The Vanilla Pod Bakery: June 2015

wedding cakes

A Fabulous Torched Meringue Wedding Cake

05:40

My Life

Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival

14:27

This weekend was the fabulous Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival and I decided the make the most of it!

The packed chill out area by the music stage

I do love a good food festival and with this one literally on my door step, I couldn't resist. The Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival runs every June, and before I started specialising in wedding cakes I used to trade here too.

My friends enjoying a chicken wrap.

I went with friends on both the Saturday and Sunday, and with over 200 exhibitors the hardest decision was deciding what to eat for lunch! Everything looked so tempting!

On the Saturday, it was a bit of an alcohol fuelled day for us. There were gin stands everywhere and what with it being world gin day it would have been rude not too! We sampled most of what the festival had to offer and my favourite gins definitely had to be from Sibling Distillery and Brennen & Brown - which I am happy to say are both Gloucestershire based, yey keeping it local.

As well as gin,there were also loads of cheese stalls, and I love cheese, so was in my element. We sampled a fair few and I ended up buying a delicious smoked cheese from Lymn Bank Farm. (I have just had some with crackers, so good).

The food lovers marquees were great but we made the mistake of going around them at 2:00pm - never go around at lunchtime! They are always too busy, you can't move and it ends up being a frustrating experience. We eventually managed to get out and then went back in at 4:00pm, a much, much, much better experience. You can can see what is on offer, talk to the traders and take your time to make your purchases.

Jean-Christophe Novelli

Saturday was actually not that busy and slightly marred by the rain but Sunday was a dry, and therefore heaving! The highlight of Sunday had to be seeing Jean-Christophe Novelli in the Real Food & Drink Theatre, thought we couldn't actually hear what he was saying as the tent was packed and we were standing on the outside!

World Potato Peeling Contest

One of the more random events at the festival was the World Potato Peeling Contest, none-the-less we stayed to watch it and the crowd certainly enjoyed it. Well done to the winner!

My purchases!

Both myself, my friends bought lots of delicious item and we ended up devouring most of it there, including some heavenly raspberry marshmallows from Cottage Sweets. But I did take home a tasty looking cream egg shot from Retro Shots, a fabulous home curing kit by Ross & Ross (going to be a father's day present for my Dad next week), and the cheese which I mentioned earlier.

I did have a great time at the festival, but I do think the entrance fee should be slightly less and I certainly think you shouldn't have to the full price after 6:00pm (my boyfriend and I left early to meet other friends who did not want to pay the full price for an hour of the festival). But it was a awesome festival despite that minor issue and I will be back from a visit or two next year!

Let me know if you went to the 2015 Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival and what you thought about it?

Best wishes,

Pia x