Cooking competition for Kolkata
To enter, simply register in advance by email and then bring along a cooked dish (made from sugar or spice or both!) to the Bakestone Café, in Ballyseedy Garden Centre (May 4), Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, where judging shall be conducted by Lilly Higgins (author of Dream Deli), patissier Christine Girault (La Spoon), chef Gautham Iyer (Iyer’s Café), chef Ali Honour (Bakestone Café, Ballyseedy Garden Centre) and The Menu himself. There’ll be all manner of entertainment and child-friendly high jinks on the day and winners will earn exclusive culinary lessons from each of the judges to take place in Brennan’s Cookshop & Cookery School. www.eat4streetkids.com
The Menu has nothing but admiration for those brave souls who chuck it all in to start their own food businesses. For those tentative souls, still nervous about dipping that first toe in the water, comes a splendid little book, Money For Jam (Oak Tree Press) by Oonagh Monahan, subtitled ‘The Essential Guide to Starting Your Own Small Food Business’. If you reckon you’ve a food product with potential to wow the national palate, then Monahan’s tidy little tome gives the lowdown on all sorts of vital information including food safety and hygiene legislation and registration, labelling, packaging, branding, marketing, supply, distribution, costing and a whole load more besides. For those yet to alight on that brilliant light-bulb moment of inspiration leading to the retirement home in the Seychelles, there’s even a section on identifying trends and brainstorming fab new notions (www.oaktreepress.com). And by sheer coincidence, in the same week, Bord Bia’s new Guide to Food Markets in Ireland, has turned up on my doormat. Local markets have been and continue to be a terrific launching pad for many a new Irish food business or product and this little guide is aimed not only at budding stallholders but also those with a notion of establishing a new market in their locality. (www.bordbia.ie)
The Menu is most careful about where he purchases his beef and lamb, always Irish and usually from independent Irish craft butchers, where quality and traceability are usually a given. If a commitment to compassionate farming can be added, so much the better, which is why he was most intrigued to hear of Gilligan Meats and their ‘Table Spoon Steak’. It comes from cattle reared on grass, finished on a special diet in straw-lined stalls with music pumped in and, crucially, an on-farm abattoir reducing much of the stress of the animal’s final hours — stress which can significantly toughen a piece of meat. While he never quite got round to slicing with a spoon, The Menu’s fine, sweet piece of fillet fell away on the tongue like butter. www.GilliganMeats.ie
Bradleys, O’Donovans, O’Briens, Widely Available
This is the original pilsner from the town of Pilzen in what was once Bohemia but is now the Czech Republic. Urquell means “original source” in German and pils is now a term for any light bottom-fermented lager beer. While many German Pils are excellent, few are as good as the Urquell original.
Brewed with noble Saaz hops which are aromatic but low in bitterness and with Moravian malted barley for elegance and balance. Mild spice and orange peel aromas, round and full-flavoured on the palate and a crisp bitter finish.
— Leslie Williams
