Crediton Food Festival

Saturday 16 June, 10.30am-4pm
Local produce stalls and demonstrations
Cookery demonstrations:
10.30am – Festival opened by Mel Stride MP and His Honour the Mayor plus demo by Frank Letch
11.45am – Gretchen Oldland from Woolsgrove Cookery School
12.45am – Knife Skills Masterclass with Christopher Archambauld, Head Chef Southernhay House Hotel, Exeter
1.45pm – Lucy Downe and Elliot Hole, Queen Elizabeth’s Academy BTEC Hospitality and Catering Students
2.45pm – Announcing the winner of the Primary School Healthy Recipe Competition and demonstration by Tim Harris, The Devon Chef
3.30pm – Raffle drawn
Stalls include:
Belgrave Pantry, Bite Me!, Caprine Capers, Crediton Coffee, Curworthy Cheese, Devonshire Made, Hat-a-Cake, Higher Hacknell Organic, Isca Ales, Linscombe Farm, Milklink, Norsworthy Goats, Oakcroft, Pancake Bar, Parsnipship, Redhill Apple Juice, Riverside Goat’s Cheese, Ruth’s Real Food, Somneuk Thai Food, Stevie B’s Bakery, Sustainable Crediton, Three Little Pigs, Tried & Tasted

Saturday 16 June, 8pm-11pm
Festival of local drink
Compering and comedy by Richard Ward.
8.00pm – Vibrant young local band Liar In The Light
8.30pm – Barny Butterfield talks about the art of tasting
9.15pm – Whacky indie folk from Starkadders
10.15pm – Edgy jazz fusion from Marcus Chaney Band
11.00pm – Close
Stalls include:
Crediton Coffee, Exeter Brewery, Isca Ales, Pancake Bar, Sandford Orchards, Somneuk Thai Food, Three Little Pigs, Yearlstone Vineyard

Sunday 17 June, 12 noon-4pm
The Big Sunday Lunch
Freely available tables and chairs. Buy produce from surrounding stalls to make up or add to your picnic.
Entertainment
12.15am – Sharp acoustic jazz from Gina Tomkins and Alistair Toms
1.00pm – Sparky world grooves by Glen and Anita
1.45pm – Enigmatic, original singer-songwriter Annie Rew-Shaw
2.30pm – Classic blues and European tunes from Kloonfish
2.45pm – Raffle drawn
3.15pm – Acoustic blues and much more from Left Sock Fever
Stalls include:
Burcher Eggs, Crediton Coffee, Esh Café, Good Grog an Grub, Hat-a-Cake, In a Pickle, Ruth’s Real Food, Sustainable Crediton,Three Little Pigs, Treloars, Pancake Bar, Somneuk Thai Food

Crediton Food Festival has joined the digital age. Follow us @CredFoodFest
But bear with us as we train our thumbs!

Christopher Archambault is joining us on Saturday 16 June to  give a fascinating session on buying and using knives.

Knife skills!

He’ll help us avoid the marketing hype when buying kitchen knives; we’ll end up wiser about how they are made and looked after; he’ll end with a chopping demonstration!

Chris is head chef at the Southernhay House Hotel in Exeter. In his down time he is a food photographer, food writer, trainer, product developer and demonstrator.  Chris arrived in Devon early 2005, fresh from a long tenure with London’s Caprice Holdings and eager to get back to the source of fantastic produce.  Chris sums up his style as, ‘simple with a personal touch.’  ‘I rejoice in the fact that we live and work in one of the most naturally beautiful parts of the world bursting with flavour from coast to coast.  Ever more populated with producers, suppliers and chefs that share common concerns.’  You can catch up with Chris in his blog (www.hardboiledchef.blogspot.com), on his personal site (www.christopherarchambault.com) and monthly in Devon Life Magazine.

Chris Archambault

Another huge thank you, this time to Quickes Traditional for sponsoring this year’s primary school competition.
All thirteen local primary schools have been invited to enter recipes/s for a healthy lunch that uses local produce.
Three winning schools will receive a book token, one will also get a visit to Quickes and have their recipe/s demonstrated at the Food Festival.
We hope to publish all the entries in a booklet after the Festival.
Mary Quicke and Ruth Beckley (of Ruth’s Real Food) will be our judges.
For full details download here.

As a result of the generous sponsorship of Ashgrove Kitchens the 2012 Crediton Food Festival is now well on the way to offering another wonderful weekend of food, drink and music on 16 and 17 June.

Planning is now underway for a weekend Crediton Food Festival on 16 and 17 June 2012.
Please share your thoughts, volunteer your time, or flag up your interest – we’d love to hear from you.
A comment to this post will get to us.

The 2011 Big Sunday Lunch was enjoyed by close on 300 people under a cloudy (but dry) sky, surrounded by yummy stalls and uplifted by terrific music.

Thanks to the food providers and to the sponsors (Ashgrove Kitchens, Three Little Pigs, Claremont Marquees, Milklink and the Crediton Arts Centre).

Thanks to all of you who came, sat, ate and chatted – young and old, resident and visitor, repeat ‘offender’ or first time sampler.

Here are some photos (thanks to photographer Paul Cartwright):

From noon until 3pm Crediton Town Square will be alive with the sound of munching and music!

Get together a group of friends or family and grab a (FREE) table for the best picnic of the year. Even if you bring your own we guarantee you’ll be tempted by something from one of the stalls.

All the stalls this year are geared to providing you with delicious things to eat or drink then and there: local ham and salami, jacket potatoes, hot meals, salads, cheese, cider, beer, lemonade, Eton Mess and other puddings, ice cream, fudge and chocolate.

Sleepwalkers and friends will playing their inimitable music; Creation Station is offering a craft activity for children and/or they could have their face painted (small charge applies for children’s activities).

Huge thanks to Ashgrove Kitchens who are supporting the Crediton Food Festival for the third year; and to Milklink who are sponsors of the month long Summer in the Square – for which the Big Sunday Lunch is the launch event.

Stallholders to date:

Three Little Pigs (bar and cooked food); Traditional Jacket Potatoes; Axons Fruit Wine; Brambles (cakes and cream teas); Cairney’s Eton Mess and puddings; CISCO’s taste of Poland; Devon Crumbly Slab Fudge; Ice Cream Trike (Rookbeare ices); Milklink cheeses; Ruth’s Real Food (hot food and desserts); Salmonhutch Charcuterie (home produced hams and salamis); Sandford Orchards (cider and soft drinks).

The Big Sunday Lunch on Sunday 5th June 2011 is the launch event for Crediton’s Summer in the Square (5-25 June 2011).

Between 12 noon and 3.00pm there’ll be yummy local food stalls so  you can build up the perfect picnic (or add to your own)! There’ll be tables and chairs in the centre of the Square at which to eat  and entertainment so that you and your family and friends can relax and enjoy the ambience. For the children there’ll be face painting and a craft activity.

If you would like to volunteer your time and skills to help organise, participate, set up or clear away then let us know. To send us a message and your contact details then click on the title of this post and fill in the comment box.