Not sure what to do this weekend, Londoners? Get yourselves down to The Mayor’s Thames Festival, because the food is going to be special. The eat.st Collective will be there, hawking their wares all along the banks. In fact, I’d suggest skipping breakfast because there’s a ridiculous amount of amazing street food to be had, all in one stretch. So, the details from eat.st founder Petra Barran:

“The eat.st collective will be occupying two areas – one by Tate Modern and a smaller ‘splinter group’ by the Lord Mayor’s Office (More London).

eat.st has been recognised by the Festival organisers for its wide array of amazing food, as well as its dedication to the collective spirit of street food trading in the city. We aim to help transform the outside dining experience of London by promoting more interesting and personality-driven food on its streets.

Traders representing for eat.st will be:

Tate Modern
Luardos – Mexican burritos
Jamon Jamon – Spanish paella
Anna Mae’s – Deep South pulled pork and pimped up mac ‘n cheese
Churros Bros – churros
Buen Provecho – Mexican street food
Big Apple Hot Dogs – gourmet hot dogs
Bean and Gone Coffee – Monmouth coffee
Hardcore Prawn – new kid on the block doing amazing crab bisque, tom yum, char-grilled skewers

More London
Bhangra Burger – Indian spiced burgers with homemade pickles
Creperie Nicholas – Breton gallettes
Tongue ‘n Cheek – Italian street food using ‘under-rated’ cuts of meat (with salsa verde/mostarda in Wild Caper sourdough rolls)
YumBun – soft, pillowy steamed Chinese buns with Blythburgh pork”

The festival takes place on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th September, 11am-11pm. Map of locations HERE.

Eat. st on Twitter and Facebook

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend all my time eating jerk pork and barbecuing things in the rain. I do other stuff, okay? No really. Here’s some things I cooked, ate and felt happy about in the past couple of weeks.

Firstly, a little tooting on my own trumpet as I point you in the direction of The Independent’s ’50 Best Food Websites’ article. They said nice things about Food Stories and 49 other sites, including blogs, online suppliers and all-round giants like Chowhound. I’m flattered to be included.

And while we’re talking about ME, I’ll take a moment to point you once again, this time in the direction of my recipe column at AoL Lifestyle. The latest recipe is a very easy smoked mackerel ‘pâté’.

I’ve been out on the town too, as per. Sometimes a woman has to step outside of Peckham you know. Last weekend I made what was frankly a humongous schlep up to the wild wilderness of Seven Sisters to the Akhaya Cookery School, for a Nigerian cookery class. What with Peckham being ‘little Africa’ and all, I wanted to find out more about the ingredients I see in local shops every day. During the 3 hour class we made egusi (a soup thickened with melon seeds), jollof rice (rice cooked in a spicy tomato stew) and akara (black eye bean fritters). The akara were my favourite; very light, savoury fritters, which are incredibly easy to make. I’ll be experimenting with those so expect a recipe soon. The classes cost £75 per person, you cook 3 dishes per class and take home more than enough food for 2 people. Here are some pics:

The bright and airy classroom.

 Very familiar ingredients for the Peckhamite; dried shrimp; chilli flakes; black eye beans; palm oil.

Egusi soup. The white stuff is the egusi (ground melon seeds), mixed to a paste with water then added to the soup. The green dried stuff is afang (a dried leaf which is a little like Spinach). 

Fried plantain chips. You can’t hear a thing when you’re eating them – that crunchy.

I’ve been eating out too. Last night I perched very happily for several hours around the bar of the Maille Mustard Pop-Up in Spitalfields Market. They kindly invited me down to try the ‘mustard menu’ cooked by Kerstin Marmite Loving Rodgers. I had rather too much fun; the market was buzzing, the wine was flowing and the food was great. It’s on tonight and Sunday too. Here’s the lowdown in pics:

If it’s mustard you’re after…

A ‘Mustardy Mary’  = the best ever bloody Mary. I can’t ever drink one again unless it has wholegrain mustard in it. A brilliant idea.

Steamed artichoke with mustard mayonnaise.

Smoked haddock with mustard and cheese and Asian mustard greens. The fish was umami-packed and delicious. The name of the yellow flower in the middle escapes me but Kerstin picked them from her garden; they surprised everyone by tasting incredibly sweet and delicious. A flower actually worth eating.

Amazing cheese board featuring Langres, Moustardier, Charollais and Comté surrounded by palmiers.

Mostarda tutti frutti ice cream with berries, mint sugar and mustard candy floss. Kerstin and I are both of the opinion that tutti frutti ice cream should be BROUGHT BACK IMMEDIATELY.

And in between all that, I’ve been rapidly expanding outwards due to my extremely close proximity to The Rye pub, which is serving Meatwagon food for the summer. In addition to my favourite chilli burger I’ve been packing away the following, at least 3 times a week.

Smoked pork sandwich

Pulled pork sandwich

Baby back ribs with slaw and deep fried okra. I will be deep frying okra very, very soon.

Smoked buffalo wings with blue cheese dip.

What can I say, get yourself down there.

The Rye
31 Peckham Rye
SE15 3NX

So there we go. Ooof. I think I need to go and exercise now.

There is some really cool shiz going on around Brixtonish way this Sunday. Angus Denoon is bringing the sights, sounds, smells and most importantly, tastes of Kolkata to the mean streets of Sarf Londinium.

The event is taking place at an incredible location: The Whirled Cinema, which looks like one of those places you can’t believe you didn’t know about. Angus will be showing his award-winning documentary, which winds through the whirlwind streets of Kolkata. It promises to be raw, unconventional and inspiring.

“The film is of the mighty city of Kolkata as seen from dawn to dusk through the constant kitchens of the pavements that provide fuel for millions on the move. An extreme and intense situation that spawns some of the most delicious, nutritious and cheapest food anywhere.”

You can try the street food for yourself. Stalls will include jhal muri, pulchas, ghugni, channa masala, mango lassi and Bengali chai, which as Angus says is, “food you generally can’t get over here.” My friend Petra, describes the jhal muri as, “a kind of wet Bombay mix – puffed rice, tamarind, dried chickpeas, mustard oil, lime, coriander, toms, cucumbers, ginger, coconut, onion, garlic…sorts you right out!”

Sounds flippin brilliant, I think you’ll agree. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than immersing yourself in this 3D sensory blowout. There will also be a bar and smoking deck for you rebellious types.

Street Food Kolkata at The Whirled Cinema, 259 Hardess St, Brixtonish, SE24 0HN.
2.30 – 6.30 on Sunday and 7.30 – 10.30 on Monday evening “same deal but more of a Monday feel”.

Cost is a measly £15 for everything except drinks at the bar. Cancel your plans.
For more information and a taster, here’s the website.
Facebook page, here.

Angus is also a member of Eat.St – driving British street food forward.

On Saturday Rosie and I set up a mezze stall at local Peckham shindig, The Warwick Wingding. We’d spent all of Friday shopping, solving various mini-crises and grafting away in the kitchen. Pulling off a food stall is a lot of hard work and there are all sorts of issues to consider: what will you serve? Is it realistic? How much will it cost? How many will you feed? How much should you charge? How should you present it? How will you get it there? It goes on and on and on.

We originally wanted to serve jerk chicken but apparently there was some kind of problem with having a BBQ (even though the ribs man had one, so your guess is as good as mine); in the end we decided on mezze, and the organisers were keen to have another vegetarian stall along with Ganapati. We served hummus; baba ganoush; muhammara; fennel, pomegranate and feta salad; lentils with caramelised onions; jewelled cous cous and tabbouleh. Customers picked 5 of these to go with toasted pitta and grilled harissa-marinated halloumi for a fiver. A pretty good deal we thought.

We’d made big batches of everything and just kept re-filling the bowls; by the end of the day we’d sold out of everything bar bread and halloumi so we started flogging halloumi sandwiches for £3, which also flew out fast. A massive relief. That, and the fact it didn’t rain.

One of the hardest things about doing a food stall is making sure you come up with something you can really be proud of. If you’re not confident in what you’re selling then it’s game over. The best parts of the day were when people came to say how much they’d enjoyed the food or that they had come on someone else’s recommendation. People genuinely enjoyed it and thought we offered good value for money. The banter with customers was brilliant and thanks to all the blog readers who came over to introduce themselves – it was lovely to meet you all.

We didn’t cut any corners with ingredients or effort and it paid off. We left with beaming smiles, high on the satisfaction of having fed people well. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

A massive thank you to my partner Rosie, to all the people who bought our food, to our boyfriends and mates who got roped in at various stages and to Terry, Lyndsay and any other organisers I don’t know of who had a really hard time of it at one point, but pulled through and made the event a success.

The Warwick Wingding
Sat 25th September 2010 (the festival is held annually – it started in 2009)
12-7.30pm (then after-party at The Ivy House)
Warwick Gardens
Lyndhurst Way
SE15

This Saturday I will be doing a food stall with Rosie Birkett at the Warwick Wingding in Peckham. It’s a free music and arts festival and runs from 12-7.30pm.

On the entertainment side of things there will be the likes of the Dulwich Ukelele Club (can’t beat a bit of Uke action); a ‘Beer and Talent Tent’; craft stalls from the huge creative community that resides in Peckham; bands; shows and even Chas Hodges from Chas ‘n Dave. Seriously.

Of course I know it’s the food you’re most interested in and the pick of the local crop will be there – Petra with her Chocstar van, Yianni with his Meatwagon, a man called Simon who I’ve yet to meet who’s selling BBQ ribs and Ganapati restaurant serving their beautiful South Indian vegetarian food. Now I hope you’re sitting down because I’m about to drop a bombshell: our stall will also be veggie. We’ll be serving an Ottolenghi-style salad spread including fennel, pomegranate and feta salad; tabbouleh; baba ganoush; muhammara; harissa marinated halloumi and more. Come over and say hello.

If the prospect of stuffing yourself on that lot isn’t enough, there’s an after-party for you hardcore revellers. The Ivy House pub will host an evening of comedy and performance art.

For a lovely little vid of last year’s Wingding, follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AjsJZnxtps

The Warwick Wingding
Sat 25th September
12-7.30pm (then after-party at The Ivy House)
Warwick Gardens
Lyndhurst Way
SE15

FREE ENTRY

We did it! Yesterday afternoon the people of Rye Apartments came together along with a bunch of my mates for a good old nosh up in the car park. Today I feel totally exhausted but so happy that we managed to pull it off. I’ll be honest, there were moments during our 13 hour cook-off the day before when I was apprehensive. What if there isn’t enough food? What if people don’t turn up? We started at 9am and before we knew it, we were slumped on cardboard boxes in the middle of my flat, dishevelled and slightly sweaty, trying to keep our eyes open to finish rolling vine leaves; it was 11pm. A long hard day and a huge amount of work.

It was important to do justice though, to the stellar ingredients that people donated and I must say a heartfelt thank you to all of them.

On the food front, Riverford Organics donated fruit, vegetables and herbs; Barber’s donated some of their delicious cheddar (which went into a cheese and onion tart, biscuits, scones and pretty much anything else) and Maryland Farmhouse butter. Rachel’s Organic sent milk, yoghurt (a whole lot of yoghurt), crème fraiche and cream, and Pong Cheese a selection of their cheeses including a Camembert, a goat’s cheese, a cheddar and a Bath Soft Cheese. They went into quiches and tarts.

Green and Blacks sent their organic chocolate for our super squidgy brownies and marbled chocolate meringues, and for the cake making, we had flour kindly donated by Kate Thal at Green and Blue Wines and unrefined sugar from Billington’s. The eggs were really special; old breed Burford Browns, Old Cotswold Legbar and duck eggs from Clarence Court. The colour of the yolks was intensely amber. Sally Butcher from Persepolis stepped in on the nuts and honey side of things – we had coffee and walnut cake, sunflower seeded biscuits and cherry and ground almond cake, plus some stuffed vine leaves with raisins. In our cakes and on our scones we spread clotted cream from Rodda’s and Fraser Doherty’s fruity Super Jam and I must mention that they were speedily and expertly mixed by my new pride and joy, which Kitchenaid sent to ease the burden on my puny arm muscles. She is the newest sparkliest shade of grape; I’ve named her Gilberta.

The ever brilliant Paganum kindly donated 3 amazing topsides of Malhamdale Belted Galloway beef, which we used in roast beef and horseradish sandwiches, plus a Thai-style salad dressed with chilli, fish sauce, coriander and the like. Yianni of Meatwagon fame sorted me out with chicken drumsticks from his butcher and of course I had to jerk some, although I managed to rein myself in slightly and Tikka the rest for variety.

On the drinks side of things, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of people who wanted to get involved. We had loose leaf tea from Lahloo, plus a lot of booze for those feeling fruity. Russian Standard Vodka donated 3 bottles for vodka iced teas; The Ship, a brilliant pub in Wandsworth run by a great bunch of people sent over Pimm’s plus all the trimmings – very summery. On the beer and fizzy front we had Moritz and Rothaus beer from The Beer Merchants, there was sweet, fruity cider from Sweden (Rekorderlig) plus Young’s London Gold, Adnams bitter, Red Stripe lager and Crabbie’s alcoholic ginger beer which everyone loved. It’s available in quite a few pubs around London now – I urge you to give it a try.

For those who avoid the bubbles, there was vino from my new local, The Victoria Inn, the owner of which helped out in more ways than one throughout the whole event, even ferrying over another Kitchenaid in his car. His motto is “the pub is hub”. Bloody nice bloke. Casillero del Diablo provided more wine and there was stonking chilled sherry from Tio Pepe. I think we can agree that there was something for everyone!

To round off the feast, some Bompas and Parr iris jellies with ambergris (that’s whale vomit to you and me) and candied orange from their Complete History of Food event. We wibbled them around and giggled. Hic! They were seriously boozy with Courvoisier. I love everything Bompas and Parr do and you should too.

And last, but by no means least, I’d like to say a really huge thank you to my mate Lizzie. She worked like a dog during that 13 hour cook off and basically kept me going throughout. I could not have done it without her so thank you Mabs, for being a damn good friend. We make a brilliant team.

So that’s it! We used 40 eggs, 3kg flour, 4kg sugar, an absolute shedload of cheese and a whole bottle of washing up liquid (not in the cakes you understand). My friend Rachel made that amazing bunting from my dodgy old clothes which is, quite frankly, nothing short of a miracle. The only slight disappointment was that more of the neighbours didn’t turn up but hey, what can I do; we put on an amazing spread and all they had to do is walk outside – if that doesn’t encourage them then nothing will. The ones that did turn up were absolutely lovely though and I invited a load of my mates anyway so the whole thing went off Peckham stylee. Today is a bit of a come down but I’ll get over it; I’ve already started thinking about a new project to sink my teeth into.

Of course the whole idea was to raise money for Maggie’s and that we did. The donations are still trickling in and we’ve already reached the £200 mark so I think that makes the event a success. Thanks so much to everyone who donated money. You did good. I’ll leave you with a little vid of the cook-off and the lunch itself. Cheers!

It’s getting close now. I’m really excited and tomorrow is all about The Big Cook Off. I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the generosity of complete strangers; a gent who runs the ED Warehouse saw my appeal on The East Dulwich Forum and dropped off some perfectly sized tables and catering tea pots; a charming lady brought round some old plates she didn’t need and on Tuesday I found myself in student digs in Elephant ridding some departing graduates of unwanted cutlery.

Here’s a little vid featuring some of the other locals who’ve kindly donated their wares. At this rate, with such cool people involved, we’re going to raise a good whack for Maggie’s. Big Up Peckham!