A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Jewel box
Jeweller Vivien Walsh has just opened a little jewel box of a shop in Monkstown, Co Dublin, after an absence from retail of nearly three years. The designer, who took a year’s career break in Lucca in Italy, decided on Monkstown because she fell in love with the shop and its location near where she now lives. It also doubles up as her studio. The shop sells her modern vintage jewellery, mostly semi-precious, with antique chains and filigree her style signatures. She has also included a bridal range. Prices go from €30 for earrings up to €250 for a multi-strand, semi-precious necklace. The shops is at 93 Monkstown Road, Monkstown, Co Dublin, tel: 01-2144555.
Deirdre McQuillan
Business smart musical chairs
A four-letter word – cúlú – translates as “recession” as Gaeilge. Say it quick enough in the west, and you might just leave it where it belongs.
Hence the enterprising spirit in Galway, where some musical chairs has resulted in a well-known florist’s establishment becoming a new restaurant, a restored mill hosting the same florist, and a former restaurant and wine bar becoming a photo pub.
The story began, in part, when New Zealand chef Jess Murphy and her husband David spoke with Ellen and Frank Heneghan of the Budding Café and flower shop about space. Murphy has built something of a reputation in Galway, where she was head chef at Ard Bia before moving to Sheridans on the Docks and then Bar No 8.
The result is that the Heneghans’ florist and café is now in the Bridge Mills on the banks of the Corrib, and its Sea Road premises has been transformed into Murphy’s new venture with her husband David. Kai Café and Restaurant is thriving after just a couple of weeks in business.
Down by the port, a former early house that became Sheridan’s on the Docks for a while has undergone its own metamorphosis. McGinn’s bar (above), as it is now known, has thrown open its doors and walls to photographers, and a series of landscape studies have formed the first exhibition there.
The six photographers involved – Joe Geoghegan, Sean Tomkins, Sean MacCormack, Pat O’Connor, Conor Ledwith and John Smyth – have dedicated part of the proceeds to Croí, the west of Ireland cardiology foundation. McGinn’s also hopes to display old cameras, equipment and other memorabilia, and has set up a panel of professional photographers to coordinate further celebrations of their artwork.
Lorna Siggins
Design a cake – win a €5,000 trip
Cupcakes . . . yawn, they’re really just buns, aren’t they? But wait, there’s a trip to New York, worth €5,000, for the winner of the Dr Oetker Cupcake Challenge. Show some “flair for the creative in the design of a cupcake”, upload an image of your creation (which must incorporate at least one Dr Oetker cake decorating product) to cupcakechallenge.ie, and you could be heading to the Big Apple with three friends. You can practise your design with the cupcake-building feature on the website, which allows you to choose cases, icing designs and colours, before throwing every sparkle and glitterball in the box at it. Something tells me the entries won’t be models of restraint.
Marie-Claire Digby
Take-away chef
In theory, wedding lists are designed to overcome that eternal question – what would the couple really like? But what if the couple doesn’t have a wedding list or they already have everything they want?
Enter Richard Corrigan. For a fee, he will come to your home, cook and serve a pre-arranged menu for you and three of your best friends. It helps that he has the same name as “the other fella” – the man from Ballivor, who opened Bentley’s in Dublin, but now spends his time running Bentley’s in London.
This Richard Corrigan specialises in private catering, and an increasing part of his business is catering for private dinner parties. It works like this: About a week beforehand, he contacts you with a suggested three-course menu. You tweak it, or change it altogether, to suit your own and your guests’ tastes, and any allergies that need to be considered. He then emails you a well-organised list of ingredients, separate for each course, which you buy.
Generally, Corrigan aims to start serving at around 8pm, which means he arrives at your home about 5.30pm. The idea of someone else poking around your kitchen could be off-putting, but Corrigan’s relaxed, laid-back style ensures that everyone is immediately at ease. He also finds his own way around the kitchen quickly, leaving you free to attend to your guests.
Everything is cooked from scratch and Corrigan’s attention to detail and presentation is flawless, according to a colleague who used his service recently, courtesy of a wedding present from a close relative. And best of all, he cleans as he goes.
Having been in the catering business for almost 25 years, including a stint in the IFSC and the Savoy Group in London, his own summation of what makes a good meal is good quality, fresh ingredients and good service. “There is no point in having a good meal thrown at you,” he says.
So how does he judge if the evening has been a success? Simple – if he is invited for a small glass of wine when the meal is over (in our colleague’s case, this was around 1am – try getting that in your local restaurant).
Pricewise, a general guide is around €190 for dinner for four. He caters for up to eight people for a dinner party and the service is available nationwide. Tel 086-0283388, or see richardcorrigan.com.
Among the Bloomsday events planned for June 16th is Blooming Attitude.
The day begins with a talk at 11am in Fallon Byrne on Exchequer Street, Dublin 2, by psychiatrist Dr Ivor Browne on the city’s personality, followed by a Blooming Attitude one- to two-hour walking tour through the inner city to discover “reality urbanism” in Dublin. The organisers say: “Blooming Attitude is about reclaiming Ulysses Urban Dublin, reinventing the now somewhat jaded theatricality of the suburban annual Bloomsday celebrations, to deconstruct the contemporary mind and map of 21st-century urban Dublin.”
That should ruffle a few Joycean feathers.
Nuala Storey
Index
WHAT’S HOT
Shotsy'sThe new vintage shop in Dublin's Temple Bar, opposite the Button Factory
Lemon soapPreferably from Sweny's in Lincoln Place even though it isn't strictly a pharmacy any more. It's a civilised gift to give or receive on Bloomsday
Ron SexsmithThe story-telling Canadian is at Dublin's Academy on June 23rd
Body Soul FestivalBook now for a funky, kooky, groovy weekend (June 16th-18th) at Ballinlough Castle, Clonmellon, Co Meath
Outdoor moviesPopping up all over the city and beyond
Cloud computingYou've no excuse to lose anything any more, except, of course, the house keys
Father's DaySure it's a swizz, but a great excuse to have a day out with your auld man
The colour orangeBright, summery and everywhere
Resealable Kilner-style jars of anchoviesA good investment (250g) from Tesco to liven up any kitchen's far
SparrowsWe thought they were gone forever but they've reappeared in city gardens
Salad fixings in your own garden, the window box or whereverReassuringly e.coli-free, as well as delish
WHAT’S NOT
Local shopsClosing down at a rate of knots
Junk mailHow many pizza menus does one suburb need?
Shopfront alertA graphic designer says: "Celtic fonts, script and scroll fonts should not be in upper case only.They were designed to be used in both upper and lower case. Anything else is just plain wrong." So now.
People who actually steal windowboxesMore unkind than they probably even suspect
Anti-Greed Give-Away for Bloomsday
Dublin-born artist Pete Dunne is doing something really subversive on Bloomsday – he’s going to give away about 400 new works currently on show at Fishbowl, in Temple Bar’s Exchange Gallery.
His “Anti-Greed Give-Away” is a personal protest against the banks and their “collusion” with the government during the financial crisis which, he says, has left him “completely gobsmacked”.
Dunne has done something similar before, right in the heart of London’s financial district, where bankers “found it difficult to access and download the fact that someone was giving away something for nothing”.
“Most of the subject matter would seriously disrupt the feng shui of their offices anyway. It was mostly the lower-paid workers who claimed their free art and all the paintings were gone in 90 minutes.”
His Dublin outing is the result of another “intense and feverish bout of creativity” and features paintings “exclusive to the Irish economic meltdown”, including several well-known personalities. “The Irish public has been given a particularly rough deal by the politicians, bankers, property developers and regulators, who were on autopilot with the greed button stuck on go.”
The show runs daily at Fishbowl on Exchange Street Upper, with the give-away scheduled for 6pm on June 16th. Dunne’s advice is to come early and make sure you’ll be able get the picture of your choice. See petedunne.net/anti-greed.html.
Frank McDonald
Word on the street, planking
What it means:You've fulfilled a lifelong dream to visit the Great Wall of China, and you want to preserve this life-defining moment for posterity. So you hand your partner the camera and . . . lie face down with your arms by your sides. You've just done a "Great Wall plank"; when you post the pic on the Facebook planking page, you will be feted by your friends as the world's greatest planker.
Planking is lying face down, your body as rigid as a four by two, in unusual places, and having your picture taken. You can do it at the Taj Mahal, on the Molly Malone statue, on your boss's desk – wherever your imagination and daring takes you. But do plank safely – last month a man in Brisbane, Australia, fell to his death after planking on a seventh-floor balcony.
Where it comes from:For years, students and stag-night revellers have played the "lying down game", but when Australians began "planking" in public places earlier this year, it quickly became an internet sensation. Soon, planksters around the world were doing it at historic monuments, sporting events or on top of the office photocopier. The fad has spawned some rival Facebook planking pages – and last Saturday saw the world's first "planking flash-mob" in Adelaide, Australia. What a bunch of plankers.
How to say it: "The wedding? Oh, it went great – until the groom started planking on the altar."
Kevin Courtney
Tonight sees St Iberius Church in Wexford host an eclectic musical offering. From Other Voices (taking its cue from a
certain Dingle shindig) will see Mick Flannery, Lisa O'Neill John Smith and The Man Whom (or Ian Doyle to his mother) taking their place in front of the pews from 8pm. Tickets are €10 and available from Whites for Music, tel: 053-9122067.
