New North West Irish Culinary Team to Compete at Hotelympia London 2014

A group of professional Irish Chefs from the Northwest of Ireland have come together and founded a new Regional Culinary Team which intends to compete as an independent Culinary Team at Hotelympia, London, in April 2014.

Hotelympia is the UK & Ireland's largest hospitality and food service event and the most important event of 2014 for people involved in the hospitality industry and the Salon Culinaire is at the centre of Hotelympia for all chefs. Over 8,000 chefs visit the event and for many, the three different sections of Salon Culinaire are the principle reason for their visit.

The Northwest Culinary Team Captain  is international award winning chef Joe Clinton

The Northwest Culinary Team comprises some of the top chefs from counties Donegal , Leitrim & Sligo who have all taken part, very successfully, in international culinary competitions in the past. Earlier this year the North West Culinary team took 4 Golds, 4 Silvers and 6 Bronze Medals at the Chef Ireland International competition held in the RDS Dublin. From this achievement was born their desire to enter a team into one of the world’s most prestigious culinary competitions, Hotelympia.

Hotelympia is a world-class culinary competition and the largest of its kind in the UK & Ireland consisting of three elements: fine dining restaurant La Parade des Chefs, stunning culinary creations in Salon Display and the live competition thrills of the Live Theatre.

La Parade des Chefs is the fine dining experience at the very heart of Hotelympia, where competing teams of chefs from around the world cook for visitors and their guests. The newly formed Northwest Culinary Team say they are determined to win La Parade des Chefs!

Meet the newly formed Northwest Culinary Team

Joe Clinton, Dee Clinton, Gabriel McSharry, Billy Grimes

John Kelly, Alan Fitzmaurice, Tony Campbell, Sylvester Dolan

"We have about 25 members in the complete team between the main exhibition chefs and the backup team. These are both young & senior men and women who want to promote the local region in terms of tourism and in particular our regional food," said Gabriel McSharry, Team Manager. "We believe that we have the best quality food in the world produced locally and at our fingertips, and we want to expose this great food product to the rest of the world. Our shores contain an abundance of beautiful seafood, sea vegetables and a host of other marine foods. Our fields are filled with wonderful organic fruit and vegetables."

"We intend to compete as an international culinary team at Hotelympia London next year and we look forward to putting our skills and knowledge, as professional Chefs, to the test, without fear, on the world stage!" said Joe Clinton.  "We are requesting people involved in the Hotel, catering and restaurant industry and the general public in this region to support us in our efforts to promote our region and help us to help the local industry promote our food and hopefully create jobs in our region."

The chefs have organised "A Taste of the North West", a fundraising night and the Official Launch of the Northwest Hotelympia Culinary Team, with celebrity Executive Chef  Joe Shannon, in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Sligo, on Tuesday, 29th October. The night will include cooking demonstrations, culinary delights & tastings and some special guest appearances. Comedian Frank Ford will also entertain during the evening.

Tickets for the event are only €10 each or 3 for €25 and are available from:
the Radisson Blu Hotel in Sligo on 071 914 0008
or from the chefs:
Alan 087 2472607 (Sligo) - Sylvester 086 8187165 (Leitrim) - Billy 086 8416476 (Donegal)

If you'd like to sponsor the North West Culinary Team in their goal to win at Hotelympia 2014 in any way, please contact any of the chefs above.

Zack

International Wild Mushroom Festival in Co Leitrim on October 12th

Mushroom experts and wild mushroom lovers from all over the world will gather to the beautiful, centuries-old, Killegar Estate in County Leitrim to exchange scientific knowledge and celebrate our natural environment over the weekend of the 12th October, 2013.

The International Mushroom Festival runs over Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th October 2013

For the third successive year, this festival involves experts from Ireland, UK, Germany, Italy, Poland and the US, who aim to advance the understanding of Ireland's ecology and biodiversity with a special emphasis on the “Kingdom of Fungi“. This year the festival welcomes "Mushroom Garden", a commercial mushroom production company based in Bangladesh who are keen to visit Ireland to study cultivation methods employed here and learn more about our wild mushrooms.

The Irish Mycologist's Society and the Northern Ireland Fungus Group, having to date identified more than 300 species, will introduce mushroom enthusiasts to an exceptionally large variety of Ireland's fungi this year as Autumn 2013 promises to produce a bumper crop.

Get to know all about wild mushrooms and foraging

Amongst other things, festival goers will learn about the most common species, both edible and poisonous. As well as guided forays the programme offers a comprehensive range of talks, natural history-related displays and exhibitions.

For younger festival goers, the OWLS - Outdoor Wildlife Learning and Survival Nature Club will provide an educational programme about the natural world.

Chef Joe Shannon will be demonstrating how to cook with wild mushrooms

Joe Shannon, Executive Head Chef of the Radisson Blu Sligo, will present cookery demonstrations showing foragers how to transform freshly gathered wild mushrooms into inspired dishes. Further delicious samplings will be available at the festival Food Fair of locally sourced produce. The fair will also showcase a variety of wood-turning, hand crafted jewellery, quilt-making and more.

All proceeds go to the 'Save Killegar Campaign', set up to preserve Killegar as one of Ireland's and Europe's last remaining heritage houses, its native woodlands and sanctuary for wildlife.

For more details see www.internationalmushroomfestival.com and check out their Facebook Page HERE

Zack