Foodie Trivia for the festive season

24 days and counting...

As we slowly come around following a frantic BBC Good Food Show at the NEC last weekend (thank you one and all it was very exciting being minor celebs after the drive time broadcast) it appears that December has finally arrived! Penny put out this years advent calender this morning and I discovered all sorts of foodie trivia to report, for example did you know

Stir up Sunday - the Sunday nearest to November 30th (St Andrews Day) is traditionally the day in the UK to make Christmas puddings, so if you are running late dont forget to give the mix a good stir and make a wish.

Hollie has booked tomorrow off for a bit of retail therapy and is threatening to bring a load of decorations in on Thursday, time to make a swift exit, I fear, or she'll have me climbing the walls (for a change !)

Can't find the cable to connect the camera so will have to do pics another time....

Mr Chris Evans and BBC Radio2

Thursday November 12th 2009...

Well what a day, following our interview with BBC Radio Oxford on Wednesday morning it was amazing to get a call from BBC Radio 2- they 'phoned just before mid-day inviting us to the London studio for 5pm and all hell broke loose.... Penny ran off to make a couple of Tickled Pinks, Charlotte and Neil made up leaflet and stockist packs and got the telephones on charge while Hollie got online to search out trains times, Matt prepared the samples we needed and produced a couple of small cool bags to take them in and in just a few minutes we had the car loaded and were off to Birmingham International to catch the fast train to London.

The train was in the station so after a quick word with the guard we boarded the train only to find a short while later that there was a £20 surcharge (each!) for not buying a ticket on the platform..and we wonder why we use the car all the time.

However nothing was going to take the edge off our excitement as we made a list of all the things we really must mention and do when we got 'on air' .... a smooth run with only 2 stops found us in Euston Station by 3pm.. 2 hours go so thought we'd fit in a visit to our stockist Sourced Market at StPancras and then a tube ride to Borough Market to look at potential pitches (there are moves afoot to have a weekly slot - will let you know as and when) getting back to Euston at 4.35pm, 25 mins to go!

It was dark by now and the rain was moving in as we dashed along Euston road (Google map in hand) uncertain how far we had to walk to get to the BBC but no worries we had time to spare as we pitched up at Western House the home of Radio 2 at 4.59pm...

Ben came to reception and took us up to the Radio 2 offices where we were able (in theory) to unload our stuff and gather our thoughts, but a few minutes later Steve Wright pops out of his studio and then the infamous Sally traffic was over to snaffle a Vegetabularian before any one else... we're introducing ourselves and calmly cutting up an egg for her when we hear shouting from down the corridor - seems we were on!

To be honest the next half an hour or so just flew by, we'd done our piece and were getting up to say good bye when Chris has a brain wave... 'we have tasted your eggs so why don't you stay and taste the stake tartare that Nigel Barden was bringing in shortly'

The rest as they say is history, we seemed to be in and out of the studio all the way through the show- a real blast we loved every moment and it was such a privilege to be so welcomed by Chris and to see the true professionalism of this highly motivated team, they genuinely deserve to be at the top. (and yes, all that planning on the train went out the window just as soon as we got chatting)

On returning to the streets of London we turned our 'phones back on and they just didn't stop- thank you, thank you everyone for your messages it really made our day- don't think we've actually returned to normality yet.

On Friday Kevin our Web man sent an email over to let us know that our usual hit rate of 100 or so a day blossomed into nearly 3000 in an hour during the show WOW!

So you will probably have guessed it but Christmas has definitely come early to this quiet corner of Herefordshire

Britains Favourite Pub Snack

Well its really good to know at least someone else agrees with us... although we don't supply many pubs just now so this could be an opportunity to spread the word

Sorry been a bit pre-occupied over the last few weeks, unfortunately the blog has taken a bit of a back seat will give you a bit more detail soon, promise... but a 'phone call this morning found Neil on BBC Radio Oxford chatting Scotch eggs, well he doesn't talk about much else does he!

Many thanks to the tream in Oxford it was a pleasure doing business with you

Will spend a bit more time on the blog soon, just as soon as we have finalised the Christmas range for you

Award Winning !!

Sometime in between all these events we were proud and privileged to gain two awards at this years Great Taste Awards from the Guild of Fine Food Retailers why not pop over to their site to find out more about the awards and all the other winners.

The Black Watch is definitely trying to muscle all it's cousins out of the way in it's attempt to knock the Classic Mac off the top perch, it also made the finals of the HEFF Diamond Awards this year too.

We're thinking maybe it's time for it to have it's very own blog,
for the sake of the others, what do you think?

Ludlow Food Festival

Our sixth visit to the wonderful Ludlow Food & Drink Festival, always here as part of our local farmers' market the infamous Teme Valley Market where we originally launched this mad idea, we all had a busy time hardly getting the chance to see what was going on but strolling around before the gate were open you could see why so many people come to soak up the sights, tastes and smells of what is one of the best food festivals on the circuit.

As the saying goes 'every picture tells a story' nothing left again!!

If you look closely you'll see on the left hand side of the stall a sign for Scotty's. An experiment, which I'm glad to report went very well, so we'll be repeating it allover again at Abergavenny next weekend. Scotty's are simply the 'scotch' part on its own, oven baked and ready to eat- basically savoury sweets- at £4 a dozen they proved hard to resist.

As I said on an earlier post we've had an excellent run over the last few weeks, a very big and heartfelt thank you to all of you who have been supporting us. It's been a heck of a year since we moved here into the eggshed with what seemed the end of the business world announced in October you'd have been hard pressed to predict the sustained growth we have been able to achieve, with us now supplying over 90 Deli's around the country, if you'd like to know where you can get your fix send us an email at info@handmadescotcheggs.co.uk and we'll send you the current list (although be warned it is changing week by week)

Burghley Horse Trials

Thank you one and all - we had a great time and sold loads of eggs too... with Lotto now on holiday and then back to University we were a bit short handed this weekend so Helz brought along her friend Kate, a visitor from Australia I think she found it all a bit different but seemed to have fun. A big thank you to Dave and his family from patchwork for keeping us entertained and to Dave and Mark from Gwatkins for keeping Helz in check!

We had a very warm welcome from the Burghley crowd and hope to return, if they'll have us next year, this time with a bit more stock, sorry we rather underestimated the requirements for this one. (Note to self: really should try to get into a few more horse trials next year)

I gather that last year the weather was dreadful and patchwork Dave was hoping for a bit of a repeat so he could take Lara out for a bit of a spin, in the end all he could do was to give the kids a thrilling ride back to their caravan. PS thank for discovering the brilliant fly swat guns!!!

Monmouth-Eggstravegganza- Plumb Fair

Been a bit of a to-ing and frow-ing time these last few weeks with an event either happening or just on the horizon so not found much time to sit in front of the computer, sorry, will try to catch up a bit....

....following a relatively quiet few days since last posting on the blog, Thursday August 27th found us at the Monmouth Show, a lovely 'proper' show - for the begining of what has turned out to be a sell out tour. I still find it hard to comprehend the fact that it is just one day, they have show jumping, dog shows and just about every farm animal on show, crafts, cars, farm machinery, whilst in the queue to leave I spotted this rather superior looking goat checking out the competition- we had a lovely day and to top it off we sold out thank you, also congratulations to Sal & Rog friends from Neil's childhood who won best stand in their classdisplaying their restored pine furniture.

Cheltenham Farmers' market on Friday was another sell out, unusual for a Bank holiday weekend, maybe the plaudits are right and less of us are going away this year, whatever the cause it was a delight !

On Saturday the 29th we held our second Eggstravegganza here at the eggshed, a bright warm day with a good flow of visitors throughout the day, unfortunately camera died so no pics this time, but the highlight of the day was the arrival of a gang of four who had driven from London to give one of their party the surprise of his life... a dedicated Scotch Egg fan he had just arrived from Australia and thought he was going to his daughters in Cardiff for a holiday , instead they brought him here to make his own and to feed his enthusiasm... thanks guys you made the day! hope to see the pictures some time soon.

Bank Holiday Monday saw a return to Pershore, this time for the renowned Plumb Festival, another warm sunny day, the town had ' gone to town' with ballons tied to lamp posts and something happening in almost every nook and cranny and I cannot remember seeing quite so many vintage/classic cars on display before. A great atmosphere and another sell out, a hat trick I believe.

No sooner back in the office than we were off to Burghley Horse Trials on Wednesday evening, a new one for us, which turned out to be one of the nicest (is 'nice' a compliment do you think? It's meant to be) of the year.