An unfortunate incident with a fish kebab

dianamorgan68

So there we were on a beach in Crete on a blazing hot day. At lunch time we sought refuge at a busy shaded beachside taverna. There was plenty of choice in the chilled cabinets but the fish kebabs looked particularly good so that’s what I ordered.

We relaxed with our drinks while we awaited our food, and enjoyed watching the ubiquitous cats scavenging for scraps. We were also amused by a small French girl crawling under chairs while exclaiming “Oh! Le petit chat!”.

Before long our food arrived and we set to eating it. Or rather the huge wasps that appeared from nowhere set to my fish kebab. Instinctively I picked up my kebab stick and tried to wave the wasps (or maybe they were hornets) away, to absolutely no effect. Then the top piece of fish flew off in the paperback of a man nearby (a Wilbur Smith…

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An unfortunate incident with a fish kebab

So there we were on a beach in Crete on a blazing hot day. At lunch time we sought refuge at a busy shaded beachside taverna. There was plenty of choice in the chilled cabinets but the fish kebabs looked particularly good so that’s what I ordered.

We relaxed with our drinks while we awaited our food, and enjoyed watching the ubiquitous cats scavenging for scraps. We were also amused by a small French girl crawling under chairs while exclaiming “Oh! Le petit chat!”.

Before long our food arrived and we set to eating it. Or rather the huge wasps that appeared from nowhere set to my fish kebab. Instinctively I picked up my kebab stick and tried to wave the wasps (or maybe they were hornets) away, to absolutely no effect. Then the top piece of fish flew off in the paperback of a man nearby (a Wilbur Smith if I remember correctly after all these years); he was remarkably sanguine about it.

Now I understood why nobody else was ordering the fish kebabs.

A trip to Ecuador and Galapagos

This is the blog I would have written contemporaneously, had I not been so overwhelmed by an extraordinary experience! Revisiting it exactly year later seems like a good way of reviving and reflecting on my memories.

Day 1 – Easter Sunday 20th April

We arrived at the Pacific port city of Guyaquil in the mid-evening of Easter Sunday, to be hit by a wall of heat and humidity. Our transfer took us past some fascinating sculptures and modern buildings then along a cobbled lane in the recently restored historic area of Las Penas, below Santa Ana hill, a mass of brightly coloured buildings, to Mansion del Rio. The house was built in 1926 by a British businessman, father of the ballet dancer and choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton. It is a fabulous house with high ceilings, elaborate furnishings and decoration, and paintings in gilded frames.

Day 2 – Easter Monday 21st April 2014

We awoke to find views of the very wide river, and of birds and butterflies. A guide and driver collected us for a tour of the city, firstly taking us over one of the rivers to the Parque Historico. Unfortunately the endangered animals section is closed on Mondays but we were able to see the architecture area of rebuilt houses and the traditions section with interesting plants and demonstration gardens with coffee, cacao (whose flowers grow straight from the tree trunks and branches) and sugar, among other crops. I spotted an iguana as it rushed off then stopped at the base of a tree, as if posing for photos.

Next we were taken into the city centre and the Cathedral with some fine stained glass. Across the road was the Plaza Bolivar or “Park of the Iguanas”; a few years ago some boys brought back some iguanas from the mountains, and when they grew too big their parents made them dump them. There are now huge numbers in quite a small square, and they didn’t seem to mind being among so many people.Finally we returned to our “home” area where we were shown the 400+ steps up Santa Ana hill. In a nice little market/gallery we were particularly taken with some superb small works by a well-known artist, particularly focusing on the hands. Then we walked along the lane and went in a government building to see the interior and the views.  We stopped for a refreshing tamarind drink from a street vendor and continued to a new built area on the river of shops and houses with a fantastic wavy office block. Silos behind the riverfront had been converted from brewery use to flats! Our guide left us here and we strolled back along the lane and across the main road to the Malecon 2000, a regeneration project which created an attractive riverside promenade. We enjoyed tea and ice cream watching ducks and geese in a lake, and a tabby cat hunting and catching small prey! Further on we watched herons feeding on the shore of the river, then on the way back another heron trying to swallow a huge fish. Keith decided to climb the 400 steps and I decided not to!

That everything we went to Artur’s Cafe just over the road, where we enjoyed sea bass while watching the torrential rain.

Cooking from my books: part 1 in an occasional series.

Some time ago I was thinking about the number of cookbooks that food fans and keen cooks often accumulate. I’m sure I’m not alone in sticking to one or two favourites from each book and I often cook them from memory, tweaking them along the way to suit personal preferences and the ingredients to hand. Other everyday and special occasion cookery comes from my own invention, the internet, newspapers and magazines, plus Mum’s good old shepherd’s pie, more or less as she made it!

This lead me to conceive the idea of setting myself an exercise: to cook a new recipe from each of my existing books, and blog about it. A caveat: I invariably tweak a recipe, as mentioned above. And if nothing appeals from a book it’s probably time we parted company!

For my first post I cooked Rick Stein’s Baked sea bass with roasted red peppers, tomatoes, anchovies and potatoes, on page 148 of his Seafood book from the 2001 BBC TV series. I chose this for a variety of reasons:

• I had a beautiful sea bass from Catchbox, a new scheme being trialled here in Chichester and in Brighton (more details below).
• Rick Stein is one of my food heroes, and appropriately he coined or at least popularised that term in another BBC TV series, during the filming of which I spotted him at the West Dean Chilli Fiesta. Or rather I spotted his dog Chalky and then RS himself at the other end of the lead – RIP Chalky, a great character! I’ve also been lucky enough to eat at RS’s St. Petroc’s Bistro in Padstow. I love his easy presentational style and the way he can deliver what seems like a 5-minute rant about food issues to screen, but in a nice way. And I love fish and his style of food!
• I neaded a reasonably straightforward recipe as I was getting over a bad chest infection and was tiring easily!

The recipe involved parboiling sliced potatoes and then placing them down the centre of a roasting tin to form a bed for the fish. Plum tomatoes were cut up and placed over the spuds, but reader, I did not peel them for I was unwell, and anyway, life’s too short! And I could have sworn I had some anchovies but apparently not, so I used capers instead for the necessary salty bite to the flavour. Then I added red peppers from a jar – I said I was ill! In my defence, all my shortcuts remained in the spirit of the recipe. I then added previously soaked saffron, home-made chicken stock, home-grown garlic and oregano, salt and pepper and a fair glug of olive oil. It went into the oven to start cooking and I set about the seabass to gut, descale, and attempt that pretty criss-cross pattern along the side of the fish. Things didn’t turn out so pretty as the photo shows!

Finally the fish was placed over the potatoes, seasoned and applied with more oil, and returned to the oven, with timings adjusted using the time-honoured mental arithmetic and finger-in-the-air method because Rick’s fish was far bigger than mine! It was clearly cooked in that time but failed to brown much even after being flashed under the grill.

Never mind, it tasted GOOD! The fish was delicious and the other ingreadients melted together beautifully. I also roasted some cauliflower to make extra use of the oven, which made a good accompaniment.

Footnote about Catchbox: I’m a big fan of local food and sustainability and have been following the development of Catchbox for some time. We all know about local vegetable box schemes; well this is the same concept but with fish. I was pleased when Jack from Catchbox visited the local Transition Chichester group, to which I belong, then held a launch party (with fish nibbles!) a few weeks later, and I was delighted to sign up for a regular box myself. The Chichester fish is caught by “Pete the Fish” who fishes from a day boat and also supplies my social media client Stansted Park Farm Shop. He had a slow start to the year because of adverse weather conditions, but the fish is coming in thick and fast now, with the bass and scallops two weeks ago, and red mullet and mackerel this week. This is a trial scheme but I hope and expect it to continue!

Georgian Food and Wine Supper Club

A guest post from Cathy Warnock (newly arrived on Twitter as @CathyWarnock!).

 

Following a tip from our friend Diana Morgan who found out about it via Twitter, six of us enjoyed Georgian food and wine at the Large Glass Gallery, Caledonian Road along with small group of other diners.  [That’s Georgia as in Caucasus, not USA!]

Natural wines from Georgia and elsewhere, supplied by Isabelle Legeron (@isabellelegeron), complemented Kerstin Rodgers’ flow of new food such as beetroot and walnut balls covered in pomegranate seeds, Georgian cheese and egg bread – khachapuri, Georgian egg salad, amazing aubergine rolls stuffed with spinach and walnut, yoghurt with sumak, and much more – all accompanied by large plates of fresh herbs. Kersten is @MsMarmiteLover, the legendary supper club host/food blogger and now we see why. She was ably assisted by Helen Graves, @FoodStories, and another food blogger Sarah Lohan (@Sass47).  Other guests included our host, gallery director Charlotte Schepke, another well-known food blogger Niamh Shields (@eatlikeagirl), whose photo accompanies this blog post, and Radio 1 DJ Gemma Cairney.

On Sunday 20th and Monday 21st May the natural wine continues to flow at Isabelle’s event RAW, The Artisan Wine Fair at the old Trumans Brewery, Brick Lane, London E1.

Thanks Diana (@DMinTransition) for heads-up on this event. Great night. Four of the six of us already intended to travel to Georgia in October (as recommended by the other two) and now we’re looking forward to it even more!

Saira Khan speaks at social media event

Last week I attended the excellent event Social Media Magic, organised by Work Your Way magazine for working mums and the Londonmums network. I’m not a mum myself but I am a social media marketer and the event looked fun and interesting!

The keynote speaker was Saira Khan, whose talk was a tour de force of social media hints and tips. She came to prominence during the first series of The Apprentice, in which she was runner up, but her authority as a speaker comes from knowing her stuff (based on her own experience) rather than standing on ceremony as a “celebrity”. Her style on the night was of quickfire points backed up by examples, with a great willingness to be interactive and to ask the audience (including me!) in the few cases where she wasn’t sure of the answer.

Here are some of the points she made:

• She certainly uses Twitter (@iamSairaKhan) but her opinion is that Twitter does zilch (her word) for generating sales, although it can drive awareness (a bit)
• She believes in Facebook as a commercial tool. Many brands are very underexposed on Facebook and traditional business is still in the old marketing mindset
• It’s cheaper to run a Facebook business Page than a website
• Likes for Facebook business Page can be driven via Facebook advertising. This doesn’t cost a lot but is absolutely key to accelerating a build-up of followers and buyers.  Advertising appears on FB users’ timelines according to their interests etc. on their profile, so keywords are key to understanding who to advertise to. The picture shown in the ad is very small so it’s vital to choose one with impact, and to test which ones are most effective: the better your click-through rate the lower the cost you pay per visitor.  Apparently pictures of women are the most successful!  Saira herself doesn’t spend a penny on advertising her miamoo product line and quoted Aga as no longer doing offline advertising as online is getting better results
• The new Timeline business page format requires a cover photo (a good long banner image) but Facebook does not allow this to include a call to action or request for Likes.  Default Welcome pages will no longer work (as I pointed out!) but Pinning a post (for up to 7 days) to the top of the timeline should serve just as well for requesting likes and highlighting special offers, events, etc.
• The photostrip at the top of the Wall should be made up of five 98×68 custom images to look its best
• Use competitions to build a contacts database. There needn’t be big prizes.  It’s essential to use a 3rd party app to create a comp page, or Facebook will take it down – or simply ask for Likes to the page via Twitter.
• Use additional pages with meaningful titles to drive people in (e.g. Saira’s “Tommys Awards 2012” or “Follow Saira on Twitter”)
• Saira finished by pointing out that social media for businesses does work, but it takes time and patience to see results.  Don’t be scared by people posting bad things about your brand as it doesn’t happen (someone in the audience said yes they do, but it encourages support for you from other followers!)

One hint for Saira – put a link to miamoo’s Facebook site from the website home page!

Review of the Trooper Inn of Froxfield near Petersfield

I have grown to like Middle Eastern food more and more in recent years, dabbling in tagine cookery for want of any such eateries in my neck of the West Sussex woods. So when the Trooper Inn of Froxfield near Petersfield, just over the border from my West Sussex home, tweeted via @TheTrooperInn that they were doing a Persian dish special, Khorest-e Zereshk, I sat up and took notice, especially as I had thoroughly enjoyed eating at Simurgh, a Persian restaurant I discovered in Covent Garden. I had been following the Trooper Inn on Twitter for a short while but had not picked up on them offering anything other than standard pub/restaurant fare.

I tweeted to ask if the special was available at lunch as well as in the evening and was very pleased to receive a swift reply – I am a social media marketer specialising in the food sector and it can be so frustrating to see businesses not using social media correctly! And I was even more pleased to find that they were prepared to offer the Khorest-e Zereshk at lunch even though it was originally to be only available in the evening. So I booked (via Twitter of course!) and off we drove the following Sunday on a beautifully sunny day.

Once through Petersfield the Trooper Inn was easily found via brown signposts, beautifully situated on a hillside with great views. However the chill swiftly drove us inside, where we were very impressed with the warm welcome and the light, airy bar with huge windows letting in all the sunshine. We were shown into the restaurant by Hassan Matini, the landlord (now the Persian menu made sense …) who quickly established that the Khorest-e Zereshk had been saved for us, as it had otherwise sold out the previous night. Hassan’s wife Sarah Matini is the chef and also the tweeter of the Inn!

Our starters were a rich, thick, well-flavoured roasted root vegetable soup for MrM, which he loved, and a delicious Duck, Venison & Caramelized Kumquat Paté with the Hampshire Chutney Company’s Nicely Spicy Orange & Apricot Chutney for me. I don’t normally order paté as it can be too filling, but I was keen to try a Hampshire Chutney Company product after reading so many compliments about them (@HantsChutney) on Twitter. I’m a mean amateur chutney maker myself (with many compliments for my Ohio Chutney) and this certainly didn’t disappoint. The overall portion size was generous enough without being overwhelming.

Of course we both had the Khorest-e Zereshk, which came with a generous bowl of rice. Perhaps we should have ordered something green to brighten up the colour, but the dish was delightful, a lamb, barberry & almond stew, slow cooked to perfection with the barberries, which I’ve never had before, adding a pleasant touch of sourness. We enjoyed a glass of Merlot (him) and a glass of Shiraz (me).

Dessert was a chocolate cheesecake for MrM and a Bakewell tart for me (and yes I tried them both!).  The cheesecake was good even though I’m a chocolate lover but not always a chocolate cheesecake lover, and the Bakewell tart very enjoyable and served as requested with just a little custard. Lunch was rounded off with good coffee. Since we went the Inn has received specialist Latte Art training with Mozzo Coffee (@mozzocoffee)!

The Trooper makes a point of specifying on the menu the local provenance of much of the food, something that certainly pushes my buttons on a personal and professional level.

The pub now features in the Good Pub Guide 2012 and Hassan has the distinction of being named one the top 10 landlords across the country.  It’s well-deserved on the basis of this visit!

Plumbles and crumbles: a case study of the power of social media in helping a community food initiative

I’m a member of Transition Chichester, part of a network of local environment groups addressing the challenges we will all face because of peak oil.  An element of this is looking at how we can increase the availability of local food and take full advantage of sources that already exist.  One idea is to set up a local Abundance project to gather and make use of surplus fruit.

Back in March I came across these messages on Twitter from someone calling themselves @CrisisCrumble :
Crisis Crumble is now on Twitter! Watch our plans unfold to create a bumper harvest for the homeless of West Sussex! #homeless #chichester
Spread the word: This autumn we will accept apples, pears and berries to make Crumbles for those in Crisis #homeless #chichester
Too many apples on your tree? Donate them to us and we’ll make crumbles for those in crisis. Hence the name. Sign up #Chichester #homeless
Do you have an apple tree? Do you find yourself with an abundance of fruit come autumn? Donate them to us and we’ll put them to good use!

As well as tweeting as @DMinTransition I tweet as @TransitionChi on behalf of Transition Chichester.  I tried to make contact with Crisis Crumble – clearly there was someone of like mind in the area and we didn’t want our Abundance project to duplicate or be at cross purposes with them.  Unfortunately they didn’t respond.

 In mid April @TransitionChi tried again:
@CrisisCrumble Who are you? #Transition #Chichester are hoping to set up an Abundance Project to deal with gluts of fruit.
And on 9^th May they responded:
You’re 100% right. Abundance was a direct influence. We’re a small bunch who hate waste. 100% not-for-profit. 100% volunteers

During May things really took off!~
When @StonepillowChi, a local shelter for homeless and vulnerable individuals, put out an appeal for help with a street collection at the end of the month, Crisis Crumble answered the call.  Stonepillow also asked “You work with apples, have you considered vegetables, bakes etc? we have lots donated to us.”  Understandably Crisis Crumble replied “Great idea, but one simple crumble step at a time.”

• They also got in touch with @AndysFish – a local fish & chip shop run by the son of the proprietor of another fish & chip shop, @lafish_chi , a prominent supporter of Stonepillow among other good causes.
• The Crisis Crumble website went live! – created by @iaingriffin of Wizz Kidd
• @trimmtrabdeano, a local friend of Crisis Crumble, also lent his virtual support.
• Crisis Crumble tweeted “Looking for the simplest apple crumble recipe going. It’ll feature on the website.”
• CrisisCrumble’s Matt and Bec met TransitionChichester (represented by @DMinTransition and @passion4planet ). They kindly tweeted “Great to meet up with @TransitionChi on Tuesday – an inspirational bunch. We shared some ideas and learnt about each others’ plans.”
• Crisis Crumble’s Deliciously Simple Apple Crumble recipe was posted on their website
• @AndysFish donated 10kg flour, 10kg sugar, and 5 kg butter!
• Local cake maker extraordinaire (just one of her many talents too numerous to list here!) @FlourVonSponge offered to help make crumbles
• Crisis Crumble found time to shake buckets for @StonepillowChi in Chichester town centre

Progress in June:

• By the middle of the month there was a possibility that Crisis Crumble might have the use of a professional kitchen to cook the crumbles!
• A week later the first fruit donation was announced, from Marjory “Granny” Kell – surplus rhubarb, raspberries and plums. Crisis Crumble were ready to start crumbling – in the nicest possible way!
• @RedRasbery (Sonia Rasbery, local veg growing expert and friend of Transition) offered the produce of her huge old cooking apple tree in her back garden. “Always have more apples than we use. How do I donate when ready?”
• @VCACD (Voluntary and Community Action Chichester District tweeted “This is a brilliant initiative! will keep an eye open for apples in the park!”
• 20^th June “This is a big day for CC – our first crumbles will be assembled tomorrow and hopefully out to crisis shelters the day after that…”
• Next day “This batch are Rhubarb and Plum Crumbles or as Mrs Crumble calls them Rhubarb Plumbles!”
• AndysFish “Can we buy them and the money go to charity or is it a case of feeding the homeless?” Crisis Crumble replied “The original idea was give them to crisis shelters to feed the homeless. But let’s see what happens in the future, great idea tho”
• Crisis Crumble: A massive donation of sugar has just been dropped off by the lovely people at mudfoods.com Their savoury pies are to die for! [I can vouch for that – I buy them from Chichester Farmers Market!]
• 22^nd June “First donation delivered! Thanks all involved. And we seem to have developed a nickname The Crumble People.”
• Next day: Stonepillow said “our sleepers last night enjoyed your crumbles!! A big Thank you & to @AndysFish for supplying the ingredients to help!!!”
• AndysFish “just spoke to my fruit and veg supplier and asked if he had any apples to be thrown. THE MAN FROM DELMONTE HE SAY YES” “Mr Terry Pasquale on the Bognor Road you’re a good man and today’s hero “
• @lafish_chi: Good to see the chip shops in #Chichester helping charitable causes @AndysFish
• “The CC kitchen has been a hive of activity. We’ve so far produced 48 crumbles for one shelter and will deliver apples to others”
• @AndysFish asked do you have a big car? I just collected 6 large boxes of apples. Around 40kg’s of the blighters.  A plea went out to Transition Chichester members and others, for help making crumbles or prepping this huge quantity of apples and among others @KateLassetter, local ace copywriter, social media expert, and fan of all things creative,  offered her mum’s services: “ I’m sure mum could do some, she’s a master crumbler.” @TuppennyBarn , local organic smallholders, offered their surplus blackcurrants when ready.
• Stonepillow tweeted “Thank you for your kind donations of apples & crumbles. They’re going down a storm!!”

Crisis Crumble found time to post about their burst of activity:

• “Lastly on the run 14 crumbles and a tray of red apples to one of our favourite schemes. Thanks to Mrs Crumble and of course @AndysFish”
• A fabulous local hospice has received tray of shiny red apples with which they’re going to make crumbles
• Big box of apples given to a Chichester church for their homeless Sunday lunch. Quote “No one ever gives us food donations” Share the wealth
• 48 apples crumbles delivered to a homeless shelter in Portsmouth. Bemused was their first reaction, thankful their second.
• @DMinTransition deserves a massive #ff for the support from day one of Crisis Crumble. Ideas, inspiration and great networking. Thank you.  [Not quite from day one, but I was glad to help and touched to be thanked at such a busy time for them!]   I replied with “Thank you so much! Well done to both of you for putting your inspiration into practice.”

In the middle of the last week of June, I emailed Matt and Bec to ask if they still needed help with the prepping.  They replied:

Hi Diana, it all went well thanks. Because they were all due their use by date we had to get rid of them quickly.
In the end we made 48 crumbles for Two Saint Mill House homeless shelter in Portsmouth, we gave a tray of apples to St Wilfrid’s Hospice, a tray to St Pancras Church for their Sunday lunch for the homeless, 12 crumbles and two trays to St Josephs in Chichester.
All in all a result.
Have had a few emails of support from transition people and an offer of blackberries which we may take up.

A major lesson from this is that we all know of fruit going to waste and now we know how they can be put to good use.   This has all happened before Crisis Crumble expected to get started in autumn.  The arrival in the last few years of social media has helped this sort of initiative grow and thrive, encouraging the use of lateral thinking and putting people in touch.  I’m sure this could be replicated across the country.

It IS easy being green!

Kermit the frog has a lot to answer for.  The title of his song about being a frog (“It’s not easy being green”) has been taken up by green “sceptics” who think it’s too much effort to adopt green habits, or that if you aren’t prepared to dedicate your whole life to environmentalism it’s not worth bothering at all.

In my opinion there are all sorts of things we can do that will make a difference, and it doesn’t matter if we can’t or won’t do everything.  I’m not going to repeat all the energy saving / recycling / composting tips here – we all know what they are or we can find out easily.  All I’m saying is do what you can, do it now, and stop complaining!

An inspiring talk by Joy Larkcom at West Dean Gardens

At the end of February I attended an inspiring talk by Joy Larkcom at West Dean Gardens near Chichester.  Joy is the widely acknowledged guru of salad and oriental vegetable gardening and the huge range of salad leaves available nowadays, and the popularity of the cut-and-come again technique of salad growing, is due in large part to her efforts.
60 people from the area and beyond gathered to hear her speak, to watch a cookery demonstration by local food writer Rosemary Moon, eat lunch, and hear a Q&A succession with Joy, Rosemary and the West Dean garden supervisor, Sarah Wain.

Joy explained how she, her husband, and two small children toured Europe in the 1970s with a caravan, investigating salads and vegetables that were unheard of in the UK at that time.  She studied old techniques and old varieties, sending back to the HDRA (now Garden Organic) and the National Vegetable Research Station (now Warwick HRI) at Wellesbourne.  She found all sorts of varieties that we take for granted today: red chicory, curly endive, lamb’s lettuce, lollo rosso ….  Her practice of bringing back seeds has continued throughout her life, with visits to the USA, Australia, China, and elsewhere, as has her experimentation with how to grow them first in Suffolk and then more recently in West Cork, Ireland.  It took some time to persuade the seed companies to stock her discoveries, the oriental vegetables more so than salads.  Eventually Chiltern Seeds produced a catalogue with oriental vegetables that they had never actually grown themselves.

Joy’s talk was full of practical advice and here are some of the key points:

• if starting a new vegetable patch, start composting from day one; even partially rotted compost will benefit your crops
• grow according to your needs and interests – do you want to grow basics for the family or concentrate on gourmet crops?
• shelter from even light winds increases yields by 30%. A windbreak needs to be 50% permeable rather than solid
• succession sowing of crops such as radishes prevents you from being overwhelmed by things you can’t eat all at once
• the point of a piece of broken glass is ideal for sowing tiny seeds sparingly!
• many leafy salads and vegetables are best grown in late summer to prevent bolting
• many leafy salads and vegetables are hardy, such as mibuna, mizuna, and pak choi
• pak choi and otheers can be eaten at every stage – as seedlings, mature plants and sometimes the flowering shoots
• sowing in modules  (widely used at West Dean) protects the seedlings against weather, slugs, and transplantation shock
• potager designs make the vegetable garden prettier – beds don’t have to be rectangular. Planting in groups with equal spacing is better than rows for keeping down weeds

Joy then went on to show us some excellent slides from her travels and her own gardens, including the wind breaks she created which were very much needed for her garden on the West Cork coast.

Now it was time for Rosemary’s cookery demonstration of rhubarb crumble with aduki beans, stirfry using blanched redbor kale, onion, walnuts, chickpeas, and chilli jelly, and a salad of tomatoes, oranges, chicory and olive oil. Her demo style is great as she talks very easily while preparing everything.

Lunch was some excellent local ham and cheese with Rosemary’s salads, followed by the crumble with Caroline’s Dairy sea buckthorn ice cream (tastes of passionfruit!), accompanied by lashings of ginger beer and lemonade.

Finally to the Q&A, in which Joy and Sarah answered a wide range of interesting questions.

So thanks to Joy for a fascinating day, and thanks to Rosemary for introducing me to another of my food heroes (she brought Katie Stewart to speak to Transition Chichester a couple of years ago).  This was a truly memorable event.