The menu: Innovation in Irish Food and Drink, UCC
The Menu is delighted to be adding his own brand of rabblerousing guff to one of the most progressive food conferences to take place on this island for quite some time, Innovation in Irish Food and Drink: Past, Present and Future (March 10-12).
Organised by food historians Regina Sexton (UCC) and Dr Chad Ludlington (Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow/School of History), it will feature food historians, food geographers, food scientists, business leaders, food producers, restaurateurs, and food writers.
Production and consumption of food is a global issue with enormous local ramifications and the conference aims to unite some of the multi-disciplinary expertise in UCC with the broader local food community in the self-styled ‘Food Capital of Ireland’ with the aim of forming a food vision for the 21st century.
Registration is open and free but booking is essential www.uccconferencing.ie/product/ucc-food-conf/
The Menu is delighted to be hosting a splendid fundraiser, Mum’sDish2017, in aid of Cork Penny Dinners, the historic Leeside charity currently serving up over 1,000 meals a week, rising from 150 a week two years ago.
An action-packed evening (March 8) will feature six of Cork’s top chefs demoing dishes, Fionnuala Harkin, of wine sponsor Wines Direct, will conduct a tasting and prizes will be raffled.
The event has received the backing of some of Ireland’s top chefs including Neven Maguire, Darina Allen and Ross Lewis who have all contributed recipes inspired by memories of their own mother’s cooking to a special publication, to be sold on the night.
Tickets are nearly sold out but donations are also welcome at www.eventbrite.ie/e/mums-dish-2017
A saddened Menu reports the closing of Nude Food restaurant in Dungarvan, where for close to a decade, his dear friend, the magnificent Louise Clarke, hosted one of the most sublime casual dining experiences in the country.
Joined in recent years by Lucy Whelan, the pair offered a deceptively simple menu of ‘home food’ in a glorious venue that was as much a reflection of Louise’s eclectic, fearless and endlessly welcoming personality as it was a restaurant, including a summer room and joyous herb garden to the rear.
But The Menu is certain of one thing, this is far from the end for Louise, a most splendid woman whose multiple talents are surely fated to soar again in new directions.
The Menu was sad to hear an old favourite, Kingfisher Tea, had ceased trading but one door closes and another opens for it was that self-same epistle of bad tidings that revealed a silver lining in alerting him to the existence of House of Tea (HoT), run by Martin Mehner, in Co Wicklow, for over 15 years.
Apart from tea distribution, HoT also conduct tea appreciation classes and tastings as well as offering consultancy and product development.
The Menu took delivery of a goodly selection of their products and he and No 2 Son passed a morning of great sport crafting all manner of herbal concoctions, including a liquorice ice cream based on Mehner’s excellent Liquorice Root Tea with all manner of culinary possibilities and recipes open to the thoughtful and innovative cook.
But, in the heel of the hunt, no matter how much The Menu loses the run of himself in the lab, it is to the old faithful cuppa that he always returns to disperse the early morning fog and House of Tea’s Assam Doomni blend rose splendidly to the task, a burnished coppery red in the cup, it offered a lovely buttery malt on the palate, finishing with delicious woody, floral notes rendering the traditional splash of milk an unnecessary intervention. www.houseoftea.ie
