On May Day we went to the Bristol Food Connections festival. The festival was spread out in various venues across the city. I couldn't make head nor tail of the website, so we wound up just going to the BBC part of the festival.
The main reason we went, it has to be said, was to indulge our foodie crush on Tom Kerridge. He seems like such a lovely, genuine bloke, and his food always looks lush. We weren't disappointed!
Tom cooked spring dishes, that seemed pretty easy to rustle up. I loved the look (and smell!) of his lamb cutlets with wild garlic pesto. I really must find somewhere to pick wild garlic that isn't a cemetery! He also had a good old chat while he was cooking, ranging from how he got started in cooking through to his philosophy on food. I really liked this Tom-ism: "Every main that goes to a customer, the chef should feel a little bit sad he's not going to get to eat it."
We also saw Donal Skehan, one of the presenters of Junior Masterchef. He cooked fish tacos which Lucas seemed really excited about, and an absolutely amazing smelling chilli and lemongrass chicken. I can tell you that it tastes even more amazing than it smells as I made it a couple of days later. (By the way, instead of mincing the chilli and lemongrass by hand, I just roughly chopped then threw them into the food processor with the rest of the marinade ingredients., Works a treat.)
There was some fantastic food graffiti dotted around. Lucas and I had a go at trying to create our own Banksy. "Cakezilla" was awesome!!
We spent some time in the fantastic Food Science tent with interactive exhibits from the soon to be opened section at @Bristol. We watched the Screaming Jelly Baby experiment--maybe my ears are too old to hear its screams now--helped pop some popcorn, and Lucas dressed up as a bee. As you do. Oh yes, he learned to milk a cow, too.
 |
| "Don't have a cow, Mum!" |
As is obligatory at any sort of food festival there was a tent full of booze. We sadly side-stepped that one and headed straight for the one that promised cakes. There were some awesome cakes on display--an absolute skyscraper of a Victoria sponge--but we picked up some local ice-cream and also happily chose some macarons. Lucas was very pleased with his lurid blue bubblegum one! My Nutella one was delicious, as anything involving Nutella tends to be!
We had a lovely day out. We even managed to squeeze in a singing and dancing session with Katy from CBeebies "I Can Cook". Lucas doesn't watch CBeebies any more, and insisted that he was far too old for it, but wound up singing, dancing and having a fantastic time!!
Looks pretty damn fabulous! I love a bit of the Kerridge too, wel jel...as the kids would say!
ReplyDeleteM x