Last Sunday we visited a small orchard in Gloucestershire as one of the final events of South Gloucestershire’s Local Food & Drink Festival 2008.

As you can see, Lucas was keen to get going!  You’d never guess that he likes apples, would you?

The orchard at Huntingford House was planted in 1921.  It was a commercial orchard until 1985 when, for one reason or another, it was left to run wild.  The current owners bought the farm and orchard three years ago and have been trying to restore it to its former glory ever since.

The ground slopes steeply and with almost every step an apple crunches sweetly underfoot.  By the time we left, all the visitors had thoroughly trampled the windfalls creating an intoxicating aroma.  Apparently it was planted on a steep slope to protect the trees from frost.  In the winter the frost rolls down the hill and collects in the little valley at the bottom rather than on the trees.  Quite cunning, really.

Lucas made friends with the farmer’s dog and had lots of fun playing fetch with him.  He and Dave also had fun with the chickens, who pecked expectantly around their feet.

We made our way through the orchard, marvelling at how laden the trees were and the twisted, gnarled shapes of the trees.  Here and there we stopped to pick apples—next year I’ll bring a basket instead of abusing my poor handbag—as we’d been told to help ourselves to as many apples as we wanted from the trees and the windfalls.

The orchard is now only 25% of its original size, various bits of land having been sold off over the years, but it is still amazingly prolific.  This was driven home to me when we watched the apple pressing demonstration.

Jack, who must have been about 13, demonstrated how to press apples the modern way.  First the apples checked over carefully; any bruises or blemishes have to be cut out of the fruit before milling as they taint the finished juice.  The apples were then milled—skins, cores and all—into a thick pulp.

This pulp was then transferred to the water-powered press.  It was packed into a perforated steel drum which had a rubber bladder in the middle.  Once all the apple was in, various bits and bobs were attached—I’m so technical!—before the water was turned on.  The bladder swelled, and rivulets of juice started to trickle into the bucket below the press.  The rivulets quickly turned into a deluge and the juice was ready!

So far this year they’ve filled 800 bottles, which is pretty impressive for a small orchard!  Dave bought me a bottle of their Cox’s Orange Pippin juice which I’m really looking forward to trying.

We had some lovely warm apple pie with cream and then left for home.  I staggered along under the weight of my laden handbag, happily planning apple cakes and desserts and looking forward to going back for blossom day.

If you’d like to visit a local orchard, then check out the Common Ground website for a list of apple and pear events running in October.  Things come to a head around the 21st which is national Apple Day, so you’ll need to be quick!

Our Small Farm
Huntingford House
Swinhay Lane
Huntingford
Wotton-under-Edge
GL12 8EX

Tel: 01453 845212

Mike Perry has been a butcher since he was16.  As he says himself, with a hearty laugh, that was a long time ago.

His family business, Perry & Son has been serving loyal customers in Alveston, just outside Bristol, since 1985 and Mike prides himself on keeping the old skills alive as well as sourcing all the meat he sells from within a 35 mile radius of the shop.  More often than not, though, the meat is far more local.  For most of this year, Mike has been buying in his pigs from a farm just one mile down the road.  Beat that for low food miles!

On one level, he looks like the stereotypical ‘jolly butcher’ but he’s so much more than that.  This is a man who cares deeply about the quality of the meat he’s selling and it is important to him that it is not only local, but the absolute best he can lay his hands on.  He is concerned about the decline in the number of craft (or master) butchers due to supermarket monopolies, but at the same time he is heartened by the increased focus from celebrity chefs on the older, cheaper cuts of meat.  As supermarkets don’t do more interesting cuts like beef (or pork) cheeks, customers are moving back to traditional butchers to get the cuts that are being promoted.

I visited Perry & Son as part of South Gloucestershire’s Local Food & Drink Festival 2008.  During the festival month, various producers open their doors to the public for open days and demonstrations.  Perry & Son had four butchery demonstrations scheduled for the month and I managed to grab the last place available for pig butchery.  I should warn you now, if you haven’t already guessed, that there will be pictures of carcasses and meat ‘in the raw’ behind the jump…

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Yesterday my friend Sarah and I joyfully ventured forth to the Soil Association’s Organic Food Festival in Bristol. This yearly event is the highlight of my foodie calendar, and with good reason…

The festival takes over almost all of the Harbourside area in the centre of the city–unbelievably it was even bigger than last year–and is jam-packed with just about every food you could imagine from both local and national producers. Samples flow generously, so even if you don’t visit the Food Plaza, you can still leave with a full belly.

With such a wide range of producers, it can be hard to know where to start. Sarah and I just followed out noses and the crowds which worked out really well.

Our first stop was The Parmesan Cheese Co. which imports Parmigiano Reggiano from Emilia Romagna. This is the real deal, people! It’s worlds away from the premium Parmesan sold in supermarkets–Taste the Difference  and Finest, etc–and light years away from that horrible dry grated stuff sold in little cans when we were kids. (Someone is bound to tell me that they still sell it, aren’t they? Please don’t. I’ll cry.) It’s… indescribably good and worth every penny. I look forward to the extra joy that this will bring to our autumn risottos.

We wandered past some amazing food. Some reasonably priced, others completely overpriced. I can’t imagine anyone paying £10 for a quiche–would you? I always love visiting the Boerenkaas stand; it reminds me, happily, of my year working in Amsterdam and the great cheeses I feasted upon there. As we have loads of cheese in the fridge already, I didn’t buy any, but I did snack on some. Delicious.

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Today we went en familie to the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham.

We were up at the crack of dawn–well, 0630–so that we could hit the motorway while the roads were relatively quiet. Unfortunately, while there was little traffic, the weather was dreadful. Gusting winds and driving rain–I was so thankful that Dave was doing the driving rather than me, otherwise we’d still be sat on the hard shoulder while I had a nervous breakdown.

One of the main reasons for going to the show was to see Gordon Ramsay’s demo in the Supertheatre. Both Dave and I adore Gordon for a myriad of different reasons, but mainly… his food and teaching abilities. One day we’ll manage to sort out reservations for Gordon Ramsay’s on Royal Hospital Road. Even though Gordon will undoubtedly not be in the kitchen, I still want to add it to my list of Very Good Restaurants at which I Have Eaten. (Incidentally, we’re about to add The Fat Duck to our list. Earlier this week I managed to make reservations for my birthday in January!)

Anyway… Gordon!

The crowd—already worked up by a rousing rendition of YMCA by a very camp MC—erupted in frenzied cheers when Gordon and Sarge (Mark Sargeant) ran out on stage. Alas, this totally freaked out Lucas and he dissolved into tears. So, Dave ended up watching almost all of the demo from the back row where it was a lot quieter Admittedly, this was a lot better than we’d hoped; originally we thought that Dave would miss the demo entirely but as it was, he got to see the whole thing and just missed out on all the delicious smells that wafted up to me from the stage.

Gordon was absolutely filthy as always, and very, very amusing. I think it’s fair to say that Gordon Ramsay could read to me from the telephone directory and I’d be enraptured, but Dave—who is more admiring and less love-struck—also found him very funny. (As did Lucas when he calmed down and noticed the mega-huge television screen. Apparently he played with the flip-down chairs, and pointed and giggled at Gordon on-screen.)

And what did he cook? A delicious, intensely aromatic chorizo and butterbean soup which instantly made me ravenous—the perils of not having a proper breakfast before a food show—followed by pan-seared rib-eye steaks with port-glazed baby turnips and a mushroom fricasse, and a very simple (but undoubtedly delicious) tiramisu with a Crunchie bar microplaned over the top. Dead simple stuff, by his standards, but achievable by any home cook which is what the show is all about.

I managed not to be overwhelmed by Gordon’s sheer animal magnetism, but another audience member was not so lucky. Before our very eyes—and jolly good work that camera-man!—she wriggled out of her bra and hurled it at Gordon, who promptly picked it up with a wooden spoon and shoved it in the oven. Good times….

It was all over far too soon and we trooped outside to plan the rest of our day.

Our biggest priority was so track down some knives for me to try. Through years of systemic mistreatment—read: being put in the dishwasher and unthinkingly chopping on a glass board—my Sabatier knives are no longer holding an edge and after nicking myself several times I’m just not happy using them.

I chopped my way through several tomatoes at all the knife stands we could find, each time testing out a 10” cook’s knife so that I could make a proper comparison. Eventually I narrowed it down to two; one from Kin Knives and the other from Furi.

It was a fun hour or so. I discovered a lot about my preferences for knives. I definitely don’t like this whole East-West fusion of Asian cleavers and the traditional Cook’s Knife. I found it impossible to create a rhythmic action and felt in serious danger of losing a finger or two. Ceramic knives feel.. odd. The blade seemed thicker than steel and when I chopped some cucumber and radish I found that it stuck firmly to the side of the knife which impeded my chopping. Obviously some people get on very well with them. Chefs at one of the stands that I visited were busily carving vegetables and fruits with ceramic knives as well as making sushi. It all looked wonderful, but the knives really didn’t work out for me.

After a great deal of contemplation, I plumped for the Furi 10” Cook’s Knife as it was more comfortable in my hand and I felt that it also was slightly sharper. It fell through vegetables whereas other knives—even Global—needed some pressure from my hand. I then got a big surprise as Dave pulled out his card and bought not only the knife but also a sharpener for me as part of my Christmas! I really am being spoilt this year–thank-you baby!!

We then moved onto some actual food. As we were both being Paragons of Virtue (or, good dieters) we chose our samples very carefully indeed and tried not to go hog wild. Borne along by tantalising wafts of Christmas pudding we found ourselves at Mrs Peek’s Puddings and after sampling some freshly steamed pudding we both decided that we had to have one for Christmas. There was also some quite nice parmesan but I didn’t think it was as good as the stuff I bought earlier in the year at the Bristol Organic Food Festival, so in the end I didn’t go back for it. I did pick up three tins of the most incredible Bombay Mix–my number one savoury snack–which had just the right amount of heat. It’s so hard to find a decently spicy band of Bombay Mix and this one was just so perfect that i had to have it! So that’s my Christmas nibbles sorted out….

While I battled with Lucas, a jar of food and a spoon—the pushchair may never be the same again—Dave nipped off to search for the sausage-making stand that we saw earlier on. The next thing I knew, there was an absolutely sensational frozen chocolate truffle being pressed to my lips! Apparently he spotted some samples at the Filthy Foods stand and rushed back with them post-haste. I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate in my time, and these truffles/bites rank right up there with the best of them. Apparently they’re now available in Sainsbury’s, so I shall hunt the shelves (and freezers) tomorrow and stash a box in the freezer for Christmas/Chocolate Emergencies.

Our last purchase was some dry cure salt mix, or Supacure as the bag describes it, from Weschfelder & Sons. Alas, it is incredibly hard to get hold of saltpetre in the United Kingdom these days–which is fair enough, as it is a major component of gunpowder–so in order to make the pancetta that I’ve been fantasising about since reading Matt’s account of making his own pancetta, I wound up having to buy a pre-blended product. I’ll still be able to add aromatics and sugar for a sweet cure, and I guess it’ll be easier than weighing out fractions of grammes, and thus safer, but still. I wanted to do it Properly. Hopefully I’ll manage to lay my hands on a decent piece of belly pork this week and be able to make something incredibly delicious (and indulgent) at New Year!

All in all, it was a fantastic day out. I was thrilled to be able to check out so many different knives–some terrible and some absolutely amazing—and it was nice to sort-of/almost rub shoulders with the odd famous person or two. ( I completely forgot to mention that we saw the Hairy Bikers, Jimmy from Jimmy’s Farm, Angela Hartnett and I’m almost positive that I saw Nigel Slater, too!)