A late arrival got us both in for a fiver (you have to pay for this one...) but most of the food people were still there. What a proliferation of pickles! Lots of the same thing (of the chili jelly/home-made tomato ketchup variety) with one or two interesting exceptions - home made drinks and hot food, and lots of suppliers from Essex. But we love Abroad, and of course Essex gave us Jamie Oliver. We tried ice-cream, crisps, chocolate, strawberry and raspberry vodkas (although they weren't keen on Inspector X's horseradish vodka suggestion...) rhubarb and ginger cordial, fresh lemonade (so easy, so nice) and a shark kebab (very close to my Caribbean heart...shark kebabs...)
Oh the choice? Where to go first? With so many foodie things on one day we did an extensive expensive dash around the county - first to Orford where we knew we were going to find treats because they have the Pump Street Bakery and Pinneys and then to the Greene King Beer Festival (they may have had food but it was more about the beer...)
At Orford I spent £80 in as many yards, starting with a fab strawberry tart (well, half of one, because even Inspector X and I can only eat so much in one day...) followed by (half) a pulled pork wrap with coleslaw, the best salami we have tried in a while, an oyster, a Bloody Awkward (which regular followers of suffolkfoodie will know is an espresso with hot milk on the side - ie a SMALL coffee not a GIANT coffee, in fact I think it's called a cafe con leche Abroad, but is still to catch on here...) Where was I... a chocolate mousse and a dessert wine. What we couldn't eat we bought home - two bottles of Hill Farm oil, two Hill Farm mayo, a pheasant scotch egg, a fennel salami, honey-salted caramels, peanut brittle; doughnuts, a bears paw (more later on that one...) portuguese tarts and some other little tarts with almond and plum whose name I've forgotten, hot mint jelly, three crabs and two huge skate wings. The only thing missing at Orford was hot food and a home-made drinks.
In the next few days we will tell you what we bought in BSE and show you ALL the sumptuous pictures of the food we found.
Canadian Shelley Miller has moved on from icing cakes to decorating the walls of her home town.
2013 Street Food Awards - want to nominate your local van?
Written by Claire
Below are the contents of the Jubilee Hamper served at Buck House before the concert - Heston came up with the ideas and Waitrose packed it - no doubt it's now all available in their stores.
- Chilled British Country Garden soup
- Tea-smoked Scottish salmon
- Diamond Jubilee chicken
- Vegetarian option: Mushroom Parfait
- Fresh bread rolls
- Country Life butter
- Crunchy seasonal crudités
- Lemon and caraway Madeira cupcake
- Chocolate indulgence cupcake
- Sandringham strawberry crumble crunch
- Waitrose West Country farmhouse cheddar and Red Leicester
- Duchy Originals Oaten biscuits
- Duchy Originals Harvest chutney
- Extras: 12 hand wipes, clear plastic cutlery and napkin, Diamond Jubilee poncho, Union flag!
Meanwhile in Sudbury we joined friends in the park and ate our own home made couscous, watercress, orange and smoked mackerel salad, pheasant and bacon terrine, fresh strawberry cake and pretty white chocolate cake pops.
What to do on a weekend as miserable as this except cook? Last Sunday I went to Brick Lane and only had a fiver, although you can get a good meal for that I wanted to try more than one, so I was looking for the best bargains. I had two crispy filo pastry 'cigars' stuffed with feta and spinach for a £1 from one stall, and a box of four Vietnamese spring rolls for £3 from another. That left £1 for a juice. As I was watching the lady make the spring rolls to order - they soak the paper in water, fill them with salad and satay sauce and roll up - I decided to try it myself, so have been to buy a pack of the papers.This is the quickest, easiest, cheapest, healthiest snack I have had in a long time. I used peanut butter with soy, honey and lime to make the satay sauce, and the sweet chili sauce that most of us have now for dipping. My spring rolls were not as good looking as hers, but tasted the same! if you can't get the papers let me know and i'll send you some.
The French lady in our village has started a frog patrol. She goes out in the evening to rescue frogs from the traffic. We are not quite so sure of her intentions.
@ theoldkitchen (fellow tweeter) has quite rightly pointed out the misspelling of the word bagel. So let's be clear - in the USA it's Bagel, in Brick Lane (and Jewish cuisine) it's Beigel - innit.
More...
From the original London home of real bagels - Brick Lane - we joined a long queue that moved faster than you can get your money out and enjoyed the perfect £3.50 breakfast/brunch/lunch/teatime/midnight snack. Bursting with meat and oozing with mustard and pickle, you can see them being steamed and baked out the back, being filled out the front, and they are open twenty-four/seven.
A Suffolk woman with a passion for travel, all things chocolate and an old ice cream van called Jimmy has been scooping up awards and commendations all over the foodie world this year. A founder member of Eat St - a collective of street food vendors that sell from a variety of vans all over the country at festivals, markets and parties - she is a chocolatier who sells the best quality ingredients from Choc Star. Looking forward to seeing more like this but have only see my local fish and chip van so far...
Oh dear, suffolkfoodie has gone to London, Veggieplot has been publishing books and InspectorX has been on the road, visiting hotels. Nobody left to explore Suffolk! InspectorX did manage a family outing to the Bury St Edmunds Christmas market today. The lack of artisan foodie producers was dissappointing. They were probably at the far better Craft Markets at Blackthorpe Barns. We did eat a good Suffolk Ham and Cheese Crepe ( £5!) a funnel cake ( £3.50) two cups of mulled wine, weak and warm for (£7) The best thing we ate were the two Tin Miners Pasties (£2.75) from Edis of Ely in St Johns Street on the way home, and they have been on here lots of times before.
