Foodie’s Festival – Hove Lawns, 25-27th May

That`s why we love Brighton. Hove, actually. Because we love the summer, the sun, the beach, the drinks, the friends, the fun and the food of course. Well, everything was there. Beautiful day.

Unfortunately they were selling tickets. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr….. I hate this. We need to pay to get in somewhere, where we are going to pay more and more anyway. There was not that much to do for free.

There were 3 main points in the field (not counting the kiddos zone, sorry): the Food Masterclass, the Drink Masterclass and the Chef’s Theatre.

The first two were a kind of `school`  to give a basic knowledge about foods (chocolate treats, heavenly cakes, traditional Jamaican food, Moroccan cuisine, perfect pies) and drinks (beer-food and wine-food matching, flavours from Spain, Portugal, France, history about alcohol in medicine, cocktail party) etc…

More interesting was the MasterChef`s Class in the theatre with a lots of famous culinary idol in England like Stephen Crane (Ockenden Manor), Matt Gillan (The Pass), Alex Mackay, Loyd Grossman Saucemaster etc… – please forgive me, but to be honest… I know nothing about these guys. I was reading a bit how big they are in the kitchen`s world, but that’s all. Sorry, shame or not, I don’t want to waste my words – I’m sure they are amazing and wonderful, I just need to move on to the interesting point for us.

My ex-head chef, Mike Bremner, who is a full time daddy at the moment, had a little show as well. He showed us how to create his signature dish: asparagus with deconstructed hollandaise sauce and 64° poached egg. Easy and really clean dish – you have your waterbath in 64degrees, put your egg in it for 25-30 minutes. Meanwhile you melt and clarify your butter, get a dry ball and mix appr. one part of butter with two parts of maltodextrin (tapioca starch that transfers every oil-based stuff into a powder) – your butter powder is done.

Get some nice&posh Chardonnay vinegar to complete the balance – Mike was using a small plastic pipette to place the vinegar on the plate as a dressing without pouring it everywhere. Instead of mustard he decorated the plate with some fresh peppery baby watercress leaves. Blanch the asparagus, break the poached egg and just plate up everything. Job done. Later there was some advertisement about his `pop up restaurant` action in the middle of June – about molecular cocktails, modern tapas canapes… I can not wait to see and play with the chemicals and with the `old friend`, Mr. Liquid Nitrogen… :) – more info at www.64degrees.co.uk – anyway.

So finishing the show…. we should take a look about the exhibitors in the festival – it was interesting, I have to say… First of all the drinks… as usual.

Just when we arrived and paid the really painful price for the ticket we popped into the Carte Noire tent to enjoy a little bit of luxury with its 100% Arabica Bean Blend. Nice nice – but unfortunately the sugar was missing from their table. How the hell they can forget about the sugar or honey or any type of sweetener in a proper coffee-stand? My Marti was crying for ten minutes for sugar – while the coffee was boiling hot anyway – and after 10 meters I found another coffee-place with lots of different types of sugar – by that time Marti was happy with her creamy-bitter drink between a few bites of spinach-cheese gnocchi. Lovely. Moved a bit further i was getting thirsty for something else… At first sight: I could choose between some traditional ciders (Battle Cider, Dorset Nectar, Wobblegate Juice&Cider), some proper English Ales (Oxfordshire Ales, Hepworth Brewery) or funky half naked black guys who were shouting loud, offering fresh coconut with proper rum in it (Arehucas Honey Rum)… I would go for this at last – but not for almost 10£!!!! M8ther F8ckers…  so we passed it and choose a cider…. which was a bad… bad… BAD decision.

Anyway – luckily it was just half a warm pint and I managed
to push it down on my throat. Next please!

Spending more and more time there we felt just good to go for something `heavier`… Checking through the exhibitor`s area and the producer`s market, had a sip of everything… Crazy black and caramel vodka for the party animals… lovely Coole Swan Dairy Cream Liqueur with beautiful Belgian chocolate flavour. Finally we got it: a fresh vino frizzante! :)

Pignoletto Frizzante Colli Bolognesi Cantine di Bazzano. This baby was sooo good, that we went back four times during the day to buy more and more. In the same tent was a tiny guy with no English language skills whatsoever, dealing with the wines (they had a beautiful sparkling red as well…!) and a massive lady, breaking down a whole wheel of old Parmesan cheese. Seriously, let a small piece of this heritage cheese melt in your mouth and have a sip of that lovely sparkling wine with it… it takes you in a different dimension. Thank u Big Lady!

So we had been drinking this nectar all day long in the sun…  and we were getting hungry a bit of course… we decided to go and check out all the world`s Food Pagodas and Street Food Avenues. In the meanwhile our sweet Hungarian friend Zsuzsi arrived – joined us for a bottle of sparkling – although she had to go to a birthday BBQ, but another hot Brazilian chicken, Jules arrived as well and were looking for the perfect food place on the Festival together.

We tried a lot of locally grown product, food – the farmers and producers could tell us all about the provenance of their artisan treats. Little sweetcorn bites, jerk sauces, Rossmore Oysters, Munchy Seeds with lots of nuts, Lily`s Chillies with paste, chutney, sauce, Khayri Olives with Mediterranean stuff, Karantania Delicatessen, Cheshire Cheese Company (with creamy-strawberry cheese!!! yumm)  etc etc…

Where we could actually buy proper food: Spanish Paellas, British Curry Club, Exotic Tagine, Ta-maki Sushi, hog roast, etc…. because of the really hot weather – Marti chose the `whatever salad bar` with a lovely hallumi cheese salad (beans, tomatoes, cous-cous, greens etc)… Me and Jules first went to a Thai-street station, but everything looked too heavy… than a Chinese Van – that was empty, which is a bad sign. We checked the Jamaican grill house as well… but we decided to go for something else. Something different… something weird… `Explore the tastes of the world with Kezie Foods…

What you need to know about them… they are selling meat. Meat from all over the world. Protein not like beef, pork or lamb… but like….:

BISON, BLESBOK, CAMEL, CROCODILE, ELAND, ELK, IMPALA, KANGAROO, LLAMA, MOUFLON, ORYX, REINDEER, BUFFALO, WILD BOAR, WILDEBEEST, ZEBRA etc…!!! It sounds a bit crazy, but they had a little van, and you could choose from a few type of stuff… burgers, paninis and stew… Finally Jules chose the Kangaroo burger and I went for the Kangaroo chilli con carne…

Well… honestly? The meat was dry (could had been any shitty type of minced beef) and the ragu was simple. It was ooo-kay… – but wasn’t outstanding. I should had gone for some Raclette cheese… anyway…

Lots of food, drinks, sweets, ice creams and cakes…. we couldn`t miss the mouthwatering churroz as our dessert with shiny chocolate sauce sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar from proper machine from someone`s lovely kitchen… :) It was awesome!

What else can I say? Poor little Marti had to go to work from 6 (a little bit pissed after 4 and half a bottles…) and me and Jules kept carry on drinking till 8pm… :P I came home, have an hour sleep and met some friends in a pub for another pint.

Was a lovely day. Thanx xx