The Menu: Community co-op a welcome addition to Limerick's food scene
Community enterprise
The Menu has long been a supporter and advocate for any form of community food co-operative enterprises so was delighted to hear of the recent official opening of Limerick’s Urban Co-Op’s new premises at Eastway Business Park. Beginning five years ago as a members’ buying club, with 19 people coming together to buy vegetables from four local suppliers, within six months, membership had grown to almost 100. Next stage was a shop, open for six hours a week on Fridays and Saturdays, as product lines began to expand. Five years on, with a membership of over 1,000, the new shop carries a wide range of mostly organic produce, including fruit, vegetables, dairy and local meat, along with a range for those on special diets including gluten- and dairy-free. Sourcing directly from over 70 local suppliers and working with farmers to influence demand and trends, it is the ideal iteration of a local food enterprise, most especially as it also maintains a heavy focus on environmental awareness and zero waste living, including a large ‘bulk-buy’ section and several brands use fully compostable packaging. www.theurbanco-op.ie
Oktoberfest
The commendably proactive Cork Ale Trail unleash their ‘Oktoberfest’ (Oct 11-13) taking in five of the city’s top craft beer outlets (Bradleys Off Licence, Franciscan Well Brewpub, The Friary Bar, The Bierhaus and The Abbots Ale House) with events including The Beer Mile (Oct 11, 6.30pm), a walking trail beginning in Bradley’s with all participants receiving a T-shirt and stein glass to be used along the route.ww.facebook.com/CorkAleTrail/
Cocktail anyone?
The very popular Irish Cocktail Fest has expanded from a single week to take in the entire month of October and all 32 counties of Ireland with any licensed premises, North and South, invited to enlist for no charge. The public can also vote for their favourite Irish Cocktail with The Lodge at Ashford Castle currently the title holders for their Wilde’s Atlantic Way, made with Connemara Peated Whiskey. www.facebook.com/GreatIrishBeverages
Champagne at Shelbourne
Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel take the sabre to the champers, each Friday at 18.24 (1824 being the year the hotel first opened its doors), with sommelier Nisea Doddy (recently inducted into the Confrérie du Sabre d’Or
, a most exalted class of bottle openers!
) removing cork and collar of said champers with a single swipe of his sabre, a method apparently first employed by Napoleon’s Hussars.
Community enterprise
A large bubbling pot of vegetarian chilli was a near universal constant in the impoverished flats and squats of The Menu’s early years after first leaving home, for it was cheap, easy to make yet also downright ‘exotic’
thanks to the inclusion of garlic, chilli and kidney beans, then near-proscribed foodstuffs in the conventional Irish kitchen
. Garlic and chilli have remained cherished favourites but while The Menu adores beans and pulses, he long ago wearied of the rather one-dimensional flavour and ‘worthy’ stodginess of kidneys beans — which is rather a roundabout way of professing his deep admiration for Sarah Sexton and her splendid use of same as a flour substitute in many of her baked Bean Brownie confections, not least a Wow Pie, as recently sampled by a highly appreciative No 2 son in the newly opened Bean Brownie HQ, at the city end of Cork’s Ballinlough Road. Two airy, ethereal chocolate ‘muffins’ made from kidney beans and sweetened with honey, sandwich a delicious light buttercream of butter, whey and honey, a most sanctified take on a sinful treat, pretty much describing Bean Brownie’s range. www.beanbrownie.com
