Review: Edinburgh Coffee Festival 2016

Having missed the inaugural Edinburgh Coffee Festival last year, I was excited to get along to this year's event held at Summerhall as it had outgrown Mansfield Traquair. Previous engagements meant I arrived quite late and had missed all the talks and workshops which was a shame.

I was assured the coffee cocktail workshop involved many delicious cocktails, so will have to look out for that returning next year!

It was great to chat to some familiar faces, such as Mr Eion and the folk at Burr & Co. where I'd recently been for a lovely lunch. As well as get to meet some new faces, such as the folk behind Alfie, who are using an air drum roasting technique. It was one of the cleanest cups of coffee I've tasted, will definitely be ordering from the website when I next run out of beans!

Really enjoyed chatting to the folk at Johan & Nystrom from Sweden. Their limited edition Gigisa Lot5 was fantastic as was their bottled iced teas! Their loose leaf tea tins were adorable but unfortunately not for sale at the festival.

They weren't the only ones there offering both coffee & tea, Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company also had their wares on show. Tea lovers were not left wanting though as Pekoe Tea and Shibui Tea both had impressive selections to taste and choose from.

Tasty Buns Bakery were pretty much sold out of treats by the time I got there, but I did sneak an amaretti biscuit which was divine! Luckily Pinnes & Poppyseeds still had a healthy supply of Pumpkin Spice Caramel Cups to satiate my sweet cravings. The Chocolate Tree and The Marshmallow Lady were also on hand to supply sweet treats.

Rost were there with their food truck but I couldn't pass on a burger from Jones & Sons!

Overall, I had a fantastic couple of hours at the festival, even if my companion did throw a cup of coffee over me! Will hopefully have more time to explore next year. Although it was apparently much busier earlier in the day and it was difficult to actually stop and speak to exhibitors, so maybe arriving late had its perks!

Blasda, Scotland's Local Food Festival @ Drill Hall, Edinburgh

A few weeks ago The Mister and I headed along to Blasda at the Out of the Blue, Drill Hall.

I didn't really know what to expect as it wasn't overly well advertised, but the Drill Hall is a great venue, very close to home so we decided to head along and check it out.

{Not sure what the scary face is from up in the loft!}

There weren't very many stalls there.. but one of them was the fabulous people from Breadshare, a community supported bakery based outside of Edinburgh in the Scottish Borders. They are totally not for profit and striving to create a viable, sustainable business supported by the community. We had bought bread from them previously at St Mary's Market and loved it. I was sad they didn't have their fruit & nut loaf (with FIGS!) at the event, but settled for another nut loaf which was equally delicious.

{photo taken from Breadshare Bakery's Facebook page}

Right next door was a pedal powered flour mill! From the people at Greener Leith.

There was a stall from Changeworks talking about food waste which had very interesting information. Apparently the average UK family throws out £430 worth of food a year!!

By far the highlight of the day was the pedal powered smoothie maker!! The fruit all came from local community gardens, which made it doubly special. They were even making blackberry jam from all the berries they'd brought along. It was delicious and we even got to bring some home!!

The smoothie maker even had an adorable multicoloured umbrella top!

There was a fabulous table from Leith World Kitchens (you see them in the yellow aprons!) showcasing three different dishes made with potatoes, from Spain, Africa and India. They were all delicious and the unanimous favourite was the Spanish dish with chorizo. I was obviously too busy feeding my face to take any photos!

There was even some live music...

All in all it was quite informative and it's always great to find out about things that happen in the local communities!

Entertainment vs. Ethics

Hallo lovelies

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on at the moment and we have seen some brilliant shows and a few not so brilliant ones... We saw a show today which although entertaining in some parts really made me question the fine line between entertainment and ethics...

Part of the show involved some acrobatics which involved a little boy... if I had to hazard a guess, he is probably about 4 or 5... and although he put on a great performance and was an absolute trooper.. he was pretty much being used as a human prop...

So imagine the amphora/urn is the small boy and you pretty much have the act... The boy was being spun in circles while laying flat like a starfish, then flipped onto his back and spun.. and also flipped.. so he would start sitting on the man's feet, then fling his head back and be flipped through the man's legs in a fill turn and end up seated on the man's feet again... and again.. and again... and again... over and over and over and over... all very entertaining... but I was really concerned about the boy's brain... bashing around inside his skull! I'm no doctor or anything but I'm fairly certain that while a brain is still developing, it is very fragile and should not be subjected to that much force... I mean, after all, that's why we don't shake babies! The entire act made me really uncomfortable and then it seemed to go on and on and ON... there were a couple of times when he 'fell' off and was half caught by the man... but they just went straight on and tried the 'trick' again.. and again... for me.. it was just painful.... I was tempted to walk out of the show because it made me so uncomfortable.

I was glad to find out that I wasn't the only one. I was voicing my concern after we left the show and a lady on the street in front of us turned around and said "I agree!"....

The only other time I've felt this way was in Spain when we went to watch the bull fighting. But on that occasion I'd made a conscious decision and had kinda of mentally prepared myself to be slightly uncomfortable with what I was witnessing... We also decided to leave half way through the performance and actually witness the bull being butchered out the back of the ring, so as much as it was quite horrible to watch, it was good to know that all parts of the bull would then be used in various things. I digress...

On this occasion, I just really wasn't mentally prepared for it and it just seems so much more disturbing when a young child is concerned.

Have you ever been to a performance where you didn't really agree with what's going on?
Did you stay or did you leave?
Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Tasty treats from Taste of London

Hey lovelies

I am super sad because Taste of Edinburgh was rained off last weekend... I was so super excited to go.. I had my little menu all planned out for the restaurant stalls I wanted to eat from.. but alas... it wasn't meant to be... considering the Meadows looked more like a pond than a park!

{Photo taken from facebook page for Edinburgh's Hogmanay}

I am consoling myself by reminiscing about my time at Taste of London a few weekends ago with Ms Sok... Sadly, most of the tasty treats I managed to haul back to Edinburgh with me are just about all goneskies... and as I spent the better part of this evening trying desperately hard NOT to eat the entire jar of Isle of Wight tomato relish I brought home, I thought I'd do a quick write up of the all yummy things I actually managed to bring home with me.

{Photo from the Propercorn website}

The first thing to disappear (into my belly!) was the sweet & salty Propercorn.. mostly because we only discovered them at the end of the day and I only had enough cash left to buy one bag... they reminded of the kettle corn I loved so much when I lived in Canada... they were just the right mix of sweet and savoury and the popcorn was perfectly crunchy and fluffy! I wasn't overly crazy about the sour cream & chives.. personally I think that's a flavour more suited to potato chips.. 

{taken from Vegesentials website}

The folks at Vegesentials launched at the event and were super duper generous with their samples.. There were plenty of people walking around with entire 6 packs of juice, myself and Sok included! I also walked away with an extra 3 bottles of varying flavours as they opened new bottles to let people test out the different varieties. Their juices are 100% natural and taste like it.. in a good way! They taste healthy as opposed to sugary which gets a big thumbs up in my books! I had the Perky Bliss, Groovy Mellow and Groovy Roots juices and they were all delicious! The Perky Bliss was quite 'earthy' tasting which I attributed to the beetroot, I quite liked it after the first few sips, but may be an acquired taste for others. Big thanks to Vegesentials for being so bountiful with their product!! Much appreciated!! Just waiting for them to stock it somewhere local....

{Photo from The Tomato Stall website}

The lovely folk from The Tomato Stall had all sorts of delicious tomatoes from the Isle of Wight along with relishes, ketchups, sauces and juices. If I lived in London, I seriously would have bought lots of tomatoes from these people... they were so delectable! I had trouble deciding between the red and green relishes, ultimately going with the red though Ms Sok bought the green and we gobbled up half the jar that night. I was so busy trying to rearrange all my stuff that I left my jar of relish on the table after I bought it... I literally turned around, as we were leaving, and ran back across half the grounds when I realised it was missing from my bags! They were very gracious and I didn't have to leave the event heartbroken at being relish'less.

{Compiled from images from Flour Power City website}

I also, rather outlandishly, bought a loaf of walnut and sundried apricot bread from the lovely people at Flour Power City Bakery.. only outlandish for the fact that they don't use any preservatives in their breads and I had to transport it all the way to Edinburgh! Ms Sok also bought two pieces of delicious decadent brownie from them.. They had lots and lots of samples of all their different types of breads and they were all fabulous! I have yet to discover an artisan bakery in Edinburgh so I'm super sad that they don't stock anywhere in Scotland at all.

{Compiled from images from Black Garlic website}

Ms Sok also bought a handful of Black Garlic and we had a fabulous chat with one of the guys, who we were pretty sure was also a Kiwi! To be honest I was rather hesitant when we were offered this stuff to try. They just had the peeled cloves in a pile on a board... so I really had no idea what it was I was about to consume... but I gave it a go and was glad I did! The taste is only slightly reminiscent of regular garlic... they are quite sweet with a tangy hint of balsamic. As we stumbled upon them quite close to closing time, they gave Sok LOADS of black garlic and I benefited from their hospitality! There is a recipe for mushroom and black garlic risotto on their website that I'm pretty keen to try.

We sampled lots of other food and drink during our 5 hours at the event and if I could remember them all to give them all a mention, I would.. but there were just too many!! We also saw chef Michael Roux Jnr and ate tasty morsels from restaurants headed by Jaime Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal and various other Michelin starred chefs.

It was a marvellous afternoon, even though Regents Park was a bit muddy and we had a few showers, we had an incredible time. If I can find the photos I took of the tasty morsels we ate from the restaurant stalls, I shall do a write up about them too.

Thanks to Ms Sok for being great foodie company and to all the fantastic peeps that exhibited at Taste of London! With Taste of Edinburgh rained off, I'm not looking forward to the Foodie Festival in Edinburgh in August! I think festivals are such a superb way to discover new (and local) places to find tasty treats and who doesn't like to support local!?!


Happy Eating!!