The Natural Kitchen has been shortlisted in the “Best New Store” category in the Natural and Organic Awards 2008. As a new independent British business on Marylebone High Street, The Natural Kitchen is competing against the big US Wholefoods Market for this award.

“This feels a bit like David Vs Goliath story … but I like it that way” said Keith Bird, Founder of The Natural Kitchen. “we are proud of what we have achieved so far, we wanted to recreate the romance and discovery of a market place … to create a place that helps connect customers with where their food comes from (to learn more about how the food is produced, prepared by our craftspeople). As well as creating a store where there is a real sense of community, where customers if want to, can spend more time interacting with other customers and learning about all sorts of foods at our regular workshops and events”.

• “One of the best food stores in London” – Time Out

• “This is a real find. If you live within 600 mile radius of the area go to The Natural Kitchen” - Michael Winner - The Sunday Times

Background

The Natural Kitchen seeks to challenge the supermarket food culture in an environment that recreates the romance and discovery of the traditional market place. It champions seasonality, celebrates the renaissance of real food and aims to nurture food biodiversity in all its glory.

What we stand for
-We wholeheartedly support the organic philosophy and organic farming.
-We believe in fair and ethical trading.
-We source as much regional produce as we can. We do not air-freight fresh produce.

-We hold animal welfare in high regard, and only source food produced using non-intensive farming practices.
-The way we trade is like a traditional market. We use biodegradable packaging and reduce, reuse and recycle as much as we can.
-We believe our traditional food heritage, regional food cultures and food biodiversity are vitally important. This is why we want to seek out artisan and wild foods and unusual and heritage varieties of vegetables and fruit.
-Traceability is essential. Knowing where our foods come from, who produces them, how they are grown and how they are processed drives all our purchasing decisions.
-We don’t do mass-produced food. Junk food has no place in The Natural Kitchen.
-Neither do we do nasty artificial anythings.
-We support The Slow Food Movement and its principles.

Harvey Nichols To Host Wine Dinner With Boutique Lebanese Winery, Massaya

For mouthwatering aromas from sizzling barbecues and all the best ideas for sensational picnics and sophisticated summer dining, visit the BBC Good Food Show Summer at The NEC from 11-15 June. This summer taste celebration is taking place at the BBC Summer Festival which also incorporates BBC Gardeners’ World Live and dedicated Good Homes and Countryfile magazine areas, as well as a brand new central feature bringing a sustainable future to life.

LUKE Croston will be Australia’s candidate in the next Bocuse d’Or World Cuisine Contest, to be held in Lyon, France in January 2009.

This prestigious competition, named after the ground-breaking French chef Paul Bocuse, is held every two years and hotly contested by candidates from all over the world.

Luke and his Commis Chef Vanessa Mateus competed in the Bocuse d’Or 2007, coming 12th out of a field of 24 countries. Luke also supported George Calombaris as his Commis Chef when George competed in 2003.

“We believe Luke has the experience and the technical skill to take Australia into the top 10 in 2009,” said Walter Wagner, President Bocuse d’Or Australia, at a Gala Dinner held at Crown.

“The committee took the decision to use the resources usually allocated to a cook-off to enhance Luke’s training program over the next 10 months and give the Australian team the best possible chance of success.”

Walter added this gave other potential future candidates the opportunity to spend time training with Luke so they were well prepared to compete in a cook-off for the 2011 Australian National Selection.

From now until January 2009, Luke and his Commis Chef Petros Dellidis will train in the Crown kitchens with a team that includes some of Australia’s top chefs such as Jacques Reymond, Tom Milligan, Philippe Mouchel, Peter Wright and Alain Fabregues.

In addition Serge Vieira, winner of the Bocuse d’Or 2005, has indicated he would like to assist the Australian team by mentoring Luke as he did for the previous competition. A range of Australian companies have donated funds, services and products to support the team.

“Given Luke’s talent and experience, combined with the level of support he will receive over the next 10 months, Australia is well placed for success in the Bocuse d’Or World Cuisine Contest 2009,” says Walter.

Enjoy Some Sensational Food This Spring At One Of The Seven Fabulous Peach Pubs. To celebrate the arrival of spring, the chefs at Peach pubs have come up with an array of light and invigorating dishes that are perfect for this time of year. Created with the best of the season’s produce, the new menus are awash with spring flavour and colour.

Come along to any of the seven pubs in the Peach stable – including the award-winning Rose & Crown in Warwick, The Fishes in North Hinksey Village, Oxford, The Swan at Salford (Milton Keynes) and The Old Mill in Berkhamsted - and you’ll find tender young vegetables, spring lamb, fresh herbs and seasonal fish on the menu. There’s an array of fresh, lighter dishes as well as more classic options, all made with top quality, seasonal produce, locally sourced where possible.

Re-awake your appetite by trying the roast tomato, Chantenay carrot and spinach salad with crunchy almond couscous, toasted seeds and shooting sprouts or marinated spring vegetables with spiced baked ricotta. Follow with a seven bone rack of roast spring lamb served on a board for two to share, with minted new potatoes and peas or a delicate Cornish lemon sole with caper and parsley butter and the best Jersey Royals. Finally, why not treat yourself to a delectable dessert like rhubarb jelly, granola and Greek yogurt or iced lemon meringue parfait.

Everything on the menu’s freshly cooked and there’s always a wide choice of daily specials including the finest quality fish from the ethical fisherman taking part in the Scottish Skippers’ Scheme. Most of the pubs have an Express menu for those in a hurry; baked spring vegetable omelette and green salad or Cornish spring lamb shepherds’ pie and a quick pud are just the job, no matter how tight for time you are.

Enjoy some sensational food this spring by coming along to the pubs*, which are all open daily from 11am and serve hot food all day. Reservations are advisable but not always essential.

We will list the various recipes available on Food-e-Matters Recipes under the categories they are saved.

:chef::plate:

Meat Dishes
Peppered Loin of Kudu Recipe

Braised Lamb Shanks Recipe


Fish Dishes

[I]Fish Gratin Recipe by Fruisana[/I]

Wild Alaska Salmon Noodle Supper


Desserts

The Lemon Tart Recipe by Fruisana

Lemon tart



Pastry
225g plain flour
115g butter, diced
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 small egg
2 tbsp lemon juice
25g Fruisana Fruit Sugar

Lemon filling
5 large eggs
115g Fruisana Fruit Sugar
Grated zest and juice from 4 lemons
300ml double cream

Pastry
1. Sift the flour into a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the lemon zest.
2. Beat in the egg and Fruisana with the lemon juice, to form a soft dough. It may be necessary to add another tablespoon of lemon juice. Wrap the pastry in greaseproof paper and allow to cool in the fridge for 30 minutes before using.
3. Remove pastry from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature before rolling out to fit a 23cm (9 inch) loose-bottomed, deep flan tin. Place tin on baking sheet, add a piece of greaseproof paper and baking beans and bake blind in the oven at electric 190°C, fan 170°C or gas mark 5 for 15 minutes.
4. Remove from the oven and then remove baking beans and greaseproof paper.

Lemon filling
5. In a bowl beat the eggs and sugar together, stir in the lemon zest and juice and then the double cream.
6. Pour the lemon filling into the pastry tart case and return to the oven and bake electric 150°C, fan 130°C and gas mark 2 for 30–40 minutes until the filling just sets.
7. Allow to cool, then chill completely before serving.

And once you have tried this recipe you can experiment with your own.

Experience Argyll hospitality at its best and celebrate with the locals and visitors to this area at the Loch Fyne Food and Drink Fair, held on 10-11 May 2008.

If your grocery bill is going up, you're not alone. From subsistence farmers to gourmets, consumers worldwide face rising food prices in what analysts call a perfect storm of conditions.

Freak weather is a factor. But so are dramatic changes in the global economy - higher oil prices, lower food reserves and growing consumer demand in China and India.

The world's poorest nations still harbour the greatest hunger risk.

Clashes over bread in Egypt killed at least two people last week, and similar food riots broke out in Burkina Faso and Cameroon this month.

But food protests now crop up even in Italy.

"It's not likely that prices will go back to as low as we're used to," said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group for Grains for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

"In Haiti, unless the government is subsidising consumers, consumers have no choice but to cut consumption. It's a very brutal scenario."

No one knows that better than Eugene Thermilon, 30, a Haitian labourer who can no longer afford pasta to feed his wife and four children since the price doubled to the local equivalent of R4.,58 a bag.

Their only meal on a recent day was two cans of corn grits. By noon the next day, he still had nothing to feed them for dinner.

In the long term, prices are expected to stabilise. Farmers will grow more grain for fuel and food and eventually bring prices down. Already this is happening with wheat, with more crops to be planted in the US, Canada and Europe in the coming year.

However, consumers still face at least 10 years of more expensive food, according to preliminary FAO projections.

Among the driving forces are petrol prices, which increase the cost of everything from fertilisers to transport to food processing.

Rising demand for meat and dairy products in rapidly developing countries such as China and India is sending up the cost of grain, used for cattle feed, as is the demand for raw materials to make biofuels.

What's rare is that the spikes are hitting all major foods in most countries at once. Food prices rose 4 percent in the US last year, the highest rise since 1990, and are expected to climb again this year.

As of December, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed food-price controls.

For many, it's a disaster. The UN's World Food Programme says it is facing a $500-million (R4-billion) shortfall in funding this year to feed 89 million needy people.

Subsidies

In Egypt, where bread is up 35 percent and cooking oil 26 percent, the government recently proposed ending food subsidies and replacing them with cash payouts to the needy.

But the plan was put on hold after it sparked public uproar.

"A revolution of the hungry is in the offing," said Mohammed el-Askalani of Citizens Against the High Cost of Living, a protest group established to lobby against ending the subsidies.

In China, per capita meat consumption has increased 150 percent since 1980. The price of pork has jumped 58 percent in the past year. Beef is becoming a weekly indulgence.

At the same time, increased cost of food staples in China threatens to wreak havoc. Beijing has been selling grain from its reserves to hold down prices, said Jing Ulrich, chairman of China equities for JP Morgan.

"But this is not solving the root cause of the problem. The cause of the problem is a supply-demand imbalance. Demand is very strong. Supply is constrained. It is as simple as that," Ulrich said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says fighting inflation from shortages of key foods is a top economic priority. Inflation reached 7,1 percent in January, the highest in 11 years, led by an 18,2 percent jump in food prices.

Meanwhile, record oil prices have boosted the cost of fertiliser and freight for bulk commodities - up 80 percent last year compared with 2006.

The oil spike has also turned up the pressure for countries to switch to biofuels, which the FAO says will drive up the cost of corn, sugar and soybeans "for many years to come".

Italians are feeling the pinch in pasta, with consumer groups staging a one-day strike in September. Italians eat an estimated 27kg of pasta per capita a year.

The protest was merely symbolic because Italians typically stock up on pasta. But in the next two months after the protest pasta consumption dropped 5%, said farm lobbyist Rolando Manfredini.

"The situation has gotten even worse," he said.

In decades past, farm subsidies and support programmes allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses, which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down.

But new liberal trade policies have made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands - putting global food reserves at their lowest in a quarter century.

Without reserves, bad weather and poor harvests now have a bigger impact on prices.

"The market is extremely nervous. With the slightest news about bad weather, the market reacts," said economist Abbassian.

That means that a drought in Australia and flooding in Argentina, two of the world's largest suppliers of industrial milk and butter, sent the price of butter in France soaring 37 percent. The same climate crises sparked a 21 percent rise in the cost of milk.

Already, there's a lot of suspicion among consumers.

"They don't understand why prices have gone up like this," said Nicole Watelet, general secretary at the Federation of French Bakeries.

"They think someone is profiting from this. But it's not us. We're paying."

Food costs worldwide spiked 23 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to the FAO. Grains went up 42 percent, oils 50 percent and dairy 80 percent.

Economists say that for the short term, government bailouts will have to be part of the answer to keep unrest at a minimum.

In recent weeks, rising food prices sparked riots in the West African nations of Burkina Faso, where mobs torched buildings, and Cameroon, where at least four people died.

"We need a response on a large scale, either the regional or international level," said Brian Halweil of the environmental research organisation Worldwatch Institute.

"All countries are tied enough to the world food markets that this is a global crisis."

Poorer countries can speed up the adjustment by investing in agriculture, experts say. If they do, farmers can turn high prices into an engine for growth. - source IOL

The 2008 Bordeaux Wine Festival will take place from the 26th to the 29th of June on the quays of the left bank of the Garonne River, from the Pont de Pierre to the Bourse Maritime.