Busy Weekend!

There is so much going on in Eton this weekend, I thought I'd put a little schedule together to make sure nothing is missed out. So how about this for a plan...

Start the weekend off with a stroll along Eton's Historic High Street. Delightful, unique shops await you. Browse the Duality exhibition at Jam and find plenty of gift and home inspiration in the numerous galleries and shops.

Buy a picnic lunch from Tastes Deli  and enjoy Eton's fantastic Thames side setting with views of Windsor Castle.

From 2pm the Eton College gardens will be open to the public. Take you time to admire areas not usually kept private (£4 admission charge applies).

Staying at Eton College, the fantastic Natural History Museum will be open until 6pm (free admission).

Choose one of Eton's fabulous restaurants, many with outside dining areas, for dinner, then head to The Henry VI, for live music from 9pm.

Sunday is Father's Day and time for the Toshiba Windsor Triathlon. Competitors will be swimming in the Thames, cycling through Windsor and running down Eton High Street.

At 11:30 David Dragon will be demonstrating the technique he uses to produce his monotypes, as well as talking about his inspiration and influences, at Jam (Note from Jam: please do let us know if you would like to attend so we can arrange chairs and so forth! tel. 01753 622333 or email info@jam-eton.co.uk. A good activity for Father’s day!)

The river Thames will be home to the "Coronation 60th Anniversary" regatta all weekend.  Crews are racing between Prince Albert and Queen Victoria bridges, with spectators (who have pre-booked tickets at £8 per adult) allowed into the normally private grounds of Windsor Castle to watch the action.

If you didn't have time for  Natural History Museum on Saturday, it will be open again on Sunday afternoon (2:30-5pm).

And if you are still around on Monday, pop over the bridge to Windsor to see the knights of the garter.  Then you might as well stay until Royal Ascot starts on Tuesday (you can take another picnic as is National Picnic Week)! Then there is the World Rowing Championships at Dorney next weekend,  the Windsor Dog show the week after ...

There really is always something going on.

Baking with Dulce de Leche

For this week's home baking I followed a recipe I pinned to our Dulce de Leche pinterest board a while ago. A butter flapjack with a layer of rich Dulce de Leche caramel.  The recipe was from the Sweet Life Bake blog.

My top tip would be to use Dulce de Leche at room temperature (straight from the fridge it is hard to spread without damaging the flapjack base). Sadly, I scrimped on the caramel (there is A LOT of butter and sugar in the recipe and it scared me!). My caramel layer was a bit meager, and I'm sure these would be better with a thicker layer (like in the original recipe photograph). They are still delicious, next time I might try less sugar and more Dulce de Leche. There will be a next time!

But first I need to try one other recipe from our pin board before I devour the rest of the jar of Dulce de Leche!

Local bees making local honey

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to observe a few hundred of my favourite fine food producers hard at work. Stephen, who supplies "Windsor honey" to Tastes Deli, was kind enough to take me on a tour of his hives, situated on the edge of Windsor Great Park. I'd been looking forward to the trip all winter, and it did not disappoint. I could quite happily have settled down on the grass and watched them work until sunset. It was fascinating.

As Stephen carefully removed the frames to inspect the bees and their activities, I didn't know what to look at first. Should I watch the bee colony as a group and their amazing comb construction, or focus on an individual bee and follow them and if so which one; the bee with the huge balls of pollen attached to her legs, the bee releasing scent and wafting it into the air, the bee on guard duty patrolling back and forth, the bee dancing on the hive to tell the other bees where to go for nectar, the Queen? I snapped away with my camera so I could inspect what I was seeing more thoroughly later. Here is what I saw (and what I learned from Stephen whilst I was there):

First we watched the worker bees coming in and out of the hive via the small entrance hole at the bottom. In the summer the entrance will be far larger than this to avoid congestion as thousands of bees move to and fro. We could see workers with baskets on their back legs filled with pollen; a very good sign. The pollen is collected to feed the brood. If there was no brood, the workers would not be collecting the pollen. So even before opening the hive Stephen new the colony was alive and growing.

Once the lid and crown board were removed I could see all the frames, into which the bees build their honeycomb, and a cluster of worker bees around the centre where the queen and brood were. Stephen pointed out some of the different workers. The bees start as cleaners and progress through the ranks including nursing the young, gathering pollen (for food), nectar (to turn into honey) or water (to cool the hive), producing wax, building the comb, attending the the queen, removing the dead, guarding the hive etc.

Stephen carefully removed the frames, one at a time, inspecting the bees and comb as he went. The bees are currently only occupying a spherical space at the centre of the hive. Right on the edge of this area some tiny ants had crept in to pilfer the honey. Guard bees were on duty to see them off.

As Stephen approached the centre of the hive the frames got heavier (with honey) and busier (with bees).

The photograph below shows many different stages in the bee life cycle. The adult bees are the female workers, working away looking after the brood and comb.

The bees start life as tiny eggs, one laid in each cell. You can see the eggs most clearly in the cell at the bottom right of the photograph, after three days these become lava, and you can see lava of various sizes in the cells in the middle and top left of the photo. They are fed by the worker (nurse) bees and grow rapidly. The biggest lava in the photo are on the right in the middle. Once they pupate the workers seal the cells with wax, as you can see at the bottom centre of the photograph. Two weeks later the new bees emerge from their cell and are set to work.

I spotted the Queen, right in the middle of the photograph on the left (marked with a circle by Stephen). She's the biggest bee, but you can't really see that in the photos as she is busy checking out the comb with her antennae. She will check it is clean and lay a different sized egg depending on the size of the chamber. Small chamber = worker bee, large chamber = drone bee. And who chooses how big the chambers are? The workers. Sounds to me like they are the ones in charge!

And just to prove I was there, Stephen's wife kindly took a photo of me, all protected and ready for my bee encounter. Honestly, I tucked my trousers into my socks for protection, not as a fashion statement! But I have to say the bees were pretty friendly. Stephen is very careful with them and they seem to trust him and weren't aggressive at all. Though it was nice to be covered up, just in case.

There's Hummus and there's Houmous

I've never made a chickpea hummus that I've been happy with. Nowadays, if called upon to make hummus I follow Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe for Roasted Carrot Hummus (from Veg Everyday). It's delicious, and works every time. It does, however, require the carrots to be roasted with delicious honey and cumin seeds for 40 minutes. So it isn't a recipe which lends itself to dip emergencies.

Luckily for me Jay has been working on his hummus technique and can rustle up a delicious dip in a matter of minutes with store cupboard staples. It is quite a personal thing, everyone has their own way and like it just that way (except me!). But since my blog post about adding Sweet and Hot Sauce to hummus people have been asking for Jay's recipe. So here it is, this is how Jay makes hummus.

Put all of this into a blender:

A glug of olive oil,

1 clove garlic finely chopped,

Sprinkle of Cornish sea salt, 

1 can chick peas,

1 tablespoon Meridian light tahini,

100ml Water,

Blend.

Juice half a lemon and add a bit at a time until you are happy with the result. 

It makes about 400 ml.

New Scores on the Doors

Today the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead switch from the Scores on the Doors rating system (under which  Tastes was awarded five stars in 2010) to the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. As with the Scores on the Doors scheme, food outlets, such as restaurants, takeaways and pubs, are inspected by food safety officers to check that their hygiene standards meet legal requirements. The businesses are rated on a scale from zero (urgent improvement necessary) to five (very good) and the results of the inspection are visible on the Food Standards Agency web site.

Cllr Carwyn Cox, cabinet member for environmental services, said: Although we have run our own successful food hygiene scheme, we have opted to change to the national FHRS as we can see the benefits for local food businesses and the people that eat or shop in them.

Having a single scheme which is consistent nationwide means that the ratings have the same significance wherever people are buying food or eating out.

Residents and visitors will be able to use the information when deciding which food outlets to choose and we hope that food companies will recognise that displaying a
good hygiene rating is good for business.

We received our new sticker last week, and have it on display in the shop window. Now we a can add the new widget to our web site as well.

Caribbean Fish Coconut Curry

I haven't shared any recipes for a while. Here is something we eat quite often. The recipe is from the Seasoned Pioneers Poudre de Colombo curry powder and is very quick and simple.

New Postal Calculator

What a long day. Its been a long time since I have sat still for so long and I'm exhausted!

Today was the day I set aside to add the hundred or so new products we've taken on since I last added to our online shop. For months now our online shoppers have been missing out on some fabulous new lines. And today I planned to remedy that. But first things first, I needed to fix the postage costs. As a consumer I always resented the high postage charges incurred with relatively small online purchases. So when I set up the online deli I weighed every single item for sale so that the web site could estimate how much it really would cost to post something and charge the customers that price. It is not 100% accurate. Once packaged some combinations of products weigh less than expected, some more. The model I use to estimate the weight of the packaging is regularly tweaked and I keep a record of the packed and unpacked weight of every parcel I send so I can use the data to create better models in the future.

The postage calculator was working nicely, until this month, when Royal Mail dramatically changed their pricing structure.  Not only does weight effet the price, but size as well, and the standard parcel service no longer exists. Even the post office staff aren't quite sure how the new system works.  I sent the same item on two different days, one day it was a "Medium Parcel" another it was a "Small Parcel" (as even though it was too tall for the measuring slot it got a special exception!).  I carried on charging my old prices for a while whilst I worked it all out. But it needed to be changed. I was charging £2.20 for second class post for items which now cost me £5.20 to send! And so came about today's little project.

Sadly it wasn't so little. Involving weighing, and measuring, and a few formula. I felt like I was back at school attempting some huge homework project! Our online shop now offers ELEVEN different postage services (if you include "collect from shop").

• Royal Mail First Class Standard "Small Parcel" (only available for small items costing less than £20) and Royal Mail First Class Confirmed "Small Parcel" (aka Signed For) (only available for small items costing more than £20)
• Royal Mail First Class Standard "Medium Parcel" (only available for items costing less than £20) and Royal Mail First Class Confirmed "Medium Parcel" (aka Signed For) (only available for items costing more than £20)
• Royal Mail Second Class Standard "Small Parcel" (only available for small items costing less than £20) and Royal Mail Second Class Confirmed "Small Parcel" (aka Signed For) (only available for small items costing more than £20)
• Royal Mail Second Class Standard "Medium Parcel" (only available for items costing less than £20) and Royal Mail Second Class Confirmed "Medium Parcel" (aka Signed For) (only available for items costing more than £20)
• Royal Mail Special Delivery next day.

I did add the Special Delivery 9am service as well, but removed that when I saw how many exceptions there were and how long my description would need to be to explain it all. We will still offer the service, but customers will need to contact us first to check their area is covered. I hope that is less off-putting than the list of postcodes where the service isn't available.

The Royal Mail services are now quite a lot more expensive for the sort of parcels we send a lot of. Our most commonly used service was the (less than 2kg) Standard Parcel at £5.30. The closest equivalent service is now £9.10. So I've also added an economical courier service, collect+. I anticipated this might be necessary and have been offering the service to those who ordered by telephone over the past few months. We've not experienced any problems.

Needless to say it has been a lengthy process. I'm already aware of products which won't be in the right shipping category.  Royal Mail will class up to six packs of spring roll wrappers as a "small parcel", but my model will class two or more as a "medium parcel" and some teabags which the model says are a "small parcel" but will actually be a "medium parcel".  I'll take a hit on the tea bags and am working on a discount code built into bulk purchases of spring roll wraps to compensate for the postage cost.

But seeing as I have spent an entire sunny day tapping away at my computer, have not added a single new product to the online deli , I think it might be time to call it a day. If anyone out there wants to buy any of the wonderful new products you've seen on our facebook page, but can't find in the online shop, please just email me!

Bim's Kitchen Tasting

On Saturday 4th May, Bim will be venturing out of Bim's Kitchen and coming here, to Tastes Delicatessen in Eton with samples of his African inspired sauces and pickles for you to try. If you've never eaten anything with baobab fruit, alligator pepper, melon seeds or cubeb in, now is your chance.

A Story About Beans

Once upon a time (possibly this morning) a regular customer, lets call him Greg (because that's his name), fancied baked beans on toast. He visited his local delicatessen (lets call it Tastes Deli). But to Greg's dismay they don't sell baked beans at his local delicatessen.

They do sell plain haricot-type beans, alubia blanca, from El Navarrico in Spain. And they are pretty special beans: deliciously smooth and creamy. They also sell tinned cherry tomatoes from Mutti in Italy. And they are pretty special tomatoes: little bursts of sweetness.

Greg bought the beans, and the tomatoes, and a loaf of bread and took them home. He warmed some oil, fried some red onion and garlic, added a little dried chilli, a little ground celery seed, a pinch of herbes de provence, the tinned tomatoes (with their juice) and the drained beans. He made his own baked beans.

Greg liked them so much he took a portion (still warm) back to the deli for the shop keeper to try. The shop keeper liked them so much she almost ate them all before taking a photograph. Fresh, bright and creamy. Greg makes very good baked beans.


The end.

The Three Rs

We're big fans of the three Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. With the help of our suppliers we're doing pretty well. Top priority is reducing packaging waste. We work with suppliers who collect their packaging on subsequent deliveries (some even wait while we unpack and take it immediately). Others who send goods by courier allow us post packaging back to them. It requires a bit of storage space to hold empty boxes from one week to the next, but most of our packaging is given back to the supplier in this way, and so our packaging waste is significantly reduced.

When it comes to reuse, much of our packaging has plenty of life left in it. Small boxes are reused to send out orders from our online shop, plastic tubs which are used for olives, can also be used for scotch eggs etc. The vast majority of our large cardboard boxes are reused (often more than once) by people moving house. As is our bubble wrap, packing chips and air cushions. Our veg trays are much in demand in the autumn when they become apple stores, and in the spring they are used at car boot sales.

As for recycling what is left, we've been getting pretty inventive! I've been turning the mini wooden pallets which protect the brie in transit into stakes to label my vegetables, and the jars of pesto into lanterns and vases! One local brownie pack took 50 wooden brie boxes last year - I'd love to see what they made out of them!

If you want any free packaging materials, bubble wrap, boxes etc do contact me and I'll put aside whatever you want. If you want to make your own plant stakes all you need is a saw, sandpaper/file, woodfiller (optional) and two colours of exterior wood paint. And some Brie pallets, which I am more than happy to supply.

How to make plant stakes: 

1. Pull staples out of brie box so you have small planks of rough sawn timber.
2. Use a saw to cut one end of each plank into a point.
3. (Optionally) fill the staple holes with wood filler to stop the rain getting in and rotting the stakes.
4. Sand any rough edges.
5. Paint with exterior wood paint.
6. Add plant name. I painted these with more exterior wood paint, but you could write them on which would be much quicker.