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| WyeFood: Local bread, cheese and wine eaten alfresco, what could be better? |
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| WyeFood: what's in season? |
what's
in season?
vegetables and fruit - At their best are brussel sprouts,
celeriac, Jerusalem artichoke, kale, leeks, parsnips rhubarb, shallots ans swede. Also in season beetroot, carrots,
horseradish, purple sprouting broccoli and turnips. Fruit superstars include blood oranges and pomegranates, but you can still
get some good apples and tangerines. Great local varieties are available from Ripple Farm Organics and Perry Court
Farm shop.
Fish - brill, haddock, halibut, lemon sole, skate, clams, mussles and oysters, but
crab, dab, mackerel and scallops are all good too, much of which is available at the Wye Farmers Market or from Fishfayre
at Perry Court Farm.
Meat - guinea fowl and venison is perfect. Local rabbit, partridge and wood
pigeon is available at Wye Farmers Market and all of them are much tastier than chicken. Give it a try.
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| WyeFood: will you be able to eat a cephalopod mollusc again? |
hold
the squid, I’ll have soup instead
we do like a sit down in the evening watching foodie programmes with Hugh
or Jamie or delicious films with a pie theme such as Chicken Run or Sweeney Todd. But when we're bored there's an
interesting on-line alternative we've just discovered - brilliant short films on t'internet. They're all
less than ten minutes and better than watching Nigella's ample cleavage heaving up
and down again, or that aggressive Gordon Ramsay insulting someone. Our current favourite is Oktapodi – a story of true love between a couple of octopuses/octopi (whatever) set in a beautifully sunny Mediterranean
island. It will make you think about ordering squid/octopus on the menu next time. Also try the short animation French Roast showing the extraordinary events in a traditional French coffee shop.
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| WyeFood: compelling CCTV footage of a liner restaurant in heavy seas |
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| WyeFood: booze calculator - better stick to booze and not eat all that junk food |
the
booze calculator
is this aimed at kids? I'm not sure although it's on the Newsround
website so maybe it is. Apparently what I drank last night is the equivalent to two onion bhajis, a slice of pizza, a danish
pastry and two jaffa cakes. Yuk! I'll think I'll stick to wine. Try it yourself
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| WyeFood: table for six at The Clinic? |
singapore sling? we're really
not sure about this place as a dining venue - a restaurant called The Clinic in Singapore. It has a medical
theme and a very weird website. The hospital props extend to cocktails served in syringes, waiters in white coats
and wheelchairs as seats at the restaurant tables. The kitchens even have lighting used in operating theatres and the
lounge area uses hospital beds with the bed guards as back rests. Definitely not for the faint hearted!
the Clinic restaurant and bar
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| WyeFood: don't ask for the Number 2 House Special |
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The site for food and drink in and around the beautiful village of Wye in
Kent - includes our finest food producers as well as pubs, restaurants and places to stay.
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| WyeFood: The famous Cheesemakers of Canterbury are holding a tasting event at the Wye Food Festival |
cheesemakers
reveal all The latest producers to confirm an event for the Wye Food Festival includes the amazing
Cheesemakers of Canterbury. Based at South Hill Farm in Hastingleigh, above Wye, they are doing a cheese tasting and tour
of their dairy on Wednesday 20 June at 7:30pm. There will also be cheese matching with local beers and cider. An event not
to be missed you will agree, and we have got in there first and booked 2 tickets! The cost is £15. If you would also
like to book a place email Jane Bowyer on jane@cheesemakersofcanterbury.co.uk
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| WyeFood: Wye Food Festival 2012 - Sat 16 to Sun 24 June |
Wye Food Festival 2012 It's our second ever food festival and we're very excited. It was amazing last year, but it's
going to be even better this year. The Festival takes place between Saturday
16 and Sunday 24 June 2012, and is open to all. Go to our web page for all confirmed events.
The theme is food and drink, how it’s grown, made and consumed, and there’s a special interest in
all things local. The Festival is run by the Wye Business Association’s Food Group.
click here to download a full list of events
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| WyeFood: frozen food? Don't sniff, why not? |
frozen in time I never stop at the frozen food displays in my local supermarket. Dubious looking frozen cheap lasagnas,
pizzas, sausages and pies, and the ever present Birds Eye fish fingers. It all looks so unappetising and firmly rooted in
the 1970s. I guess that's what the whole of Iceland is filled with, except they have more 'party food' - well
the Kerry Katona version of party food that is. The only thing I ever deign to buy is frozen peas, the occasional tub of ice
cream and ice for my gin and tonic. I have come to equate frozen as bad or boring and firmly down market, and yet freezing
incredibly fresh fish, meat or vegetables is vastly superior than buying raw ingredients that are well past their best. Perhaps
the sector should be reinvigorated, made more exciting and interesting. Frozen sea bass and John Dory. Recently picked asparagus
and chard. Kidneys and belly pork from a local farm. Well why not?
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| WyeFood: the lovely Damian Cardone in his sumptuous kitchen |
intolerant of gluten intolerants what a nice man that Executive Banquet Chef Damian Cardone is. He has since left the Tavern on the Green (what
a surprise), but happily admitted on Facebook that he had a habit of completely ignoring customers who asked for gluten-free
pasta on their menu. In his own words: " Flour and bread have been a staple of life for thousands, THOUSANDS of years.
People who claim to be gluten intolerent [sic] don't realize that it's all in there [sic] disturbed little heads.
People ask me for gluten free pasta in my restaurant all the time, I tell em sure, then I serve serve em our pasta, which
I make from scratch with high gluten flour . . . Idiots! Eat gluten and die, people with allergies." Why didn't he
just say they don't do gluten free items on the menu?
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| WyeFood: expensive wine? it's monkey business |
monkey business it seems that people can't actually tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine, according
to psychologist Richard Wiseman. He has conducted a survey of hundreds of drinkers where they sampled a variety of red
and white wines in a blind taste test with prices ranging from £5 to £40. If you asked a chimpanzee to taste the
difference between expensive and cheap plonk, logically they would guess and the results would come out at 50:50. Well, it
would appear that a human's taste buds are no more sophisticated than a monkey's, because the results showed people
could only tell the difference between cheap and expensive white wines 53% of the time, and 47% of the time for red wines.
That's why we need marketing and beautifully designed packaging, obviously.
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| WyeFood: whiff of chips and haddock in the boardroom? |
fat
profit a multi-million-pound office development
in London right by The Thames, will be powered by more than 79,000 pints of manky old cooking oil every month. Weirdly
the contract is not with McDonald's or Harry Ramsden's but the accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Apparently their top consultants will be arranging collections of used chip and cooking fat oil, to be collected and delivered
to the building by two tankers every week. Not sure I'd like to switch on the radiators in the middle of winter, only
to get a whiff of a crusty bit of old haddock.
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| WyeFood: spanking in an Asda aisle |
who'd have bay leafed it a brilliant craze is hitting the supermarket shelves to liven up the boring weekly big shop. Mischievous shoppers
are rearranging herb and spice pots that spell out naughty words. For example, take two tubs of bay leaves, two
of onion granules and a jar of sage and hey presto you have 'BOOBS'. A Facebook group called Supermarket Scrabble,
take a quick picture of their handiwork on a phone and paste it up on the website. It's driving supermarket workers mad,
in between stacking shelves they now have to make frequent checks to see if someone has been spicing up the herb displays.
more pictures
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| WyeFood: I'll have a hot dog but hold the coke |
McDonalds and Premier Cru most of us order our favourite tipple, or rely on
our friendly wine waiter to make a recommendation for our main course lamb dish. But what about wine when you're
roughing it on the food front? Ever thought what wine would go with a hot dog? Well with a bit of research we have
the official combinations - it's Riesling with hot dogs or sausages in general as it beautifully frames the salty meaty
taste. A light bubbly champagne with macaroni cheese to offset the satisfying deep creamy fattiness. Hamburgers need some
fruit and full body, so Cabernet Sauvignon fits the bill. Cupcakes, which seem to be everywhere at the moment, benefit from
the sherbet bite of a Sauvignon Blanc. Better than buying a coke as an accompaniment.
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| WyeFood: Wye Community Farm now passing on horticultural expertise |
Penny
returns to Wye roots Wye has a newly appointed grower - yes this is an official title (sort
of) and it's a brilliant addition to the Wye Community Farm. Penny Davis graduated from Wye College, when it was a world famous historical agricultural college, and not an
unoccupied embarrassment to Imperial College London, albeit with a lovely facade. She has excellent horticultural expertise
and will be hoping to pass this on as part of WCF's commitment to provide training in rural skills to the local community.
Produce to be grown this season includes raspberries, shallots and beetroot to be used by Wooden Spoon in their award winning jams and preserves. Penny will be leading horticultural sessions at the farm every Wednesday.
Click here to e-mail the farm for bookings and more details.
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| WyeFood: Yo! Sushi - why pay full price? |
eating
out for the cash strapped 'squeezed middle'
will we ever pay full price for restaurant
meals again? If you subscribe to Groupon (or one of its other imitators) it makes you increasingly reluctant to fork
out the full price for a meal out anytime ever. If you've not heard of it yet, basically you get daily alerts with offers open to
(say) the first 500 takers. If you download and pay for them you get a voucher for the deal which must be used within a certain
timeframe. FaceBook have been experimenting with the concept too. Yo! Sushi had a deal on there a couple
of weeks ago offering five free plates of sushi to the first 1,000 people that 'checked-in' at a restaurant. It sold
out within 24 hours. Restaurants say it's a marketing tactic to get newbies to use their establishment for the first time
- I say I just like a bargain.
Groupon website
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| WyeFood: one big gulp will put you over the drink driving limit |
so you
think you're hard? Sink the Bismarck is a quadruple IPA that contains four times the
hops, four times the bitterness and frozen four times to create a staggering 41% ABV. That's the same as malt whisky.
I believe it's officially the world's strongest beer. One big swig is enough to put you over the drink dirving limit,
and it's said to taste of a mix of liquorice and creasote. It comes in a normal sized beer bottle (330cl) but as I
said, don't forget that's like nearly having a half bottle of spirits. You could say this is irresponsible, will fuel
binge drinking, liver damage and all that, but at £40 for 330cl I think that's unlikely.
brew dog's 'sink the bismarck'
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| WyeFood: fried grasshoppers with chilli and lime |
grubs up interesting article at BBC Food by Stefan
Gates on eating insects. He's a bit of a connoisseur on the subject and claims that I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out
of Here! has done severe damage to our perception of insects as a foodstuff. He says that the most delicious are dry-fried
Burmese bamboo grubs which have a lovely slightly sweetish taste like Jerusalem artichokes. Next best are Mexican grasshoppers
roasted with chilli, salt and lime which make a great bar snack with ice cold beer. He also goes on to explain that with the
world's population rising and shortages of food an inevitability, eating insects makes ecological sense and they're
good for you. First they eat foodstuffs we don't, unlike a lot of animals and birds we are happy to consume, and secondly
they contain little fat, lots of protein, iron and calcium. All makes sense but I think I'd rather go veggie.
the full article
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| WyeFood: no bud, no ketchup, no reservation |
ketchup wars the Starbucks generation have finally burned out the bistros and restaurants of
New York with their never ending list of whims. Used to ordering one of hundreds of versions of coffee daily, they take the
same attitude into eateries, and the chefs and waiters in the big city have had enough. Swapping things from dish to dish,
dictating how their meal should be cooked and the inevitable food intolerances, are leading to ludicrous requests: "can
I have the special of the day but no nuts, wheat, lactose or meat, oh and I don't like carrots" or ""have
you got a vegetarian equivalent of the belly pork?". Some bistros are refusing to sell ketchup, decaffinated espressos
or vegetarian versions of the main menu. They're making a stand against the customer always being right. They point out
that there's so much choice in NY that if you want a tomato and mozzarella salad without tomatoes and mozzarella, go somewhere
else. A sign outside Zucco the French diner pretty much sums it up "no Bud, no ketchup, no reservation, no Zugat."
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| WyeFood: bet you can't wait to rush out and buy these |
skinny bread I think I can get my head around the concept of skinny latte, (even though Monmouth Coffee refuse to serve
them), and I'm all for coming up with healthier versions of recipes and dishes, but skinny bread? Nah. White sliced loaves
in the UK are an embarrassment, especially when trying to explain the concept to foreign visitors. "The best thing since
sliced bread" was probably a deeply ironic comment by an artisan baker from 1850 or something, just like the development
of a brand sarcastically described as Mother's Pride. But that doesn't deter Warburtons. They're spending £2m
to launch square-ish sandwich wraps declaring them “the new skinny bread on the block”. The big idea is that the
wraps are square shaped instead of round. Wow. Just to make sure that fat kids on the block buy the new skinny bread on the
block, they've signed up hot American rapper Vanilla Ice to do a “rap while you wrap” video. Groan.
Warburton square wraps
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| WyeFood: will it make you feel more, or less, guilty? |
calorie controlled chocolate you buy that bar of chocolate and instead of eating a little bit, you end up eating the whole lot.
Naughty naughty. If the calorie intake was in front of you however, would you be more controlled? L’Agenzia per il Disegno
e la Funzione is a tablet of chocolate where the portions come printed with calorie counts carved directly on the surface.
Good idea, but will it make you feel more, or less, guilty?
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| WyeFood: how to make great soup without a recipe |
how to make great
soup
I have loads of soup recipes to hand, but I don't really find them useful. Rooting through
the fridge to rescue some vegetable stragglers left sulking before I've had a chance to do another weekly shop, means
that most recipes are redundant. It's more like a Ready Steady Cook challenge, than a carefully orchestrated
gourmet meal à la TV chefs. But I don't think the recipes are needed anyway, because you can use just about any
vegetables you have to hand. You can purée veggies, strain them and add cream - use a stock and bung in some sautéed
vegetables - or be truly lazy and cut out the frying pan and add quick cooking things like chorizo or herbs. If you're
in desperate need of carbs add a tin of strained tinned beans (not baked beans obviously) and make it more earthy. Don't
cook the soup for too long though, although if you let it cool it'll taste even better the next day and if you've
added cream don't let it boil.
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| WyeFood: pret a manger staff don't take a happy drug |
smiley sandwiches want to know
why Pret staff are so smiley happy? I used to like Pret a Manger when there were just a few independent stores, but I avoid
them now as they've sold out and succumbed to the lure of mayonnaise, soup of the day and pies. However, they have just
about managed to keep going with the good service ethos. Permanently happy staff who want to help - how do they do it? Some
food writers have speculated that they give them a happy drug before they start work in the morning. Not so. There is a weekly
mystery shopper at every store every day at all branches apparently, and they give cash prizes to staff who impress. Better
a carrot than stick, methinks.
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| WyeFood: 250,000 gastropods for sale |
snail farm
for sale
if you fancy ditching Blighty for some warmer weather in France and a change
of lifestyle, look no further. A snail farm is up for sale near Avignon. It's currently run by Ann Parkes who is a bit
of a celebrity in France, as the country's only registered English snail farmer, but retirement beckons. You'd be
buying a very successful business, but would be wise to stick to the kitchen's signature dish of snails in ravioli, served
with parsley sauce and cracked roast garlic, which proves very popular with visitors. 250,000 snails are reared in the back
garden and there are five beautiful bed and breakfast suites as part of the property. You will need just under £2 million
to make your gastropod dreams come true.
the full Daily Mail story
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| WyeFood: genius or disgusting? |
bacon
chocolate
it's not a typo honestly. Came across this Vosges chocolate bar online. It’s very difficult to
get Vosges chocolate in the UK, but you can get it through chocolate importer HF Chocolates. It costs £6.50 though.
I haven't tasted it myself but apparently it has a very strong pungent salty bacon
smell (sort of like Frazzles). Have a look at the website link below to decide if it's genius or disgusting. Another producer Luca produces a chocolate Bacon
Box which includes eight pieces of crispy bacon, covered in your choice of milk or dark chocolate and very lightly sprinkled
with sea salt. This must be the next food craze then.
Vosges chocolate
bacon bar
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| WyeFood: breast milk ice cream? do you want a flake with that? |
breast is best? possibly not if it's used in ice cream. Matt O'Connor, the man
behind the idea of producing and selling ice cream made from human breast milk, has caused a bit of a fuss over in Covent
Garden. Westminster Council have confiscated the offending dessert following complaints by members of the public. The Baby
Gaga pud went on sale at ice cream parlour Icecreamists in Covent Garden in February, and sold out hours after it went on
sale. Not only that, 200 women have asked if they can donate. Richard Block from Westminster Council has told the BBC that
there are risks if the breast milk isn't adequately screened, but Matt says they have followed all the correct screening
procedures and the product is safe. Would you buy it?
view the BBC video news report
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