Saturday 15 August 2015

Hello and welcome back

Today's blog is brought to you from
Buttercup.com 
and 
The Early Bird Eater
SELFRIDGES FOODHALL LONDON
Due to the trade success of their fabulous range of amazing products, Grubworkz are delighted to announce that they will be launching their own branded top 5 restaurant-quality meals in Selfridges Food Hall London to consumers, available from Monday 3rd August 2015.
As part of Selfridges “Meet the Makers” promotional campaign, Grubworkz will be holding live, in-store tasting sessions in the Food Hall on the following dates:
19th, 20th, 21st August 2015
- 26th, 27th September 2015
More exciting British products are also readily available online and delivered direct to your door. And, all products are wheat, gluten & allergen free.
Products available in-store are:
- Free Range Classic British Duck Leg Confit, Pack of 2: Delicately flavoured in ingredients such as orange, lemon, lime zests, star anise, juniper berries, salt & sugar, cured, then slowly cooked with a little duck fat, fresh rosemary sprigs, sea salt, cracked black peppercorns & bay leaves.
- Free Range Slow Cooked Pork Belly, Serves 2: Cooked until tender, succulent & moist, seasoned with sea salt, cracked pink & black Peppercorns, unsalted butter & Tequila agave syrup.

- Our Free Range British Duck Breast Confit, Pack of 2: Flavoured together with Cointreau, orange marmalade, fresh oranges, seasoned with sea salt, cracked black peppercorns, unsalted butter & fresh thyme.
- A Spicy Free Range Pulled Pork Steak, Serves 2: Seasoned with smoked paprika, ground cumin, chillies, sea salt, cracked black peppercorns, honey, unsalted butter & slowly cooked to perfection.
- Asian Scented Free Range Chicken Supreme Confit, Pack of 2: Seasoned with a fragrant aromatic mixture of fresh lemon grass, chillies, ginger, garlic, star anise, cracked black peppercorns,unsalted butter & coriander.
Come along & try Grubworkz' range - delicious & ready to cook.
About Grubworkz
Grubworkz offers exceptional high quality food, prepared for you to enjoy, in the comfort of your own home.
By using the "sous vide” method to produce their exciting range of products, Grubworkz produce products that are more moist than usual cooking methods.
Their process locks in flavours producing incredibly succulent dishes. All Grubworkz products are completely vacuum packed sealed & chilled, creating restaurant-quality products for you to enjoy at home.
The team at Grubworkz have outstanding experience, having launched many inspirational types of foods that we see in retail shops, including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Wholefoods and many more.
Grubworkz supply to a number of premium food service businesses such as restaurants, hotels plus the UK’s favourite British airline. To find out more visit:www.grubworkzhq.com
This blog was brought to you in conjunction 
with Buttercup.com and The Early Bird Eater.

Friday 14 August 2015

Hello and welcome back to

The Early Bird Eater
Lifestyle and food blog.

This blog is brought to you with exclusive press release straight from
GINGERLINE 
Want to see more 


THE NAUGHTY RASCALS AT GINGERLINE LAUNCH ADVENTUROUS NEW MULTI-DIMENSIONAL DINING EXPERIENCE WHICH IS SET TO TAKE LONDON BY STORM 

The Chambers of Flavour launches on 22nd SEPTEMBER 2015
Tickets on sale midday 17 AUGUST 2015

Combining out of this world performances, mouthwatering cuisine and total secrecy; the team who pioneered immersive dining in London, 
GINGERLINE, are back with a game-changing new escapade set to change the way we eat out forever. 
 
Presenting The Chambers of Flavour; Gingerline welcomes only the most adventurous individuals to journey through a parallel reality vortex. Brave guests are invited to walk, run, hop, skip and jump through a sequence of contrasting dining dimensions each serving up a mind-blowing dish from a specially created avant-garde menu. Set within the bowels of the mighty dream generating machine, The Chambers of Flavour combines a dash of daring, lashings of hush hush wink wink, with total immersion in a theatrical concept, washed down with a concoction of delicious tipples!

The concept, the menu, location and experience will remain firmly behind closed doors, only to be discovered by those willing to take the plunge. One thing is known – Gingerline’s most ambitious and exciting project to date is certainly not one to be missed!

 
And if that wasn’t enough, all adventurers will become an Alumni of the Chambers, keeping what they witness and where they witnessed it a strictly guarded secret.

The Chambers of Flavour follows the success of the six-week experimental project, The Secret Island, Gingerline’s first foray into their new format of multi-dimensional dining. Intrepid explorers ventured through five imaginings of Singapore, experiencing the culture, cuisine and camaraderie of this exotic island. Other adventures have seen Gingerlovers initiated into a Secret Order in a Canonbury Chapel, dive deep under-the-sea in a Shoreditch based submarine, re-live the fairy tale stories of their childhood in Once upon a Gingerline and tumble through labyrinthine corridors
 into a mad puppeteer’s workshop in Forest Hill.

Suz Mountfort and Kerry Adamson, the creative team heading up the Gingerliners, explain: “Chambers of Flavour is an earnest attempt to redefine the boundaries of the dining experience. Using all our hard learnt Gingerline lessons and a spirit of creativity to create our interpretation of the ultimate dining adventure.”

With Gingerline tickets known to sell-out within minutes, those wishing to experience the unknown should sign up online now and be ready at midday on 17th August 2015 when tickets will go on sale for £50 - £65 (plus booking fee) via 
www.chambersofflavour.co.uk
 
Who is brave enough to be part of Gingerline’s biggest experimental extravaganza to date?

Here's how it works:

When guests book they choose a specific dining date and time. On the day of their booking the
will be texted at 4.30pm with details of where to find the secret location*. Guests should arrive in plenty of time to drink and frolic in an outer chamber where, unlike previous events, they can take as many photos as they like. Then at their selected dining slot, with phones / cameras safely tucked safely away, they will be whisked off on a multi-dimensional dining adventure through the Chambers of Flavour. All adventurers will become an Alumni of the Chambers, with a promise to keep what they witness and where they witnessed it, a strictly guarded secret.
This experience is not suitable for people who do not like small spaces or have serious food allergies. Over 18s only.

*The Chamber of Flavour is just a short walk from a station on The East London Overground between Highbury & Islington & Crystal Palace. 

This blog was brought to you in exclusive 

            conjunction with Gingerline and 
            
                     The Early Bird Eater

Saturday 8 August 2015

Hello and welcome back to
The Early Bird Eater
Lifestyle and food blog.

With my brand ever growing and the networks I am working with my brand and readers are ever increasing.

I would firstly like welcome the new readers and old I have grown from a small number heading over 4.2 million of late.

Today's blog features 

 Great Taste 2015 Top 50 announced: A rich vein of nostalgia meets a  wave of innovative indulgence in the Great Taste 2015 Top 50 Foods



Want to see more about the great taste awarded produce?
Follow the link

This gentleman is a food critic for 
Masterchef UK
Charles Campion
Quoted on saying 

“Great Taste is the only food award worth 

having”.



Here is the BBC low down on the show

Then two the lovely if not very adorable presenters
Gregg Wallace and John Torode.
If you had never heard of the show and would like to catch from episode 1


Back to The great taste 

The Great taste awards are huge in the UK I myself have worked in a deli where we sold and sampled great tastes awarded produce.
It is like a medal of success to artisan produce lovingly made.

It is quite nice to see such an abundance of produce being made by so many people.

Anyone can pick a jar up in a supermarket but to pick up a selected great taste award winning product means there is love and hard work given to it.

Every foodista knows the sticker means value,high end and what's most it has been tasted my a refined palete to bring you something worth your time.

Here is one of many produce chosen
Lemon Curd 
By Hillside Foods
Hillside Foods has come up trumps with its take on the classic lemon, with plenty of citrus zing and an appealing golden yellow colour. “Thick, sharp and sweet from to start and finish,” said the judges, who decreed that the Devon-based producer had “nailed it”
Love this glorious product and want to know more from Hillside Foods 

If you have never used Lemon Curd and would like some direction on cooking with it

In the last 21 years, Great Taste judges have blind-tasted over 100,000 different products and as this year’s awards reach a nerve-racking finale, judges have now chosen the Great Taste 2015 Top 50 Foods, from which the Supreme Champion will be selected. This year’s Top 50 is a melting pot of humble staples, rich and voluptuous treats and dynamic flavour marriages, all shining through with one thing in common – Great Taste. Shirgar Welsh Salted Butter by Gower View Foods Ltd and Beef Dripping by James Whelan Butchers wave the flag for the pure and simply delicious classics, while inventive flavour combinations were taken to a whole new level by producers such as Beckleberry’s, with its Passionfruit and Tarragon Sorbet
Dairy free?
No problem
Here is a Sicilian Pistachio sorbet

This “innovative” dairy-free sorbet, which is suitable for vegans, is made with pure Bronte pistachios and Maldon sea salt flakes. Its “rich and creamy texture” seduced the judging panel as they tasted both toasted pistachio flakes and the salt loud and clear.
See more from the link below 

The Top 50 Foods list, which has been whittled down from 10,000 entries by the most experienced and professional food judges who have blind-tasted each and every product before declaring it truly worthy of its position, is now available for all to see onwww.greattasteawards.co.uk and most importantly – to taste. From a “juicy and succulent” Gloucester Old Spot spare rib pork joint and a “clean and fresh” Organic Double Cream to a “distinctive and complex” Sparkling Beer Brut and a “nutty and buttery” Macadamia Nut Oil, the Top 50 Foods is a culinary journey of the most exquisite, delicious and WOW foods in the UK and beyond. 
Rock Rose Gin.... Yes Darling it's Gin O'clock
By Dunnet Bay Distillers

The judges certainly enjoyed this hand-crafted gin, produced in mainland Britain’s most northerly distillery in Caithness. Described as “clean, crisp and zesty” with a “wonderful scent of citrus”, the gin is made with local botanicals that vary with changes in the climate.

See more on Rock Rose Gin on the link below 

John Farrand, managing director of the Guild of Fine Food, explains; “This year’s Top 50 says so much about the evolution of taste in the UK today. On the one hand food and drink producers are refining the very best ingredients and celebrating the beauty of simplicity, while others push the boundaries to create bold and unusual products. What they have in common of course is respect for the finest produce and ingredients, letting the best flavours sing. The Great Taste Top 50 Foods logo is a badge of honour that should be displayed proudly by producers. Our judges urge everyone to go out and find the foods that are on the Great Taste Top 50 Foods list. In every deli, farm shop, restaurant, cafe and pub, there should be plenty of Great Taste stars to choose from.”
Close to home for me 
Staal and their amazing smoked produce
Want to buy some for yourself?

While these producers revel in their tremendous success and begin displaying the unmistakable gold and black Great Taste Top 50 Foods logo on their award-winning products, they will wait with much anticipation to see if they also scoop the top awards for their region and who will be crowned the Supreme Champion for 2015. These awards will be announced at the Great Taste Golden Fork Dinner in London on Monday 7 September.  


More about this award wining product and 

brand

 Smoked Rapeseed Oil

Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil is a Great Taste Award winner produced by our friends Jennie and Adam Palmer at their farm near Malton, North Yorkshire.
We have taken their natural rapeseed oil and smoked it over a blend of oak and apple wood.
Perfect for cooking with, using as a dressing or for simply adding a new dimension to mashed potato.
Recognised as a stamp of excellence among consumers and retailers alike, Great Taste values taste above all else, with branding and packaging ignored. Whether it is cheese, ale, steak or chutney being judged, all products are removed from their wrapper, jar or bottle before being tasted. The judges then savour, confer and re-taste to decide which products are worthy of a 1-, 2- or 3-star award.
This video from 2014 and 


The Artisan Kitchen - Blaisdon's Red Plum Jam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34VHeZbRJ8o

Judged by over 400 of the most demanding palates, belonging to food critics, chefs, restaurateurs, cooks, producers and a host of food writers and journalists, Great Taste is widely acknowledged as the most respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food producers. In the words of highly regarded restaurant and food critic Charles Campion, “Great Taste is the only food award worth having”.

The panel of judges, including; Masterchef judge and restaurant critic Charles Campion, TV presenter & cook, Aggie Mackenzie, Great British Bake Off winner, Frances Quinn, Masterchef the Professionals finalist, Adam Handling, food buyers from Harrods, Selfridges, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, and chefs including James Golding, Chef Director of The Pig hotel group, have together re-judged the 3-star winners to agree on the Top 50 Foods, the Golden Fork Trophy winners and the Great Taste Supreme Champion for 2015. 

Facts and figures about Great Taste 2015:
10,000 different products entered in 2015.
Judging in Dorset at Guild HQ in Gillingham and several other Dorset venues, as well as St David’s Hotel in Cardiff.
2,382 awarded 1-star
597 awarded 2-star
130 awarded 3-star
 The final announcement of the winner of Great Taste Supreme Champion 2015, sponsored by Harrods, and the regional Golden Fork Awards will be made in London on Monday 7 September.

This blog was brought to you in conjunction with Freshly Ground PR and Sydell Faith The Early Bird Eater