Tag Archives: local catering

Local, local, local!!!

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Our fledgling outside catering business, based in Totnes has been focused from the outset on using local Devon suppliers and being true to our tagline ‘Conscious Catering’. The Kitchen Table has been up and running now for more than half a year! Unbelievable! We’ve spent that time learning, meeting, eating, cooking, learning some more and really getting to grips with the business. I think Hannah, myself and KT (as we affectionately refer to our little business) are trully becoming bosom buddies! We have several repeat clients and a growing and diverse client base. It’s so pleasing to meet new people, plan their business and community meetings, public and private events, celebrations, weddings and family festivities with them and to come up with menu’s which sing the praises of our local growers and producers in tune with the seasons.

This last month has seen us hosting our very first (of many!) Kitchen Table conversation cafe’s hosted by Embercombe which was a rip-roaring success and we’re so excited to be planning the next one already for July – watch this space to find out who will be hosting the summer conversation!

It’s also seen us involved in organising a coffee festival in Totnes, to celebrate the towns independent cafe’s and send a clear message to any conglomerates, that we’re doing just fine thank you!! This festival is a joyous celebration of our diverse and ungentrified high street (as well as an opportunity to drink a lot of coffee!). Hannah rocked the airwaves today, talking on Totnes FM about the message behind the festival and she’s played a key role in organising the exciting barrista competition being held in the Civic Square Sunday 20th May.

In addition, this rainy spring has seen The Kitchen Table doing a trialCannellini, local purple sprouting broccoli and black olive salad run of supplying Sacks Too on the Plains with healthy, affordable and delicious lunch options.. each week we’ve made a scrumptious quiche, sumptious salad and sensational dip and veg sticks! They’ve been selling well and I’m excited that people have something healthy and creative for lunch – because though we all love a pasty, it’s nice to treat our bodies sometimes too.

So, I’m really enjoying this season of collaboration, mutual benefit and support. We’re in the process of putting a suppliers page together so you can see some of the wonderful people, projects and businesses that supply us to use their delicious produce in our cooking.

If you want a sample of our food, why not pop into Sacks Too Wed-Fri this Wild garlic, nettle and Sharpham brie quicheweek and try a wild garlic, nettle and Sharpham brie quiche, a cannellini bean, purple sprouting broccoli (grown just outside Totnes) and black olive salad or a mildly spiced carrot and red lentil dip with carrot sticks?

Also, next month we’ll be at The Dartington Food Fair, so come say hi?!

localism

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It has been my quest over the last few years to eat locally (locavorism). The transition has been slow and comfortable – I haven’t forced onto myself unattainable or impossible ideals and have simply changed some of the choices I made. One choice-change seems to lead to another and each ‘difficulty’ overcome makes the journey easier. The greatest gift this process has afforded me is an awareness of the seasons and of taste! That a tomato picked locally and recently tastes a million times better than one which has travelled from afar in the depths of winter was a wonderful revelation, mostly because I have fallen in love with various vegetables which before I may have been indifferent to. I have discovered the ‘true’ taste of things!
So, as I’ve changed my shopping and therefore cooking habits over time, the reality of the system with which we live shows its weaknesses and highlights my dependence on certain foods. It would never occur to me to not have rice, ginger, pulses etc in my life? So, again, choices and decisions have to be made and I limit those foods and source the ones which have been shipped rather than flown and where possible are fairly traded. But what about the foods which should come from here, but seem hard to find?
The food stuff I am currently interested in is flour. Wheat grows here, barley, oats, spelt can all be grown in the UK yet there seems to be a lack of local, to Totnes, flour. I recently learned that you can’t actually buy bread flour that is 100% British! Because our flour isn’t glutinous enough. I wonder, does that mean that our bread is different nowadays? Or is the process by which we bake bread changed?

I’d now like to explore the feasibilty/ possibilty/ need/ desire for grains to be grown and milled here in South Devon. I’d love to get some people who grow, have milled, eat bread, want to grow, want a mill, have a business that uses flour etc etc to come together to discuss whether or not Totnes can see that happening sometime in the future. Wouldn’t it be exciting if we imported one less commodity? And such a well used and diverse crop. So watch this space or better still, contact me if you’re interested in entering the debate.