WELLS FOOD FESTIVAL - 12th OCT

On Sunday 12th October there's a food festival happening in Wells, Somerset and I'm going to be there to give a talk about food blogging and pop ups!

Wells Food Festival launched last year and had over 3,500 people come along on the day. This year they're back - bigger and even better. The day focuses around showcasing local produce with a food market, lunches, talks, street food stalls and more. The day runs from 10.30-4.30 and everyone is welcome to this free event.

So, what can you expect from the day? Well first of all there's the artisan market, with over 50 stalls selling locally produced food from within 25 miles of Wells. There's locally produced organic wines, loads of Somerset cheese, flour, apples and cider, chocolates, pies, breads and sausage rolls, chillies, honey and loads more - I can't wait to roam around and buy one of everything to take back to London with me!

As well as all the stalls selling produce there'll be 13 street food vans on site selling hot food, ready to eat so you can pick up a wood fired oven pizza, a buffalo burger, veggie samosas or a plate full of Greek meze delights. But if you fancy something a bit more substantial for your Sunday lunch there are a few sit down banquets happening on the day as well.

Chef Valentina Harris is doing The Great Italian Sunday Lunch, using Somerset ingredients to cook up an Italian style feast. Tickets are £40 a head for this 5 course lunch which is sure to be an absolutely scrumptious feast.

Another option for lunch is Tom Hunt's Forgotten Feast Autumn Banquet that he's making using vegetables rejected by supermarkets for not being pretty enough, and a whole pig, fed purely on these same 'waste' vegetables. His starter of hot smoked pigeon breast with blackberry sorbet served with sourdough and truffle butter has already got my tummy rumbling! Tom Hunt's cooking is right up my street, and if you want to know why, then book a ticket for £30 each and go along and find out for yourselves. Tom is cooking his feast for 200 people, so there's plenty of tickets to go around.

If it's tea and cake you'd prefer there's afternoon tea at the banqueting room in the town hall, running from 2.45-5pm where you can pop in for hot drinks, finger sandwiches, scones and cakes. You'll also find Pearl Lowe and Trine Hahnemann signing copies of their newly released books.

The afternoon will offer the opportunity for learning as well - there's various talks and walks going on, covering subjects like foraging, truffles and how to grow great veg - full details of which can be found HERE. And from 3pm you can find me, along with 2 great bloggers - Anita, from A Lover of Creating Flavours and Vanesther of Bangers and Mash, - at the Parkes room in the town hall, doing a food bloggers workshop to talk you through starting your own blog, keeping it going and what to do with it from there. We will be there to answer all your questions and help you with anything you need blog-wise. Spaces are limited though so if you'd like to come along, then do send an email to the team.

If you are coming along, do leave me a comment below, and please do come and find me and introduce yourself - I'd love to meet you and learn your blog and/or foodie ideas!!


 

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A LITTLE LONDON LUSCIOUSNESS - 20th SEP

When I started doing pop up restaurants in November last year, I never once imagined that by August this year I would've done over 18 events already! Although I've stuck to my plan of 1 public pop up a month, I've had so many requests for private catering gigs that I've been cooking most weekends for the last 6 weeks! I absolutely love it - but also have a full time job, so have been exhausting myself a bit recently!! I decided to have a break from public pop ups in August, although ended up catering a hen do and a baby shower last weekend anyway.

So with no more pop ups this month, my next date is Saturday 20th September. I'm teaming up with Urban Food Fortnight to put on a pop up using locally sourced produce. If you follow my pop ups you'll know that they are all about using sustainably produced, seasonal produce, sourced mostly from the West Country, where I grew up. However there's a different challenge with my September date, as all the ingredients I will be using will have been grown in and around London! Now this might not sound so appealing, but what I'm doing is teaming up with various allotment holders to use their lovely home grown fruit and vegetables, all of which are seasonal, and I am souring all of my meat and dairy from farms in Essex and Kent. It's an exciting challenge and one that's made me come up with a menu that I can't wait to cook...

The menu for 20th September is:

Fig and elderflower cocktail - made to order on arrival (non-alcoholic version if requested)

 

Grilled figs with chicory, apple, candied walnut and gorgonzola salad

 

Slow roast pork belly, fennel gratin, mustard creamy mash potato, buttered cabbage & rosemary and crab apple sauce, served with cider gravy

 

Raspberry mousse with shortbread biscuits

 

Cheeseboard with homemade chutney and rosemary and sea salt biscuits

 

Coffee or herbal tea with homemade chocolates

 

As always, dietary requirements can be catered for, so if you'd like to come but there's something  you can't eat or don't like on the menu, then just mention in the comments section when booking and I can email you alternatives to choose from.

 

Tickets for the pop up are £30 and include a welcome drink. It's bring your own booze on the evening so you can bring your preferred drinks with you. I provide soft drinks for those who want them. Tickets are available here - and have already started selling!

The pop up takes place at our lovely house in Acton - which is easily accessible on the Piccadilly line, or via the overground stations South Acton or Kew Bridge, which link to East and South London respectively.

If you're not quite convinced and want to see what other guests have said, you can read all my reviews here. And here's a couple of photos from my last events....

Walnut and cranberry bread for the starter:
 

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EASY BEAN CHICKPEA CRISPBREAD

Easy Bean, a Somerset based bean product company, have just launched a new range of chickpea crispbreads, following the success of their one-pot bean dishes, which are the only Fairtrade ready meals in the UK.

The crispbreads are all handmade at the new bakery that the Easy Bean MD, Christina Baskerville, has created in Somerset and are made with chickpea flour rather than wheat flour, so are gluten and wheat free, full of fibre and veggie friendly. The chickpea flour is mixed with buttermilk sourced from local farms, and then the biscuits are generously spiced, and topped with toasted seeds. The crispbreads come in 3 delicious flavours: seeds and black pepper, mung bean and chive, and moroccan spice.

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NEXT A LITTLE LUSCIOUSNESS POP UPS!

Last October I started doing a monthly pop up restaurant/supper club at our home in Acton Town and I've absolutely loved every minute of menu planning, food sourcing and all the cooking and preparation involved in putting on these events, as well as meeting all the lovely guests who've come to eat my food.  

My next pop up is on Saturday 29th March 2014, at our lovely house, in Acton Town, West London (Piccadilly line). The menu for the night is:

STARTER – Salmon three ways - beetroot cured with capers, sashimi with spring onions and pan fried with soy glaze

MAIN – Bavette steak, dauphinoise potatoes, greens and red wine sauce

PUDDING – Rhubarb hazelnut crumble, homemade stem ginger, hazelnut ice cream (this is the same pudding I served at my February pop up, but it went down so well, and rhubarb season should be made the most of, so I'm serving it again in March!)

CHEESE – Montgomery cheeseboard, spiced chutney and herby salted crackers

COFFEE and HERBAL TEAS served with sticky chocolate balls

If you'd like to come along but there's something on the menu you don't like, just let me know in the comments section of the booking form, and I can make you an alternative.


Tickets are available HERE.

You can come on your own, bring a date, grab some friends, or book out a whole table for however many of you there are! It's £30 a head for the evening, and it's bring your own booze, so feel free to bring a bottle of your favourite!

I do my public pop ups once a month, and the next one after this will be April 26th. Link to tickets and menu is HERE.

Hope to see some of you at one of my pop ups soon!!

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MOTHERSHUCKIN LUNCHTIME

Last Saturday lunchtime I treated myself and the boy to lunch at a pop up -it was so nice to go to someone else's pop up for a change! I booked 2 places at the early sitting (2pm) of a pop up I've been meaning to go to for a while now but kept missing, so was glad they had space to fit us in. "Mothershuckin lunchtime" is all about seafood. The lovely girls who run the pop up source the freshest, best seafood they can get and serve it up to 15 people at a time in the Muse gallery on Portobello road.

We set off from home to Portobello, with the sun on our backs, on the nicest Saturday morning for a while. Portobello was buzzing, and it felt quite exclusive being able to slip into the Muse gallery while people peered in from outside, wondering what they were missing out on!

As with all good meals, we started with a good drink. I had the Bloody Mary, which was made with the Mothershuckers' own horseradish and a chilli infused vodka, while the chilli-shy boy stuck with a Meantime London lager.

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A LITTLE SLOW FOOD LUSCIOUSNESS

On Saturday 2nd November, I'm teaming up with Slow Food London to bring you my first public A Little Lusciousness pop up! I've been in talks with Grub Club for a while about launching pop up restaurants, and it is so exciting to finally be able to tell you about it, and give you some more details!!

Slow Food is a global, not for profit organisation whose aim is to promote "the pleasure of food with a commitment to the community and the environment". They stand against the increase in fast food, and aim to get people to stop and think about where their food has come from. It's all about local sourcing, preparing home food and taking some time and care with getting food ready to eat. It is an ethos and an attitude towards food that they promote - one I firmly believe in, and one that I'm sure many people could learn something from. The Slow Food London food projects are really in line with my beliefs around homegrown, lovingly prepared food, so when the opportunity to do something with them came up, it seemed like the ideal time to launch my pop up to the public!

The menu for my pop up is as follows, with all ingredients being free-range and/or organic, and sourced from British suppliers that I continue to work with (including Devon large white variety pork shoulder from Wyndham House butchers, and cheeses from the wonderful guys at O Toma O Morte). It will be a very casual evening, and a great opportunity to spend some time with like minded foodies!

WELCOME COCKTAIL...

STARTER – Borscht with homemade soda bread.

MAIN – 24 hour shoulder of Devon free-range pork with special carrots, celeriac coleslaw and vegetables, with smokey BBQ sauce.

PUDDING – Sticky apple and pecan cake with butterscotch sauce.

CHEESE – Cheeseboard with pears, chutney and homemade biscuits.

I'll be providing soft drinks as well, but if you'd like something stronger, please feel free to bring a bottle (or two!)

All proceeds from ticket sales for the night will be going to Slow Food London Schools Programme, where the money will go towards funding a raised bed garden being built in a school for special needs children in London. You can read more about what Slow Food London do here.

Going forward, I will be doing a monthly pop up in West London, which will be promoted through the Grub Club site. It would be great if you can make it along to one of them, as I'd love to put some faces to names!! For tickets or more information please go to my page on the Grub Club website. Tickets are available now for the November event, and details about the December event will be up soon!!

Thank you!

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TRESCO FOOD

One of my favorite things about Tresco and the Isles of Scilly is the food! There is such a diverse range of locally sourced, homegrown produce, the majority of which you can see growing and developing around you as you explore the islands.

On Tresco there are 2 shops. One is the main and official shop where you can buy toiletries, drinks, Cornish cheeses, cereals and all the normal things you'd find in a food shop, but you can also buy Tresco beef, that comes from the very free range cows on the island, and Troy Town Farm ice cream that's made on St Agnes, another of the islands. On the other side of Tresco, up a track is the other 'shop'. It's not your normal shop though, this is the Tresco Farm shop - an open shack stocking whatever has been pulled fresh from the ground that morning - there's new potatoes, fresh garlic, green beans, salads, strawberries, courgettes, homemade jam and lots more - and an honesty box where you leave your money.

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THTC - SAMPLE SALE SAT 13th JULY!!

So, this post doesn't really have anything to do with food.... but hear me out, because I have an invitation for you! And although it's nothing to do with food, the company I'm writing about has a lot to do with what I believe in when it comes to clothes and their production.

My lovely boyfriend runs a company called THTC, The Hemp Trading Company, who for the last 14 years have been producing and selling ethically made clothing, primarily to men. THTC was set up to target those who wouldn't normally think about or care where their clothes have come from; making cool, printed t-shirts, sweats, hoodies, caps and more from ethically sourced and produced, organic and fairtrade materials. The majority of their printing is done with water based inks, which in turn do much less damage to the environment. All in all, whether he's my boyfriend or not, I think what THTC do is brilliant, and a great way to engage people in understanding responsible fashion.

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CRAB & HOMEMADE MAYONNAISE

This recipe isn't really for crab - I bought the crab already picked from the fishmongers at our local farmers market. But crab is in season now and any excuse to eat it is good with me.

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'THE BIG LUNCH', 'NOSE TO TAIL' AND 'ENOUGH FOOD IF'

Sunday 2nd June is Global Sharing Day and this year's theme is food. The idea behind it is to get as many people across the world sharing food together, whilst also highlighting the food surplus and waste we produce. There are loads of events going on to get involved with including The Big Lunch, which aims to get people to arrange a meal to share with their neighbours, by holding street parties.

I'm doing my bit by teaming up with Liv from Grub Club to host a lunch as part of 'People Who Share' - a partner of The Big Lunch, who asked us to join tens of millions of people across the world in sharing food with each other for a day, and to think about the tonnes of edible food that get sent to landfills - in the UK alone nearly 7 million tonnes of purchased and edible food goes to waste every year. 

I'm also going to an evening that Action Aid are putting on to talk to bloggers about Enough Food IF, a campaign to reduce and eliminate world hunger (that affects nearly one in six globally). More on that campaign to follow....

Grub Club are also doing more than just our lunch to highlight the issue of food waste. From the 1st - 14th June, Grub Club are hosting a Nose to Tail fortnight. They, like so many of us, are fed up with the amount of edible food that is sent to waste while people are going hungry. So they've teamed up with Ethical Eats and Slow Food London to put on a range of events to get you inspired. They've got foraging and fishing cookery courses, a series of '2 dinners, 1 lunch' pop up restaurants in Peckham, an informal butchery masterclass, learning about the less commonly used cuts of meat, with Hill Street Chews in Hackney, and so much more. 

As a little treat, Grub Club are running a competition to give away a couple of pairs of tickets to their kick off event, It's Ghana be Nasty, this Saturday. For your chance to win, either sign up for Grub Club's newsletter here or share their facebook post here. 

What are you doing to get involved with food sharing campaigns?

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MY FAVORITE BUTCHERS....

I love cooking and eating meat. When I got with the boy, he claimed to be a vegetarian, but a few meat meals cooked by me soon changed that, much to my family's relief (my brother declared that he liked him a lot more now that he knew he wasn't a proper veggie!) That being said, we don't eat meat everyday, as I think it should be a treat, not a staple of our diet. I am also very strict about where the meat we eat comes from. It HAS to be free-range, and ideally organic, although I'm less strict about that, as the regulations to become organic certified are so difficult for farmers to comply with, and often beyond the control of an individual farm.

So, I thought I'd put together a list for you of my favorite UK butchers/meat suppliers. Most of the list are London based, as that's where I am, but there's a couple in there from further afield, and the majority of them also do deliveries.

The list is not in any order of preference - I really like all these butchers.

LONDON:

Wyndham House Butchers

Wyndham House are my local butcher of choice. They have various branches in London; Borough Market (poultry only), Fulham Road and Chiswick High St, which both stock their full range of beef, lamb, pork, poultry, cheeses and pickles and biscuits. As it's close to me, I visit the Chiswick branch most often, and feel like a kid in a sweet shop in there. Not only do they have all the cuts of meat my heart desires, but they make fantastic sausages and burgers that they sell as well. Add to that their fine selection of cheese and it's almost a one stop shop for my food needs!

I am lucky enough to live within delivery distance of Chiswick's Wyndham House, and as long as the order is over £10 then delivery is free. You really can't get better than that!

Wyndham House in Chiswick are at 229 Chiswick High Road. For details of their other branches, go to www.wyndham-house.com.

The Ginger Pig

The Ginger Pig have 5 branches in London; Shepherds Bush, Marylebone, London Bridge, Hackney and Waterloo. All the meat they sell comes from their own farms in Yorkshire. Their London outlets sell beef, pork and lamb, and they do an excellent range of handmade sausages, in flavours like prune and brandy, sage and onion and the more traditional Cumberland. Their handmade pies are also worth sampling!

The Ginger Pig run butchery classes at their Marylebone branch, where for £135 per person you can spend an evening, or Sunday afternoon, learning about how to butcher an animal, how to cook the various cuts, and where the meat comes from. The butchery courses also include a meal, cooked from the meat you've butchered, as well as a very generous piece of meat to take away with you. I think it's great value for what it includes, and you can pick which animal you'd like to do the course on.

For more info on the butchery courses, and details of where to find their shops, visit www.thegingerpig.co.uk. The Ginger Pig do not do deliveries themselves, but they are part of www.hubbub.co.uk - who will collect all your shopping from your local high street and deliver it to your front door!

Allen's of Mayfair

Allen's are based on Mount St in Mayfair, and although it's been a couple of years since I visited their store in person, I can spend hours browsing their website, and particularly their really good value boxes of meat. http://www.allensofmayfair.co.uk/products/selection-boxes. They deliver across London and stock a whole range of raw and smoked meats. Allen's of Mayfair also do butchery courses, for £150, and must be booked with a voucher, that you can purchase online or in store.

Chiswick Farmers Market

Chiswick Farmers Market takes place every Sunday morning from 10am til 2pm, and is on Market Drive, W4 2PX, near Hogarth roundabout. It's a funny little setting for such a great market - tacked on to the side of the market is a Masonian bar...!! But they've got some fantastic produce on sale at the market, and it's definitely worth a visit. They've got beef, lamb and pork from March House Farm - http://www.marchhousefarm.co.uk/, raw, organic milk and cream from Hook and Son - http://hookandson.co.uk/, and poultry from Paul's Poultry.

Details of how to find the market are at http://www.thefoodmarketchiswick.com/.

J Parsons (The Cookery)

J Parsons are on Stoke Newington High Street, and stock all the regular meat you'd expect to find in a good butcher, plus various smoked meats and condiments as well. When I lived in the area I would always go to J Parsons for good value, free range shoulders of lamb. J Parsons are at 113 Stoke Newington High Street.

OUTSIDE LONDON:

Colleton Red Ruby Devon

These are not really butchers as such, but more producers from whom you can order your beef for delivery. Simon and Grania Phillips rear Red Ruby Devon beef on their North Devon farm, where the cows are reared naturally and the meat is then hung for 3 weeks before being sold. They have animals ready throughout the year, and if you email them, then they will let you know when they have meat for sale. You can buy a quarter box (100lbs) or an eighth box (50 lbs), and it costs £4.40 per lb. A standard box contains fillet and rump steaks, sirloin, topside, silverside and rib for roasting, brisket, forequarter and roasting joint for pot roasts, and mince, shank, braising and stewing steak. So if you've got a big freezer, it's a great investment to make! Especially if you have a family to feed.  They also do a smaller BBQ box. Their beef is some of the best I've ever tried.

For contact/ordering details, recipes and more information about their happy cows, go to www.colletonredrubydevon.co.uk.

Oxenpark Farm, Devon

Another Devon farm who supply fantastic meat is Oxenpark Farm. They are a small farm, found just over the Somerset/Devon border, where they rear hardy native breeds of cows, sheep and pigs, as naturally as an animal can be reared. Although they don't have certification, they farm organically, and you can really taste it in the delicious meat they produce.

I recently had a delivery of 2kg beef topside, 2kg of mince and 2kg of braising steak from them, as well as some of their homemade salami, and some trotters and hocks. Including delivery it only came to £75. For a price list, contact the farm at www.oxenparkfarm.com. You can order various size meat boxes from them, or half an animal. They also sell local honey and some delicious looking preserves - I'm going to be ordering their primrose and muscadet jelly and chilli jam made with victoria plums next time, to play about with in recipes. 

Lush's Butchers, Somerset

The local butcher near the village where I grew up had something of a reputation for their fine produce. Lush's in Castle Cary sold locally bred, well cared for meat, and was sure to have a queue out the door pretty much every Saturday morning. However, they have recently closed down, much to many people's dismay. It's not all bad news though. They have announced that they will be opening a farm shop close to where they were based in Castle Cary. They'll soon be opening their farm shop doors at the farm where you turn off the A37, towards Babcary, which isn't far from Podimore roundabout on the A303. 

With such easy access to really well reared and cared for meat, there really is no excuse to be buying wet-aged, vacuum packed meat from supermarkets anymore. 

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THE PELHAM ARMS, LEWES

Having driven through Lewes (in Sussex) a couple of times I knew I wanted to spend a weekend away from London there, so when our anniversary came around it seemed like the ideal time to do it. We booked to stay at The Pelham House Hotel - a lovely old house in the middle of Lewes that looks out over the South Downs (although it was so foggy we couldn't see much beyond the end of the hotel garden!)

I had originally wanted to eat at the hotel restaurant as the menu looked very appetising and at £20 for 2 courses seemed reasonable. However we were told that the hotel restaurant was fully booked, so were recommended the The Pelham Arms pub, which is a 10 minute stroll up the high street. I'm so glad that we ended up eating at the Pelham Arms.

We arrived, welcomed in to a cosy pub, with a dining area to one side. The table reserved for us was in the corner of the dining area, and once we'd seen the pub and the restaurant area, we decided that we'd prefer to eat in the pub area, so our table was changed straight away.

Nestled next to the fire with a pint of Badger's excellent 'Pickled Partridge' ale, we were ready for some food. The kitchen at The Pelham Arms uses local Sussex suppliers for food where possible, and is committed to using ingredients that have been ethically and responsibly produced - as all kitchens should, but often don't! Starters cost £6-7, and include various pates and terrines, soups and croquettes. I chose the locally smoked salmon pate with confit beetroot, tempura mussels and chive crème fraiche. The boy had pheasant, pigeon and apricot terrine with spiced chutney and brioche toast. Both starters were seriously delicious, and packed a proper punch of flavour. 

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