Very excited about being invited by Tesco to tour their bakery in Lowestoft - this was an opportunity to address everything we think is unethical about the mega-supermarkets and be reassured by them that they are making progress in the right direction. But not even the very big and extremely heavy goodie-bag-for-life stuffed with tiger bread and almond soya milk can make up for the corporate-speak-with-prize we took part in as part of their female only audience of bloggers and customers. If this is how Tesco top brass see their customers' world, no wonder they were in court this week. We may only be club card holders or housewives on the surface, Tesco, but underneath many of us are industry professionals.
...at a secret location near suffolkfoodie hq, but you can only pick the ones that hang over the road or you will get into trouble!
I had to look at this honeycomb for a week before I could bring myself to dig a spoon into it. All gone now, eaten on toast and drizzled on my breakfast yoghurt.
You can't get any more money through the lottery Local Food Grants but there are lots of interesting food projects going on around the country that are not food banks giving away pot noodles and instant mashed potato. There's a community vineyard, primary school allotments, a food circus and have a look at the size of the saucepans they have in Manchester in their Feeding 5000 project.
Imagine our surprise when we went for lunch yesterday at Tom's new restaurant 'Picture' because Tracey reviewed it in the paper on Saturday and I remembered I hadn't been there to see what he is doing after Arbutus (and of course because he was in BSE at the Angel before that) and Giles Coren was there having lunch too! What a buzz! Does this mean that here at simple old suffolkfoodie we are going to places WITH the critics?
Anyhoo, enough about us, look at the food! £15 for a three course lunch with two choices, with free bread and the kind of service we should be expecting everywhere. Our water was replaced three times - as we drank it - without any fuss or hovering, and it was tap water which wasn't charged for either. We had a carafe of house white which was a lovely fruity Chardonnay. I had the plum tomatoes with goats curd salad dressed with merlot vinegar as a starter, the other choice being potato and fennel soup with smoked bacon and parsley. Followed by courgette and oregano risotto with grilled artichoke while the others had Elwy Valley lamb breast, with coco beans and cavalo nero, and for dessert I had marscapone and vanilla yoghurt with redcurrants glistening like rubies on the top, or there was chocolate mousse with scottish raspberries and honeycomb. Yum Yum Yum.
Nice sunny place, wonderful food, great hosts, not very busy on Saturdays (at the moment...) and only 90 minutes from Suffolk - take note - people-who-charge-£15-for-crap-burgers. And Giles Coren is much younger in real life than he looks in the paper - you will have to take my word for it, he left before we could get a picture of what he was eating.
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The Wheaten Mill in Elmsett made this and they sell through the Co-Op (and probably other places too). It was nearly as good as our own home-made coffee cake and looks just the same. A bit less icing and more coffee flavour and it would have been perfect, but much much nicer than most shop bought cakes if you can't be bothered or run out of time to make one to have with your cup of tea.
... all the things those Google billionaires could sponsor and they choose a stem-cell burger.
Angelica, Kiwi and Chickpea are some of the plants on show at Kew gardens in their IncrEdibles exhibition, until November this year. The plant of the week this week is bread wheat more widely cultivated than any other crop, and with a greater world trade monetary value than all other cereals combined. First domesticated at least 9,000 years ago it can be seen growing in Kew's Global Kitchen Garden, on the Great Lawn opposite Kew Palace. You can taste it too in the Orangery in their Heritage tomato, torn basil and aged pecorino salad, with croutons (made using the wheat)
Are you a keen cook, with flair, with taste... then enter the next Channel 4 TV cookery show. You could meet Nigella!
Had to spend the day at Papworth hospital this week (not as a patient) but long enough to try their breakfast of deep fried sausage, deep fried bread, deep fried mushrooms, black pudding and bacon. But I did have tomatoes and it was only £3.49 for six items.