Taste of London

It's been busy in the kitchen but here are a few pics of the wonderful Taste of London food festival that I recently went to. I saw Heston Blumenthal speak, tasted the wares of some of the city's great chefs, ate some fresh New Zealand apples, tasted some lovely organic sparkling wine, won an evening of even mmore yummy tastings and wine at Whole Foods (next week!) and generally filled my tummy with lovely baked, broiled, boiled, salted and cured meats, sweets and treats. What a delightful festival!  A must attend for any foodie.

Glee Gum'Real gum' made with rainforest chicle, all natural. The only problem is that this Glee Gum, gives you no glee after a short while as the gum looses its flavour quickly. Glee Gum is made by what looks like a great family-owned company that thinks about the environment and sustainability of the rainforests. They have an interesting website www.gleegum.com which describes the process and has a gum making kit that you can buy for the kids. They are based in the US but were displaying their wares here at the Taste of London fair. I have enjoyed my 3 packs of gum so far, although they lose their taste fast I like the idea that they are all natural and are good for you. You can buy the gum in the US and Canada and in Toronto you can buy it at Whole Foods (my lunchtime favourite!). The people selling glee gum at the stand at Taste were absolutely wonderful!

Two facts from the Glee website:

• Chewing on gum while cutting onions can help a person from producing tears

• Chewing gum burns around 11 calories per hour

Beer trickDrink half a can of beer, add to the second half remaining in the can lots of spices like garlic, parsley, chili, paprika or make up your own favourite combo (garlic, lemon, olive oil etc.). Place your chicky on top of the can and place in the oven or on the bbq. The beer and juices will infuse your chicken while it cooks.

I think Ranoush's mother did this once when we were youngins. The guy at the Weber BBQ stand reminded me of this last weekend at Taste. If you don't want to use a beer can you can buy a fancy Weber product which mimics the beer can. I now need to get to the garden and try this out.

Truffle's 'n garlic
Two delicious foods which came direct from a farmers' field and some dark and danky forest; this garlic and truffle were purchased by the lovely Em at Taste of London. We went to the festival in Regent's Park where we sampled great food from some of the city's top chefs. We stumbled upon Em at the end of the day and he displayed his purchases. He had a very smelly but plump truffle (£10quid) and he bought a ginormous head of garlic, which is probably the largest one can purchase in this metropolis!

There are a few restaurants on my list after visiting the festival, I must re-visit Tom's Kitchen as grumpy Bunky and I only went there for breakfast and I would love to try their lunch and dinner menu. I would also love to go to the Boxwood Cafe as we had the most divine dessert (see below) from that stall. Have you ever had home made marshmallows? They were extraordinary! And Stellina licked the chocolate pot with extreme delight.

There were so many great restaurants selling samples of their specialties, so many places to try; will write up my wish list and try and check them all off before the end of the year!