Food File: the weekly food news round-up

New resident chef for Meadows & Byrne
Jess Murphy, chef proprietor at Kai in Galway, has been appointed resident chef for the Meadows & Byrne chain of homewares and interiors shops. She'll have a presence on the company's website, with a weekly "ask the chef" column, as well as recipes and videos.

The New Zealand-born chef also has an exciting engagement in her diary next month, when she takes up an invitation to cook at Refettorio Ambrosiano, the dining hall serving three-course meals created primarily from leftovers, to 100 people in need, each day of Milan Expo.

The venture is spearheaded by chef Massimo Bottura and Davide Rampello, artistic director of Expo's Padiglione Zero pavilion.

Murphy joins some of the best-known chefs in the world, including Mario Batali, Alain Ducasse and René Redzepi, as guest chef at the Refettorio.

The invitation came from Cristina Reni, project manager for Refettorio, who she met while attending the Parabere Forum on Improving Gastronomy with Women's Vision in Bilbao in March of this year.

Mark Moriarty, the 23-year-old Irish winner of the San Pellegrino best young chef in the world last June, was invited by Bottura to cook at Refettorio just two days after winning the title in Milan.

Murphy will be cooking dinner in the converted theatre in the Greco district which is home to the Refettorio on September 23rd.

She can design her own menu, but must use whatever food is available, most of it food surplus donations, salvaged from Expo and from supermarket overstock, and must incorporate at least one dish using day-old bread.

Ice cream that's good for you
If a nutritional therapist tells you to eat lots of ice-cream, well, you've got to, haven't you? Not just any old ice-cream though. Conor Saunders developed Kefi ice-cream, to disguise the sour taste of kefir, the fermented dairy product it is made with, so that his young daughters would eat it.

Saunders, who is a nutritionist, runs a health food company called Fermental in Co Wicklow.

He is an advocate of using kefir to maintain good intestinal health, and says it can be eaten by those with dairy intolerance.

His ice-creams are blended with fruit and have no added sugar.

They taste more like frozen yoghurt than dairy ice-cream, but are refreshingly not too sweet, and satisfyingly creamy. You'll find them in SuperValu and Dunnes, or look out for Fermented's healthy ice- cream van at food and sporting events. kefi.ie

Erskine focuses on nutrition and fun
Glamorous UK chef and food writer Gizzi Erskine isn't new to a healthy eating regime. Back when she was one of the presenters of the TV programme Cook Yourself Thin, she was coming up with all sorts of tricks to reduce calories, fat and sugar, while still making fun, tasty recipes – all before we became obsessed with "clean" eating.

Her new book Gizzi's Healthy Appetite: Food to Nourish the Body and Feed the Soul (Mitchell Beazley, £25) is refreshingly direct: "I want to start a new food revolution; one where people have a better understanding of nutrition but don't forget that eating should be enjoyable."

To that end, her new recipes are the sort that propel you straight to the kitchen. Carnitas with grilled pineapple salsa and pink pickled onions; grilled cauliflower with curried hummus and cashew nut brittle; and a recipe for Korean fried chicken (developed over the past six years) are first up on my order of work.

As you’ll have guessed, there’s a strong international feel to the selection, and in a novel twist – not an easy thing in food publishing – the chapters are arranged around taste sensations such as crunch, char, ooze and crisp, rather than ingredients, course or season.