weekend bites

THIS week k I’ll be eating… slow-cooked shoulder of lamb, because it’s at its best just now and offers good value for money. I’ll put it in a casserole e with lots of garlic, a glass of white wine and a few sprigs of rosemary and cook at 190C, gas markk 55, ffor 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 140C, gas mark 1, for between five and eight hours. You can eat it with a spoon at that stage.

I’VE been test driving, so to speak, the Calor Mini-BBQ at home and on my travels. It has space inside for a 400g gas cartridgeca and is highly portablepo (you can hook it up to 6kg cylinder too, if you’reyo cooking for many).ma More of a griddle thanth a barbecue, to be honest,ho but very useful in termste of real cooking in theth wild and it does a properp steak rapidly. €1169.99 from DIY shops.

ONE of my favourite Dublin restaurants, Marcel’s,s, is moving from St Mary’s Road, off Lower Baggot Street,, right into the centre of town to where the e ill-fated Il Segreto used to be on Merrion Row. It opens mid-July. Pichet will be closing in August for a major refit but will be back in action in September. And I hear that Ronan Ryan will be back in Kildare Street with a new version of Town Bar & Grill in the autumn.

MCDONALD’S (whose global sales have been dropping) have offended the Italians with a TV co commercial that suggestssu children preferpr Happy Meals to pizza. Chef EduardoEd Pagnani of BrandiBr Pizzeria, one of the most celebrated in Naples, has described this as ‘blasphemy’. I’m