We were back at Cressing Temple Barns this weekend for the annual Essex Festival of Food and Drink.
We always have a great time at this event as it’s well attended and has a good local presence, so we can catch up with some of our regular customers.
Summer shows are always a little tricky, as the weather is often against us. It’s either too hot for the chocolate, too wet for people to make it beyond their front door, or so windy we have to keep one arm on the gazebo at all times to stop it blowing away. The barns at Cressing Temple, however, are reasonably cool, even on the hottest days, and provide shelter if its raining. We do get a lot of dust deposited on us from the thatched roof in high winds, but you can’t have everything.
This year, we managed to sneak out to watch Nadiya Hussain’s cookery demo, and she was every bit as lovely as we’d expected her to be. We also got to meet James Martin …. well, he asked directions to the toilet. I did thrust a Pina Colada sample into his hand as he came back through, but didn’t find out what he thought.