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