The Menu: Irish Food Writers' Guild
The Menu was delighted to tie Neidín to a hitching post near the salubrious surroundings of Patrick Guilbaud’s Michelin-starred establishment in Dublin to reconvene once more with his peers in the Irish Food Writers’ Guild for the announcement of the premier Irish food awards, the Guild’s annual selection of the very best of Irish producers and food heroes.
Honoured this year were: Mossfield Organic Milk (and do also check out their utterly sublime cheeses); Wild Irish Foragers and their range of wild and foraged preserves; Silver Darlings Pickled Herring, from Limerick; Cuilan Loughnane, the craft brewer’s brewer and his White Gypsy Russian Imperial Stout; the environmental award to Highbank Organic Orchards; and an award for his special contribution to Irish food to Joe Fitzmaurice of Riot Rye Bakehouse and Bread School, in Cloughjordan. www.irishfoodwritersguild.ie
DON’T MISS
The very splendid Madeleine McKeever and Brown Envelope Seeds celebrate Tree Week with an Open Day (March 13) in their West Cork woodland with demos, talks and a seed swap table. ( www.facebook.com/brownenvelopeseeds ).
Chef Gary O’Hanlon, of TV3’s The Restaurant and Viewmount House, Co Longford, fetches up at Fishy Fishy, in Kinsale, for an exclusive ticket-only pop-up lunch (March 9), the last of a very popular ongoing series at Martin Shanahan’s seafood restaurant. www.fishyfishy.ie
The Menu is very much looking forward to trying out Carmel Somers’ Good Things Café & Cookery School, which opened this week in its new Skibbereen location . (www.thegoodthingscafe.com) A limited cask-aged edition of Shortcross Gin, is well worth a tipple ( www.jnwine.com & www.celticwhiskeyshop.com )
EXCELLENT IDEAS
Another excellent initiative from GIY, a national Sow and Grow Campaign aimed at primary school children sees the Waterford-based Grow It Yourself organisation set to distribute 30,000 seed packs and growing instructions to schools across the land.
Once schools are registered they can keep a growing blog online and every school that does so will receive a Sow & Grow certificate with the ‘Best’ Sow and Grow school winning their class a trip to Bloom, Dublin Zoo and €500 worth of gardening equipment for the school )( www.giyinternational.org ).
Well Seasoned; Building a Successful Food Business (March 10) is a conference organised by Local Enterprise Office Cork North and West in Inchydoney Lodge and Spa and featuring the Happy Pear brothers Steven and David Flynn as well as restaurateur, TV personality and Masterchef judge Nick Munier.
(Registration www.localenterprise.ie/CorkNorthandWest ).
The Menu shall be donning his gladrags for a night on the tiles as Cornstore Cork once again host their Charity Spring Fashion Show (March 16) in aid of The Cork City Hospitals Children’s Club. ( www.cornstorecork.com )
TODAY’S SPECIAL
The Menu had every intention of hymning the praises of the chelsea buns available in Ali’s Kitchen until an encounter with one of chef/baker Ali Honour’s filled doughnuts triggered an alternative epicurean epiphany, a sweet, yeasty dough pillow concealing a reservoir of delicious silky vanilla and honeycomb custard within. www.aliskitchen.com
