The Menu: Family-friendly dining, artisan sourdough and the perfect BBQ selection

Sat, 30 Jul, 2022 - 02:00

Serving up the latest food news

Growing Food in the City

Another event from Crawford Art Gallery’s ongoing Meat and Potatoes exhibition and series of workshops and events, Growing Food in the City, features Erin O’Brien and Brian McCarthy, both featuring at the Grub Circus food stage, at All Together Now in Waterford this weekend, and the estimable Maria Young, also well known to The Menu. Erin, of Cork Urban Soil Project (www.urbansoilproject.com), Maria (coordinator of Green Spaces for Health and the Cork Food Policy Council), and Brian (Cork Rooftop farm) will be getting down and dirty (in a very soil-friendly way!) to discuss the urban growing and farming, an increasingly essential consideration in these challenging times.

www.crawfordartgallery.ie

Ryes and Shine

Angela Notheling’s wonderfully monikered Ryes & Shine micro-bakery, based on the northside of Cork city, and trading from a variety of locations, has launched a very splendid ‘Doughnation’ initiative, whereby any purchase exceeding €20 generates a €2 token for someone unable to afford the full price of a loaf of bread. If you are a fan of the gummy, industrial sliced pan, and have no idea what constitutes actual real bread, then perhaps this might spur you on to try a far tastier and nutritious alternative from Angela’s excellent range of organic artisan sourdough bread, and some choice sweet baked offerings as well.

For a full list of her retail locations, see Instagram: @ryes.and.shine.cork

Fire up the barbie for these free-range Middle White pork burgers with Cashel Blue cheese, free-range pancetta and sun-dried tomatoes from O’Mahony’s butchers, in the English Market.

Cork English Market

The Irish summer currently appears to be returning to its default pattern of ‘normal-abnormal’, with the hose and watering can once more rendered redundant in The Menu’s garden, but hardier, optimistic Gaels with a penchant for firing up the BBQ at the merest break in the clouds — or do as The Menu and cook under a large canopy — would be well advised to nip into Cork’s English Market, truly the one stop shop for the BBQ menu — from fish, meats, vegetables, salads, and all the spices, oils, and dressings necessary for adding flavour, with a special shout out to The Menu’s favourite butcher, O’Mahony’s, ever innovative, not least their splendid range of burgers and 42 day dry aged tomahawk steaks, O’Connell’s and Ballycotton Seafood for the fish, Mr Bell’s for the superb range of sauces and spices, Kathleen Noonan for BBQ spare ribs, Daphne and Gwyn at O’Sullivan’s for the poultry, the Real Olive Company for all the extra savoury pre-prandial nibbles, On the Pig’s Back, for all the cheeses and charcuterie, and the Roughty for those special edible grace notes that make an al fresco meal.

www.corkcity.ie/en/english-market/

Sheridan’s cheese club

During the summer months, The Menu likes to cut back on the cooking and instead let the larder and fridge do the heavy lifting, simply assembling a choice selection of whatever is to hand and allowing all to graze at will. This is where the Sheridan’s Cheese Club comes in handy for those not adjacent to a good cheese emporium, with a monthly selection of four to five cheeses, usually reflecting a particular theme based on style, season, or area of production, including rare cheeses not always available in Ireland, delivered to your door.

www.sheridanscheesemongers.com

The Wicklow Escape

The Wicklow Escape has been on The Menu’s radar for some time, and a Sunday at the outdoor, family-friendly dining experience is only serving to whet his appetite further, with a wood-fired menu offering fare for friends, families or hikers, every Sunday from 1-5pm for July, August, and September.

Reservations are essential, including pre-booked food in line with the venue’s sustainable ethos and commitment to zero waste.

www.sheridanscheesemongers.com

Pairing wine and cheese

Muse Cafe in Kilkenny continue their Summer Series with a Wine & Cheese Pairing, Aug 6 at 4pm, in in collaboration with The Wine Buff, Kilkenny and Sásta Foods in Galway.

Sásta Foods’ founder and resident cheese expert, Maeve Fitzgerald (formerly of Sheridans Cheesemongers), will introduce food lovers to a number of farmhouse Irish cheeses from Kilkenny and surrounding counties, paired with her small batch hot sauces, while The Wine Buff will supply natural organic wines.

€25pp, book online at www.musecoffeefood.ie

Homemade coffee granita from The Natural Bakery is The Menu’s food pick this week

TODAY’S SPECIAL

Rumours are abound in the parish that The Menu’s regular Sunday morning perambulation was recently afflicted by spasmodic outbreaks that earnest witnesses claim was outright running —though other more jaded and cynical types dismissed as episodes of protracted stumbling — most probably as The Menu had been told of some sticky bun festival just around the corner.

Whatever way you slice it on a most hot and sticky morn, The Menu was drenched in perspiration and very much labouring when he fetched up on the doorstep of The Natural Bakery, at Blackrock Pier clamouring for one of their homemade coffee granitas.

An adult take on a ‘slush puppy’, this granita is made with vanilla syrup and cool mountain coffee espressos infusing a delicious, slow-moving sludge of crushed, melting ice.

The first spoonfuls are light and uplifting, bearing caffeinated trills, but as the contents lower in the glass, you get down to the good stuff, the syrupy sweet dark coffee.

Swirled into the fast melting ice, it’s in the class of energising ‘sports tonic’, and soon had this latter-day Lazarus off out the door with an abundance of pep in each and every step, with the increasing threat of further running apparent on the horizon.