British Food Fortnight

British Food Fortnight has got off to a good start. Though no one seems to have heard anything about it until they arrive and I tell them! So far our tastings have been a little biased towards breakfast, with muesli and granola on Saturday, then smoked trout and today another Granola. But there is more to come and I am excited about Suzanne coming to offer tasters of her Proper Preserves on Saturday as they have always gone down well when I've had samples out to taste, and then next week we have the local rapeseed oil and John & Mary will be back with their sweet fruit vinegars. I'm now considering extending the fortnight to three weeks to offer more of this year's Great Taste Award winners.

Royal Berkshire Show

This weekend was my first visit to the Royal Berkshire Show, and I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I intended to just pop along to see the local food producers, but ended up staying far longer than I expected. I met Mike Cooper who was launching his cold pressed rapeseed oil, and saw a number of other producers whose products I already stock: Anila’s Authentic Sauces were as popular as ever, as were Susie’s preserves and the bread from GW Shepherd & Son. I did see a few new producers whose goods I may stock in the future. But I also ventured out of the food tents and saw amazing horticultural displays, beekeepers, falconry, garden furniture and the occasional horse and dog. I had a really enjoyable day and came away with tired feet and slightly more plants than it was possible to carry!

Speciality & Fine Food Fair

On Monday I spent a very long day at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair in London. I had planned my day around the only trains with just one connection, and had a list of stands I wanted to visit and where they were. The trouble was I started with a "quick" walk around to see if I spotted any other stalls I hadn't put on my list and the show was closing before I realised the time! I didn't even get my list out of my bag. So much for being organised!

I was then caught up in the rush hour tube strike mayhem and it took three times as long as I had planned to get home. But it was worth it. The show was a good one. I enjoyed catching up with producers I hadn't seen in a while and am very excited by some new products I saw. I just wish I'd picked up more samples to sustain me on my journey home!

Apple Picking

On Sunday morning, before opening the shop, I went Apple Picking at Home Cottage Farm. Pat and Peter have some wonderful orchards, full of short trees, which are ideal for picking from. The apples, plums and soft fruits are all delicious and full of flavour. I picked damsons, Laxtons Fortune eating apples and Grenadier Cooking apples and hope to sell them in the shop over the next few weeks. If they don’t sell I shall be eating a lot of apple crumble which isn’t much of a hardship!

Great Taste Awards 2007

The judging for the Great Taste Awards has been completed and this year's winners have been announced. More than 4500 foods were entered. Each one was blind tasted (some by me!) and judged on its own merits. Fewer awards have been given than in previous years, so it is especially nice to see so many familiar names among the award winners. My local preservers did very well! This was the first time Suzanne had entered and she won awards for both her Hot Banana Chutney and Red Onion Marmalade! And Susie added to the award she won for her Mango Chutney last year, with an award for her very popular Fig Chutney. And the other Susie, won awards for her crumbly vanilla fudge, very cherry fudge and brown sugar maple pecan fudge (I didn't even know she had entered!). John and Mary's Sweet Redcurrant Vinegar was also awarded.

Jules and Sharpie, who have collected numerous awards over the past few years, won some more this year: for their Hot Redcurrant Jelly, Hot Pear Chutney and Hot mmmmarmalade. Tracklements also added to their collection with awards for their Thai Jelly, Spiced Honey Mustard, Horseraddish & Cream, and my favourite, their Onion Marmalade. Stokes, makers of fantastic mayonnaise won an award for their Herb Mayonnaise. Shropshire Fine Herbs won awards for their oatmeal biscuits for cheese and Piper's won awards for both Anglesey sea salt and Sea salt and Somerset cider vinegar crisps. Pukka Teas won awards for their revitalise, refresh, relax and clarity herbal teas and Luscombe for their Organic Sicilian Lemonade. The Nunez de Prado Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spain also won an award, as did many other Spanish foods including the Date and Walnut bars, 1000 flower mountain honey and creamy Marcona almonds. RJ’s natural licorice was the only winner in the liquorice category.

Even the chilled and frozen foods were judged at the Great Taste Awards and many of our producers excelled. Alder Tree for their Christmas ice cream (which isn't a flavour I stock, but will certainly try now as everything I've tasted of theirs has been fantastic). The Dairy House won two awards for their yoghurts, Trioni for their Strawberry milkshake and Patchwork for their handmade pates. Mike's Smokehouse won another award for their Hot Roast Salmon.

Anila did amazingly well and won two of only forty-six 3 star awards; for her spicy mild and spicy korma curry sauces. Honeybuns won another of the 3 star awards for their deliciously Moorish Almondi cookie.

The regional, national, international and 2007 Supreme Champion will all be announced in September. Here's hoping some of the wonderful producers we stock collect some more prizes.

Olive Oil Tasting

The Rains

We’re still waiting for the flooding to reach Eton. It seems every other person has a different opinion about what is going to happen. Either the Jubilee River and the flood provisions the College put in, will save us, or Thursday will be very wet indeed. I’m not feeling terribly confident we will be spared, as everything seems to be going wrong at the moment. Yesterday morning the four month old bottle cooler broke (defrosting and leaking water all over the shop floor). And when I came to leave in the evening, found a cartoon style nail in my car tyre.

Today the shop opened late after I wasted two hours driving constantly but never moving more than 2 miles from home. Every road I tried was flooded! It was like being in a maze. At some points I could see my destination, the M4, and then round the next bend, a queue of cars waiting to do a u turn. It became quite comical, seeing the same faces on different routes, everyone waving their arms, shaking their heads and indicating the road ahead was closed. The trouble is, you can travel quite a long way down a lane before finding it is blocked and having to go all the way back and look for another route. I know I found at least nine closed roads.

At one point I was driving along beside a rat, soaked through and head down looking truly miserable and like a “drowned rat”. I saw a cyclist up to his axles in water and lots of abandoned vehicles.

But eventually after all routes East and West were exhausted I went North, then West, South, and East and got to my junction on the M4 about 2 hours later than usual.

Fortunately the shop isn’t flooded, but the rain is keeping the shoppers away. Thank goodness I have some paperwork to keep me busy!

100 units sold!

At some point today I sold my 100th bag of liquorice and my 100th pack of harvest rolls. It would have been quite a momentous occasion, had I known! Unfortunately, I've been so absorbed in getting some of the other reports to work I've not been paying attention to the report on sales and hadn't noticed how it had crept up over the last two weeks. I think I'll treat myself to one of my chocolate brownies to celebrate!

Cheese & Wine

Last week's excitement came from a Cheese & Wine evening at Stephen Phillips Interiors. Stephen and Phillip held the event to launch their new collection of furniture and furnishings. I supplied the cheese! We had Buche Ruffec, Brie de Meaux, Black Bomber Cheddar and Manchego (all displayed on a rather glamorous table, beside a candelabra).