Hello everybody, we’re pleased to announce we’ve now got a link to those excellent people at Marks & Spencer (M&S).
M & S Offer Banner (turn off ad blocker to see!)
They don’t just do own label wines like a lot of people think. As well as some lovely exclisives you can also get well know brands. I like the look of the Villa Maria Seddon Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006 for £107.96, that’s a saving of £36 on the normal case price!
If you try them out or pop into your local M&S and try a really nice wine let us know!
Some of you will know we have an Organic Veg Box delivered by River Nene. We currently have a small box delivered fortnightly as our garden is beginning to produce a fair amount of veg.
Small Organic Veg Box 17th July 2008
This week we had (UK grown unless otherwise specified) potatoes, carrots, onions, kale, broad beans, courgettes, chinese leaf and red peppers (Spain). On top of this we had an additional bag of broad beans delivered.
We like this way of doing things. The Small veg box is a good base on top of which we add a bag or two of seasonal specials. Before the broad beans we had asparagus and purple sprouting broccoli as our extras. I really like the River Nene scheme, the local distributor (Kate and Bruce) give the scheme a “local” feel and the food miles are far lower than any Organic veg you’d buy in a supermarket.
My only complaints about the scheme are that the prices are still quite high and it’d be nice to have a “pick up” option to reduce the food miles even more. Kate and Bruce are located only about 15 mins away from us so it’d be nice to be able to pop in and pick up the veg if we’re in the area.
If you haven’t tried an Organic veg box then give it a go and see what you think. You have to change your cooking habits to fit in with seasonality but I like a challenge (but still don’t like kale!). The extra flavour will blow you away, the quality of the tomatoes we’ve been getting through the scheme lately has been amazing.
I’m off now to dream about fresh broad beans, boiled for 2-3 minutes, served hot with a little butter. Yummy!
One of our Rhode Island Red chickens, Brenda, has been laying eggs over the last couple of years which, every now and again, are quite spherical. The last time she laid an almost round egg was during the World Cup in 2006. We think she was trying to produce a football!
Well, it looks like she was inspired by Euro 2008 as just as the tournament was coming to an end she finally produced an almost perfect spherical egg! We were so impressed we filmed it and put it on EggTube… Sorry, YouTube!
We didn’t crack it open as we’ve had the egg a few weeks and hadn’t got round (ho ho ho) to filming it until the weekend! Also, I know the music doesn’t quite fit but I wanted to make sure it was copyright free
It was the Jimmy’s Farm Farmers Market at the weekend so we decided to pop along to see if was getting better or worse. Unfortunately it was even less busy than usual and I’m really worried that I may be right and Jimmy’s Farm may not be around for much longer
I was speaking to one of the producers who attend the Farmers Market and it seems they agree with me. The market started declining when they started charging £1 to park. It’s not a huge amount but it’s the principle of paying to park. Surely that can see they’re losing more business by charging? The average profit from each visitor must be more than £1? I don’t know…
So, we decided to visit The Suffolk Food Hall which is just a few minutes down the road. If you watched Jimmy’s farm on TV you may remember Michaela visiting it as it was being built worrying about the competition. We went a slightly strange way via the E.ON head offices (!) but we eventually stumbled on it.
It was GREAT We really enjoyed browsing and spent FAR TOO MUCH money buying lots of lovely food and drink. We especially liked the freshly cooked Ham Hocks for £4.50, delicious! Most products are listed with their “food miles” and it was great to see so many local products for sale. In the end we ended up with a real feast of products including some fruit mead which was really different (and tasty).
Whilst we were really impressed with the Food Hall I have some “constructive feedback” for the owners…
It’s not the cheapest place to shop in the world. The mark-up on some products which I can easily get MUCH cheaper elsewhere did shock me rather. I can buy 12 bottles of St Peters Beer at Jimmy’s Farm for £20, some Thai Chilli Sauce was over 50% more expensive, etc..
There’s still some local products which could be stocked. Please stock McLarens Pure & Natural products! Especially their Carrot Cake, the best I’ve ever tasted!
Increase the wine selection, a little too Old World for my taste
Will we go back? Of course we will. As well as the Food Hall there is a really nice Garden Centre and Cafe. We’re looking forward to our next visit which I think will probably involve a quick stop at Jimmy’s for St Peters Beer then a much longer browse at The Suffolk Food Hall.
I had a great delivery today, a case of Highfield Sauvignon Blanc 2007. As you may know, Highfield Sauvignon Blanc is my favourite wine and one of the few wines to win 5 stars in our reviews.
We’ll be having a tasting soon followed by “The Great Sauvignon Blanc Taste Off”. Highfied vs Cloudy Bay plus maybe a couple of other contenders. What is the best Sauvignon Blanc on the planet? We’ll let you know. Stay tuned…
