The theme for the 2010 York Food Festival (17 th to 26 th September) is “Meet the Yorkshire Food Heroes”. The Festival is working with Yorkshire’s National Parks, the National Trust and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust to promote sustainable producers; especially those whose work helps maintain traditional landscapes. The Festival has developed the 2010 programme to include a series of innovative ‘collaborative stands’ at the Festival’s market, shared by quality producers from specific Yorkshire environments. Other Hero events involve an exciting line up of Michelin Star Chefs on stage with their favourite suppliers, ‘Slow Food’ Tastings, York Farmer’s market and demonstrations.

Key ‘Meet the Hero’ items include:

• Informal daily tastings conducted by Slow Food North Yorkshire, include:
  • A comparative tasting by Tom Wallis of Lowna dairy of his award winning Goat’s Cheese.
  • Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil discussing the production, health and gastronomic benefits of their oils.
• Collaborative stands, shared by producers from specific areas in Yorkshire, include:
  • A series of producers from the southern Dales led by Robert Phillip of Hellifield Beef. Robert’s Highland cattle play and important role maintaining the flora of Yorkshire’s Limestone landscape.
  • A second group led by Philip Trevelyan, Organic Millers and Sheep Farmer, from Pickering and the surrounding Moors. Producers of Trout, Watercress and Heather Honey all attend.
• The Festival Market Place:
  • Key Yorkshire attendees include Penny Hodgeson, producer of Thornhill Dexter Beef, Whitby Seafood and Richard Elmhurst, of Round Green Venison.
  • The Festival sets aside day stands for small producers to attend for one or two days, these include Brunswick Organic Nursery, which provides a workplace for adults with learning difficulties and Yorkshire Wold’s Apples.
  • York ’s regular farmers markets takes place within the Festival on Friday 24 th September.
  • Demonstrations by Yorkshire Producers include:
  • Phillip Leverington of Fresh Catering who will work alongside a succession of producers that can be found in the market place. James Wright of Taste Tradition will do a butchery demonstration of rare breed meat raised in the North Yorkshire Moors.
  • Producer’s Day
  • A show including demonstrations from Yorkshire Michelin Stared Chefs Andrew Pern and James Mackenzie on stage with their favourite Yorkshire producers and a Yorkshire Produce Buffet for lunch.

Background information:

York Food and Drink Festival, first run in 1997, was taken over by an independent (not for profit) company in 2008. The new organisation is dedicated to the promotion of regional produce.

The breadth of the Festival makes it unique with:

• The free entry markets and demonstrations continue until 7pm.
• The Festival runs across the city and in the surrounding area with shops and restaurants offering special menus, deals and events.
• The ticketed programme also continues through both the day and the evening with a full complement of dinners and tastings; many in York’s historic Mansion House and Guildhall.

Pre-Festival Event:

Meet the Yorkshire Food Heroes in our Cookery Class and Venison Meal

Oh my Goodness. What a brilliant time we had!

On Thursday 12th August, 7pm, York Food Festival goers had the opportunity to join Yorkshire Venison Farmer Nigel Sampson of Holme Farm and Chef Stephanie Moon of Rudding Park for an amazing cookery class.

But fortunately, you don’t have to miss out completely – you can still have the opportunity to enjoy this menu, on Tuesday 21st September, at Stephanie Moon’s Dinner in the Mansion House.

We watched Stephanie demonstrate the Venison starter and then the main-course, while she and Nigel explained why Venison is prepared and cooked as it is, and how to keep the meat moist.
We also learned about food presentation and using the plate as a frame to build our food picture on.
We then each made our own starter, which included preparing a raw quail’s egg yolk as part of our ‘Picture on the plate’ and then shared a communal meal of the food cooked.

Starter: Assiette of Venison :Venison Tarter, Marinated venison salad, and Peppered scorched venison
Main course: Venison steak with Herb crust, Carrot dauphinoise, summer greens and Rosti potato.
Dessert: Bailey’s and Coffee Meringue Roulade with Hazelnuts and Summer Fruits.

Ronald Smith said, “This has blown me away! The Food was wonderful.” While Sarah Waite, who was working beside Ronald said, “I just loved the Venison Tartare – I didn’t expect the raw meat to taste so good, it was full of flavour!”

The event highlighted the 2010 Festival’s theme “Meet the Yorkshire Food Heroes”. See www.yorkfoodfestival.com/festival.php?cat=1  for more information.

The Cooking Rooms is a new cookery school in York offering a range of food and drink experiences for all ages and abilities to the people of Yorkshire and beyond.
Stephanie Moon, daughter of a Yorkshire farmer, is Consultant Chef at Rudding Park and loves to share her favourite recipes and ideas for wild food in her “Wild Cooks” blog http://wildcook.wordpress.com/  .
Nigel Sampson is Managing Director of Holme Farm Venison and a farmer who uses the entire animal, in every sense of the word. That is, he makes clothes even from the skin.
A huge thank you to Nigel, Stephanie and Luke for a brilliant evening, where we learned so much, enjoyed a fabulous meal and just had fun!
 

Chocolate Heaven in York

Wine Events at the York Food and Drink Festival

Festival Wine Fair Saturday 25 th Sept:
Held over two sessions: (12pm – 4pm or 6pm – 9pm)
Simply buy a ticket, pick up a glass at the door and then walk around the stands which offer tasters of over 80 different wines.

Introduction to Food and Wine Matching: Sherry and Tapas. Saturday 18 th Sept
Held over three sessions: (1pm 2.30 and 4pm)
Meet one of the Festival’s favourite wine critics, Charles Metcalfe, and let him talk you through these surprisingly good pairings.

Daily Introduction to Wine Everyday at 1pm
Whatever day you come, there is a light-hearted introductory wine event at lunchtime. Join local wine experts like Karen Hardwick and Peter McKenna in Melton’s Too to cover topics like South African Wine; Fizz; and Burgundy: the Douro Valley and Port

Grand Cru Saint-Émilion Dinner. Thursday 23 rd Sept at 7.30
A Champagne and canapé reception; followed by a four-course dinner and 8 different Grand Cru wines. Commentary from Yorkshire Post Wine Critic: Christine Austin.

The programme also includes :

• Pink Champagne,
• Chocolate and wine, as part of the Festival’s Chocolate Launch
• A charitable Champagne afternoon tea in the Mansion House
• And an old favourite revived – Cheese and Wine matching.

Welcome To Yorkshire Sponsors York Food and Drink Festival

York Food and Drink Festival has been one of the key annual events in Yorkshire for some time, but this year acknowledgement of that has come from Welcome to Yorkshire, as they are showing their support both financially and help with marketing.

Dedicated to promoting Yorkshire, the Welcome to Yorkshire website is the official visitor site for Yorkshire and lists everything from what to do, where to stay and how to keep Yorkshire special.

Sharing the promotion of Yorkshire as one of its primary aims, the theme for the 2010 York Food Festival (17th to 26th September) is “Meet the Yorkshire Food Heroes”. The Festival is working with many key organisations such as Yorkshire’s National Parks, the National Trust and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust to promote sustainable producers; especially those whose work helps maintain traditional landscapes.

The Festival has developed the 2010 programme to include a series of innovative ‘collaborative stands’ at the Festival’s market, shared by quality producers from specific Yorkshire environments. Other Hero events involve an exciting line up of Michelin Star Chefs on stage with their favourite suppliers, ‘Slow Food’ Tastings, York Farmer’s market and demonstrations.

The markets and many of the demonstrations are free to enter. Tickets, for many other events, can be bought on-line or by calling 01904 466687.

A full programme of events can be found at http://www.yorkfoodfestival.com

Source: Press Release

Find out more about the Association of Voluntary Guides to the City of York

Send your recommendations to support@directoryofyork.net

Come and enjoy a day filled with real family fun in Thirsk.

We will be having lots of stalls, featuring food and gifts, as well as games, face-painting, ice-cream, strawberries and cream and much more.

Free admission. Doors open between 10am and 4pm.

All proceeds will be going towards helping Disability Action Yorkshire

Venue: 

Thirsk Town Hall

Westgate

YO7 1QR

This event is being organised by Disability Action Yorkshire. 

To find out more about visit their website: http://www.disabilityactionyorkshire.org.uk/ 

MANY BOOKS ONLY £1!

All proceeds will be going towards helping Disability Action Yorkshire  and there will be wide range of different books available.

Opening Times: 10am until 4pm

Venue:

8 Castlegate
Thirsk
North Yorkshire
YO7 1HL

This event is being organised by Disability Action Yorkshire.

To find out more about visit their website: http://www.disabilityactionyorkshire.org.uk/

This is our Local York Bloggers Section where you can have your own personal blog published. Just contact us at support@directoryofyork.net if you wish to do so.

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENTS OF THESE POSTS AND WHILST WE ATTEMPT TO EDIT WHERE NECESSARY SOME POSTS MAY CONTAIN CONTENT WHICH MAY OFFEND

… I was busy taking pictures of the balloons!

On my cycle route to work I pass the York Race Course and I’d seen one balloon lift off from there earlier in the week but just hadn’t got close enough to get any decent pictures.

When I had a second chance I made sure I got really close and took as many pictures as I could! It really was a quite amazing sight and the glorious sunshine and clear blue sky just made for, hopefully, fantastic photographs.

I’ll process the rest of the photos soon and put them up on my deviantArt page.

View post:
I would have been early, but …

This is our Local York Bloggers Section where you can have your own personal blog published. Just contact us at support@directoryofyork.net if you wish to do so.

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENTS OF THESE POSTS AND WHILST WE ATTEMPT TO EDIT WHERE NECESSARY SOME POSTS MAY CONTAIN CONTENT WHICH MAY OFFEND

This was a little bit of an experiment to see if I could get a nicer shot over the back of York University without the glare from the sun that had just decided to come out from behind the clouds that had been giving a nice pattern to the sky as well as doing a good job of blocking out the glare from the morning sunrise.

Not sure whether this really works too well but I think it looks quite colourful and would certainly qualify as “different” photography. Well I thought that until I was told by B that the idea of taking pictures through sunglasses has been shown on the kids art programme, SMART, a week or so ago! I wonder if my son is going to want to try this out at some point.

Anyway, the set of images have been uploaded to my deviantART page where you can download the full size photo or leave critique (if you have a deviantART premium account).

Read the original here:
Through The Lens

There was three of us taking pictures that day, Rachel herself (also doing make-up, styling, organising, etc, etc), Jo doing fantastic photography and helping me out (and lending me lenses), and me. I should make it very, very, very, clear that Rachel and Jo have been doing this quite a while and they are both amazingly accomplished, experienced, and confident photographers. None of these adjectives apply to me!

Taking pictures in this kind of situation is hard, really, really, hard work and takes an immense amount of skill and expertise. Having a flashy (no pun intended) camera and a few good pics will not get you through this. You have to know what you are doing, have an aim to achieve and a good idea of how to get there. It is thinking and acting under pressure. Rachel and Jo can do this without much apparent effort, I am not there yet (and may never be).

However, it was a good learning experience for me and, at least looking back, a fun, enjoyablem, and rewarding way to spend an afternoon and I’m really unbelievably thankful to Rachel and Jo and the models who were there; Holly, Richard, Suzanne and Sarah. I only hope the pictures do them justice!

I’ve yet to process all of the images (and am going to spend a long time getting them looking as good as I possibly can) but for now, here are three of the ones I liked the best (this doesn’t mean they are good by any means).

We were taking turns photographing each model and I started working with Suzanne who was so lovely and friendly and looked absolutely stunning. She’s modelled before and frankly she was helping me out so much in terms of just ideas and poses, I had no idea what to ask her to do but that was fine as she already knew. There is a large mirror on the way to the toilets and I really wanted to get a nice shot with that but it was really difficult given the lighting and angles available.

Next was Holly who Rachel has photographed a few times before. Apparently she has never done professional modelling before and so far has only worked with Rachel. I have to say I think she is a natural! She’s also fantastically nice and wonderful to chat with. We decided to do some pictures outside but had so much ‘fun’ with the rather strong wind and the sun that kept changing it’s mind – it’s hard enough for me to get the exposure settings right once let alone having to muck around as the light fades and then increases again. Anyway, Holly was very helpful and patient and the pictures do seem to have come out quite well.

Last, but by no means least, was Richard and Sarah. I think by this point we were all quite tired and I just wanted to do something silly. Rachel got MUCH better pictures and certainly more stylish ones of both Richard and Sarah but I like this one as it was the expression that I’d wanted to capture, and that was so elusive due to someone having a fit of the giggles.

So, overall it was a good day and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. I definitely learnt alot including the fact that there is so much more for me to learn! I’ll update this post with links to all of the pictures once I’ve processed them.

[ UPDATE: The processed images have now been posted on my website, see this page for links to the three galleries that I've produced. Warning the pictures are quite big! The full sized versions of the best of these still need uploading to deviantART, will do that tomorrow ]

Continued here:
Manic Shoot

 

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENTS OF THESE POSTS AND WHILST WE ATTEMPT TO EDIT WHERE NECESSARY SOME POSTS MAY CONTAIN CONTENT WHICH MAY OFFEND

This is our Local York Bloggers Section where you can have your own personal blog published. Just contact us at support@directoryofyork.net if you wish to do so.

I’ve been tapping at this, trying to write this for an hour. I had another idea in mind but I’ve been watching Miami Ink again.

I love tattoos. My mum has a blurry star tattooed on her shoulder blade, and I was always obsessed with it as a kid because I couldn’t feel it (Mum hates it because the tattooist was drunk).

I still gawk when I see people with particularly badass or pretty tattoos.

I admire tattoo artists. Not everyone realises just how much skill is involved in tattooing, and how complex it can be.

I really want a tattoo, and whenever I watch Miami Ink, LA Ink or anything like that I start drawing, but I’m a crappy artist.

View original post here:
Colour me ink.

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENTS OF THESE POSTS AND WHILST WE ATTEMPT TO EDIT WHERE NECESSARY SOME POSTS MAY CONTAIN CONTENT WHICH MAY OFFEND

This is our Local York Bloggers Section where you can have your own personal blog published. Just contact us at support@directoryofyork.net  if you wish to do so.

2010

NORTH EAST AUDITIONS

What’s

YOUR signature dish?

Do
you cook an original, mouth watering

STARTER,
MAIN-COURSE or PUDDING

which
you believe is a recipe for success?

Do
you have a unique take on a classic dish,
a secret recipe that needs to be shared, or a stunning local ingredient
to
showcase to the rest of the UK?

Whatever
your speciality, come and “pitch
your dish”

to
our panel on the 23rd May in York.

Britain’s

Best Dish

The
television talent show for Britain’s

best
amateur chefs with a

£10,000

CASH PRIZE

for the winner.        

 North West Britain’s Best Dish

Auditions 

For
information, please email us now at

bestdish@itv.com
or call on 0871 62 66 222 

Calls
cost 10p from a BT landline. Calls
from other networks may be higher and from
mobiles will be considerably more. Lines close for the North East -
Friday 21^st
May at midday. You must be
14 or over to apply.