The Food Passion Blog

Add your knowledge of any events that foodies might be interested in - Christmas markets, autumn foods etc……

There’s a real buzz surrounding the Grovesend Miners Welfare Association hall since the recent announcement of plans to hold a Local Producers Market there every fourth Saturday in the month from 10am to 1pm.

27th October – Grand launch with Edwina Hart
24th November – Cookery demonstration (tbc)
22n December – Special “Nadolig” Market
26th January – “Your market, your say” / “Eich marchnad, eich barn”.

Civil Partners Al Heal and Rachel Auckland have taken the bold step of establishing “Gelli Ffrwythlon”, a high profile Sustainable Development Association in the small, rural village of Grovesend near Swansea.  The pair, who described themselves in a recent Radio Wales interview as “a couple of middle-aged ladies minding their own business” increased their involvement in community life partly in response to a series of homophobic incidents outside their home. 

Al, who is a Community Councillor and a Renewable Energy Consultant by trade, feeling saddened by the antisocial behaviour of a small group of youths, started a Neighbourhood Watch Scheme.  This in turn has led to PACT (Police and Communities Together) meetings for the village, to the relief of many residents who also felt threatened by the gang’s obnoxious behaviour.

Since helping to make the village safer for everyone, Rachel and Al have found they are more widely accepted than ever before.  Rachel, grandmother of three who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, has been invited to judge the Carnival Queen competition and to tell stories at the village school Autumn Fayre.  Together the couple have won support from every section of the community for their latest project, “Marchnad Cynhyrchwyr Lleol Pengelli / Grovesend Local Producers Market”.

The aim of the market is to bring to customers fresh, locally grown and home cooked foods and confections direct from the producers.  This is a welcome move with most of the 900 or so inhabitants of Grovesend who have no local shop in the village.  The market also hopes to attract customers from further afield, with it’s tempting range of vegetables, meat, fish, cheese, eggs, bread, cakes, preserves, and fresh and dried herbs and spices.  A warm welcome awaits all food-lovers, of whatever sexual orientation, at Marchnad Pengelli / Grovesend Market.  Croeso i bawb.  Dewch i lli!

Access details: Bus 400 / 404 stops outside the Miners’ Club Hall.  10am – 11.30am access is via steep steps with no handrail – assistance will be available.  11.30am – 1pm level access available, suitable for wheelchairs.  Please phone Rachel for more details on 01792 892769.
Ffoniwch Al i drafod yn Gymraeg 01792 892768.

Check this out too!

 Volkswagen Babes bare all for breast cancer - Rachel writes:
As a camp camper and ex-Beetle owner I was thrilled to read in Womenzone of plans to start a lesbian VeeDub club.  As a breast cancer survivor I was overjoyed to find the new Maggie Centre, next door to Swansea’s Singleton Hospital, providing high quality support to anyone affected by cancer, including myself and my lovely partner / carer Al.  Imagine then my delight when Maggie’s fundraiser Vicki Jones, who by the way also organises the annual Welsh VW rally (www.volksfestwales.org.uk), showed me the latest “Maggie’s lovely v-dublies 2008 Calendar”!  Featuring moving quotes from centre users and supporters, interspersed among pics of twelve tastefully posed babes, displaying everything from their headlamps to their hubcaps, this calendar is not to be missed.  On sale for £5 at Grovesend Market (see above) or from vicki@maggiescentres.org

OK, so many of you have called to pass on compliments or criticism of food you have tried in Swansea (not all of which feature in Food Passion I might add). While I wouldn’t want to stop you commenting for a minute, in fact I like to encourage it here on the blog, I do find it frustrating taking calls and emails to hear your complaints, only for you to say that you never passed your comments onto the businesses themselves.

No doubt some people have not been up to scratch with their service, and sometimes their food. So let the manager know when you are there that you aren’t happy, so that they at least have a chance to do something. If they don’t then they deserve to have you on the blog site to tell everyone about it.

Rant over.

If you are working in the city, here’s a great place to take your work colleagues for a Christmas feast. Just click here to see the Papa Sanchos menu, 2 courses for £23.95 or 3 courses for £28.50.

Well, I really hate to even acknowledge Christmas before the middle of November but since you Brits love to start up Christmas in August for some reason, I guess it’s about time I started to tempt your taste buds for the festive season. The Britannia Inn are definitely on the ball so let’s start with their delicious looking menu. I ate there a few weeks back and there are also some lovely walks from right outside the pub and restaurant to work off all that good food.

STARTERS   

Wild Mushroom Soup
Served with croutons and olive oil

Farmhouse Terrine
Served with confit of rabbit, parma ham, wild mushrooms, savoy cabbage and a spilt jus

Welsh Goats Cheese Salad
Served  warm with a red wine vinegrette mesculine salad

Crayfish and Crab Salad
Served with a citrus salsa

• • • • • • • • • • •

MAINS
Ballotine of Turkey
Rolled with sage stuffing, and apricots
Pan Fried  Salmon
Served with a cauliflower puree
Pan Fried Duck Breast
Served with calcannon potato, sauté cabbage and redcurrant jus

Roast Vegetable Wellington
Vegetabes roasted with a salsa verdi
• • • • • • • • • • •
DESSERTS

Hazelnut and Chocolate Brownie
Served with Double Cream
Bread & Butter Pudding
Baked B&B with berries and crème anglaise

Traditional Christmas Pudding
Served with brandy cream

Cinnamon Centred Crème Brulee
With Tia Maria and berries

• • • • • • • • • • •

Fresh Coffee
With petite fours
 
The Christmas menu is designed specifically for those of you looking to arrive in your droves from the workplace (though you won’t feel out of place if you don’t), and nicely priced at £16.95 a head. Call them on 01792 386624, or go to the www.brittania-inn.food-passion.co.uk webpage for all their details and to read more about them.

I’m not sure if these guys should be running a restaurant or writing kid’s stories, but they seem to be doing both pretty well to me. Here’s Martin’s Halloween menu for the Britannia Inn, Llanmadoc - you can even turn up in fancy dress if you’re not scared!

 Starters
(S)Cream of Pumpkin Soup
Severed with frog’s eyes and olive oil
Convicted Crisp Pork Belly
With bobbing apple puree and dark sweet sauce

Creepy Prawn & Butternut Ravioli
Severed with chilli savoy and a light prawn bisque
Breaded and Beheaded Welsh Goats Cheese
En croutẻ, served with red onion chutney and blood-red pepper coulis
Mains

Fear Range Zombie Chicken Breast
Severed with pomme purée, confit shallots, fresh peas and a light jus
Skeleton Salmon
With pomme puree and a glowing pea broth
Ghoulish Vampire Wellington
Cauldron-mixed vegetables infused with olives and wrapped in puff pastry
Dracula’s Duck Breast
Pan-seared and severed with pulverised garlic & new potatoes, and a red cabbage & blood coulis
Desserts

Baked Transyllvanian-style Cheesecake
Baked cheesecake with mixed blood berries and coulis
Bread & Butter Pudding
B&B baked at the stake with blood berries and served with crème anglaise
The Devil’s Chocolate Brownie
A wicked desert severed with double cream

Selection of Frankenstein’s (French) & Werewolves’ (Welsh) Cheeses
Served with celery & grapes

Coffee

£25.00

Where possible all our ingredients are sourced locally and marinated in the blood of freshly slaughtered virgins by the Warlock Martin
Do not hesitate to speak to a member of our skeleton crew if you have any questions regarding our dishes

If you are asking yourself this question then don’t waste your time doing something ordinary - save it until Wednesday, because Labaire’s restaurant in Mumbles have a super wine tasting Rioja evening, with all courses specifically designed by Tim to complement each Rioja wine served. Cheers Wine Merchants have carefully selected the wines.

  Not only that but Abel from Bodegas Riojanas will also be there to take you through the background of this variety. So if you like your Rioja (and most of us do to be fair!), tickets are £35 a head with all the wine included (make sure you don’t have to get up too early the next day) Arrive at 7.30 for 8.00pm start. There are only 30 places, and 14 have gone so far.

Here are some of the wines that will be served, and Tim is keeping his menu strictly under wraps until the night, though moules and Spanish cheeses might just have passed by my ears:

Artesa Rose, Artesa White unoaked Rioja, Puerta Vieja Crianza Rioja, Vina Albina Reserva 2001, Gran Reserva 1978 Bodegas Riojanas, Sarria Moscatel, from Navarra (slight cheat).

Should be a great night.