Would you like a stand at Church Farm Barn Christmas market?  Are you an Artisan producer? Ruth Williamson and her husband Paul are holding a Christmas Market in their barn at Church Farm, Bradfield Combust on the weekend of December 14th and 15th.  Throughout the month of December they sell their farm grown Christmas trees and homemade fir wreaths from the barn.

Ruth says "the market is undercover in our Suffolk barn, dry but may not be all that warm!  I am looking for local producers such as a breadmaker, cheese supplier or Christmas pudding maker or any food that could be good for Christmas or to give as a gift.  I am happy to consider craft makers too!  I charge £20 for the 2 days and supply a table and chair" for more details email Ruth at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.%20<This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This is one small branch of the £3.99 pear tree bought from Lidl four years ago.The tree has been espaliered and grown against a sunny wall by my father.  I wish I had taken a picture of the whole tree.  The crop was impressive!

I couldn't stay in Cromer last night without trying out No 1 Fish and Chip Restaurant and takeaway, recently opened by Galton Blackiston ( you know; Morston Hall, Michelin Star, Celebrity Chef...) The restaurant is quite big and the takeaway shop is next door. 

When you arrive you stand behind a sign which says "please wait to be seated" so I did. The waitress came over and said that she was not allowed to seat me - I thought she was joking, but she wasn't.  So I had to wait for the lady in charge to finish taking an order before she showed me to a table.

I was hoping to try the house special - crab cakes - but they had sold out so I ordered plaice and chips and a portion of mushy pea fritters.The printed menu gives more space to the wines on offer than the savoury food but I was driving so had a ginger beer, there are some nice choices of soft drinks. The fish was very fresh - had lovely batter, light and crisp - and very good chips with a portion of homemade tartare sauce on the side. The pea fritters were also tasty and so hot I burnt my mouth eating them. They were served with a mint dip.

The service was a bit shaky from that wait at the start. A few things were forgotton and there were some interesting descriptions of the menu - olives in the tartare sauce.... I don't think so!

• posh condiments
• 
• cromer
• mushy pea fritter
•  

Gor blimey, a trip to the East End last night culminated with a meal under Hoxton station rail arches at Beagle. A restaurant that only opened this year with two rooms - bar and  restaurant - both big and noisy. We liked the interesting menu and high quality ingredients used in all of their dishes but their service was some of the best we have experienced; very knowledgeable, very friendly and unpatronising young staff - who are clearly having everything explained to them in the kitchen and probably tasting most of it too - hooray! Mutton was served pink with a plate full of runner beans and anchovy.  The Essex Bird in the picture (from Radwinter Wild Game) is partridge, with Jerusalem artichokes and watercress. It's still early in the season for partridge so wait a little longer for the weather to get cold, then they will have a nice layer of fat to make the meat more tender.

We don't want you all to know about this pub because it's busy enough as it is but we just had a tasty and great value home made lunch here, two courses for £5.70. The bill for four was under thirty pounds - including four drinks from a selection of guest and house ales. We had plaice and chips, chicken veronique (a bit like chicken supreme with grapes, but we didn't find any grapes in ours...) peach mousse with Archers, and bread pudding. There was a dish of fresh veg each; a choice of mashed, chipped or sauted potatoes, and custard or cream on the puddings. When the puddings ran out they put on new ones - hot chocolate pudding or whisky and raspberry trifle. This is how to fill up a pub or restaurant - very friendly staff welcoming lots of older local people who were brought up on this kind of home-made food and who know how good it is.

At the Menta Trade Fair and Food and Drink Expo at Ickworth today we tasted various offerings but our favourite was the curry from 'Our House of Spice'. Two lovely sisters, Nadia and Julia, who make ready meal curries and spices you can cook with at home. Lovely presentation, hot food to try and smiling faces to sell it. You can find them on their facebook page or contact them by e mail on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We would have tweeted it there and then but there wasn't any internet at this trade fair...derrrrrrr.

Near suffolkfoodie hq we have an old airbase where lots of trees planted in the war are still producing fruit, including these lovely plums that we are about to turn into jam. You don't need an airbase to forage to get wild fruit - just look at the side of the road where people have chucked out their apple cores. The cores are now fully grown trees. But professional foraging can cause problems as people strip the contents of everywhere wild. Leave some behind for the future!

It's a long drive for us but inspector x drove, so I had three glasses of cava and a sloe gin at this evening's launch event at The Plough, near the coast and only three miles from Woodbridge. There was generous hospitality from Ruth the landlady, introducing her new chef Jerome and the autumn menu to a group of foodie friends and supporters. We ate mini-burgers, toad in the hole, welsh rarebit and fish and chip canapes, followed by mini strawberry pavlovas and treacle tarts. 

Anyone fancy a plate of my leftover curried goat?  Leftoverswap in the USA and shareyourmeal  in the Netherlands both offer subscribers a chance to swap leftovers. Now I think that's a really good idea and they cover the UK too, linking you up with people who have food to share. But look at their map - there's a big empty space devoid of sharers in East Anglia!