flynn’ as a regular market customer.
After decades of consuming inferior wheat in mass-produced breads, there are more than a few bodies out there with wheat intolerances, so Simon Mould’s spelt pizza base will come as a godsend to many, either as a support for one of his truly splendid pizza creations or as part of his DIY pizza kit (with tomato sauce). Mind you, The Menu challenges you to decipher the difference between his spelt and traditional bases, the former yielding the class of delicious nutty, chewy ‘tear’ usually the province of the latter and that most other spelt bases utterly fail to replicate. www.volcanopizza.ie
