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Farmer’s Markets
Creake Abbey,North Creake 1st Sat of month 9.30 to 1pm website here
Norwich Farmer’s Market is 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month in front of the “proper” market on Gentleman’s Walk.
And at Fakenham Races throughout the season as part of “The Norfolk Picnic”
See you there.
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A pie stall with a view
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May 2009 - One of our favourite glossy magazines, Food and Travel (what’s not to like there?), phoned and asked for some pies for a taste test and, happily, they liked ours the best. So much so that they’ve given us a full page inside cover in their June edition. “Joining our favourite foods from
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around the UK is this Norfolk made pork pie, where flaky pastry and juicy cuts of rare breed meat combine to make the perfect addition to a picnic basket”
Click here to see the full article and their larger than life, hunger inspiring photo.
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London Slow Food recently asked us to take part in a special pie tasting evening, the purpose of which was to find a pie to endorse as their recommendation to CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale).
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They loved ours and thought that they best fufilled “slow food credentials” so we are now officially the pork pie they would sup with a real ale. And as we adore a pie and a real pint we are very happy with what we think is a marriage made in heaven!
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22nd November 2008 A couple of weeks ago ace photographer Will Sanders (Esquire, Nylon, British Journal of Photography etc) came up to The Kitchen at Bayfield to photograph Sarah and the pies at source. The shoot was for Audi and The Telegraph website and Will was also being filmed by a a camerman, so Sarah was filmed having her photo taken. As if having your photo taken wasn’t un-nerving
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enough!
Anyway, the resulting video is here. Will’s photo also appeared in The Telegraph Magazine and he was very kind about the pies that Sarah fed him (whilst quizzing him deeply about his Mamiya and Leica cameras) “Taking the A6 inland, with a bit of a hunger developing, I made what would be one of my favourite and best-timed discoveries: Bray’s Cottage Pork Pies, which are produced from a farm run by two lovely women, Nell and Sarah. They raise their pigs to roam and socialise freely, and then make them into amazingly good pork pies.”
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27 October 2008 - Pies on the TV! Foodie programme Market Kitchen asked us to send a pie in for one of their regular taste tests. And... (drumroll)
We won! (above two Melton Mowbray pies)
It has not only been broadcast on BBC2 but also UKTV - so loads of
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you have told us you’ve seen it. If you haven’t, the clip is now on youtube (thanks to a bit of help from a kind Bray’s Cottage fan with video editing abilities) - click here to watch it.
Results:
1. Bray’s Cottage - Came out top for its sweet, succulent meat, biscuity pastry and subtle pickle flavor
2. Dickinson and Morris -Another Melton offering in second place. This pie impressed with a light, crispy pastry and moist meat
3. Mrs King's A Borough market favourite, and an award winner, with a light, crispy pastry and moist meat
4. Michael Kirk Our testers felt this pie was a good all-rounder, with a good peppery kick and great jelly/pasty balance
5. Walter Smith Despite winning two gold stars at the great taste awards, stiff competition meant this pie came last in our test
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30 July 2008 - News just in is that we’ve been awarded a Gold Star at the Great Taste Awards. Yay! That’ll look mighty pretty on the Farmer’s Market Stall.
A Gold Award is a fairly hard-won thing that involved much sending of pies down to London for scrutiny; every entry is blind tasted by teams of experts - and by the time it earns gold it’s been assessed by at least three different teams. This year’s judges include Alex James, farmer, journalist and bass player with Blur, Mark Hix, the chef’s chef, Charles Campion from Evening Standard & The Independent, Tom Parker-Bowles of UKTV Food’s Market Kitchen and national food journalist Fiona Sims.
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12th July 2008 - Unexpectedly, the pies are in The Times. An article about regional food featured Norfolk “full of fantastic food” (very true) and they kindly said that we make the best pork pie “sensationally meaty”. Read the full article by clicking here. It also nominates the wonderful Back to The Garden, who sell loads of our pies, as the best farm shop. All very heartwarming.
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25th & 26th June 2008 The very big pork pie on the Visit Norwich stand at the Royal Norfolk Show and as it appeared in the press. Note the “normal” sized Bray’s Cottage pie next to the huge one to give you an idea of the scale.
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Photo courtesy of The Eastern Daily Press © Archant PLC
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25th & 26th June 2008 - Royal Norfolk Show. We had a brilliant, if shattering, couple of days at the RNS, selling many, many pork pies and meeting lots of people. The weather was perfect and the turnout to the show record breaking.
We were commissioned by Visit Norwich and Biddwells to make a huge pork pie for a guess the weight competition and to draw attention to the Norwich and Norfolk Food Festival - and just to add to the general jollity of the occasion.
It was 14” across and took five and a half hours to cook (under Norman’s expert supervision). And we can reveal that the correct answer to the competition was (drum roll) 19lbs 4 ozs.
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27th May 2008 - Just in time for the start of BBC’s Springwatch, the cafe at Pensthorpe (home of Bill Oddie and assorted CCTV surveillance beset baby birds for the next three weeks) are serving our pies. But leaving aside the lure of fine refreshments, Pensthorpe is a fabulous place to visit, running through it are some of the most beautiful, and accessible, stretches of
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the Wensum. And you might not see the wild otters, but it’s lovely knowing they are there.
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20th May 2008 (It’s all go round here you know - three news items in a week!) We’re featured in the June edition of Country Living. They asked to include our pies in their regular regional food feature - this month North Norfolk.
We are in great North Norfolk foodie company - the other eight are Salt Marsh Beef, Cley Smoke House, The Dann’s Norfolk Farmhouse ice cream, Leith House plum orchard near Burnham Market, Carter Farm shop (who stock our pies), Sandringham apples, Essence preserves and Mrs Temple’s cheeses, which includes the amazing Binham Blue.
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19th May 2008 - We had a couple of lambs rejected by their mum so we are hand rearing them. And ever so slightly smitten by them. We’ve called them Moo and Oink, Moo because we found her new-born after she’d got in with the cows who had licked her clean and Oink... well it had to be really.
Oink is something of a comedian. For a lamb.
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13th May 2008 - The nice chap in chef’s whites on the right is Marcus Zauner who is doing amazing things with local food at The Red Lion in Coltishall. He tried one of our pies and was smitten, so he’s putting them on the menu.
To give you a flavour of the place the supper menu (which changes daily according to what’s about and best) includes things like Tongue on toast with fried quails egg and mustard mayonnaise. On the 28th of May he’s hosting a Fowl Evening where he will roast a Martin’s Farm free range chicken and put it on the table with a good spread of salads, greenery, garlic bread, dips and relishes and leave you to get on with it - however you see fit.
Our kind of food. Marcus is definitely one to watch - he’s causing quite a buzz in foodie circles.
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7th April 2008 - and if we thought that “Wet Friday” at Burnham Market was a challenge... Yesterday’s Norwich Farmer’s Market was our first in the snow. Seven hours in a proper East Anglian north wind. That’s nippy. Happily they breed ‘em tough round here, Norwich shopped on undeterred and we sold out, so it was all a fair swap for any loss of sensation in extremities. By some fluke, by the time we were back at the farm the wind had vanished the sun was out and the world had transformed into a perfect spring early evening. How does it do that?
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30th March 2008 - We had a brilliant* long-weekend with the world of three day eventing at Burnham Market international Horse Show. We met lots of new people, many of whom seem to have gone back home recommending the pies to their local shops, judging from the number of inquiries we are having. Thanks everyone!
*well - actually the Friday was dreadful weather, like a very cold monsoon, but we’ll brush over that. The rest of the weekend was great and Sunday was like June!
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12th February 2008 - We’ve bought a gazebo and are joining the new Norwich Farmer’s Market. It’s held on Gentleman’s Walk in front of the regular market on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month. Ellie Betts from Ferndale Cheese is already there, as are Salle Moor Organics and the chaps from Grain Brewery should be joining us in the next week or so. I’ve a feeling it’s going to get pretty big.
A surprising number of people shop in Norwich on a Sunday (surprising to country types who forget that shops open on a Sunday) so it should be fun!
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24 November 2007 - we (and the pies) will be at the Burnham Market Christmas lights official switch on. It’s a fundraiser for The Norfolk Hospice, Tapping House - a great place to support. There will be chestnuts, mulled wine, a brass band and lots of general jollity. Come and say hello if you are there. Lots more details here.
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8 November 2007 - local collection. We have taken a small but perfectly formed space, which we are calling The Kitchen in a beautiful flint barn conversion at Bayfield Brecks, which is on the Holt to Cley Road, a couple of miles from the sea. It is already making life so much easier! It does mean that local collection of pies is now much more possible. See here for more details and directions.
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8 November 2007 - Following demand, we are now mail-ordering three sizes of our pork pies. The familiar and much loved 6oz pie, a 1lb size, good for cutting or sharing between two people and a big 3lb pie which looks amazing as a centrepiece for a table.
The larger sizes will be very handy for Christmas - and still just as easy to cook from frozen if you are going for that option. Local stockists will also be able to order them for you, if they don’t have any in stock - but please give them a few days notice if possible.
Still perfect - just bigger ....so possibly more perfect!
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2007 CAMRA Norwich Beer Festival - 22 to 27th October - We are holding a bit of a joint beer and pork pie party with Geoff and Phil of the wonderful Grain Brewery to boost queue morale at the 30th Norwich CAMRA Beer Festival. So if your timing is good (probably means you are queuing 5.30 onward) you might get a sample of a limited edition version of our pork pie containing a splash of Grain Oak.
See Friends page for more or click here for Grain’s website.
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6th September 2007 - Our local North Norfolk MP, Norman Lamb, enjoying one of our pork pies as a reviving mid morning snack during his village surgery tour.
Along with Norwich MP Ian Gibson, who is a regular pie customer, we are planning on putting on a Norfolk Food event in Westminster later in the year. There’s so much truly fantastic food being made by small producers around the county we thought Norfolk produce deserves a bit more of a spotlight nationally. Watch this space for further news...
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Photo -© Sarah Pettegree
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22 August 2007 - We are featured in this week’s The Grocer magazine. In the article Nell says “We wanted to get away from the massproduced/garage forecourt image of a pork pie that has made it unpopular with women because they wonder what they are biting into. I wouldn’t have eaten a pork pie prior to my involvement in the business, but because of the quality of the ingredients, the hand made credentials and the trustworthiness of the brand we have built a large following among women.”
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30th July 2007 - It’s been a long time coming but we are now up and running for on-line payments.
But feel free to ring or email if the mood strikes - we can still process orders that way and we’d miss the weekly flurry of calls and emails!
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21 July 2007 - Holkham Country Fair - Holkham was great for food this year. They had a fine food village for the first time with dozens of small local producers - very popular. True to form, we sold out of pies by lunchtime both days (sorry!). And met loads of new people.
Holkham were kind enough to let us share a stand with their game people so we had a brilliant chef doing demonstrations of game cookery next to us. It smelt stunning. And, in theory at least, we now know how to butterfly a pheasant breast.
We reckon it’s a shame that it’s only held every other year - but the park might need two years to recover from the mud generated by this summer’s weather combined with the feet of tens of thousands of people/dogs/horses/ferrets...
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5th July - Soho House party (& Dr Who). Fantastic fun! We were by far the smallest food producer there (and not many had been invited) but we were looked after by the Soho House Team wonderfully. They had themed it as a slightly outrageous village fete (although it would have to be the first we’ve been to with lobster and oysters - but it did have great cake). The pies went down a storm - notable pork pie enthusiasts, among others, were David Tennant (aka Dr Who - of course), Jamie Cullum, who having had them in the green room, dragged a friend over and nicely raved about them to us, and Lawrence Llewlyn-Bowen, who was charming.
Since then we’ve been hugely impressing small boys, and their envious mothers, by telling them that Dr Who likes the pies.
Nell wore her wellies (as you do at outdoor festivals this summer) and justifiably felt hers were the most authentic there.
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24th May - Soho House - So. All out of the blue, we have had a phone call from Soho House asking us if the two of us will take pies down and join in on an event that they are holding on 5th July.
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One of you has been putting in high recommendation with the Soho House team - so many thanks for that!
Soho House is the ever growing and influential club for the arts and media in London and New York - and they also own Babington House in Somerset.
The do is a party to raise funds for Chiswick House Gardens with live music from Lily Allen, Natasha Bedingfield, Jamie Cullum, Dragonette, Sophie Ellis-Bexter, The Feeling, The Geek Squad, The Hoosiers and the Magic Numbers.
It’s going to be fun. And it’s amazing where a good pork pie will take you! If you fancy tickets click here.
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19th May 2007 - Farm news. Poppy the Red Poll has had her first calf. We’ve named him Norman after our (and Rick Stein’s) Food Hero baker Norman Olley at North Elmham.
His dad’s an Aberdeen Angus so he’s a lovely rich reddish black colour.
Poppy and Norman doing beautifully.
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Photo - ©Sarah Pettegree
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5th April 2007 - We are getting great unsolicited press at the moment. We’ve been reviewed in May’s BBC Olive magazine - their special British Food edition.
They called in 55 pies of differing types and
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divided them into five categories (Cornish pasties, apple pie etc). They then selected the best 13 to review and ours was the winner of the pork pie category - above Dickinson and Morris Melton Mowbray and Waitrose Melton Mowbray pies. They said ‘It’s special, faultless even’.
As you can imagine, we are pretty well thrilled by that.
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29th March 2007 - North Norfolk Living magazine came out to the farm on a chilly day in February and met us and the pigs. Having dutifully frozen outside for a while, we had a long and interesting chat in the kitchen over coffee and cake with Richard Forbes-Robertson, their Food and Restaurant critic. Click on the photo of the magazine (featuring Nell and one of the Boxing Day piglets on the cover) to read the whole article.
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13th January 2007 - Tony Turnbull who is the food editor at The Times came to meet us and the animals after New Year and took away a box of the pies frozen to bake at home the next day. He liked them (a lot!) and you can read the resulting Foodie at Large column by clicking here
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