Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

St Albans Food Festival

Market Experience Food Photography, Oktoberfest and the St Albans Street Finale this weekend!

If today’s news of the giant sinkhole in St Albans hasn’t caught your attention, then I hope this weekend’s St Albans and Harpenden Food Festival activities will!

As I type, there are just two spaces left on our market experience food photography workshop this Saturday – take a look at Stephanie’s site to book if you fancy joining us. If you’ve never visited St Albans before, let me entice you…

Our beautiful city is just 22 minutes by train from London St Pancras.  According to the Guinness Book of Records, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks (situated in the heart of Verulamium Park) is the oldest pub in Britain. We also have more pubs per square mile than anywhere else in the country (woo hoo) and we are incredibly proud to host one of the oldest regular street markets in the UK, dating back to the 9th century.

St Albans

For a real taste of what St Albans has to offer by the way of independent restaurants, cafes, delis, market stalls and street food, then this weekend is by far the best weekend to come and visit.

Here are a few treats to look forward to at the weekend:

Stephanie and Ren’s St Albans Market Experience Food Photography Course

  • Meeting at 9am outside Thompson@Darcy’s
  •  2 Hatfield Road, St Albans, AL1 3RP

Click here for more details – two spaces left (as of today)

stephanie belton

Photo credit: Stephanie Belton

Octoberfest, The Foragers at The Verulam Arms – Saturday 3 October

  • 41 Lower Dagnall Street, St Albans, AL3 4QE
  • 12 noon – midnight

After the workshop, I’ll be heading along to The Verulam Arms to join The Foragers for their annual Okterberfest. The Foragers are promising live ‘Oompah’ music, a special ‘festbier’ from their microbrewery and beers from Munich, as well as their ‘unique brand of wild food with a German twist’ including sausages, homemade stews and sauerkraut. Who’s with me?!

St Albans Street Finale – Sunday 4th October

  • St Peter’s Street, St Albans (head for the city centre)
  • 12pm – 6pm

On Sunday, St Albans high street will be transformed into a street food haven with a pop up village green complete with hay bales and beer from some of our best local pubs. There will also be a Kitchen Garden area with an emphasis on grow your own and locally grown produce, a City Farm, a Family Zone (including a children’s Fairtrade chocolate factory) as well as a cookery theatre and a World Food Zone. See demo times here (page 14).

St Albans Seasonal Salad

Thank you also to everyone who made the St Albans Seasonal Salad (there’s been lots of love on Twitter!) that I created especially for the food festival and the #kidscookalong this year and to Stu McLellan for illustrating it.

St Albans Salad

Happigreetings

As I’m dishing out some local love, I’d also like to thank Glen Cooper for sending me one of his happigreetings by happijar cards, featuring an image created by a local St Albans artist, Mandy Reekie and some inspirational quotes behind the little windows on the front. The really cool thing about these cards is that you can customise them and include your own quotes in each window – think of an advent calendar in a card with eight windows – six on the front and two on the back. Take a look at Glen’s Etsy store here for more versions.

Happiness Jar

If you can’t visit St Albans this weekend, then I hope you can visit the St Albans Christmas Market within the grounds of St Albans Cathedral from Thursday 26th November to Sunday 20th December. Find out more here.  

The St Albans Food and Drink Festival 2012 Highlights and Finale

This Sunday, the St Albans Food and Drink Festival 2012 drew to a close, as many of our vivacious local food and drink businesses, restaurants, cafés and bars came together during the festival finale. St Albans has never before played host to quite so much street food and general merry-making!

The festival, organised by the St Albans City and District Council for the fifth year now, offered a host of activities over 12 days. Opening on September 26th 2012 with the CAMRA St Albans Beer Festival, foodie-themed celebrations also included a Gourmet Night in aid of local charity Grove House, a Food of Life photography exhibition, a Young Chef of the Year contest, the St Albans Food and Drink Festival Awards ceremony, meal deals and the festival finale itself.

St Albans Food Festival 2012

St Albans Food and Drink Festival Awards 2012

On 4th October 2012 our local businesses, restaurants and producers were celebrated at the St Albans Food and Drink Festival Awards held at St Michael’s Manor.

Five of our very best restaurants fought it out to achieve the accolade of Best Local Restaurant. The nominees were L’Italiana, Lussmanns, The Foragers at the Verulam Arms, The Lake at St Michael’s Manor and Veer Dhara with Lussmann’s Fish and Grill retaining the coveted title.

Other local business were also duly highlighted and celebrated; Redbournbury Watermill secured the accolade of Best Local Producer, Mokoko scooped up the Best Bar Award, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks won Best Pub, the Inn on the Park were our Most Family Friendly Venue and Bakehouse St Albans won our Best Local Café award.

Local Gems

Two other young and local entrepreneurs were successful in winning awards, too. The Pudding Stop won Best Local Gem ahead of also being a finalist at this year’s BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards in the category of Best Street Food/Take Away. Good Luck Jonny! Lucy Clark at Heaven is a Cupcake also won the Kate D’Arcy Award for Exceptional Customer Service at the Awards night, too.

The Pudding Stop

Festival Finale

Over forty stallholders took to the streets for the finale on Sunday, offering a warm and friendly welcome to old customers as well as extending an inviting hand to new ones. Starting from one end of town at the foot of our enchanting Cathedral and Abbey of St Albans, newcomers Bakehouse hosted the first Great St Albans Cake-Off, with music and festivities continuing right the way through town along St Peter’s Street.

Also on offer were cupcakes, baked goods and jams, including sweet treats from Dixie’s Cupcakery, Heaven is a Cupcake, The Pudding Stop, St Albans Bakehouse and Sweet Lilly. A particular highlight was the huge wild mushroom stall by Carluccio’s – a festival in itself. On hand to give advice on wine was David Rough from The Hertfordshire Wine School. A little further along, Tony and Dario from local delicatessen Buongiorno Italiana charmed customers with Italian food, whilst restaurateur Andrei Lussman mingled with his customers at his impressive Lussmans Fish and Grill pop-up.

The barbecues and hot plates were sizzling with food including British bangers, Carribbean cuisine, Cypriot, Indian and Italian delicacies. There were also live cookery demonstrations at the theatre throughout the day by local chefs.

All in all, there was definitely a celebratory air to the festival finale, with local businesses showcasing exactly what they have to offer to a discerning and food-loving crowd. It reminded me of how incredibly lucky we are to live in a city where really good food is not only celebrated during the St Albans Food and Drink Festival, but is continually showcased, encouraged and improved upon throughout the whole year, too.

St Albans Food Festival Finale

For more information on the festival and news about next year’s event follow St Albans Food and Drink Festival on Facebook or on http://twitter.com/St_Albans_FADF

For more local produce and street food throughout the year, you can visit the St Albans Farmers’ Market on the 2nd Sunday each month, from 8.00am to 2.00pm.

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