Call Out to Growers

With the sun trying to come out to play a little more and London opening up again, we are busy planning Foodival 2021! We also plans some new exciting additions as well as familiar favourites at this year's festival including:

A Clothes Upcycling Event: young people and local tailors will collaborate to design and create new items from old unwanted clothes, presenting their creations in a catwalk show. 

Restart: get your electrical items repaired by volunteers who can fix everyday items like irons, hairdryers, kettles and toasters, saving electrical and electronic objects from landfill. 

Tie-dye Workshop: Bring an old T-shirt or any cotton cloth and learn how to tie-dye using vegetable scraps! 

Locally Grown Veg Display: an amazingly diverse selection of produce grown by local gardeners and allotment holders. 

Cooking Your Own: home cooks will create a mouth-watering array of small plates made from locally grown ingredients for you to try for just £1! 

Music: as ever, there will be a showcase of a selection of music and dance by local artists. 

Stalls: Small local producers and makers lined up include @abundancesouthfields, @keepthemgreen, @norahskitchendiner, Richard's Bees (Balham honey), @skalandsaluti and @wrencakes. (and more being added as we write this!) 

As always, Foodival is a free to attend, non-profit event, run by volunteers, and will take place on Hereward Road, SW17 7EY, on Saturday 4th September 2021. The organisers will again designate the area a plastic-free zone. 

Every year Foodival could not have happened without your kind donations of locally seeded, cared for and grown produce. We hope to continue to be honoured with your wonderful food which is at the heart of the community event. We know you will be busy sowing, germinating, planting, arranging, watering and trying to keep new growth alive in these chillier May days - bring on the sun in June! But we wanted to draw your attention to something new this year, Tie-dying. . . Yes, we are aiming to get Tooting tie-dying using food scraps! Onion skins make a golden yellow, red cabbage makes purple, spinach creates green and these are just the obvious ones! 

We thought we would let you know of the new additions and if you would also like to get involved with your produce being used to not only make scrumptious food but a creative way of reusing waste as we know it, give us a quick email back with your growing plans for the year. Hey, you may know about a hidden veg/fruit/herb that can be grown for its colours. . . 

Happy June growing, 

Foodival team 🌱

Tooting Foodival 2020

The Foodival Team are delighted to announce that we will be doing something to celebrate local growing and cooking this year on September 12th. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, our plans to hold the much-loved regular street festival with music, stalls, art, cook's competition and general feasting have had to be shelved, but we do instead plan to hold a Grower's Feast to say thank you to all those that have made Foodivals happen over the last 12 years!

Chefs serving local food at Foodival 2019

This safe and appropriately socially distanced event will take place at Tooting Works (formerly Trident Business Centre) in Bickersteth Rd off Mitcham Rd and invites will be going out shortly. The Feast will as usual in true Foodival style need donations of locally grown fruit and vegetables which will be cooked up by Volker and his team of local chefs.

We currently intend to collect home grown produce donations on Saturday 5th September to give the crew enough time to prepare safely for the event the following weekend. So if you would like to donate something from your allotment, garden, window-box or pots please do get in contact. It will be much appreciated!

We are sorry that we cannot hold the regular festival, attended last year by over 1,000 people, but we do wish to keep the flame burning for local sustainable food in Tooting and hope that our regular supporters will be able to join us to celebrate on September 12th. More details here soon and on Instagram

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!

Three Weeks to Foodival 2019

This year’s Tooting Foodival is only three weeks away! 

Our annual sustainable food celebration takes place in central Tooting between 11am and 5pm on Saturday 14th September. We will close half of Hereward Rd and fill the street with cooking activities, stalls showcasing local products and organisations, creative activities, music and soap box talks. 

The premise of Foodival as ever is that we seek donations of fruit and vegetables from local growers that will be cooked up by local Tooting chefs and served to you, the hungry public, as the central part of our street festival. We seek to show that you don’t need to import food from miles away; you can enjoy sustainable locally grown low food mile delicious fare right here in SW17. 

I Grew This!

We collect donations of fruit and vegetables the evening before (Friday 13th September, this year) where we also hope to immortalise each of our growers in the now famous “I Grew This” photos. This is also the time when prospective entrants to the Top Tooting Cook Competition can pick up produce to conjure a prize winning dish for the following day’s competition. There will be some great prizes! 


If you would like to get involved there are several possible ways to do so: 

1) Are you growing any vegetables or fruit that you could donate? We would be ever so grateful, as Foodival only happens due to home grown produce. 

2) Would you like to help out on the day? We have a reliable team but can always do with a hand from anyone who wants to get involved in some random community fun! 

3) Do you fancy entering the Top Tooting Cook Competition? What is your speciality dish that will wow the judges? Or would you like to be a judge? Here is all the TTC info you need: details of the TTC and the registration form. Good luck and we look forward to what you make!

4) Do you have something to say... about food, sustainability, plastics or anything a bit related? You could book yourself a spot on the Soap Box! 

Whatever, contact us on transitiontowntooting@gmail.com to find out more, check us out on Instragram @tootingfoodival or on facebook

We look forward to celebrating local food and local cooking with you on the streets of Tooting in September!

What Are You Growing?

It's been a strange old summer, what with torrential rain for much of June and scorching weather for quite a lot of July. As usual some of my vegetable patch has done well despite this, while other parts have got a bit confused!

One area of success is runner beans which are cropping plentifully. 

Tooting Foodival is on Instagram these days and as of this evening we have 1,029 followers so we hope we are doing something interesting in our local community! Amazing that this event has been going since 2008!

Tooting Community Garden at the weekend

Do get involved as a grower, a cook or an eater on 14th September or join the gang who make the whole thing happen - you can do as little or as much as you like!

We enjoyed meeting loads of you at the National Park City Celebration at Tooting Community Garden yesterday and hope to see you again in September if not before.

Foodival 2019 - Sat 14th Sept

The 12th annual Tooting Foodival takes place this autumn on Saturday 14th September. The festival aims to encourage people to grow fruit and vegetables locally, cook healthy food with local produce and connect with others to enjoy eating the results!  We are in the planning stages for this year's event and welcome anyone who wants to get involved.

We will create a street feast for up to 500 cooked up from home grown and donated vegetables and fruit, there will be and array of local live music and of course your chance to win the Top Tooting Cook Competition.

We already know we need help with the following:

• Co-ordinating stalls 
• Social media and PR
• Connecting with community groups

and probably lots of other things we haven't yet thought of!  It's a great team effort to create Tooting Foodival and you can get involved in any way you like.

EMAIL US to find out more.

Foodival 2017 Poster

Tooting Foodival is back this autumn.  What are you growing now that could be cooked up in 3 months time?  

On Saturday 16th September we'll be celebrating the range of low food mile food that can be grown in and around SW17.  Come along and join in, in whatever capacity you like.  We guarantee it will be FUN!

We Need Local Vegetable & Fruit Growers

And We Need Local Cooks!

Could It Be YOU? 

For more information or to get involved please email transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

Full PRESS RELEASE HERE

Did you try Minestra's delicious pasta dish?

On Sunday afternoon, while the cooks were deliberating over who would become Top Tooting Cook for 2016, Minestra turned local produce donated from Tamworth Farm and around Tooting, into the most delicious vegetable pasta dish.

Elisabetta preparing vegetables (Pic by Riccardo, Minestra)

Elisabetta demonstrates to a packed Foodival crowd (Pic by Riccardo, Minestra)

We are really grateful to Minestra for their cooking demonstration. Maybe you saw it and tasted the delicious dish. Maybe you'd like to try it at home? Head over to Minestra's Facebook page for the recipe - Homemade Maltagliati with Vegetables.

Minestra also run Supper Clubs at their home - delicious low food mile dishes, shared with neighbours and new friends. The next Supper Club will take place on 15th October.

Grow Local, Cook Local, Eat Local with Minestra Supper Club on Sunday

Tooting Foodival celebrates growing food locally. It's also celebrates what we do with that produce together - how we share in cooking seasonal produce with very low food miles, and enjoying every delicious mouthful together as a community.

Transition Town Tooting is delighted to be welcoming Minestra back to Tooting Foodival this year. Run by Elisabetta and Riccardo, Minestra truly embraces the idea of growing, cooking and eating local.

Minestra will be harvesting produce from their allotment plot and receiving donations from other plot holders at Tamworth Farm in Tooting on Saturday. They'll be giving a cooking demonstration using that produce on Sunday afternoon at Mushkil Aasaan (222 Upper Tooting Road) from 5pm - 6pm. We'll share the recipe with you on Sunday at the event!

Come along to see what Minestra will cook.  Of course, we'll eat a little together too, before we find out who has won Top Tooting Cook at 6.15pm (also at Mushkil Aasaan) and then all head to Soup Disco at 7pm at Tooting Market!

Elisabetta has been kind enough to share a recipe here. So if you're thinking about entering Top Tooting Cook, maybe this will inspire you!  If you'd like to try Minestra's food, come along on Sunday. Like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter to find out more about the supper club and cooking classes they run.  Next supper club is on 15th October.

Courgette and Pumpkin Flower Fritters

Ingredients

To make about 15 fritters you need:

• 15 courgette or pumpkin flowers
• 80/100g of plain flour
• 1 egg
• Cold sparkling water
• Peanut oil or sunflower oil for frying

Method

Mix the egg and the flour, and then add enough sparkling cold water to make a thick batter (so it is the same consistency as pancake batter). Add a pinch of salt. Let it to rest for half an hour covered.

Meanwhile prepare the flowers by removing the green part attached to the stem, including the pistil.  Don’t wash them if possible but shake them of any dirt.

Bring the oil to frying temperature in a large, deep frying pan. Dip the flowers, one at the time, into the batter and fry for 2 min or until gold, turning them several times.  Gently remove them with a slotted spoon and let them drain on kitchen paper.  Serve them hot.

Share your recipes

Maybe you have a delicious recipe to share.  If you'd like to share a recipe or picture of something you've cooked using seasonal fruit, vegetables and herbs, post it to our Facebook page or tweet us @TTTooting. You'll be sharing it with over 1,000 people locally!

 

Or enter Top Tooting Cook!  Judges and prizes have just been announced - take a look at the Top Tooting Cook page for all the details.

Cook up a dish to be crowned Top Tooting Cook!

Win tasty prizes by cooking a dish made with locally grown produce and you could also be crowned Tooting's Top Cook!

Are you a budding chef? Do you fancy cooking a delicious low-food miles vegetarian dish?

Enter the Top Tooting Cook competition and you could win dinner for two at The Little Taperia or a £50 food voucher for the Wheatsheaf!

 

All you need to do is:

• Cook one dish made with some locally grown produce
• Deliver it to Foodival's Festival day at Samaj Hall by 1.30pm for judging

And that's it! Anything goes... you could bake, cook, assemble, pickle, or blend your dish. As long as it's vegetarian and some of the ingredients are locally grown, you can enter.

Don't worry if you don't grow any produce. Pop into Foodival's Donation Day on Saturday 12th September (1pm-4pm) at Mushkil Aasaan, 220-222 Upper Tooting Road and choose some locally grown ingredients to cook with.

Courgette fritters with Beetroot hummous, Tamworth Farm allotments

Rhubarb muffins & raspberry cakes, Tamworth Farm allotments

Tomato & spinach quiche, Tamworth Farm allotments

But what does it take to win?

• The judges will be a local panel of cooks and foodies
• 50% of marks for how local the dish is
• 50% of marks for taste

Last year's winning Top Tooting Cook entry

Enter today!

Simply email transitiontowntooting@gmail.comtransitiontowntooting@gmail.com with Top Tooting Cook in the subject line and we'll give you more details and can set aside ingredients you might want to use.

Or enter on the day by bringing your dish for 1.30pm on Sunday, 13th September.

Good luck everyone!

Foodival 2015 - Just one month to go!

In exactly one month, hundreds of us will be celebrating locally grown, locally cooked food at Tooting Foodival.

We'll be making some exciting announcements over the next few weeks as we count down to festival weekend. And there are plenty of opportunities for you to get involved!

First up, we know you want to know who's cooking for Foodival this year.

Drum roll please...!

Rick's - Tooting's favourite modern British and European eaterie. Rick has supported the Foodival for many years. Who can forget the amazing fish filleting demonstration a couple of years ago!

Meza - Lebanese food is so popular in Tooting that owner, Hikmat opened a second restaurant in Tooting Broadway after the runaway success of the original on Trinity Road. Himat, Ali and team will be preparing a treat for us.

Pooja - the very best when it comes to Indian sweets and savouries. Who can resist the legendary samosas! We're delighted that Manisha and co are supporting Foodival again this year.

Al Mirage - Shamim and team will be bringing us the unique tastes and flavours of modern Pakistan that are so popular in Tooting. We know you'll be coming back for seconds!

The Kitchen Table - New to Foodival this year,  Zaf will be bringing his fresh neighbourhood pizazz and gorgeous dishes to the festival. If you've ever eaten at this wonderful café you'll know it's not to be missed.

Sounds tasty? Get 13th September in the diary!  And, stay tuned. We hope to have a few more local restaurants confirmed soon.

We'll also be sharing a recipe from each restaurant at Foodival too, so you can try what you tasted at home!

Goodness Graveney Me! A Top Tooting Cook.

Amrit with three of the judges Manisha, Kate and Chris

The Top Tooting Cook competition was fiercely fought out at Foodival last month. Twelve of Tooting's finest cultivators of cuisine produced some of the best presented dishes ever seen at TTC.  The judges tasted, deliberated, and after the dust had settled a new champion was crowned.

With the highest marks for taste, presentation and food miles, the Top Tooting Cook for 2014 is Amrit Sachar for her "Goodness Graveney Me" smoked aubergine starter. Well done to Amrit who won dinner for two at Meza. Runner up was a suspiciously dressed Sprout Lover with his beetroot & squash curry with Yasmin Salam in third place for her vegetable samosas.  Special commendation was given to Emily Boyce for her "Tooting Jam and Social" a trio of herb labneh balls, rosemary biscuits and tomato and chilli jam.

Check out the recipes for these winning dishes here.

Thanks to everyone involved in TTC this year and see you again in 2015.

Goodness Graveney Me!  "All I need is a smaaall aubergine!"

Let's get harvesting, let's get cooking!

The seventh annual Tooting Foodival is nearly here. It's time to get harvesting!

Foodival exists to celebrate the wealth of produce you can grow in an urban environment like Tooting. Since June, people have been adding to the map to show all the wonderful fruit, veg, herbs and salads growing in the area. The variety is astounding - from the familiar - tomatoes, potatoes, beans, strawberries - to the more unusual - cola plants, green guages, loganberries and celeriac.

Bring your food on Saturday for Foodival!

Whether you have one tomato, a handful of salad leaves, or a veritable feast of fruit and veg, it's time to get harvesting for Foodival. The restaurants are eager to get creative and cook up a feast so everyone can celebrate on Sunday. 

Drop off your produce at two spots between 1pm and 5pm. Put yourself on the map that will be displayed on Sunday. and have some fun or a bite to eat while you deliver your goods. It's a win win!

• BATCA Fun Day, Broadwater Road - drop off  your fruit and veg at the Foodival stall. Then enjoy the fun - stalls food and entertainment. Visit the Kingston Farm Animals, get a henna tattoo, try some local or international food, learn about growing your own food, laugh at the clown show, get your blood pressure checked or chill out with ice cream. 
• Foodcycle Wandsworth, Mushkil Aasaan, 220-222 Upper Tooting Road - give some locally grown food for Foodival and enjoy a free meal cooked by local volunteers from food that supermarkets would otherwise throw away!

Sunday is Festival Day!

We're hopeful that Foodival day at Samaj Hall on Sunday will be a lot of fun and that you'll meet a lot of people. It's the day we celebrate the incredible talents of people in Tooting and together show what's possible in the city. Fingers crossed it'll be a record breaker so every apple, potato and tomato counts!

Do you want to cook for Foodival?

If growing isn't your thing but you love to cook, get in touch with Mal to enter the Top Tooting Cook competition. There are some great prizes to be won. The aim is to cook something tasty with low food miles. We can even supply you with some ingredients. 

Just pop into Mushkil Aasaan on Saturday between 4pm and 5pm, then come to Foodival on Sunday with your dish. Good luck!

We'll see you all at Foodival!

Top Tooting Cook Competition Recipe Ideas

Toss it, bake it, pickle it, fry it, make it the day or the week before, whatever you like as long as you use locally grown or locally produced ingredients.  
You could try...
Anything goes!

• We can even provide you with the ingredients if you don’t have any local produce. 
• Please email Malsara for ingredients or collect from Mushkil Aasaan 222 Upper Tooting Rd, London SW17 7EW on Saturday 13^th September at 4pm.
• All savoury dishes must be vegetarian. Meat, fish and eggs not allowed.
• All dishes must be entered no later than 12.45pm on 14^th September at Samaj Hall, 26b Tooting High Street.  
• Please bring a copy of your recipe.

If you wish to enter please Click Here to let us know.

And Good Luck Everyone!

Announcing the fantastic Tooting restaurants cooking for Foodival

Tooting’s restaurant and café scene has really expanded and diversified in recent years. To reflect the plethora of world cuisine on our doorstep, the Tooting Foodival has seven fantastic yet completely different restaurants cooking delicious taster dishes this year.

Want to know who they are? Of course you do…

Al Mirage
A fantastic Pakistani family-run business who promote healthy eating in all their dishes. Their chef Sayeed always cooks up a storm and we look forward to seeing what delights he produces for us this year.

Meza
Now with two restaurants in Tooting, Hikmat and his team have quickly become a much-loved Tooting staple, serving excellent Lebanese food in a welcoming and friendly environment. They’ve also very kindly donated a meal for two as a Top Tooting Cook prize!

Mina’s Grill
After their huge popularity at last year’s Fresh & Refresh event, Mina’s have gone from strength to strength from their pitch at Tooting Market, selling delicious Portuguese food (including wonderful custard tarts).

Mis Bar Mleczny
Grzegorz and his team serve amazing (and huge) portions of Polish food from their Mitcham Road restaurant. Not sure what to order (as I didn’t on my first visit)? Their helpful staff will happily give you some excellent recommendations!

Pooja
Pooja are Foodival regulars, and this year Manisha will be a judge for the Top Tooting Cook competition. Massively popular, they sell exceptional Indian sweets and savouries (try their samosas – you won’t be sorry).

Rick’s Restaurant
Rick’s been in Tooting serving up great modern British and European cuisine for many a year now, and always does us great dishes, even going so far as to provide a fish-filleting demonstration last year.  And he’ll also be a judge at this year’s Top Tooting Cook!

Fisher & Co
New to Foodival this year, the Fisher & Co coffee shop serves great coffee and treats.  The team will be using some of the plums and other fruit donated on Saturday to rustle up some of wonderful cakes.

Thanks to all this year’s restaurants for their contributions. Want to see (and more importantly, eat) what wonders they cook? Then get yourself along to Foodival on the 14th of September!

10 Metre Food Mile Veg Curry Hits Spot

I am lucky, I made a postage stamp vegetable patch in my garden where I can grow stuff.  Tonight I thought I'd try to make a meal just using vegetables I had grown myself and am very happy with the results! Onions planted last autumn, rocket from a plant I have kept growing for about 5 years, borlotti beans, cabbage, cucumber & squash grown from seeds all planted in the spring plus tiny potatoes from a mouldy potato I buried!

Home grown healthy veg

It's going to be a vegetable curry.  OK I didn't grow the rice or the curry powder, turmeric & chilli flakes but otherwise this dinner is measured in food centimetres rather than miles. It travelled 10 metres maximum to the plate! It's a sustainable, home grown, low carbon dinner for two (yes I have an "amour" to share it with). If I have some of these veggies over I must take them to Foodival next month. Which begs the time honoured questions:  

What are you growing for Foodival?

Can you add it to the map?

Could I (or you) be a Top Tooting Cook?

Tasty 10 metre food mile vegetable curry!