We Grew All This!

Thanks to all the fabulous donors at Foodival earlier today!  Here are most of them.  Come and try local food cooked up by a wide variety of Tootingites on Sunday at Tooting Market as Foodival continues. 

Saturday night and it’s ‘half time’ in the weekend Tooting Foodival.

In the first half:

• We’ve had a brilliant day of walk-in fruit and vegetable donations today: thanks so much to everyone. These ranged from the traditional to the unexpected – all fabulous. From cabbages, kale, carrots and mighty marrows...to Tooting-grown south Asian curry leaves, outdoor dessert grapes from Balham and Pink Fir Apple potatoes grown by Gatton School.
• And much more….some grown in allotments; some in backyards; some in pots on a fifth floor balcony above Clapham South.
• We enjoyed cooking and food preparation demonstrations: squash soup, and later penne pasta with beetroot from Volker; freshly-cooked dosas by Mango Palace; mackerel filleted before our eyes by Rick from Rick’s Restaurant and prepared raw or lightly cooked. All tasting fresh and delicious, and the recipes will be online soon.
• Visitors talked about healthy eating and diet with Morgan and her colleagues, did some drawing with Jeni, played our Community Garden Seed Game, signed up for the TTT email list – and chatted with each other about all their impressions of the day.
• Thanks to all today’s volunteers who helped create such a good atmosphere – and as ever to Mushkil Aasaan for supporting us by providing the premises.

Tonight and tomorrow morning it’s time for team talks and strategy.

• The local restaurant chefs and home cooks involved are preparing their dishes – many of them using ingredients collected today.
• The distinguished judges in the ‘Top Tooting Cook’ informal competition are studying the criteria for tomorrow’s analysis and taste-off.

All welcome tomorrow for the action-packed second half.

• 

  We move to the Sunday venue Tooting Market, starting from 12:00. Top Tooting Cook judging is between 1:00 and 1:30 (with the results announced at 3:00). Visitors can sample local produce prepared by all the participating restaurants: all the details in the blog post below.
• There’ll be plenty of varied dishes, plus music and comedy, until the referee’s whistle closes the 6^th Tooting Foodival at 4:00.