North Norfolk Food and Drink Festival
It's the North Norfolk Food and Drink Festival this weekend: 3rd and 4th September.
The first weekend in September means one thing at HQ: lots and lots and lots of baking for the wonderful North Norfolk Food and Drink Festival at Holkham Hall.
The walled gardens in full glory
Now in it's 8th year, the festival is by far the biggest and best food and drink in Norfolk. It takes place in the spacious and stunning setting of the enormous 6 acre walled gardens; (which in themselves are a worth exploring for a few hours), bringing together all of our fellow producers for a veritable cornucopia of locally made, yummy edibles and drinkables.
We'll be taking our usual selection of award winning small and medium sized pies: the oh so popular onion marmalade, the warming chilli, the smokey chorizo, our summer special 'Wiveton' (lemon, parsley and garlic) and the anything but traditional 'Naked'. Oh, and just a few of our delicious sausage rolls.
The limited edition Piccalilli pie
We're also have with us the rather sensational black pudding pork pie. We've teamed up with Fruit Pig and included a generous slice of their very special, rare, black pudding. But you'll have to be quick, we always sell out fast.
The festival is on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd at Holkham Hall and is open 10am - 4pm. Entry is free and includes the chance to see the beautiful gardens. Car parking (right next to the gardens), is £3. Dogs are welcome too.
If you can't make it, worry not. We're always sending pies out to our many stockists all over the country. You can find them all here and, we also have our very own online pie shop so you can have the quintessential taste of Norfolk delivered to your door.
The tiniest train
Now, I'm not much of a one for steam trains. Somehow the gene that has directed the rest of my family to variously obsess, head to Greece on (full size) ex-UK, engine-buying expeditions, run station sweet shops etc has firmly passed me by. But I've found my exception.
As my half-anthracite brother was staying with me, and because I see a lot of the happy team at the Wells to Walsingham Light Railway on our regular visits to supply their little cafe (there will be a lot of diminutive adjectives coming up) with our sausage rolls , I suggested a trip from Wells to Walsingham. And just utterly LOVED it.
The Wells To Walsingham Light Railway
Now, I'm not much of a one for steam trains. Somehow the gene that has directed the rest of my family to variously obsess, head to Greece on (full size) ex-UK, engine-buying expeditions, run station sweet shops etc has firmly passed me by. But I've found my exception.
As my half-anthracite brother was staying with me, and because I see a lot of the happy team at the Wells to Walsingham Light Railway on our regular visits to keep their little cafe (there will be a lot of diminutive adjectives coming up) stocked with our sausage rolls, I suggested a trip from Wells to Walsingham. And just utterly LOVED it.
The engine and carriages are so tiny they melted even my mechanically indifferent heart a little. I'd tell you the gauge, but neither of us are interested in that, are we dear reader? But what unexpectedly thrilled and excited me was the journey. It was like a long, relaxed ramble through a nature reserve. I'll list the wild flowers I spotted below, and there were plenty more.
Most of the carriages are open, and the little engine is slow enough that you really have time to absorb what's very closely around you. More than anything, it reminded me of a sunny chug on a canal boat. Apart from the flowers, we saw deer, a buzzard, a marsh harrier and a very close (almost beak to nose) encounter with a barn owl, perched in a trackside tree.
The trip took about half an hour. You can time it to catch a later train back and have a good wander around medieval Walsingham village and buy treats at Walsingham Farm Shop. At that end there was a hilarious bold chicken, so big it was near half the size of the engine, which had to be entertainingly scooped off the track (I suspect it's an Equity member and fully trained).
Anyway, it's all delightful. On our homeward trip we even took a detour to have an evening stroll on the Warham Camp bronze age fort (which you can see from the train) and then stopped for a sip of Moongazer ale at the newly re-opened Carpenter's Arms at Wighton.
My WWLR North Norfolk May wild flower list...
All spotted from the carriage. I'd love to know what you spot that I've missed - do add a comment below:
Wild Strawberry
Cowslips
Ox Eye Daisies
Speedwell
Vetch - yellow and purple
Buttercups
Elderflower
Bluebells
Campion (White and Red)
Scabious (Bachelor's Button)
Crane's Bill
Something blue, a bit like Viper's Bugloss but smaller
Cow Parsley
Columbine
Stitchwort
The day Kate came to play with pastry
We know what we like and the Great British Bake Off is one of those things, we adore the gentle fun of it, the way a nation has convened around it and the fact that it's got people into their kitchen, inspired to learn skills to feed themselves and their friends and family. And we do like the contestants, who seem to be particularly nice human beings.
We've really hit it off with Kate Barmby from this year's series,
We know what we like and the Great British Bake Off is one of those things, we adore the gentle fun of it, the way a nation has convened around it and the fact that it's got people into their kitchen, inspired to learn skills to feed themselves and their friends and family. And we do like the contestants, who seem to be particularly nice human beings.
We've really hit it off with Kate Barmby from this year's series, through our shared interests in art, swallows and Norfolk, so we've enfolded her into the floury Bray's Cottage world and she's come up to HQ a couple of times, and what's more she's brought us (oh it was so good) cake!
Kate Barmby, with pastries
So, a week or so ago we set aside a whole day and a corner of HQ (which was a-bustle with Thursday pie baking) for pastry play with Kate. She came bristling with ideas and a scrap book of inspiration. It coincided with a day that Emma, a key member of our creative team and a craft star in her own right, was at HQ and hot water crust pastry sculpting synergy was unleashed.
Because of her cake and art background, Kate is an expert in sugar craft so she brought multiple tool boxes of sugar-craft implements and, as Pastry Manager Erin kept them supplied with raw materials, the pair set to work pushing the boundaries of where hot water crust pastry meets sculpture.
Emma crafted beautiful hawthorn berries and Kate created the most glorious feathers, which were actually inspired by a magazine picture of a feather fascinator worn by that other Norfolk Kate, HRH Duchess of Cambridge.
There was also much laughter and gossip - which we couldn't possibly reveal (unless plied with very fine wines).
The results were breathtakingly stunning. We're so thrilled with where a friendly chat over coffee in HQ has taken us, rediscovering British pie decorating traditions with a very modern slant.
We've decided there will be more to this story - watch this space...
Join the great British craft pastry revival...
If you'd like to learn how, we hold regular pork pie workshops in Norwich (they also make extremely welcome Christmas presents) and we incorporate pie decoration tips. The courses are held at the Macarons & More Cookery School and you can book online.
You can buy our frozen uncooked pork pies online and add beautiful decorations yourself (hot water crust pastry is very easy to make) at home. If you do feel inspired, we'd love to see the results of your efforts - drop us an email or get in touch with us on Twitter.
We also make bespoke celebration pies with your own message written in pastry (though not with Kate Barmby feathers....yet).
Holkham
I was on pork pies and sausage rolls delivering duty there yesterday and had a good nosy round. I came away impressed and pleased, I liked it before and, as with anywhere you are fond of, was that little bit apprehensive about the end result, especially having seen it as a building site over the winter when I dropped in for meetings. But it all looks just fabulous. Much improved and so much more appropriate for the destination that Holkham has become over
Things are afoot at Holkham, the North Norfolk Coast's stately home (that one with the world famous beach attached).
I was on pork pies and sausage rolls delivering duty there yesterday and had a good nosy round. I came away impressed and pleased, I liked it before and, as with anywhere you are fond of, was that little bit apprehensive about the end result, especially having seen it as a building site over the winter when I dropped in for meetings. But it all looks just fabulous. Much improved and so much more appropriate for the destination that Holkham has become over the last few years, but still retaining oodles of character. The courtyard (where the Bygones exhibition was before) has been used to create a single smart cluster of resources for visitors.
The Courtyard Cafe is more spacious and the entrance has been swivelled round, so that you access it from the courtyard. The park opened to visitors, after the winter, this weekend and I know they were busy from the huge number of sausage rolls and pies they have got through in just three days. The ever-accurate pork pie barometer. The family have always been keen to use local food, and the cakes have always been stunning, but in the alterations the recently appointed manager, Simon (who has come from some well known and very well thought of food places), has been supplied with a brand new pro kitchen that gave me equipment envy.
Usually there on business of one sort or another, I'd never taken enough notice of the shop, where it was previously on the far side of the Stables courtyard, but it's suddenly got chic and spacious, housed in a beautiful, glass fronted, airy side of the courtyard and has some perfectly beautiful things. It is an absolute pleasure to browse round. There are some very covetable pieces of metalwork from Holkham Forge, a great range of doggy items, including leads from The Traditional Rope Company (who live and work in my village) and a lot more Holkham badged products than I'd been aware of before, including some clothing that I really had to drag myself away from, in the estate's tweed.
Being a long time ceramics fan, some very stylish black and white china in the kitchenalia area lured me in and called out to me photograph it. When I got back to HQ my Twitter friend, Steven Moore, the Antiques Roadshow's ceramic expert, informed me that they are made for Holkham by the famous Staffordshire Burleigh Pottery (of which he's Creative Director), so not much wonder it's jolly nice! I reckon sales of that will be as brisk as sausage rolls.
The remaining wing of the courtyard is the new interactive Farm to Fork exhibition. Telling the story of agriculture on the Estate, one of the first things I saw was local food star Norfolk Saffron which rather delighted me. Holkham's all about the whole family experience and the exhibition, whilst fascinating as an adult, has also been designed as an education resource with lots of touchy feely and unexpected things for children to explore and learn from.
All in all, a great improvement. For visiting times and admission information click here.