Chester Food Festival

Easter Weekend saw the annual Chester Food Festival. We were lucky enough to be up in Chester, visiting parents for the Easter break, and, since we all love food, enjoyed a tasty few hours wandering around the many stalls. We began inside the tents, which was mainly producers, growers and artisans selling their wares, but with all those free tasters, you couldn't go wrong. And its always good to try before you buy.

I couldn't wait to get around this inside part though as the stalls outside are always my favourite: cooking, food to buy and eat now, farmers' market...

As usual, as soon as the boyf. saw the Menai Oyster stall, he couldn't resist. Did I want one? Not today, but I do enjoy the odd one now and then, if I can get my brain past the texture and look of them.

Next was onto a stall I see regularly at these food fayres, the Pudding Company. I tasted their sticky toffee pudding, which was delicious, but we went with our usual choice of the ginger sponge with a ginger and lemon sauce. It didn't last long once we arrived back home and by the end of our first meal back in Essex, it had disappeared!

As we continued to wander through the amazing cooking smells - free-range chicken curry with brown rice, seafood and chicken paella, barbecued meat - I stumbled across a basket of smoked garlic. I'd been wanting to try this for ages and at only £1 I couldn't resist. Have a look at my post to see what I used it for.

The final stop of the day was to sit in the sun and have lunch. I was going to go for the curry but couldn't resist the delicious marinated meat smell coming from the barbecue! At £3.50 for a quarter of chicken or 2 lamb chops you couldn't go wrong. I actually got 3 chops as there happened to be three left at the time and the boyf. got the largest quarter of chicken you have ever seen in your life - we asked no questions about the sourcing of these chickens this time though!