Face the Crowd

Hungerford was at its busiest and best again yesterday - for Hungerford Food Festival.

HAHA had our usual spot upstairs in the corner of the Town Hall room as well as having a display on the landing.

This year, we were offering free samples of makes & bakes containing veg - it was a great addition to the stand as visitors stayed talking for longer while they tasted things with unexpected ingredients! Examples were Chocolate Aubergine brownies, Parsnip, Carrot and Orange cake and, my favourite of the unusual bakes, the Celeriac  & Lemon flapjack. Ted, Liz and Kerry even managed to win prizes in the cookery competitions for their offerings - that's how tasty they were!

Kerry's Cheese and Chive scones and Jamie's Carrot Lox (vegan smoked salmon) provided the savoury choice and Karen's Ginger, Lemon and Marrow jam was very popular. Elderflower cordial and Rhubarb cordial provided delicious refreshment. Here we are in our fancy HAHA aprons.

Downstairs, the Corn Exchange was so busy that they had to restrict entry for a while so that people could actually move round the hall.

But there was lots going on outside too.

We had a delicious wood-fired pizza when I took a break from the stand.

Such fun seeing food stalls lining the High Street. And the smells were very tempting!

I bought some tasty cheeses, an almondy croissant and some Oak-smoked Chilli oil and then back up to our stand for a few more hours. We were giving away dried bay leaves and wildflower seeds as well as the recipes - everyone definitely likes a freebie!

And at the end of the afternoon, we accepted donations for the veg. Of course, I came home with plenty - some was ours but other stuff I swapped - hooray! Now I have a butternut squash. And I have a beautiful bunch of dahlias which have done so well on the allotment this year.

I'm on annual leave today to recover. Using Ivan's enormous celery (which is very green and full of flavour) and a few of our carrots and shallots I've just made some soup, with added turmeric. 

I blitzed the carrots after removing the celery - it would have been too stringy as well as a bit sharp.

It's very tasty and should cover a couple of lunches even though I couldn't resist a bowlful of it whilst writing this. The whole flat smells of celery - delicious!

So that's this year's events finished - just normal ones like skittles and workdays now until next year. Oh, and of course we've got the plots to look after!

The song title is provided by Beady Eye.

Picture This

This has got to be the most photographed view in Hungerford this year, so I thought I'd put my version on the blog - the new planters on the bridge, provided by a voluntary group, have been so successful.

Look at that beautiful blue sky which we enjoyed yesterday with Summertime temperatures - not quite the same today, with some welcome rain.

Jamie pulled the last of the Kestrel potatoes yesterday; quite a few with slug damage but not too bad, especially as there are some massive spuds in that trug. He's sprinkled lime over the patch that he dug over yesterday and we're going to plant our onions in there for over-wintering along with Aquadulce broad beans.

I weeded two of the raised beds - ready for garlic - and the patch where the shallots were this year. I found quite a few that are in good condition to be eaten, but it wasn't a good year for our shallots. (it was a good year for thistles though!)

We've been picking tomatoes at every visit and this has been our largest red pepper.

There are still lot of peppers on the plants; they're still green but tasty even if they don't get a chance to change colour - everyone is saying that yesterday was the last day of sunshine for the year :-(

That's the last of the cucumbers, which all arrived a bit too late and mostly at the same time so they are bound for the compost bin - this one tasted ok, but was split in the middle and the skin was a bit tough.

I've picked some of the Gigantes beans and had some in a salad - dressed with soy sauce, oak-smoked olive oil, spring onion and mustard seeds. It was so delicious, I must make it again.

I'm soaking some more overnight to cook tomorrow for a tomato & bean-based lunch. It seems that they shouldn't need overnight soaking because they aren't completely dried out, but I'm playing it safe. They look good anyway as they're soaking up the water and getting even more gigantic!

We've picked a couple more Lark sweetcorn; one for inclusion in tonight's meal (along with potato and cabbage patties) and the other for my lunch tomorrow. Something is nibbling them - not sure if it's birds or mammals but the ants are enjoying them once the kernels are open to the air.

I've planted some houseleek into the giant boot from Jamie's dad's garden - I remember his mum had it overflowing with houseleeks when I first saw it and I want it to look like that again. The pond needs a bit of work, the frogs still seem happy but the weed has rather taken over.

Meanwhile, we're slowly moving to Autumn and after the HAHA AGM next week we'll be thinking about Hungerford Food Festival where we'll have our HAHA stand as usual - do come and visit us on Sunday 6th October!

The song title is provided by Blondie.

Food Glorious Food

The reason we left Liverpool before the Giants' finale was because Sunday (7th October) was the day of the Hungerford Food Festival. It's such a big event for the town and for HAHA that I felt I couldn't miss it. With a few of our little troop of helpers ...

and lots of donated vegetables ...

and scones, jam, chutney ...

and elderflower cordial for tasters.

We had a great, exhausting day and gained at least one new plotholder.

 I'm glad we were involved (though another couple of days in Liverpool would have been amazing)

Our double-red sweetcorn had fully ripened and looked amazing

And I was pleased to see our purple radish was purple on the inside too

Plus, I love to see Hungerford bustling - so pleased that the weather was good after a rainy day on Saturday.

And I had a tasty crepe, some delicious olives and look at my bread roll - made with charcoal flour. Most unusual - it looks rather like a pebble in that photo but it was soft and very tasty.

I just wish the Food Festival included a few more veggie options... maybe next year!

Ça plane pour moi

We had a visit to the plot yesterday, mostly to pick some tomatoes. It was such a warm day that we stayed a bit longer to chat and were glad we did as suddenly there was an air show going on overhead

It was rather fun watching the sky with fellow plotholders and seeing all those bi-planes. And then there were parachutists with red smoke and also apparently wing-walkers - amazing! It was a shame I only had my little camera with me.

And, as if that wasn't excitement enough for one weekend - a frog has moved into our pond!

I took the mesh cover off it last week as I cleared some of the duckweed (it all grew back) and obviously froggy liked the look of it.

Today Jamie and I got on with working - no aerobatics to entertain us today, but the frog's still there. We did a lot of clearing, weeding and edging.

The carrot bed and sprouts plot - look how dry the earth is!

The leeks bed - not many leeks this year but hopefully they'll grow nice and big

The strawberry bed - masses of runners were removed

I also cleared the rest of the dried beans - soya (edamame) and Borlotti. There are quite a lot.... just have to shell them all now...

Jamie is going to pickle some of our Longor shallots this week - we finally bought some pickling vinegar - so they're at home now waiting to be prepared. And we pulled a Nicola potato - they are nice looking tubers; not slug-eaten and quite large.

There are a few of the Aviditas tomatoes which I'm going to add to salad lunches. Jamie made patatas bravas last week and will be making it again this week using the lovely larger tomatoes which are still in the greenhouse - they aren't Lizzano, which they're meant to be, but they are tasty.

My salad lunch is going to be very red this week - beetroot, tomato, red chard and red sweetcorn. I may add a red onion too for good measure :-)

I really wanted the Double Red Sweetcorn for the HAHA stall at Hungerford Food Festival on 7th October, but I'm not sure it's going to last that long; The covering leaves are very dry. And the kohl rabi are only tiny seedlings at the moment so they aren't going to be much of a show in 3 weeks time - luckily there should be plenty of squashes!

Aah, Autumn is definitely upon us, even though it was lovely and warm in the sunshine today - still Everything's Cool For Me as the title translates (apparently). Oh yes, and it has the word 'plane' in the title <ahem>. Enjoy!

Thats Entertainment

Getting up very early on a Sunday is usually frowned upon, but yesterday it was Hungerford Food Festival, so needs must. First we went to the allotments to pick some vegetables for the display and were very pleased to see all these donations waiting for us in the communal toolshed.

Such generous plotholders! There were pumpkins, butternut squash, celeriac, jerusalem artichoke and beets. I could go on, there was much more, as you can see from our Ka, and this was the first of two trips.

So, we got to the Corn Exchange where the other stallholders were beginning to set up some delicious food and drinks stalls.

HAHA had our usual spot on the first floor, with Kerry offering tasty cheese and chive scones and elderflower cordial at the top of the stairs encouraging people up :-) 

We set up a colourful display of all the lovely veg as well as putting out photobooks, leaflets, business cards and a photo slideshow - 30 minutes of photos from 2009 to date. 

Also a selection of photos showing the Nursery School plot at the Fairfields site. 

And posters encouraging people to collect their Tesco's tokens for HAHA when we're one of the 'Bags of Help' candidates in November and December - very exciting!  

We're going to stock up our promotional items with the grant money when it comes through.

The Jeune et vert squashes and marina di chioggia pumpkin were big talking points. 

And, we're very pleased that we have three new plotholders, once we show them round and they choose a plot.

Jamie and I went for something to eat and join the crowds outside with some delicious veggie streetfood from Mrs B's Kitchen.

I love Hungerford when it's bustling and it was a bright warm day so perfect for sitting and listening to the music.

An hour before the end of the festival people started giving small donations for some of the veg. I was pleased to nab one of the huge celeriacs which I'll add to carrots to make soup, I also took a few other veggies as I couldn't resist. 

And I gained this beautiful bunch of chrysanthemums.

Such a busy, tiring day but I have to agree with The Jam.