Gin & It

It's a little outside of my Guyrope Gourmet persona, but I'm delighted to have been asked to contribute to a rather exciting new publication called Gin & It.  

It promises to be a boozy tome and as well as submitting my copy and illustrations (yes there's pics in there too!) I was moved to rattle off the following:

Sibling rivalry has shaped the world that we live in.  It can be a destructive force, or it might lead to the foundations of a civilization destined to dominate and influence a world for centuries beyond its demise. 

For a parent to witness offspring squabbling, bickering and vying for attention can be a pain almost impossible to endure.  On the other hand, to watch your brood nurture, support and care for one another over the years, must be one of the most satisfying rewards a parent can reap. 

In this day and age of carefully rationed free school milk, and capped child benefit, parents are invited to think carefully before bringing new progeny into this world.  It’s a risk, but someone’s got to do it.

Having delivered his first in 2009, award winning food writer, broadcaster and expectant father, Tim Hayward has sired another.  The new arrival, set to make an appearance in early December, has already been named.  Gin & It will be the naughty little sister to the popular, and award winning food quarterly Fire & Knives.  No breast for this new baby.  Bottle fed from the off, this quarterly journal ‘for drinkers, thinkers, barflies and boozehounds’ looks set to replenish the drinks cabinet left empty since the last drops of Cyril Ray’s ‘Compleat Imbiber’ evaporated in 1971.

Edited by Kate Hawkings, a distinguished writer and self-confessed food and wine trollop, Gin & It pulls together the best of new writing on booze from an array of hip young gin-slingers and scribes of a more mature vintage.  Dressed, as it were, in hand-me-down clothes bearing the style and the cut of its older brother, Gin & It stands out as a beautifully crafted journal, set to celebrate the glib and oily art, culture and humour of those who sip from the loving cup.

Like Fire & Knives, this naughty little sister is free of advertising and financed through subscription.  Gin & It does not pay for content, her contributors are happy to slake their thirst for exposure by hanging their words in the windows of what looks set to be the bawdiest saloon in the west.

As Hayward and Hawkings wait anxiously before popping the celebratory cork, as ‘parents’ they must be aware of how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.  Ease their anxiety by subscribing to this amazing sensation, better still how about a gift subscription for your drunken uncle or that old soak of an aunt, it is nearly Christmas after all! Wassail!

Visit www.ginandit.co.uk to see what all the fuss is about.

Really Really Wild Time

It was a hell of a long drive back at nearly eight hours and landing up in Otley at 1:30 in the morning, but boy was it worth it.  I love a trip to Wales at the best of times. Wales with good weather is one of the best countries in the world.  We loaded Nan the Van and set off for The Really Wild Food Festival in St David's, Pembrokeshire.  We stopped off for a couple of days at Aberaeron, stopping on a site less than a stones throw from a pebbly beach.  The Site was called 'Camping on the Farm' and is apparently one of the oldest campsites on the West Wales coast!

Aberaeron is quite possibly on of my favourite Guyrope Gourmet destinations.  








There's a great Deli and a superb wet fish shop called Fish from the Hive.  I stocked up on supplies from both and set off back on the five minute walk to the campsite.

I rustled up a poached bass in my 'surgical instrument sterilising fish kettle' for the kids, while Mrs GG and I dined on salt & pepper squid.  We rounded the evening off with a small fire on the beach where we grilled a couple of sardines and toasted the marshmallows.

     

On south to St David's.  We'd first been here five years ago when our youngest was just six months old, it was his first camping trip back then so he's a seasoned regular now.  I was booked to demo at The Really Wild Food Festival which is in its eighth year now.  It's a superb little festival celebrating all that is good about local food, culture and produce.
















The Friday show saw me whipping up a paella while the crew from BBC Radio4's Food Programme waved microphones in front of my face.  Tim, one of the reporters for the programme is a great foodie himself and showed up having stopped off at Haverfordwest en route, with a bag full of goodies. The genius had even brought a bag of live cockles, which obviously went straight in the paella.


Saturday was a risotto day, broad bean and asparagus to be precise.  The great thing about doing festivals like this is that I never know what i'm going to cook until I get on site.  All the ingredients are bought on site.







I had a super crowd on both days and met some great people with excellent tales and ideas about future camping cuisine (I'll be trying a Thai curry next trip for sure!).  It really is a bloody pleasure being the Guyrope Gourmet, and gigs like the Really Wild Food Festival and the people that attend them make it so. 


Diolch!

A Really Wild Time

I'm currently set up at the Really Wild Food festival in St David's Pembrokeshire. The family are fast asleep in the tent and I'm up pondering what to cook for today's demo. It was a great day yesterday, I rustled up a tasty paella in front of a delightful audience, while Tim Hayward and 'Rich the mike' from radio four's food programme waved microphones in my general direction. Not sure when it's going on air, not sure if I was supposed to tell you that, but hey! Summer's finally here. We even drove down the road to Whitesands beach for a splash in the waves after the show yesterday. Looking in the cupboard I reckon it going to be a broad bean and asparagus risotto today. I've also got some turkey hearts and laverbread which Tim and Rich brought for me yesterday, oh and some black pudding too, heaven knows what I'll make of those, but it will all get cooked! Long long drive home tonight after the show, then it's time to start packing for our family holiday as we're off at the weekend. A jaunt to Spain on the train and a weeks camping on Menorca.

It's Official

Hold the front page! The Guyrope Gourmet has recently bagged a book deal!  Of all the perfect publishers, Punk have come up with the goods.  Punk publishing is an independent publisher behind the best selling 'Cool Camping' series of books.  It's a perfect match for the Guyrope Gourmet and i'm delighted.  Nestled comfortably among Punk's other great publications; Dixie Wills' 'Tiny Campsites', Matt Carroll's 'Escape Routes', Daniel Start's 'Wild Swimming' and the delicious food lover's guide 'Taste Britain', Guyrope Gourmet has finally found a place to pitch up.


My book will be published next year (scheduled for May).  With a working title of Guyrope Gourmet - a collection of camping recipes & outlandish tales, it lifts the lid on the ins and outs of cooking great food under canvas.  Packed with photographs, illustrations, ideas and recipes, it's set to become 2013's camping culinary must-have.  It also carries a tale or two of my culinary adventures in far-off lands including run-ins with Syrian soldiers and gun toting American Sheriffs.


But that's not all, with support from those delightful people at Outwell, who have kept me supplied with amazing camping equipment over the years, the Guyrope Gourmet book will inform and entertain and hopefully inspire campers to try out new dishes and sample food produced and grown locally to their campsites.  I'm already planning a 'book tour' which will carry me far and wide to food festivals and campsites the length and breadth of the country, where I'll be doing the (almost) infamous Guyrope Gourmet cookery demonstrations, signing copies and generally cavorting around.  If all goes to plan, I'll be joined by "One of the finest guitarists of his generation" (according to Mojo Magazine) but more about that later.


In the mean time, I'm busy writing new recipes and shooting for the book and looking forward to the upcoming food festivals, The Really Wild Festival and Abergavenny Food Festival.


Thanks for all your support so far. X

A cookery school in a sheep shed!

 I'm thrilled to announce that in association with Outwell tents and Studfold Farm Campsite, the Guyrope Gourmet cookery school is open for business on the following dates: 21st July, 25th July, 31st July, 22nd August, 25th August.

 
All events will take place at Studfold Farm campsite, situated at the top of Nidderdale in North Yorkshire. Each session will last around and hour and a half, depending on what we cook. All equipment and ingredients will be provided. Ingredients will be sourced where possible from local providers, keeping food miles to a minimum. Come and build a paella using Yorkshire Chorizo, or stir up a risotto. Wrestle with a ragout or tackle a tagine, hone the inner guyrope gourmet and have fun while learning to broaden your camping cuisine.

 Why not come along and use fresh local Yorkshire ingredients, the company of others and a spot of Guyrope Gourmet know how to try something a little different. You don't have to be camping on site to join the fun, but if you are all the merrier.



Dates: 21st July, 25th July, 31st July, 22nd August, 25th August.

Duration: 1 - 2 hours (commence 11:00 am)

Location: Studfold Farm Campsite, Lofthouse, Nidderdale, North Yorkshire, HG3 5SG

Tarrif: £35 per person (includes all ingredients and equipment use). Bookings via the shop on the Guyrope Gourmet website (Paypal).

A Supperclub in a tent

Following the success of previous events, I'm delighted to announce some more dates for the infamous Guyrope Gourmet supper club in a tent.  Taking place on 'Champ's Field' at Home Farm in Colton (near Tadcaster), I will always endeavour to use ingredients bought from the on site 'Food from the Farm' shop.  Farmers Angela & Andrew Kay take great pride in their herd of Hereford cattle, supplying beef to Waitrose supermarkets as well as local butchers and selling in their own 'Food from the Farm' shop .  They also have a nearby market garden and grow an amazing range of vegetables.  The Guyrope Gourmet supper club is a true zero food miles dining experience.

It's an informal affair, with room at the table for ten guests.  It all takes place in my tent.  I cook on site in 'Nan the Van' which is always parked alongside the tent.  You'll be served with a three course meal from a fixed menu.  Unfortunately I'm unable to cater for allergies/intollerances owing to the ridiculously basic equipment I'm cooking on (you wouldn't get away with that at the Ivy!)

Guests are invited to contribute a set fee of £20 per head.  To compensate for previous experience of 'no showers', I am asking that you secure your reservation with a £10 deposit which is payable in the 'Shop' on the Guyrope Gourmet home page (tab in top right corner).  Please feel free to bring your own wine.  There is of course no fee for corkage!


The dates for Summer 2012 are: 


Tuesday 1st May - Dinner at 7:00pm. Please note that BBC's Look North team will be onsite throughout the evening as the event is being televised. There is a strong likelihood that guests may appear on regional TV!  And here's the film that went out over most of the North of England.  Largely thanks to this, the July date is now fully booked!


http://youtu.be/4u9Fbf0I_t4


Saturday 14th July - Dinner 7:00pm  (Fully booked)


The menus will be announced on the Guyrope Gourmet website/facebook  & Twitter sites ahead of the events.  Menus usually contain meat or fish and are rarely fully vegetarian.

2012 off to a good start

2012 is shaping up to be a busy year for the Guyrope Gourmet.  I'm now a member of the Guild of Food Writers and have a regular slot in Camping Magazine as well as Great Food Magazine.  Both tomes, excellent in their field, with the former being very excellent in a field!  I continue to ply offerings to Fire & Knives and the Foodie Bugle, while also temping editors of the national press to take my epistles (with a degree of recent success I might add!)


Had a splendid night at Bettakultcha in February, where I waxed lyrical about the origins of the Guyrope Gourmet in front of a willing crowd. Hoping to be invited back soon.


I've booked a 'world tour' of cookery demonstrations, which will be laced with tales of derring-do, delicious food for you to sample, and the odd tune on my trusty ukulele. 

Confirmations for the following prestigious foodie and outdoor events: 


20th May - Malton food festival
28th & 29th July - The Really Wild Festival, St David's
25th August - Studfold Farm campsite, Nidderdale, Yorkshire
28th August - Kilnsey Show, North Yorkshire (with #supperclubinatent planned for the evening)
15th & 16th September - Abergavenny Food Festival


The first of the 2012 Guyrope Gourmet #supperclubinatent nights will be in April (date TBC), with more to follow over the summer and into the autumn.

A new venture, the Guyrope Gourmet Cookery School, is set to get under way at Studfold Farm campsite.  This is being made possible with the help of the very excellent tent and camping equipment manufacturer Outwell, who have supplied cooking stoves and other equipment for the school.  These will be small, informal classes in which you can pick up a few tips and learn to be a guy rope gourmet yourself.  Full details, including dates and costs will follow in the Spring.


Throughout 2012 I will be working hard on the Guyrope Gourmet cookery book, which I am hoping will be published in the Spring of 2013.  I'm dying to let this cat out of the bag, but fear it might escape, so you'll just have to bear with me for details soonish.