Park and Ride

Christmas is coming and the consumer is getting fat....

Thought we'd try the first day of the Park and Ride scheme to the city centre, after a trip to Didsbury. It's great, £2 there and back, no parking problem, buses run every ten minutes and better still they don't stop on the way. Speeding down the Parkway to drop you outside the Royal Exchange. Apart from the two of us the service was empty but it was the first day. Details

Zip around town, see some hideous sights and that's just the people. New game is to count how many Tango Women you can spot. They're the ones with Orange Make-Up / Fake Tan. You'd think the manufacturers of such chemical applications would have developed a better shade for 2004.

The French Market was a disappointment. There is some point when a collection of stalls becomes a thriving market and not just a few tables and canopies. It's got the space but is probably at the wrong end of town for the type of customer who frequents St.Annes Square. Good bread though.

Where to from now?

 

Winning comedy vegetable and winners award - an inscribed plate.

The Fringe Food Festival is over. Okeh, you may not have noticed it but it happened. That's the problem with having events at all different venues. Some places have the time to develop and decorate their place, whilst others are wrapped up in work. Retail food and drink doesn't stop, for many it's six or seven days a week, close up and you know work all starts again tomorrow. The time to do extra is precious.

There are two ways around this.
a) Bringing in outside people to set up and do talks, wine tasting and sampling. They have the time and usually the knowledge of how to present.
b) Having a seperate market at a central venue. It draws in people who are not heads down on blinkered shopping, ignoring what's going on around them. It's a happening that you conciously have to participate in.

What the hell, we had fun doing it. Pity I didn't have more time to develop the online / web / mobile side of things. Maybe next year.

So where to from now? Well we're going to try and develop a useful web site devoted to Food and Drink in Chorlton, and nearby. Shop local.

The Winners Are

Fringe Food and Drink Awards presented at Iguana Bar Sunday 10th October.
In no particular order,
Most Courteous Service - Marble Beer House
Best Ale - The Hillary Step
Best Clientele - Marble Beer House
Best Juice - Battery Park
Best Sandwich - Battery Park
Best Coffee - Diamond Dogs
Most Loved Customer - Frank Flowers
Most Family Friendly - Unicorn Grocery
Sauciest Product - Belgian Belly (chocolate)
Best Comfort Food - Jam Street Cafe
Best Vegan Provision - Bean Counter
Best Meat Provision - Barbakan
Best Wine List - Palmiro
Best Meal Out - The Bar
Best Treat - Magic Orange (fancy chopping boards)
Best Organic Product - Chorlton Wholefoods (chocolate)
Most Seductive Product -North Star Deli (chocolate)
Best Chippie - Beech Road Fish and Chips
Most Creative Event - Chorlton Bookshop (window display)
Esther Rantzen Award For Comedy Vegetable - Lawrence at Unicorn Grocery

apple day

There is an offical Apple Day and an organisation called Common Day promotes it to support English apple varieties. Obviously you can stray from the day if it it falls on say a Tuesday. Usually the last Sunday of the Fringe Festival is Apple Day. Loads of people trying the organic cider, the juices and varieties rarely seen in the shops. You wouldn't want to pass up the opportunity.
Slide Show - pictures have turned out a bit fuzzy as they have been hastily reduced to 500 pixels from a massive jpeg..oh you'll get the idea

On the hoof

Saturday and most of Chorlton doesn't travel beyond the front door before 1130. Okeh, you might, but you did you have had a quiet week and an early night. Chorlton Wholefoods had an ever changing range of chocolate samples. All sorts of flavours - butterscotch, nutmeg, chilli, and spicy. After getting smacked up on 70% cocoa solids tramped over to Belgian Belly. This is a really interesting shop in that it has an ever changing selection. Clearly halloween is big in Belgium 'cos the chocolate took on the shapes of witches and small pumpkins. Praline fillings are still a favourite there. After a refreshing blonde beer managed to carry eight assorted bottles home. A seasonal pumpkin beer and then some heavy weight alcohol tipples. Clearly drinking strong beer at home is still popular there as well. I could do this every weekend. Going out, trying food and drink, making new discoveries and filling the fridge with new purchases. It's only getting back for the football on the telly that pulled me home.

Radio4 visit

sheila dillon talks to kellie at unicorn


BBC Radio 4 Food Programme have an annual Food and Farming Awards. As awards go these are pretty pretigious. In the final shortlist for best retailer is Unicorn Grocery. I'll point out that the chances of winning is pretty slim, but you never know. Anyway to chance to meet Sheila Dillon the presenter and respected journalist (you don't often put those words together) wasn't to be missed.

Bread and Talking

It takes a while to realise there is a Food Festival going on. In fact it could totally pass you by unless you make a effort to join in. Pauls mobile bread oven was up and firing in Unicorn Grocery car park. Seize that opportunity, forget the crowds hell bent on doing their usual Saturday blinkered consumer business. Make a pizza so that was lunch sorted. Also I made a big loaf from my own dough - 50% Canadian Wholewheat Flour and 50% Dove's Farm Organic Strong White Flour. Started the dough off on Friday morning to give it a slow proving for more flavour. That's the theory.
bread oven slideshow

Whilst the bread was baking fell into conversation with Paul the baker, and Craig Sams the Chair of the Soil Association. Well I did most of the listening because they've been in the food business 40 years and know a lot more than me. Bread making tips, growing advice, gossip on food factories and producers. Realing with the data and which web sites to visit.

In the evening Craig Sams did a talk in the Boardroom at The Lloyd's. About 50 people heard a potted history of macrobiotics and wholefood development in Britain. He's an unashamed capitalist with an eye for the niche market. If you've had big success with Whole Earth, and Green and Black's chocolate you might want to look for another. Follow with an commercial for the Nomato range - looks and tastes like tomato but nothing from the Nightshade family in the products. ..

Start Date

Reports - short and snappy with a few pics will start here on Friday 1st October evening. Let's hope we can find sometime to write and do some audio reports...