 Emma Wombwell at Chef Shine Fifteen weeks to go.
There is both good news and bad news this week.
First the good: We have been shortlisted for The Mersey Partnership tourism awards in the Event of the Year Category.
But every silver lining has a cloud and this one is that we're up against nine other big events so we’re not holding our breath. We’ll find out in June if we've won. Watch this space.
This week I also went to the Chef Shine competition run by the Council and Wirral News. Chefs are tasked with coming up with a menu using seasonal ingredients and the public invited to try it and vote for their favourite. It is extremely popular and tickets sell out in minutes. This one was at the Cowshed, which doesn’t sound glamorous but it is a popular restaurant attached to the Wheatsheaf Pub. The chef, Emma Wombwell, was the Merseyside Young Chef of the Year last year She has agreed to stage a cookery demo at the festival.
This year for the competition she took the brave decision to serve up an offal faggot with new season lamb cutlets from Edge and Sons butchers, of New Ferry.
It was a great meal and her rhubarb and pepper mint jelly, served with the lamb, was to die for, but she wouldn’t part with the recipe. She was also kind enough to join us for the photo shoot to launch the festival back in April.
We were due to have a meeting with a support grant person from the lottery, but unfortunately a chipped windscreen has put that back a week. It has again taken hours of form filling to get to this point and now they want documents like an environmental police and an equal opportunities policy. Equal opportunities! If you want to volunteer to help with the festival we will take anyone we can get. But for money we have to jump through these hoops.
Claremont Farm held an asparagus day on Saturday, which went down well. They will be holding asparagus events and dinners during the season and you can also sign up for ‘field and fork’ events. There is nothing like chilling out with the sun setting, drinking a glass of wine, looking down the fields and enjoying Brian’s cooking at the farm. Check out www.claremontfarm.co.uk to find out more. |