I have spent so much of this week shopping, preparing, cooking, eating, and generally thinking about food!

On Tuesday I went on an Eat the Change shopping trip to Gloucester Road.  In the Real Olive Co the only thing I could have bought was Godminster Cheddar in wax, but it was huge and cost £8, and I didn’t really want that much cheese.  I found some Cornish sea salt, but it was in plastic.  In Scoopaway they couldn’t tell me for sure if the salt was from the UK, athough said they were fairly sure it was.  Likewise with the green split peas.  Did managed to get some local honey there though, but then spoke to someone later that day who reminded me that most commercial bee keepers feed their bees sugar, which is almost certainly imported.  Their oats were British grown however.  In Harvest the only thing I could get was fresh veg.  There was some UK-grown dry stuff, but it was all plastic packaged.

I made myself some soup for lunch with onions from Harvest, green tomatoes from my garden, potatoes, sweetcorn, sage from Mina Rd community garden, and a bit of butter and salt.  Delicious.

That evening I went to a bring and share Eat the Change dinner.  So much yummy food.  I made a flapjack from oats, butter, honey, apples and filled with some of the jam made on Monday.  Discovered that there is an organic pear cider which is 100% British and can be found at Better Food Company.

By Wednesday I was still enjoying the challenge, but after having two days at home on Monday & Tuesday in exchange for working the weekend, I found it much harder once I was back at work.  The usual routine would be to make myself a cup of Redbush as soon as I get in in the morning, but I made do with hot water instead - not very satisfying!  At lunch time I did have a wonder round the garden at work and found something that looked a lot like chamomile.  Not sure if it was though as it was pretty flavourless.  Does anyone know how many chamomile flowers you’d have to put into a cup of hot water for it to have much flavour?

I had ambitiously offered to make lunch for everyone attending a lunchtime meeting (about 5 others), and got up an hour early to bake bread and make an omlette with red onion, potato and locally foraged nettles.  I also took some left over green tomato soup.  All went down a treat, and I explained why I was doing it but there was’t much time for discussion unfortunately.

I slipped up in the evening though, as I was working at a youth centre, and the activity for the evening was decorating gingerbread men.  I thought I’d be able to decorate one without feeling the need to eat it afterwards, but was mistaken!

Today I’m working at St Werburghs City Farm and am going to try out lunch in the cafe.  It specialises in local, seasonal food so am hoping it has something suitable.

Am intending to carry on eating as much British produce as possible after this week, is anyone who lives near St Werbs, Easton etc areas in Bristol interested in doing some bulk buying of things like oats/barley/split peas/other British-grown stuff?  I sent Essential an email this morn asking what British produce they have.  Could poss tie this in with the Grub Club run from Midimo on Tuesdays, e.g. have dry goods for sale one Tuesday a month?