I Grew This 2019

Most of this year's growers are here immortalised in the traditional I Grew This montage!

Thank Yous for Foodival 2019

Thanks everyone for creating a memorable Tooting Foodival No.12 last weekend. We hope we have not forgotten anyone!

Venue Hosts:
Naseem & Mushkil Aasaan thank you as ever for the provision of your special community space for us
Brian & BJ Hardware, thank you for the use of your yard, power and handyman skills!
Residents of Hereward Rd thanks for lending us your streetscape for the day

Volker, Sarah & Isla preparing vegetables

Donors:
David & Malsara, Ramsden Rd: marrows, tomatoes, sage, rocket, thyme, oregano, mint, St John's Wort
Ben, Endlesham Rd: many cooking apples
Rod & Jane, Streatham: apples
Sarah, Balham Park Rd: beetroot, carrots, tomatoes, borlotti beans
Chuck, Becky & Becky, Kay, Ryan. Katherine, Rosalind, Anuja & all at Tooting Community Garden: Picasso potatoes, pumpkin, tomatoes, leek, garlic, cucamelon, Jerusalem artichoke, herbs, pattypan squash, runner beans, kale
Susie & Mike, Earlsfield: tomatoes, snake squash, butternut squash
Maggie, Burntwood Lane: mint & nasturtiums
Debbie, Nimrod Rd, Charlotte potatoes, apples, Gris de Provence and Dinizza squashes, rhubarb, courgette, leeks, apples, potatoes
Becky, Tooting High St, carrots
Kath, Garratt Park alloments: 2 wonky courgettes, runner beans, rainbow chard
Lea, Price Close: salad greens, chilli, tomatoes, cavello nero
Rachel, Ruislip Close: baby peppers, aubergines, cucamelons, courgettes, cucumbers, beetroot, chillis
Jenny, Larry, Erin & Harley, Moffatt Rd, apples
Poppy & Teo, Streatham: tomatoes and beans
Elisabetta, Dahomey Rd: apples, chard, beetroot, carrots, beans
Hilary, Trevelyan Rd: plums
Fio, Dahomey Rd: apples
Jane, Tamworth Allotments: marrow, cucumber, courgette
Ian, Cotefford St: cucumbers, apples
Rose, Balham: bay leaves
Libby, Tamworth allotment: apples
Nikki, Tooting: potatoes, apples 

Special thanks to local not-for-profit veg supplier Local Greens who donated butternut squash, courgettes, onions and potatoes.

Emily and Annette front of house

Chefs
Volker of Essential Ingredient for co-ordinating cooking in the street with help from local chefs Manisha from Pooja, Rick of Rick's Dining Room, Elisabetta from Minestra and gluten-free chef Sarah.

Volunteers
Richard, Sharon, Hilary, Ben, Jenny, Mita, Emily, Annette, Larry, Millie & Lewis.

Tooting Community Garden Team
Anuja, Barbara, Becky H, Becky K, Katherine, Kay, Rosalind & Ryan.

Creative Activities Team
Annie, Chuck, Nicola, Nikki, Matt, Paul & May from Butterfly Conservation. Beata & Think Outside tucked in with us.
Enterprises who were donors to the creative activities included Brindisa, Flashmat, Get Juiced, Milk & Work & Play Scrapstore.

Everyone who spoke on the Soap Box with special thanks to Mermaid Jasmine for her eye-catching performance and ocean plastics talks. Also special thanks to Millie & Erin for their help with the creative activities & their impromptu speeches. 

Kay and Ryan hosting the Community Garden Table

Top Tooting Cook
Thank you Sophie @thecornerplot for co-ordinating and judging with co judges Sarah and Mark. And thanks to all those who entered the competition!

Music
Thanks to Dermot for co-ordinating his meltdown and to his support team of Stave, Howard and Tye. To all the performers including Dermot himself, Resina Chowdhury, Natyalaya Academy of Tamil Art, Dan Caleb, Friend's Circle Group, Ranjit's Karaoke, Vincent Burke, Pensa & Reid, Georgia Maria, The Troubadors de L'Avenue Verte and Alex Wonderland  

Photographers Bryony & Franco, the latter taking all images in this post.

Logistics
St Anselm's Catholic Primary School for gazebos, Volker & Charlie's Catering Hire for catering equipment, Furzedown Network for the PA, Miss U Stationers for printing, The Phantom Knitter for the Foodival banner and Jane for knitting an edit to show this year's date!

Thanks also to all stall holders and Foodival visitors who made this a memorable day in the sun.

Love from the organisers, see you in 2020!

Chuck, David, Mal and Volker

Foodival Continues... Thank You Donors!

Thank you to everyone who donated fruit and vegetables last night. We seem to be doing well for apples, but could do with more squash! 

Head down to Hereward Rd off Tooting High St, by Mushkil Aasaan (see map) from 11-5 TODAY to see what our chefs cook up, tuck into the Community Feast, enjoy the music, stalls and creative spaces at Tooting's sustainable food festival. Late entrants to Top Tooting Cook accepted!

Foodival features ...

A Grower 2018

This year's Tooting Foodival includes some new features alongside some familar favourites. We start this coming Friday evening with donations of fruit and vegetables from local growers. Can you spare anything from your allotment, window box or garden? These donations are used by our chefs to cook up a great sustainable feast in Hereward Rd on Saturday 14th.

Here's where to find the Foodival

The Top Tooting Cook Competition is an annual keenly fought tussle between local cooks to rustle up the best home made locally sourced dish. Follow the link to find out how to enter.


This year we have several special guests including May Webber from Butterfly Conservation and Ocean Plastic Warrior Mermaid Jasmine Seales. Don't miss the chance to catch a selfie in a sea shell!

Mermaid Jasmine Swims By Foodival

Of course we have a good array of sustainable and foodie stalls plus a long rosta of dance and music action via Dermot's Meltdown.

Dermot Melting Down

In a late change to the running order we expect to hear Dermot himself opening the show with his eclectic trug of homegrown songs and lovingly plucked instrumental covers!

So we look forward to seeing you this Saturday for what should be a great event. Friday evening for the much needed produce donations at Mushkil Aasaan 222 Upper Tooting Rd, SW17 7EW.

A full schedule of events is HERE.

Dermot's Meltdown at Foodival 2019

As ever we present a diverse range of local musicians and dancers at this year's Foodival. Dermot's 2nd Meltdown includes some familiar faces from Foodivals past and a few performers new to the Tooting streets. There may be one or two surprise additions before Saturday, but see below for details of who is confirmed so far.

Dan Caleb

Dan Caleb is a "London-based hyphen-loving alt-folk singer-songwriter" who performs solo. For more see Facebook, @dancalebmusic Spotify,  Video , Live Performance.

"Friends Music Circle" are Praful Gajjar, Ranjit Patel, and Hitesh Vyasa, a group with over 40 years experience of playing and singing a variety of Bollywood and fusion music. 

Ranjit from the Friends Music Circle will also be treating us to some of his renowned Karaoke.

Georgia Maria

Georgia Maria is a "Turbocharged acoustic-rocker let loose on London's live circuit. Powerful, darkly poetic modern rock. And Tool covers". See You Tube & Facebook

Local children from "NATYALAYA" Academy of Tamil Arts will be performing two cultural dances, the children will be a aged between 6 and 15 years

Performing a mix of well-known classics and some original material, Pensa & Read are a local Furzedown duo offering a taste of what Simon & Garfunkel might have sounded like if they were the severely overtired parents of 4 small children. Giles Read has plenty of Foodival pedigree, running the festival several times in its early years.

Resina Chowdhury

Usually seen as part of local blues-rock band we're being treated to Resina the solo artist today!

Troubadours de L'Avenue Verte

The 'Troubs' will play Irish, Disco, and Rhythm and Blues, in an unamplified set – just as they do when on tour: they travel by bicycle and carry their entire tour rig with them: which is their instruments, voices and personalities. Their M.O is to turn up at a local bar or cafe, turn out a tune and and if it goes down well they'll play some more, if not they're on to the next spot...feel free to join them and - if the spirit moves you - join in!

Vincent Burke

Vincent played Latitude Festival for the second time this Summer. His music seeks to be both melodic and not-stupid in the word department. The live band now contains the tasty added ingredients of Paul on double-bass, and Jawad on percussion. 

The debut Album ‘Over here in the Trees’ came out this year on Bandcamp and shook the Earth to its very foundations, but while Vincent's feet may be in the gutter his soul rides tempestuously on the stars.

#createfoodival

There's a lot to share about all that's happening at the Tooting Foodival on 14th September, so we'll cover all of these in separate blog posts.

We hope you enjoy the info about our creative offer for adults and young people. All invited to our base in the large yard part way down Hereward Road.

Here's your invitation 

to a diverse 6 hours of creativity: 

Our schedule:

11:00-12:30 We'll be micro-observing with Annie, Nikki & Chuck using magnifying glasses and a microscope, drawing and creating the first small worlds which we'll post on Instagram with the hashtag #createfoodival. We started with posting a first example today - have a look.
We can't wait to encourage visitors to be drawn to nature!
We'll continue these activities all day in parallel with the timed special sessions below.

12:30-1:30 We welcome May Webber from the UK national charity Butterfly Conservation
May will bring specimens of insects for us to explore with the help of her expertise and enthusiasm. With May and Nicola we'll draw and realise that what's good for insects in London is also good for people.
MAYBE we will be able to run moth-trapping locally on Friday night, and bring the catch in unharmed to observe and draw.

1:30-3:00 Nikki and Matt will be creating Microbrellas - our spin-off from this spring's Jellybrella project which created big jellyfish-sculptures using scrap umbrellas and linked sea life with ocean plastics.

Making beautiful detailed Microbrellas also aims to highlight how minute nano-plastics in the oceans are as damaging pollution challenge as large-scale waste.


We may have a visit from Jasmine the Mermaid and her stop ocean plastics campaign!


3:00-4:30 Paul will lead us to create easy-to-use small home planters out of re-purposed materials. You can take these home and keep growing fresh food this autumn.

All day Think Outside will join us in the creative yard with excellent outdoor learning activities complementary to #createfoodival - thanks for joining us, Beata & Think Outside

We'll display what you make on this inspiring sea turtle table made by Jamie Pattinson - it's a wonderful object with a plastic waste message.

The #createfoodival facilitators look forward 

to seeing you on the 14th from 11:00 to 5:00. 

And there's all the rest 

of the Foodival to enjoy, too!