Festival weekend: 17-18 September 2011
Events & activities at The Castle
Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 September: 10.00 – 5.00pm
The Castle Grounds comprise a variety of lawns, created by the ruins of the Norman Castle walls, each with its own flavour. Enjoy wonderful music, comedy, games, bunting, food themed workshops, colourful flags, food stalls & covered seating. Refresh yourself at The Blorenge Bar with probably the best back-drop in Wales and a fantastic range of drinks.
Food Academy
The Food Academy aims to inspire budding young chefs with a series of mouth-watering workshops. Encourage your child to try new things to cook and eat. Children can take part free of charge, first come, first-served - but must be accompanied by an adult.
SATURDAY at the Food Academy Tent
Tickle the taste-buds with these interactive workshops run by the UK's leading mobile cookery school, the Kitchen Academy. Children will have the chance to watch, make their own food, and most importantly, get to eat it afterwards!
10.30 – 11.30am: Welsh Cakes
12.00 – 1.00pm: Welsh Pintxo's (mini Welsh tapas)
2.00 – 3.00pm: Mini Welsh lamb burgers
3.30 – 4.30pm: Welsh Goats cheese and beetroot cous cous salad
SUNDAY at the Food Academy Tent
10.30 – 12 noon: Cook-off: Grow Your Own Ploughman's*
12.30 – 1.30pm: Welsh Pintxo's (mini Welsh tapas)
2.00 – 3.00pm: Mini Welsh lamb burgers
3.30 – 4.30pm: Welsh Goats cheese and beetroot cous cous salad
All day Saturday and Sunday: Earth Apple Bakery & the Real Bread Campaign will also be running fun drop-in bread-making workshops at the Food Academy site. Come and learn how easy it is to make interesting bread shapes and breadsticks.
* Don't miss the finals of our cookery competition
Grow Your Own Ploughman's – local secondary school children (and teachers!) have faced the challenges of growing veg, herbs and salads and inventing recipes. They've even been 'baking their own lawn' – planting and nurturing wheat seeds to use for baking their own bread – courtesy of Sustain's Real Bread campaign.
Support your favourite in the cook-off between Caldicot, Chepstow, Monmouth and Abergavenny's Comprehensive Schools on Sunday morning.
See also our main 'Food Academy' page
In the 'Dome'
An exciting programme of Music, Talks & Readings:
Meet the author of Food Britannia - the latest, most up-to-date and probably the most entertaining survey of Britain's iconic foods and the people who make them. Author Andrew Webb talks to fellow food-writer Tim Hayward about compiling this compendious work - 'quite possibly the hardest but most enjoyable thing I have ever done...'
Belshazzar's Feast: Paul Hutchinson and Paul Sartin, (member of 'Bellowhead'), play accordion, oboe & violin. Traditional folk music, with a touch of classical and jazz, pop and music hall in the mix.
The Remi Harris Trio: an extraordinary young local gypsy jazz guitarist who, with his trio, create the spirit of the Hot Club de France.
Little Rumba: play original tunes, with a romantic East European flavour & amusing lyrics, on guitar, violin & saxophone.
Guy Watson of Riverford Organic: Hear first-hand experience of the Riverford Box Scheme, which began when Guy started delivering vegetables to 30 friends in Devon, and has now grown to 40,000 boxes, delivered each week to homes around the UK from the regional sister farms.
Ian Marchant: The author & broadcaster reads his short story Katinka's Feast, commissioned by the Food Festival in 2001, and still as fresh as ever.
Paul Ewen: Paul is on a campaign for surreal ale. He will be reading stories from his book London Pub Reviews, described by Waterstones as a cross 'between Bladerunner and Coronation Street'.
Rude Health 'Rants'
The proudly outspoken Rude Health gang are passionate about real food, the way it should be. Get the low-down on the latest food issues from those in the know – our producers, chefs and food writers – as they take to the Rude Health soapbox. Audience participation warmly welcomed – even heckling!
The vintage tent & village green field
Fun, games & live music! Plus comedy food fights & cracker eating competitions.
The Marvellous Tea Dance Co with pretty china & delicious cakes.
Fruit'n'Vegetorium: The comic duo Beetle Brassica and Pomona O'Calabrese create a fabulously colourful mandala & feast using fresh produce.
Honey by Pif-Paf Theatre Company: Throughout the day a thirty minute show about bees - wondrous and entertaining for children and equally enjoyable and challenging for adults.
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Creative Workshop: Don't be late! It's a very important date! Follow the White Rabbit! We're all going to the Matter Hatter's Tea Party with Arts Alive! There'll be riddles and nonsense, cakes and jam tarts, with lots to make and do.
Hoopla Stall: old-fashioned fun for everyone.
Windmills: Ingenious metal windmills made by Bob Rowberry from recycled food containers.
Simon the Scout and Loose the Brownie with a whole host of foodie games for adults and children - Cracker Countdown, Chip Wars, Piles of Pud and Dangling Doughnuts. So get involved or this pair won't get their badges!
Tools For Self Reliance Cymru sell recycled garden tools collected from Wales and refurbished by volunteers in Crickhowell. All proceeds go to projects in Tanzania www.tfsrcymru.org.uk
Street Theatre
The Cup Cake Queens with High Tea! Surreal and colourful tea-party with dancing stilt-walkers. Sour cherry tart and strawberry cream cake to whet your appetite!
The Men from the Health & Efficiency Board: Beware these inspectors with their fingers in everything!
Play a game of imaginative Crazy Golf on the site of Castle's Long Hall.
Food & Drink
Delicious Food Stalls include Cafe Spice Namaste Indian street food, Cornish Fusion Fish & Taste of Persia kebabs, Clay Oven Flat Breads, The Salad Club & The Veggie Table, Pancakes & Coffee, Profijes & Ice Cream, The Marvellous Tea Dance Company & the G & Tea Tent.
And there's more at our other venues round the town...
...all available to 5-Venue Stroller Ticket holders. Just follow the links below:
The Market Hall & Brewery Yard
Access: The main market venues are fully accessible to wheelchair-users and mobility scooters. Please note: Dogs are not allowed in any of the market venues (access dogs excepted).
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