It has been a busy week for awards!!
Working backwards – on Wednesday the shortlist for the 2015 FreeFrom Eating Out Awards was published – to much excitement on the part of those shortlisted. (We have been sending out invitations to the presentation at Food Matter Live on the 17th November and one shortlisted café/restaurant was so blown away by the whole thing that they have decided to close the restaurant for the day and bring all 12 staff to London for a day out at Excel!!!)
You an see the full list on the site but they include everything from fish and chip shops to up-market conference centres – and of course lots of foods manufactured for food service. This last category was judged back in the summer but for the rest, our judges are now heading out around the country, incognito of course, to put those shortlisted outlets through their paces.
The presentation will be part of a very busy three days for us at Food Matters Live – the FFEOA presentation on the 17th, then the launch of our ‘sorting-out-the-may-contain-chaos’ accreditation project before the show opens on the 18th and then finally our ‘cook off’ between winners of last year awards on the afternoon of the 19th.
Sadly this probably means that I shall get to see very little of what is on offer at Food Matters Live which very frustrating as there is a great deal! As last year the big conference pod in the middle of the show will be full of the great and the good in food and health, from Jeremy Hunt downwards, discussing every aspect of where we are going in food and health. Meanwhile the eight seminar rooms will have back to back presentations over the three days on everything ‘freefrom’ (naturally) to packaging, future nutrition, sustainable food businesses and much more. And then there is the ‘evidence base area evaluating new science underpinning innovations in product development within an interactive setting’, the food sensorium, and whole section of sustainable edibles and another whole section on innovations in natural, functional and alternative ingredients.… And that is without looking at a single stand! I know it means getting yourself to Excel but I am sure it would be worth at least one day of your time!
But back to awards…. Last weekend I was in Dublin for the launch of our good friend John Burke’s Irish FreeFrom Food Awards at the Allergy & FreeFrom Expo.
John has been a keen and faithful judge for the UK FreeFrom Food Awards for over five years and as a coeliac of long standing, has been keen to start something similar in Ireland. As you may know, Ireland has one of the highest incidences of coeliac disease in the world.
The Irish awards are open for entry now and will run over the next few months. Their website is not quite up and running yet but you can follow what is going on – and make contact with them if you are interested in entering – via their Facebook page or their Twitter account. I do not actually have any images as I was on a tight schedule to catch a plane back but you can check out some launch pictures here on their Facebook site.
And the Irish mists?
Well, I took the opportunity of going to Dublin for the awards launch to make quick trip down to County Leitrim to visit my cousin. County Leitrim is the most northerly county in Eire before you hit the border with the north and is a long thin county reaching from the sea into the midlands of Ireland. Quite unjustifiably, is tends to be overlooked by everyone – especially the Irish! But although it does get rather an overdose of Atlantic mists, it is really beautiful with the most wonderful cloudscapes and smoky coloured mountains.
This is Lough Melvin which stretches almost out to the sea and here it is from another angle.
As you can see, it is delightfully uninhabited so is the perfect place to escape an overdose of awards. Not that all is totally peaceful.
My cousin and his lady have a penchant for collecting down and out animals…. Animal lovers may remember the story of Paddy, the Yorky rescued from the middle of a motorway just outside Dublin. Now the menage has been joined by Buster, a very slim and elegant young tabby cat – most inappropriately named, in retrospect as he is not remotely a ‘buster’ – who was found lurking around the local organic centre. Amazingly Buster and Paddy have become the greatest of friends and have vigorous and on-going rumbles all over the house, the sofas, the chairs and, indeed, anyone sitting in them! But then Paddy is a very friendly little dog and is prepared to have a chat with anyone – even a donkey!
