Foodies Festival

We are fortunate to have two National Trust properties within a 15 minute drive away from where we live. One of these is Tatton Park and I have been visiting the house, gardens, parklands and lake since I was a small child through being a teenager and now as an adult.

Every weekend throughout the summer they hold events and this weekend it was the Foodies Festival featuring a number of top chefs and wine/beer experts. I had seen the advert for it in a magazine but thought David would not want to go with tickets for the two of us at £26. This last week David had to work at Knutsford and when he got there he found a number of free tickets had been given to his employers so came home with 2 tickets for both of us as a suprise for me.

What a fabulous day we had with sunny weather, live music and plenty of food and drink tasting. We signed up for two tasting sessions that involved both food and drink and enjoyed both of them. They involved matching beer and matching sherry to food. This made a real change from matching wine to food and were very informative. I was driving so David did most of the tasting with me just having a taste on my lips rather than drinking. This meant he had my share aswell as his own so he was bordering on merry on the way home. Just lovely!

We were given lots of freebies from the various stalls selling food and drink or just wanting to promote their products. I was pleased with the following freebies.

Two very handy sized pink shopping bags from Rose d'Anjou.

Lovely pink shopper from a farm that sells the most scrummy bacon I've tasted in a long time. It is not pumped full of salt water so you do not get that white scum in the pan when frying it. I also got a handy re-usable wine carrier from The Co-op.

Free copy of the August edition of Cheshire Life worth £3.99. I love Cheshire Life because it is full of places that I know and/or visited and I like to drool over the property that is up for sale. I can dream but don't think I will ever be able to afford a house worth £700k plus.

Two £3 off shopping vouchers at The Co-op with no minimum spend and a free pizza voucher.

A dozen 50p off vouchers for Boursin cheese. This is half price at Tescos at the moment so I will use some to get cheese at 67p instead of £2.35. It is on offer at £1.17 a pack so with the 50p voucher it is 67p.

A dozen 50p off vouchers for Stella Artois Cidre. We sampled some of the different flavours (sadly a small mouthful for me) and both of us agreed that the pear flavour was our favourite. The Stella Artois stall also gave us free glasses so we were pleased to get a matching pair.

There were plenty of stalls selling all kinds of food and drink from all over the world plus plenty of kitchen gadgets. We browsed them all but just bought the bacon from the Spoilt Pig stall and resisted impulse buys.

There was some great music but our favourite was a band called Half Crown who were just brilliant. Everyone was clapping, tapping their toes or dancing and I picked up an EP which we've already played a few times. Visit their Facebook page to see some footage of them playing. I think they would be just fabulous for a party or function. 

We returned home with pink noses from the sunshine and full tummies. I look forward to the event next year.