Monday 24 August 2015

Foodies Festival, Harrogate


There's not many offers of spending a day surrounded by fabulous food that I will pass over - I mean why-oh-why on this earth would I willingly miss out on anything associated with good grub?

Trust me - I wouldn't

So when I was very kindly invited over to Ripley Castle to attend Foodies Festival I actually couldn't wait to get myself there.

And last Friday, with our food-loving kiddies in tow (who I have to say, were so overly excited at the thought of any kind of a free food sample) myself and one half of A Blogs Life popped on over to Harrogate to tantalise our taste buds in some very lovely and very unexpected warm, sunny weather.

Our first stop was the VIP tent - of course...


We were treated to a complementary glass of fizz each - mine naturally went to a lovely couple seated next to us though...


...and then we had the opportunity to pop back into the marquee as and when we liked to enjoy the VIP refreshments, the biscuits and the welcoming nature of the friendly staff all throughout the day.


It proved to be a very welcome facility to have, especially with three children to keep happy.

But then - unfortunately - disaster struck.

~ My son was stung by a wasp ~

And within the first five minutes of us arriving too...

...which meant that obviously he was upset about it for the next ten hours (I kid you not!)

But Foodies Festival had everything covered - they had a well stocked first aid tent on site, complete with very sympathetic first aiders and coupled with staff who really did try everything they could to make him feel better I was so pleased with all of the help and attention he received.

However I don't think anything would have worked fully, not until we found a sample of yummy goats-cheese pizza on offer - now that definitely started the "healing ball" rolling that's for sure...


Especially with it being made in this amazing, eye-catching van, one complete with a real clay pizza oven too...


It was brilliant and really did help us get on with the day properly.

There were lots of scheduled live events available to sit through during the day and although we didn't actually watch any of them fully (kiddies!), I did have a little peek into a few and they did prove to be quite popular and really rather informative...



We wandered around the stalls, discovering lots of different, local food establishments, ones that otherwise I would never have known existed.

I think my favourite find had to be Richmond based Kacao Chocolaterie...



Kelsey was really friendly and even put together an amazing selection of sweet treats for me to take home.
(but more on those beauties later)

I was also amazed by the cuteness of the stall of Tarte And Berry - a very vintage looking, sisterly run, baked treats business which provided us with an array of sweet-tasting, beautiful looking choices to pick from...



Naturally we walked away with our bags filled - six slices of calorific goodness between the two families in fact - well, it would have been rude not to now wouldn't it...

And once we had overloaded on all of that sweetness we decided that lunch just had to be meat, so chicken it was - we headed over to the Flamin' Rooster stand where there were a range of BBQ delights on offer...


Between us all, we sampled a lamb burger, a chicken wrap and a box filled with chicken wings, and trust me, nothing went uneaten....which totally speaks for itself really doesn't it.

But even after all of that I just couldn't help myself when I spotted cheese - I just had to take a closer look.

And off I went to the Snowdonia Cheese Company van where I found something I'm actually still kicking myself for not buying in bulk - some cheese flavoured with pickled onions!

Oh yes - pickled onions!

It was amazing - and now I'm just hoping (hoping, hoping, hoping!) I will be able to find some on-line because it was fantastic and I totally need some more in my life.

I really enjoyed our day out with Foodies Festival and personally was really pleased that we had decided to go over on the Friday.


The day suited us perfectly.

With it being the first day that the festival was open and still being a weekday I found that it wasn't overly crowded with people which meant that we didn't have to keep the kiddies glued to our sides all of the time and the pram wasn't getting stuck between hordes of people.

A nice bonus which just added to the overall loveliness of the day.

I'm very much looking forward to the Christmas event now...

*Tickets gifted to me. thought, opinions & pictures of the day all my own
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