An amazing day at the BBC Good Food Show, part 2

Click Here for part 1

After a morning of sampling and shopping we were taken backstage for a fantastic VIP lunch.

A beautifully presented prawn dish for the starter.To follow was a selection of cold meats, poached salmon, salad and bread. Not so photogenic but no less tasty.And finally an elegant chocolate dessert with caramel sauce, yum!

Then came what we'd all been waiting for, a private book signing with the great James Martin himself. Each of us was presented with a signed copy of his book, The Collection, mine now proudly adorns my coffee table! He then rushed off to do yet another cookery demonstration, while we had some more time to look around before taking our place in the supertheatre...

The book signing
(photo courtesy of Forever Better)

My own signed copy!

The supertheatre was huge, over 2000 people packed in to watch James Martin prepare a three course meal. Teryaki mackerel was followed by bread-crumbed veal chops fried in an obscene amout of butter! (health concious he isn't!) and finally a mouth-watering dessert of layered pastry and berries with mascarpone and raspberry sauce. As you would expect it all looked fantastic and was no doubt scoffed backstage as soon as the demonstration was over.

Not only is James Martin a great chef he proved he was a great entertainer too, he had everybody laughing as he picked on an unsuspecting volunteer, using her to demonstrate where the different cuts of meat come from! Later he used an old man's walking stick to make his trademark spun sugar, the audience loved it!A few of us stayed behind afterwards to watch Gordon Ramsay who, working with Mark Sergeant made a great team. As you would expect Gordon made good use of his favourite word, in fact the show came with a warning beforehand! They were both fantastic to watch, even though we had seats way back in row Z!

But onto the food, first up was a hearty minestrone soup served with garlic toasts, it looked very homely and is a recipe I am very keen to try. Interestingly he used parmesan instead of salt which I thought was a brilliant idea. Next up was a tuna steak served with refried beans, I love fresh tuna but am never quite sure what to do with it so this was great for me. To finish he made some simple caramelised plums.

And with that it was all over, the time had come for us to go home, I could quite happily have spent hours longer wondering around! Thanks again to Miele, ForeverBetter and 1000Heads for a fantastic day!

A beautiful tin of chocolates give to us by Miele and my VIP pass

An amazing day at the BBC Good Food Show, part 1

The BBC Good Food Show is nothing short of heaven for a foodie like me. With hundreds of exhibitors, plenty of free samples, cookery demonstrations and more celebrity chefs than you can shake a big pointy stick at, for food lovers The Good Food Show is THE place to be.
When show sponsor Miele (pronounced mealer, I'm told), the people at foreverbetter.co.uk and 1000heads sent me an invitation to the show with a VIP pass I had to think about it for all of a nanosecond before saying yes please! A group of food bloggers from the UK were invited, in no particular order they were:

Becky - Girl Interrupted Eating

Francesca - 101 Things

Nicola - Cherrapeno

Katie - Apple and Spice

Anne - Anne's Kitchen
Joanna - Joanna's Food

Here we all are posing in front of the Meile stand!

My day started at 5.30 in the morning as I had an early train to catch. Once I arrived I met up with the other bloggers and my hosts for the day, Colin, Kaz, Juliette and Molly then it was into the show!

Before lunch we had some time to explore, we ate and drank our way around the free samples admiring what was on offer and chatting to the producers. The scale of the place was breathtaking, with over 600 stands it was hard to know where to begin!

Doves farm had an interesting selection of bread mixes, flour and cakes. Although I don't often use prepared mixes I couldn't resist the Ezekiel bread mix, apparently it's inspired by the prophet himself!
Munchy seeds were selling a fantastic selection of flavoured roasted seeds, the vanilla pumpkin seeds were especially good.
I'll admit it was the name that attracted me to the Grumpy Mule Coffee stand but their coffee was fantastic, some of the best I've ever had.
It wasn't just food on offer, there was some fantastic cooking equipment too.
Do I make myself clear!? A very coulourful selection of liquorice.

Coming up in part 2, I have a fantastic VIP lunch, meet James Martin and watch Gordon Ramsay do his thing in the supertheatre.