#powderham

Powderham Castle, Devon - 05/23

For my main demo in the teepee of fire, I brought the baking side of the BBQ along, as I think it’s not just all about the meat! I showed visitors how to cook Chocolate Brownies, (recipe on the blog here) and Cornbread and Apple cake in the Kamado Joe – a big red ceramic BBQ which uses charcoal for heat.  I was able to cook all day just outside the Teepee in my own little demo tent and also baked some cheese scones, focaccia bread, baked cauliflower, orange marmalade bread and butter pudding and more cake!

I didn’t see all of the other live fire demos put on by the BBQ gurus but the smells emitting from the packed tent were amazing and everyone seemed to be enjoying the food and the fire too, especially on the Saturday as it was quite a damp and cold day.  John Gower’s showstopper on Sunday was cooking in barrels with hot stones and seaweed which would have been great to see.

For the evening on Saturday, I assisted in cooking up a fishy feast cooked over coals for all the stall holders and people involved in organising the festival, including the main sponsors.  The feast was kindly sponsored by WBW Solicitors and Food Festival Director Bob Small gave a speech.

The Food Festival is spread throughout the castle, courtyard and gardens, overflowing onto the lower lawn and extending down onto part of the deer park.  It really is a stunning location for a food festival of this size; the magnificent castle itself and glimpses of deer and the estuary. There is so much to see you will need to spend the whole day there.  It’s geared up to cater for the whole family with plenty of activities for children including cooking with Fun Kitchen and the much enjoyed comedian Dan the Hat.  Dogs are also welcome if on a lead.

There was about 170 exhibitors, mainly food and drink based, intermingled with craft and street food sellers. Musicians were playing throughout the day and cookery demonstrations were going on in the Cookery Theatre Kitchen hosted by Judi Spiers.  On the line up were James Strawbridge, Colin Bennet, Ashley Wright – Head Chef of the Horn of Plenty, Darrin Hosegrove – Ashburton Cookery School and a few others.  On the Saturday was the UK Chilli Cook Off where teams cooked up what they thought was their best ever Chilli for the chance to qualify for the World Chilli Championships in Alabama USA.  Sunday saw the Devon Chilli Challenge where hardcore chilli eating public signed up for this hot chilli eating contest.

The weather was a bit wet and cold on the Saturday and it wasn’t as busy as it may have been, but on Sunday the sun shone and the people came.  The festival had a wonderful atmosphere and everyone was having a lovely time. Congratulations to the 10 ticket winners of the competition we ran as well, I hope you all had a brilliant time.

The Powderham Food Festival usually takes place on the first weekend in October.

Ticket prices this year were Adult – £9 (£7.50 online), Under 16’s £3, (£2.50 online) Family ticket (2 adults and 3 children) – £20 (£17 online) Children under 5 free  Parking is free.

Keep an eye out for next year’s dates on their website and put them in your diary and you can follow the social media pages for the latest news on Facebook and Twitter.

We are very lucky in this county and beyond, to have such wonderful food and produce – what better way to experience all of this together than at a Food Festival! Here’s a round up of the upcoming 2017 Food Festivals in Devon as well as a couple from  Cornwall. Click on the website links for further info or read our review of the previous year’s event for a feel of what you can expect. This page…

I’m back at DDD HQ. Made an early start from DDD (Deepest Darkest Devon) in order to escape the throng of traffic via the Big Weekend.

This was the first 2 hour drive away “local M&S gig” that I have ever been to!

It’s a bank holiday weekend here in the UK, so the drive down to Exeter, made for interesting times. Me, Sister C 5pm -7.45pm Sister A - 7 hours!!!! only a 33% time delay due to volume of traffic heading South. But the Mount Pleasant Inn and all its comforts soon made up for that?!?!?!

We stayed in Dawlish Warren, a lovely coastal resort in Devon - Sister B - see you there in November ! Well worth checking out.

Day of the big weekend. Shuttle bus to Powderham Castle. Pink route all the way. Only 6 miles away but this took 60 mins. Logistics.

The queue was surprising busy for such a long day. We chatted to a fellow long stayer, about queue life. What to eat, what to wear, when to go!

Radio 1 host this type of event once a year in far flung places, and only in ones dreams could I imagine such an accessible day with Mumford for Headliners! Yay.

We just had to play the long con all day. Music kicked off at 12 noon with Nick Jonas. He was OK, good vocals, but I still couldn’t name one of his songs! Pleasant young man. Then we had Tom Odell. A great talent. He had piano issues, but struggled on. I do like a bit of Tom. Next - Meghan Trainor! Yes, it is all about the bass. No trebble. Jake Bugg. Top tunes in the sunshine. SIGMA the biggie. New song with the one and only TAKE THAT!!!!! Of course the master blaster ticket tape was used for full effect. Most enjoyable. Back to Jess Glynn. Very good. Bastille - Full on stage set up. Sister B I thought of you. I think he is called Dan the lead singer. Lept onto the barrier right in front of us and performed a lot of the song balanced on the rail, again, much fun. Well hello Mr Dan. I like Bastille. Then Chase n Status, we needed bounce by this stage of the day. They gave it with bucket loads. Fire canons, the works. I should point out that Bastille also gave it large on the ticket tape. As did CnS. It worked the body bounce up nicely for Mumford. So, we had made it through to 9pm in the SUNSHINE whoop Whoop.

Tapped on the shoulder 2 mins before showtime by Ben! Fellow fan p>

I should say, hats off to the crew for the stage set up. From ZERO to showtime including lights in 30 mins. The crew done good, and truly deserve a BIG UP.

The lads started with LLM, Marcus played one chord and broke a string, carrying on regardless until a speedy replacement was lowered on. To which he broke another string. Felt odd starting with LLM, but I guess on such a short set you have to get the bounce going fast. It was always going to be a HITS show. TSP next, then BELIEVE. LOTL, then…. tadah! Baaba Maal joined them with there will be time. Joy to the world. It went down very well with the crowd. (mostly young-uns) (that’s just me with youth envy) I do love that song.

Much bounce for The Cave, I will wait. Ditmas. I think apart from the front area Marcus might have been wasted on the crowd! We ended up having a group dance again which is always a pleasure. Too soon it was Dust Bowl, and The Wolf.

Fun times, good times, lots of happy times. Thanks Radio 1 Big Weekend, you ended the Madness of May on a great note.

(Over priced Sausage and Chips anyone?) (90 mins wait for the PINK shuttle bus anyone) but 25,000 peeps out of the arena by 2 hours can’t be bad. Tired.

Went for a walk today ^.^