#elsecar

Went to Elsecar at the Races, in Doncaster, today. Saw some nice stuff. Took a bunch of photos (270 or so), had about 60-ish turn out okay.

Flickr album from the day: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAzZD9

The first ever Suppa Club took place last weekend at the Ironworks in Elsecar Heritage centre, Barnsley. The event is planned to be a monthly occurrence, so we went along to see what food and drink delights we could gorge ourselves on. 

The food stalls were located outside the Ironworks building and there were queues at the vendors despite the bracing cold. 

The range of foods on offer were varied, but not extensive. There were only 5 food vendors to choose from on this occasion, but we hope that this is something that will increase in future Suppa Clubs as the reputation of the event grows. (Fingers crossed)

Here are a few photos to get your taste buds tingling....

Vaso Kitchen Indian Street food (Facebook: @vasokitchenmcr) preparing some impressive Indian cuisine- 

The burger making process by the friendly guys at What’s Your Beef (Facebook: @WhatsYourBeefUK) - The quality of the ingredients makes these beef patties amazingly tasty. -

Canadian style ‘Pioneer’ Poutine provided by Gravy Train (Twitter: @thegtpoutine) accompanied by a Northern Monk craft beer from the Maison Du Biere bar -

Two other vendors provided wood fired pizza and churros, but unfortunately we did not sample their produce (being extremely full after the poutine, which was heavily loaded with toppings and textures).

We have not really focused on the drinks element of the event in this post, but there were 2 bars for craft and standard beers, a gin wagon, a hot drinks vendor and a van selling mulled wine - so plenty on offer to accompany the live music and party vibe of the whole Suppa Club package.

The Ironworks venue is a large space, so there is plenty of scope for expansion of the event. Suppa club takes place over 2 nights, so it would be interesting to see if the clientele varies during the afternoon session on the Saturday. The event is both child and dog friendly, so I’m sure more families attended during the daytime when the ambient temperature and light levels were higher.

We are looking forward to sampling the Suppa Club again next month for their Ginter Wonderland edition. If you are interested the details can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/suppa-club-ginter-wonderland-edition-tickets-71509124717?aff=eand

The Cottage Cookbook team headed down to the Flavours Food Festival at Elsecar Heritage Centre last weekend to sample the tasty treats and watch the live cookery demonstrations with Jean-Christophe Novelli & the Bake-off’s Karen Wright.

The two day festival is in its fourth year and we are ashamed to say it is the first time we have ever ventured to the event, despite living within a 3 mile radius of the venue. It has become clear from day's entertainment that we have clearly been missing out. The festival is still quite small compared to other local festivals, such as Huddersfield Food Fest, but it has a kind of charm that makes its size appealing. The cookery demonstrations seem quite intimate and the food stalls were mostly local, so it adds a homely feel to the event.

There is plenty to do for the family, with craft activities for the kids and street food vendors & alcoholic tasters for the adults. Live music was performed on the Sauce Pan stage and local pupils from Horizon school showed off their dancing skills. Hallam FM were on site to entertain the crowd outside in the yard and the Glasswork’s team brought a large digital screen to showcase the architectural animation of the re-imagining of Barnsley town centre. It came across as a celebration of local produce with the main focus on getting the community involved.  

The real highlight of the festival was the live demonstrations, which took place in a pop-up auditorium at the rear of the Ironworks building and were compared by George Akid. We watched Karen Wright make soda bread, Tim Bilton prepare Yorkshire mussels with Jean-Christophe Novelli and the Barnsley College students show-off their Christmas dinner menu. All the demos were of a good standard, but the goose breast served up by the catering students really made us want to invest in a sous vide machine. It was delicious paired with a homemade sausage roll and cranberry sauce. 

As usual at a food festival we spent far too much money, but we have all the ingredients to make an epic Christmas Eve buffet, which is a tradition in our house. We bought charcoal cheese from Kick-Ass Cheeses, Firecracker salami from Shaw’s meats and a universal curry paste from Mr. Hudas. We are currently looking for a good recipe to prepare the hare meat that we purchased and plan to make our own batch of ‘Biscotti Al Burro’ with the Worsbrough Mill flour and semolina we sourced, as the samples on offer at the Miller’s Tea room stall were amazing.