Food Festival Magic:

The wonderful Dartmouth Food Festival is almost upon us.  Not only do some amazing local producers line the streets and fill the marquees with their wares but we also have a long list of local and guest chefs coming to do demonstrations and tastings and talks.  We look forward to this week in our calendar with a mixture of excitement and panic - have we remembered everything, did we forget to book a celebrity chef into a hotel, forget to order the whole pigs from the butchers for the suckling pig rolls, order enough coffee to keep the chefs awake for the longer than usual shifts?  But with the hard work of such a close knit and friendly community and a great committed committee it all comes together and just gets bigger and better each year.  If you can get down here then Dartmouth is the foodie paradise of the South West and for a whole week next week creates an extra little bit of foodie magic.  We have Mark Hix, Valentine Warner, Fergus Henderson, Claire Ptak and Henry Dimbleby all joining us to host events at the Seahorse plus we'll be serving the tastiest suckling pig rolls on the embankment (as long as we did remember to order the pigs!).  Hope to see you.

Cracking Crab Party on the Embankment :

It's been a year since I started my campaign to get visitors to South Devon to eat our fabulous crab whilst they are here. It's gone really well and people are enjoying this great seafood more and more. I think the crab down here is the best in the world, Cromer will argue theirs and so will Scotland and so will Cornwall but the fact remains I've tasted them all and South Devon is best, bigger sweeter and the brown meat from one of our large cock crabs is hard to beat.

On August the 7th I've organised with Visit South Devon a street party to celebrate this magnificent crustacea. Up to 500 people will be sitting on the pavement on the embankment in Dartmouth cracking into our local crab and drinking our festival Muscadet, it will be a fantastic day and a real celebration. Come along tickets are £15 and you can get them from Visit South Devon's website. See you there.  

Cooking the books:

I've started the photoshoot for my new book yesterday. It's great seeing all your recipes come to life.  I've done the book on easy recipes , it's just a collection of my favorites that can be done in minutes, ideal for the cook who wants to get a few more recipes in their personal repertoire. Chris Terry the photographer I work with is just a dude, he knows my food and can really bring out the best in it, I love working with him. Today we we're off to the beach to cook but rain has stopped play so a day in the kitchen cooking lobster, squid, mackerel and crab......

Fishy Tales from Wales:

I'm at Pembrokeshire fish week for a few days , it's a great event and seafood is celebrated here for a week. Tomorrow I'll be fishing with Matt Tebbutt, Hixy and Val warner, then it's off to the Torch theatre for a cook up of the catch for the audience, should be a great day. Wales has some great fish, it usually stays local as the nearest big auction markets are on the south coast, I'm sure there would be a great oportunity for the fish here if it could get direct to market, there's some smashing hake, crab, Pembroke prawns, mackerel and lobster , love to get my hands on it....