The Leamington Food Festival 2012
This weekend will be the anniversary of the Wocky, a whole year after his very first ever event. We will be bringing toasties and tables, and will be able to actually enjoy playing to our home crowd, rather than being terrified that we might get too busy, or that no one would by anything, or that whatever they were buying would explode. The whole weekend sticks in my mind far more clearly than many of the festivals that have come since. I can still remember our first ever customer quite vividly. He bought the carrot and chickpea bhajis and was not aware of the great historical significance of his purchase until we told him about it. It was the strangest feeling, actually finally selling something we had spent such a long time preparing. Not just the 4 days of...
Hot Water Doesn’t Grow On Trees
An interesting fact, which makes food festivals up to 5% more entertaining, is that our local environmental health authority requires every outlet selling hot food, regardless of where or how they do so, to have two separate sinks and a supply of hot and cold water. The idea behind this profoundly strange rule is that you then have a pot-wash sink, which is only used for pots and pans, and a hand wash sink. This prevents cross-contamination, preserves cleanliness and saves the lives of the innocent, like a dettol-wielding cleaning-batman. Thus runs the theory at any rate. In practise, I have seen a whole variety of interesting reinterpretations of the words “sink” and “hot”, many of which would possibly cause a visiting environmental health...
Pro Chicken
This post is about both live chickens and chicken to eat. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s lunch, so thought it best to mention in case this could cause upset. This weekend we will be serving only free range eggs and chicken. It’s a complicated decision, based mostly on little pieces of paper usually exchanged for goods and services, but we hope that we have made the right choice. Ever since my family started keeping chickens 10 years ago I have been smitten with these dozy birds, who live a complicated and very social life and will, occasionally, produce an egg. I have always regarded them as pets rather than farm animals, and one doesn’t ask a dog to make breakfast, so the occasional egg is reward enough. I’m not entirely sure my parents agree with...
Advice
As previously hailed this post is all about the tasting. We shall see where the winding progress of the narrative takes us, because it is notoriously fickle, but I will try and keep it on the subject of food. Our intentions were to serve all of our menu from the Leamington Food Festival (save the date, 10th and 11th September, Pump Room Gardens) to our friends and fellow Jabberwocky enthusiasts, in the hope of receiving critical commentary, suggestions and glorious, humbling praise. Naturally I had already planned several gracious acceptance speeches for the various accolades I would receive throughout the night, and Barny had been cooking all day in preparation for the grand moment. I should mention, because otherwise it will sneak up on me later, that Barny,...
Leamington Spa Food Festival 2011
Oh frabjous day, what a Wednesday to be alive! As you may have guessed from the title, we have our first confirmed event, and as befits a Beast of Leamington it is the food festival right here in town. The festival itself is on the 10th and 11th of September, so no need to clear your diaries just yet, but pencil in the weekend if you’re anywhere nearby, not just to see us (although clearly that would be your prime motivation), but also to come and delight in this rather lovely Warwickshire town and to sample the other local food and drink offerings. This means that by September at the latest we need to be ready. I like the feeling of having a clear goal, it should make the to-do lists a little more finite. It does, of course, throw up some interesting...
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