by Paul Askew
25. June 2009 08:35
I was recently at Port Sunlight Garden Centre for their 'Step into Summer' evening which was promoting the ethos of 'grow / eat your own food'. There were stalls for local suppliers with everything from cheese, chocolate, ice cream, beer and watercress. I did a food demonstration using the produce from the stalls. I made; Sticky Chicken Salad, Iron Age Duroc Pork and Loin of Lamb. It was a great event, and considering rain had threatened all day, it was incredibly well attended with folk filling their baskets with plants and local produce.
by Paul Askew
25. June 2009 08:29
One of my colleagues recently came across some fabulous tomatoes whilst on holiday in Provence, he brought me back a sample and they were the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted; they were really juicy and bursting with flavour and I knew they would be just perfect for the restaurant this summer. The problem is that I’m passionate about reducing food miles and getting produce at its best and freshest, ‘just picked’ is really all we want. The solution we came up with was to persuade local farmer Peter Jones, who set up Wirral Watercress, to grow them in his glasshouses for us. Peter has already developed a great niche market growing his watercress and pea shoots for Merseyside restaurants at his farm near Willaston in South Wirral. So, I arranged for some seeds to be shipped over from Provence and Peter has been cultivating and caring for them in time for this summer’s season. We’ve had an update from Peter and the tomatoes are looking good, they are all different shapes and colours, from very dark black right through to orangey yellow. We can’t wait to incorporate them in our Summer Menu.