The menu: Fundraiser BBQ at Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa
With four Syrian chefs — Ahmed al-Saadi, Mohammad al-Saadi, Amar Gharfaji, and Wasim Gharfaji — working in the kitchens of the lovely hotel, this will be a BBQ with a difference, featuring some exquisite Syrian dishes including lamb koftas and one of The Menu’s favourite dishes when prepared properly, tabbouleh.
Tickets €25, available from the hotel with special overnight accommodation packages available. ( www.Facebook.com/westcorkislandtoisland , www.inchydoneyisland.com )
Street Feast
Registration for a free Street Feast party pack is now open as the excellent community initiative returns June 12. Once again, you are invited to host a Street Feast in your neighbourhood or street, gathering together around a shared bite, the better to bond and enhance the wellbeing of your local community. ( www.streetfeast.ie )
ArtMeatFlesh
The Menu is greatly intrigued by ArtMeatFlesh, a live cooking show hosted by bioartist Oron Catts, in which two teams, comprising artists, scientists, and philosophers, engage in culinary competition with lab-grown ‘meat’, future food cults, and secret ingredients all in the shopping bag.
It promises to be an entertaining means of addressing an increasingly pressing issue for our planet in the 21st century — how can we meet the growing demand for meat proteins from a rising global population? ( www.dublin.sciencegallery.com )
Epic epicurean
On The Pig’s Back, in Douglas, hosts yet another entertaining epicurean eve with an authentic Lebanese meal (May 14) to be cooked by Lydia Jaber. (Booking essential, www.onthepigsback.ie ).
Rise and shine
Longueville House is always worth a visit but several upcoming events further serve to entice.
The annual dawn chorus walk (May 15), under the guidance of ornithologist Paul Connaughton, is followed by country house breakfast and a painting course, Botanical Art in a Country House (May 12-13), led by Patricia Jorgensen, open to residential and non-residential guests alike. ( www.longuevillehouse.ie )
Health and wellbeing diet
A Nutrition for Life seminar (May 14) taking place in Ennis, facilitated by nutritional therapist Colette McMahon, is designed to educate and inspire those interested in achieving health and wellbeing through diet. (Booking essential, includes lunch 087 6595417, www.truefoodacademy.com )
New food champions
The deadline approaches for nominations for Fáilte Ireland’s New Emerging Food Champions, who are actively involved as owner/operators in the food service sector, to join its Food Tourism Development Network. (email foodtourism@failteireland.ie )
BBQ masterclass
For those who fancy passing the bulk of any of this summer’s BBQ parties in the garden itself and not in the local A&E, grill chef Dan Cooper gives a BBQ masterclass (May 11), including pizzas, roasts, and stir fries, at The Weber Grill Academy, in Celbridge. ( www.grillacademy.i )
Today’s special
The Menu has met more than a few genuine coeliacs in his time and while they bemoan the enforced absence of good bread from their diets, they learn to make do with gluten-free replacements or strip bread from their eating regimes altogether.
It was those same friends The Menu had in mind when he put away one of Billy Kennedy’s gluten- and dairy-free raspberry tarts, a delightfully assured pastry (one of the toughest tests for the gluten-free baker); a soft, chewy frangipane not overly sugared so little raspberry flavour bombs get to do their own sweet citric shimmy.
www.Facebook.com/KennedysNaturallyGluten-FreeBaking
