As part of Ely’s well established annual Eel Festival Weekend, we are introducing a new Food Festival on 4th and 5th May 2014 to be held on Palace Green under the gaze of Ely Cathedral.  The event will consist of a variety of artisan food traders, cookery demonstrations, food trade exhibitions and workshops.  If you would like to be part of this exciting new event please contact Tracey Harding, East Cambridgeshire District Council for more information  – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  

Would you want to cook for 40 plus Hotel Inspectors at their annual conference?  We can be a fussy lot.  However year after year The Farncombe Conference Centre do a sterling job.  We should really take a couple of days off from eating but not when you see food like this!

Fancy a drop of camel milk in your coffee? Well head down to Taylor Street Barista's at 125 Old Broad Street, London this week and 28 Queens Street, Brighton next week and you will find the United Arab Emirates produced camel milk "Camelicious" on the menu.

We are not ones for advocating produce that has travelled half way around the world, but this is in aid of Farm Africa, with customers encouraged to give a £1 donation for each coffee purchased.

Camel milk is very popular in the Middle East and North Africa and has five times the Vitamin C and half the fat content of cows milk. New rural enterprise anyone?

Pratik cooked us a mean burger, topped with Kiddertons Ash Reserve Goats cheese and a fabulous tray of chocolate brownies.  My idea of a perfect guest.

This week is Farmhouse Breakfast Week.  Today I made ...wait for it.... balsamic roasted tomatoes squashed onto toasted rye bread, topped with stir fried mushrooms and spinach, griddled halloumi cheese and a poached egg...what a pig!

Visit the ShakeUpyourWakeUp website for lots of breakfast ideas and recipes.

I was invited to the West Suffolk College this week to speak to the 1st year BTEC students in the morning and the Introduction to Catering students in the afternoon.  Which meant lunch at Zest Restaurant and a tour of the kitchens in the middle.  It never ceases to amaze me of the high standards and professionalism achieved by both the students and the lecturers in the Catering and Hospitalty Faculty. Bury definitely has got talent!

A fellow Suffolk food blogger - lots of good recipes, especially baking .. that means cakes.

I found a lot of cheese, cured meat and bread at Borough Market. I also found tomatoes.  I don't usually bother much with tomatoes in the winter, but these were just too tempting...

If you get the chance to spend a day or two in Cambridge then here is my mini food tour. Arrive in the afternoon and start with Afternoon Tease in King Street.  It is very close to the bus station in Drummer Street and as the name suggests serves tea and cake.  You can also get breakfast, brunch and lunch.  It stays open until 6pm in the week. I had a big slice of stout Christmas cake with homemade marzipan and icing. The dark molasses flavoured cake had huge juicy chunks of stem ginger and figs which made me go straight out and buy figs, because sometimes you just forget how nice they are.

After a good long walk around the city, a little retail therapy perhaps and working up an appetite, then go for supper at Pint Shop, another new restaurant to the Cambridge scene and just off the market by the Corn Exchange. Meat, bread, beer, about 50 types of gin, 30 whiskies and a very good wine list. The bar was full but I got a glimpse of some scotch eggs and sausage rolls on the bar top as I walked through to the restaurant. I was by myself, but had a good time.  Staff are friendly and welcoming and bring a plate of bread to the table once you are seated. I had half a pint of so'hop moor ultra pale keg beer, with triple cooked smoked ox cheek, horseradish gremolata and sprouting broccoli.  The side order of mash was perfect to mop up the gravy. The puddings sounded really good and included a sticky figgy pudding, but you can only eat so many figs in a day. And so to bed..... there are loads of places to stay, look at Quality in Tourism for rated properties.

In the morning find your way to Norfolk Street Bakery. it is an easy walk from the Grafton shopping centre. Do not leave Cambridge without visiting this delightful, bijou, Portuguese bakery.  Adilia bakes with her cousin Daniel and the window alone just calls you in.  It is bang in the middle of a residential part of town and a little terraced property.  You can get coffee to drink in or take away.  I tried salt cod pie, a meat croquette , a suckling pork rissole and cod fish cake. Yes, I am a pig, but how can you resist, and they were still warm!  I brought home a box of  cinnamon topped pastel de nata (custard tarts) to eat later.

• pastel de nata
• suckling pork rissoles,meat croquette
• chicken and salt cod pies
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All Manor of Events in Henley, outside Ipswich, are holding Christmas in Oz themed parties.  This is a really original place to go for the staff Christmas party.  Each year the theme is different and we really enjoyed the chance to spend the evening in Oz.  The food was very good ( Christmas menu ) and the decor brilliant.