The Menu: Ukraine food initiative; and chocolate galore this Easter
With Forget Delicious Chocolatey Irish A Not Or With Range Clare Intolerances From Those Made Allergies Food Let’s
Chocolate most definitely on the menu at this time of year
It’s Easter once more — the annual licence for The Menu to cock a snook at Mrs Menu and gorge himself with chocolate.
Award-winning young Irish pastry chef and chocolatier, Gráinne Mullins, has individual Easter eggs that are most certainly worth seeking out, including delicious dark chocolate with flakes of sea salt and chewy caramel, milk chocolate with candied hazelnuts and hazelnut gianduja, and white chocolate with strawberry chocolate.
Another favourite around these parts is Dublin-based Belgian chocolatier Erik Van der Veken’s luxurious handmade and decorated eggs. His new Easter collection features six different versions of his large multi-faceted eggs, all of them containing gorgeous handmade flavour combos, including Treasure of the Rainforest, made with Bolivian wild Criollo Amazonico cacao couverture; Caramel Crunch, including golden nuggets and Piedmontese hazelnuts, white chocolate Fruits Rouges, with freeze-dried strawberries, raspberries and yoghurt; The Millionaire, studded with crunchy malt biscuits, amongst others. And miniature selection boxes are also available.
Nationwide delivery, free on orders over €60
The English Market traders have, unsurprisingly, all manner of wonderful Easter offerings, beginning with The Menu’s much-loved Chocolate Shop (chocolate.ie), the finest place in Ireland to source premium single origin chocolate bars from around the world, along with selection boxes and hampers. But for those seeking fish for Good Friday (although The Menu reckons fish makes any day a ‘Good’ day!) then O’Connell’s fishmongers, Ballycotton Seafood and Hederman’s Smoked Fish and Seafood stall have got you more than covered. And of course, Easter lamb is available in abundance in all the market’s butchers, most especially another Menu favourite, O’Mahony’s.
corkcity.ie/en/english-market/
The Cork International Hotel has launched a luxurious chocolate-themed Easter Afternoon Tea for the entire month of April, including savoury bites and chocolate treats, served from 12.30pm to 2pm daily, with collection also available for home consumption.
The Franciscan Well Bar & Brewpub on Cork’s North Mall host An Evening with Ger Buckley, Jameson’s Master Cooper which includes a medley tasting of Jameson whiskeys & Franciscan Well beers, a welcome return to live events in the craft beer bar’s lovely beer garden. April 14, 7pm.
And while we’re on chocolate-themed imbibing, Porterhouse Brew Co (porterhousebrewco.ie) has a quite delicious Chocolate Truffle Stout on limited Easter release and The Wine Buff has put together a special range of wine pairings to go with chocolate for Easter (thewinebuff.com)
This week, The Menu was especially proud of the Irish food world, both ‘little and large', for how it came together to support Bia do Ukraine. This is an initiative to send Irish produce to Southern Poland, 10 miles from the Ukrainian border where the truly incredible US chef-driven humanitarian organisation, World Central Kitchen, is cooking food for refugees of the war in Ukraine at mobile kitchens set up in Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Poland and even in Ukraine.
It began with the very wonderful Sheridan brothers of Sheridan’s Cheesemongers deciding to send some Irish farmhouse cheese to WCK, and then The Menu joined the Sheridans in going ‘around the houses with the ‘begging bowl’. To be honest, not for one moment did it feel like begging as all arms were entirely open, from the very smallest specialty food producers to largest companies in Irish agri-food, all eager to contribute, with Musgrave Marketplace also donating the use of an articulated truck ]to get the shipment to Przemyśl, in South-East Poland,. This is being driven by uncle and nephew team, Niall and Matt Daniels, who volunteered for the assignment.
The huge consignment includes almost 1,500kg of Irish farmhouse cheese from some of Ireland’s finest specialty cheesemakers, creamery cheddar from Carbery, Tipperary Co-Op (also donated butter), Kerry Group, Ornua, long-life milk, from Lakeland Dairies, flour and oats from Ballymore Organics, Tartine Dublin, Kells Wholemeal (also donated pasta), Oak Forest Mills and Musgrave’s, teabags from Barry’s and Musgrave’s, and brown bread and oat crackers from Sheridan’s and Regale, in West Cork.
It is hoped to instigate further deliveries under the Bia do Ukraine banner and The Menu will keep you posted on this front.
In an almost entirely chocolate-themed column this week, with more chocolate on show than at Willie Wonka’s Wedding, The Menu would like to also remember those suffering from genuine food intolerances.
Accordingly, The Menu is delighted to make a special mention of several chocolate-related offerings from Jiminy.ie, Ireland's eco toy store. The Chocolatey Clare range is vegan and dairy-free and wrapped in a home-compostable film and The Menu is delighted to report that the bars he sampled (Simply Strawberry, Lemon Crunch, Salted Peanut, Mint Creme, Ginger Crisp, Really Raspberry) were all made from premium 57% Criollo couverture, with balanced flavours appealing to all ages, with a range of bonbons also available. In addition, Jiminy also offers PLAYin Choc, most pleasant tasting chocolate containing just four ingredients, and certified vegan, certified organic, and with no soy, nuts, gluten or dairy, and a charming little keepsake toy also included.
Granted, it is a cheerful little rabbit crafted of heavy-duty cardboard for simple self-assembly, not quite the pizzazz of the more usual moulded plastic offerings, but will more than suffice and will most definitely not end up, as these disposable trinkets invariably do, adding to the overwhelming mountains of single-use plastic destroying a planet we are supposed to be curating for when these young recipients come of age.
Happy Easter and may The Chocolate be with you!