Post the Roast 13/10/08

Photo owned by detsang (<a href=’http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

What the Sundays said about food.

By Sinéad Keogh

OH, SUGAR

Tribune Magazine leads off its foodie coverage this week with sugar. Back in the day, says the Trib, human beings were designed to like sweet things – the body’s way of saving itself from poisonous plants which generally have a bitter taste. Then, we learned how to refine it into the pure stuff and now we’re headed for diabetic oblivion. To regulate sugar intake, you can either avoid carbohydrates and eat a high-protein diet or pay attention to glycaemic index (which tells you how quickly sugars are released into the bloodstream) and limit quick hits. Patrick Holford, author of How to Quit Without Feeling Shit, says it takes two and five days to come out of sugar withdrawal and the comedown isn’t sweet – but after that, energy levels should be higher than they were before.

COLD TURKEY

It’s Patrick Holford’s week in the media as he also features in the Sunday Independent Life magazine’s feature on beating addictions from sugar to nicotine to caffeine. Holfold, who also wrote Optimum Nutrition Bible and Low GL Diet (you didn’t tell us that, now did you, Trib Mag?) is interviewed by Joy Orphen and tells us that a bottle of cola has the equivalent of 45 teaspoons of sugar ‘plus a good few espressos of caffeine’. He explains that you can have a sugar high one moment and crash the next because the body releases insulin to re-balance sugar levels as quickly as possible and it causes a ‘rebound sugar-low’. He also kindly informs us that having difficulty ditching habits is not our fault because the brain stops producing chemicals when we provide them artificially, and finds it hard to start again when we take them away. Good staying on message, there, Patrick.

CABBAGE PATCH KID

Rachel Allen’s Trib column aims to make cabbage-eaters out of us all, saying that spring cabbage and savoy are yummy when cooked with a knob of butter and nutritious too. She also has a word for shredded red cabbage which makes good slaw (her word, not ours) and tastes good among the more run-of-the-mill green salad.

GARDEN PARTY

From the Sunday Business Post’s Bitesize, news of Catherine Fulvio’s three-day residential course in cooking for dinner parties in the garden of Ireland, Ballyknocken House, Co Wicklow. At €450pps, the Ultimate Delicious Dinner Party course will look at menu planning, advance preparation and recipes. Price includes accommodation, four cookery sessions, and two breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Courses run on November 3rd – 5th and November 24th – 26th, more here

CORNUCOPIA: BOOK ‘O’ PLENTY?

Cornucopia, the vegan, vegetarian and speciality restaurant on Wicklow Street has launched its first cookbook after 20 years in business, says the SBP. The restaurant caters for special diets and allergies, so fittingly the cookbook lays out suitable recipes for coeliacs, vegans, vegatarians and others on special diets. Cornucopia at Home: The Cookbook is on sale now.

INTO THE WESTIN

The Westin Hotel on Westmoreland Street have launched a new Jazz Sunday Brunch from 12.30-3p.m. in the Exchange Restaurant, says the Tribune. It’ll set you back €58 for the all you can eat buffet including unlimited champagne, or €42.50 for the less-bubbly option, which still includes one welcome glass of champers or a bloody mary. There’s even a chocolate fountain in the mix. The Westin are on 01-6451000

FORKING OUT

The restaurant reviews in brief.

CHIPWRECKED

The “definitely not homemade!” french fries were not even the worst of Katy McGuinness’s visit to Cruzzo on Malahide marina. The Tribune reviewer had few kind words for the restaurant, being unimpressed with her starter and main and willing to bet that her selection of ice-cream and sorbet dessert was bought in. McGuinness comments that the location is good, right on the seafront with good views, but that neither the food nor the prices are up to scratch.

LOOK GEPPETTO, I’M A REAL LIVE RESTAURANT

The Sunday Indo’s Lucinda O’Sullivan was more than impressed with Pinocchio in Ranelagh. The new Italian served up fillet of beef on rocket, grilled tuna loin with mussels and clams and linguine con vongole among other well-received dishes. Though there were some lost in translation issues with the wait staff, whose English wasn’t the greatest, O’Sullivan was generally impressed with the eaterie, which she says will be “fun when it gets going”.

PLATTER OF CLONTARF

Restaurant Ten Fourteen was Ross Golden Bannon’s eaterie of choice at the Sunday Business Post this week. The reviewer described his starter salad as “a revelation” while ham hock terrine, Lissadell mussels and and dry-aged Carlow sirlion steak also impressed. Though he did describe the decor as having “Sarah Palin brashness”, the food was good and the waitress “trained to within an inch of her life”. The restaurant is wholly owned by north Dublin charity Casa, who support elderly people with disabilities, Golden Bannon adds.