Good Food Show 2008 - Part 1

Well I am back, and slowly recovering after a long day spent happily at the Good Food Show on Thursday in Birmingham, courtesy of Miele (Note to self = don't wear new boots!). Please see their website miele for further information on their full product range, I am now in need of persuading our landlord to get a Miele fridge, complete with in-door lighting!

As a food blogger, I jumped at the opportunity to go along and enjoy privileged access to the show and try lots of lovely food and drink and also the chance to put faces to other blogs.

After meeting with the other bloggers and the team from Miele, the day started with going around the stalls and testing lots of lovely foods and drinks. Though on reflection trying hot chilli sauce at 10.30am was possibly not the wisest of decisions I have ever made, brother - guess what your Christmas present is this year! I chose 3 sauces in a gift pack from Eureka Food's consisting of haberno, birds eye and chipotle chillies! Luckily there was a stall round the next corner selling a delicious cordial called Blush, which was very refreshing!

I tried Limoncello a few years back and it wasn't love at first sip, however one of my favourite liqueur companies called Condessa, have just launched their own Limoncello, which was really delicious. Almost like smooth liquid lemon curd, but with a nice kick! Unfortunately I couldn't carry everything and didnt manage to make it back to the stall to purchase some, will have to remember to plan better next time around!

One of the main highlights for me was briefly meeting the lovely James Martin, I am now amongst many (female!) friends and family who are green with envy! Of course, I managed to embarrass myself by temporarily forgetting my name whilst staring at him but I was not the only one, not mentioning any names...! I have now in my possession a signed copy of The Collection, which will have pride of place on my bookshelf!

As part of the day out, we enjoyed a delicious lunch backstage with the group of other bloggers, who were also with Miele - It was really good to meet up with you all. I never had tried prawns with parmesan before but it worked really well and looked impressive as a starter, will definately be stealing that idea! The pudding was also chocolate goodness of a rich chocolate and mandarin mousse with butterscotch sauce, mm mm mm. the only downside was that I was so full I couldn't face trying much else!

In the supertheatre show, James Martin cooked Teryaki mackerel fillets with pickled red onion and green bean salsa, I will definitely be trying this out, the green bean pickle in particular sounds really good as I love anything pickled! He then did a breaded veal chop with celeriac and potato puree and herb spatzle. Is the first time I have seen spatzle made and it looked interesting…For dessert he did thin slices of puff pastry, sandwiched with mascarpone cheese, raspberries and finished with spun sugar, which was hilarious as he borrowed some poor chap’s walking stick to do it with! The dessert did look gorgeous though I am not sure I would make spun sugar in the same way.

After James show had ended, they allowed us to pop up on stage and be nosy :

Both me and a couple of other bloggers also got tickets to see Gordon Ramsey in the supertheatre, he was in fine form and it was great to see him cook live, though we had seats in row Z it was still worth it! He was accompanied by Mark Sergeant, they make a good double act! Between them there was borlotti bean minestrone, a dish which will be appearing soon in my kitchen! Also fresh tuna steak with black beans which also looked tasty and followed up with caramelized plums.