March and April, as any gardener or recipient of local vegetable box deliveries, will tell you are the boring months. Spring is in the air, we’re tired of roots, leeks and English apples have come to an end. We’re craving young greens and fresh fruits and yet they’re hard to come by.  In fact, my best source of greens over the last few weeks have been nettles from my garden and wild garlic from a nearby woods!

This year is perhaps worst than most. The exceptional rain in April and the prolonged cold and unpredictable weather means growers are struggling. The Guardian reported on Friday that although the English asparagus season begins officially on 1 May it will be another fortnight before there is a full supply available to retailers and supermarkets.

Yet at Snape Maltings’ monthly Farmers Market, my favourite market in East Suffolk, Newbourne Farm had a limited supply of asparagus grown on the banks of the River Deben near Woodbridge. They also had zingy green salad leaves, rocket and red and green stemmed spinach. And much to my children’s delight strawberries, which I’m sure were grown under glass, but were none the less delicious!

We took our asparagus home and ate it very plainly with crusty home made bread. The strawberries became the centrepiece of creamy Victoria sponge made by currently cake obsessed daughter!

As Adnams’ head brewer, Fergus Fitzgerald, explained Ghost Ship has been a seasonal beer produced for Halloween for the last couple of years, but it’s been exceptionally popular and will now be available all year round. It’s a pale ale, made with an American Citra hop which gives it a strongly citrus flavour. Fergus says he met an American hop grower a few years back and was so inspired by Citra he brought a load without knowing how he was going to use them. The beer uses  a selection of malts, Pale Ale, Rye Crystal and Cara.

But this wasn’t any normal launch event of speeches and photographers, Fergus’s speech was interrupted by a man running in an urging everyone outside to see the ghostly goings on.  Armed with a Ghost Ship cocktail (with Adnams own Limoncello enhancing the beers citric flavours), we ventured out into the drizzle to watch Adnams brewery transformed into a Ghost Ship by a light and sound projection. Windows exploded, ghouls wailed and the brewery appeared to rock on the heavy waves, then the full moon appeared, the sea calmed and we were left to enjoy the sea shanties and some good beer!

You can meet Adnams’ Head Brewer, Fergus Fitzgerald, and learn about the hops and malts he uses in their range of beers on Beer Safari on 23 June.

You can watch the video here: The Return of the Ghost Ship

We had set off in search of lobsters on our regular Seafood in a Day trip to Orford. It was an inspiring spring morning with the sun breaking through the clouds and a sense that summer wasn’t so far away after all. On our boat we rounded Havergate Island, the RSPB Reserve and when the skipper called out to us to see the seals. As the boat drew closer the seals stared back at us waiting to see our next move, as the boat got a little too close for their comfort all but one bobbed into the water where they could hide, but still keep an eye on us.

Charting our course.

I’ve seen one or two seals in the water on this trip before, but never so many or been able to get so close. They were there, apparently, because just a few days before the River Ore had been swarming with herring and the seals had come to feed.

We found our lobsters as well as many crabs (edible and shore crabs) and a handful of whelks, before returning to dry land to visit the Pinney family’s oyster beds, smokehouse and lobster pits at Butley Creek. I think most people on the boat had come to see the lobsters but for me the seals were undoubtedly the highlight of the trip.

A Suffolk lobster.

We were lucky enough to have a writer (Jake Wallis Simmons) and photographer from The Telegraph with us on this Seafood Safari. You can read the feature here: A Seafood Safari: lobsters and oysters in darkest East Anglia

We were absolutely thrilled to host the first ever recording of Kitchen Cabinet. Our beautiful timber-framed barn was filled with an audience of 70 food lovers to hear Chairman, Jay Rayner, and an illustrious panel of food experts answer their questions. 

The producers hope that Kitchen Cabinet will become an institution like Gardeners Question Time, which has been broadcast for over 64 years on Radio 4! We certainly hope so and that Food Safari will become a small part of radio history having hosted the first ever show in Suffolk.

The panel was made up of Stefan Gates, well known for his BBC children’s food programme Gastronauts,  Dr Annie Gray a fantastically knowledgeable and humorous food historian, Angela Malik,  Chef and tutor, brought the influence of her love of spices and the use of the ‘five tastes’ into the discussions, and Rachel McCormack offered creative insights on Catalan cooking. 

For this first episode of Kitchen Cabinet in Suffolk, Jay Rayner fielded questions about game and road kill, how to jug hare. There was much humour on the topic of how to cope with the notorious side effects of eating Jerusalem Artichokes (lovage seeds are the answer according to Angela Malik) and a few low jokes about Anthony Worral Thompson’s recent shop lifting escapade!

The first episode of Kitchen Cabinet will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 3pm on Tuesday 7 February and followed by three other programmes recorded at Wiltons Music Hall in London, Melton Mowbray, home of the pork pie, and the Rye Scallop Festival.

In June 2011 BBC1′s Country Tracks came to Suffolk to make a programme with Helen Skelton, of Blue Peter. Helen a visited historic Bury St Edmunds, a Suffolk Punch farm and joined us on a Seafood Food Safari in Orford!

We took Helen and the crew out on the river Ore at Orford fishing for lobsters and crabs. It was a typical Suffolk day, bright skies and calm on the river. Helen asked me all about Food Safari, what inspired me to start it and why I thought people were so interested in finding out more about where food comes from. 

When we got to the lobster pots, Helen was determined to have a go pulling them off the river bed. The boys on the boat, obviously thought it was ‘man’s work’, but once they heard that Helen had kayaked 2010 miles up the Amazon for Sports Relief they let her try. The pots are really heavy, caked in silt and water but Helen was up to the challenge! We caught a handful of smallish oysters!

Back on dry land, I took Helen and the team down to Butley Creek to meet Bill Pinney, son of the founder of Pinney’s of Orford. Like our normal, Seafood in a Day experiences, Bill showed us the oyster beds and explained all about how oysters are cultivated here. We also met some of the larger lobsters caught by the Pinney family’s fishing boats off the wrecks in the North Sea.

Then we visited the Pinney’s family restaurant, the much loved Butley Orford Oysterage (which recently received a glowing review from Jay Rayner in The Observer!). Helen had never eaten lobster or oysters before! Bill gave her a quick lesson in opening oysters and getting the meat out of lobster before tasting them.

You can watch a clip of Helen trying her first oyster here: Country Tracks Suffolk

Let’s just say Helen and I share the same opinion on oysters – but watching her try them made great TV! Lobster on the other hand everyone loved, just as well that Pinney’s had some  bigger specimens than those we caught ourselves!

So it didn’t take much to persuade me to travel from our home in the far east of England to the (almost) far west to go to Cheese School in Somerset. Founded by food and drink writer, Fiona Beckett, and Jess Trethowan of Trethowan’s Dairy – renowned for their superb Gorwydd Caerphilly.

Cheese School was set in the beautiful and atmospheric Walled Garden at Barley Wood Walled Garden at Wrington, home of The Ethicurean, winners of the Guardian’s Sustainable Restaurant Award. In a rustic tent, dressed by Toast, we sat down to a day of  serious cheese consumption! 

First we heard from three artisan cheese makers, Todd Trethowan and Joe Scheider the creator of Stichelton who talked about the artisanal process of making cheese. Tim Homewood of Homewood Cheese gave demonstration of how make a simple curd cheese with ewe’s milk  with just, rennet and sea salt. 

The day was very relaxed and convivial! Eased along by plenty of cheese to eat and a fantastic beer and cheese versus wine and cheese stand off. This session led by the Bristol Beer Factory Company and Avery’s Wine Merchant in Bristol left us nicely lubricated for the afternoon! I’m not sure whether wine or beer one overall, but I think the lesson learned was that beer will cut and contrast the cheese, while wine subtly enhances and compliments it.

Fiona Beckett inspired us to think creatively about cheese boards and put these beautiful elegant boards together using autumn leaves.

While Tom Herbert, of Hobbs House Bakery, now famously one of the Fabulous Baker Brothers on Channel 4, talked about matching different styles of bread with cheese and it was great to be able to take a scoop of their 55 year old sourdough home to bake with. Though it has to be said that my favourite discovery of the day was the Peter’s Yard Sweedish Crisp Breads.

Cheese School was my perfect day! A perfect excuse to consume a huge quantity of some of the best English cheese and drink some excellent beer and wine, all in the name of learning more about cheese!

Gerard King from James Fenner on Vimeo.

Harvest is a food and music festival which has run for several years in Suffolk with the support of television presenter, Jimmy Doherty, Jamie Oliver’s best mate from school! The food side of the festival featured demonstrations from such illustrious names as Yottam Ottolenghi, Mary Berry, Monty Don and Matthew Fort.

Food Safari teamed up with Olive magazine to hold a programme of cookery demonstrations with chefs Madalene Bonvini-Hamel and Ross Pike of the British Larder near Woodbridge and Mark Lloyd, chef and wild food expert, with his own pub The Appleford, near Oxford. All three chefs demonstrated dishes using wild food and game from the Wild Meat Company.

We were even lucky enough to be given two truly Giant Puffballs to cook with.

Our foraging expeditions focussed on hedgerows and weeds on Saturday and woods and fungi on Sunday. We took almost 50 people in each group and added a couple of extra sessions to meet the demand!

As most people know the organisers of Harvest, Big Wheel, have recently gone into administration. I don’t know yet what this means for the future of Harvest at Jimmy’s. If rumour is correct, Jimmy and his team will be taking it in hand themselves to produce another great food and music festival in September 2012. If they do, Food Safari will definitely be there!

For a taste of Harvest at Jimmy’s watch this piece from the BBC Look East >

Since I set up Food Safari I’ve been keen to run a bread course but I was unable to find a baker who I felt had what it takes to be a Food Safari Partner. Until I met, through Twitter initially, Chris Brennan an artisan baker based in Orford, near Woodbridge.

Chris’s route into baking is untraditional! Born and raised in the Caribbean, after a long career with IBM around the world, he retired from and moved to Orford. In 2003 he became fascinated by baking and started producing small batches with the aim of perfecting his sourdough.  He’s learnt from master bakers around the world including the incredible San Francisco Baking Institute, which I’d personally love the chance to go to!

Chris’s excitement about baking real bread exclusively from simple, natural ingredients led him to start selling bread at Orford’s weekly Country Market where he has been selling bread, baguettes, and pastries for over a year. Overwhelmed by how well the bread and pastries were received by villagers and visitors alike, Chris decided to open a bakery.

And after months of careful restoration to the building, and researching the best ingredients and equipment, The Pump Street Bakery in Orford opened its doors to the public last Saturday (November 20, 2010)  in a landmark building in Orford’s pretty Market Place.  Chris’s daughter, Joanna, who had been looking for an opportunity to work with food, has joined the family business and is running the shop and cafe.

The bakery itself is just on the edge of the village of Orford in a stunning conversion of an old dairy building,  overlooking the River Ore, Orfordness and the RSPB’s Havergate Island. No expense has been spared in kitting it out with state-of the art ovens, chillers, pastry rollers and mixers.

It’s here that that the new Food Safari course, Artisan Bread in a day will take place. Chris will share his enthusiasm for baking real bread from natural ingredients and show you how he creates different styles of breads, from baguettes to walnut & cherry, using a natural sourdough. You will learn to shape, prove and bake a sourdough; and see the tools and techniques used by artisan bakers and find out how to adapt them for home.

We’ll enjoy a delicious seasonal lunch in Pump Street Bakery’s stylish cafe in Orford village. At the end of the day you will take home some of the breads and pastries you have made as well as some recipes and tips for home-baking.  For full details of the course visit the Food Safari web site.

Orford has always been a food lover’s destination – now there is another reason to go! For more information about the Pump Street Bakery please visit their web site http://www.pumpstreetbakery.com/

Update 2012: Artisan Bread in a Day will now run at our new Food Safari HQ on July 22 and November 24 with our own Food Safari tutors. In addition we are running tours of the Pump Street Bakery on April 27 and November 23. For full details:

Artisan Bread in a Day >

Artisan Bakery Tour >

On our Food Safari visits to Blythburgh Pork I am always fascinated to see how many, educated and foodie people are confused by the difference between organic, free range, outdoor reared and outdoor bred. The RSPCA and the pork industry are working to standardise these terms and encourage the supermarkets to adopt them – Pork Provenance. In this case, the Advertising Standards Authority felt that because consumers didn’t understand the terms, they would uphold the complaints about the campaign.

At Blythburgh, Alastair Butler, takes the time to explain the terms clearly.  Blythburgh is one of only independent four commercial free-range pork farms in the country. The pigs are outdoors from birth until the end. Organic pigs are reared to the same standard but must be on land that has not been sprayed or fertilized for at least three years. All their food must also be organic. Alastair explains that the additional issues around the cost of the feed, versus the taste benefit, means that the commercial organic pork industry is practically non-existent.

Outdoor-bred, the term used by Waitrose means that the sows are kept outdoors and the piglets spend their first four weeks outdoors until they are weaned and taken indoors to be fattened.

Outdoor-reared is a loser term and means that the pigs are outdoors for APPROXIMATELY half their lives.

A visit to Blythburgh gives you the chance to see for yourself how happy the pigs are, and how they are able to behave naturally, playing, foraging or just snuggling together in their huts. After tasting the meat you also understand how their breeding produces better tasting meat – so good in fact that it is used by Mr Blumenthal himself at the Fat Duck!

So you see, there is a delicious irony in him fronting an ad saying outdoor bred pork produces better tasting meat, when in fact for his restaurant he choses the best Blythburgh Free Range Pork!

For a more light-hearted insight into our trips to Blythburgh Pork and butchery workshops I recommend Adrian Melrose’s blog:
Review of Free Range Pig in a Day

For more information about Blythburgh Pork visit: www.freerangepork.co.uk

Food Safari’s next Free Range Pig in a Day takes place on Saturday 7 May, 2011.  Limited to 12 people so book early.  Food Safari