Tooting Foodival Wins Mayor's Sunshine Award

Tooting Foodival 2015 today received an inaugural Grow Wandsworth Award from Mayor of Wandsworth, Nicola Nardelli, who launched the awards to encourage people and organisations who grow healthy, fresh, local food in Community Food Projects.

With Mayor Nicola at Wandsworth Town Hall

At a reception in the Mayor's Parlour at the Town Hall, including very beautiful cakes, Foodival won the "Sunshine Award" for "celebrating the ways people have brought a bit of sunshine into the lives of others through community growing"! We do our best!

Back in September the Mayor experienced the myriad food related activities at Samaj Hall, including some prize winning vegetables and bananas (below)!

Mayor Nicola Nardelli with David & Mal at Foodival 2015

We are delighted to receive this award and it was really interesting to meet people from the other award-winning community groups including friends from SHARE Community and Wendelsworth Community Garden as well as new contacts who we hope to collaborate with in the future.

For anyone interested in getting involved in Foodival 2016, the first planning meeting will be at the King's Head in Upper Tooting Road, Tooting Bec, on this Thursday evening (Feb 4th) at 7pm.  All welcome to help us work out how we will create this year's home grown sustainable food festival in Tooting.  If you have any ideas, skills, or just fancy being part of a fantastic (and now award-winning!) community project please do come along.

Foodival 2015 Video

Hot off the press may we present the Foodival 2015 video! Crafted by the fabulous Creative Media students from South Thames College ably led by lecturer Emma Ashton. Thank you all very much for this awesome production! Now ... can you spot yourself?

Foodival Growers

Thanks again to all the fabulous growers who donated their hard grown fruit and veg for last weekend's Foodival.  
Spot anyone you know?

Foodival's Entertainment

This year we enjoyed the varied pleasures of five musical performances and one theatrical Giant Pea! Dermot Jones opened the afternoon with some of his own tunes and beautiful instrumental guitar work. Then all the way from the deep south came Slim Estrada, accompanied by Pablo X, giving us their unique flavour of the Louisiana badlands (via Ealing apparently).

Dermot Jones vs Slim Estrada

Slim was unphased by the entrance of a Giant Pea parade half way through his set, led by fanSHEN Theatre as the culmination of their summer Field Day season. The mood changed a bit when the massed ranks of Balham Ukulele Society took to the stage with upbeat renditions of popular songs that really made you smile.

Giant Pea vs Balham Ukuleles

Amy Fitz-Doyley soothed us with her self penned songs about urban life playing beat box and keyboards before mid-life crisis rockers The Renegades closed the event with several food-themed covers of the classics that got us dancing!

Amy Fitz-Doyley vs The Renegades

Foodival Prize Winners

There were more prizes than ever on offer at Foodival this year. So who won what? The competition was hot to be Top Tooting Cook among both individual cooks and the participating restaurants, many of whom took the challenge very seriously! Then there was the inaugural Ugly Veg competition, which I thought ended up going to a rather beautiful pepper.  The prize for the most exotic and amazing produce must go to Susan with her bananas grown in Balham!

Susan grew bananas in Balham

Top Tooting Cook 2015 Sophie & her beautiful winning dish

Ugly Veg Parade & Perfectly Deformed Kohl Rabi

Competition Results:

Top Tooting Cook - Individual:

1st: Sophie Rushton Smith - It's a Bad year for Carrots! & Rhubarb Streunal 

2nd: Shazia Wahab - Aloo Sabzi

3rd: Maryam Shariff (also the Young Winner) - Chilli Carrots

4th: Sarah Servantes - Tooting Tomato Consomme

Highly Commended:

Lea Gearing, Brad Hayward, Lillie Langford, Oscar Tudor & Sue Westfold

Top Tooting Cook - Restaurants:

1st: Pooja Sweets & Savouries

2nd: The Gorringe Park Pub

3rd=: Brixton People's Kitchen & Route to Juice

Highly Commended: Minestra Supper Club and Al Mirage

Ugly Veg:

1st: SHARE Garden's curly red pepper

2nd: David's deformed kohl rabi

3rd: Belinda's knobbly potato

Special Achievement Award:

Susan's Balham bananas

Thanks again to to The Little Taperia, The Gorringe Park, The Wheatsheaf and Abel & Cole for donating prizes and to our donating growers as one or too pretty items were put into special prize veg boxes!

Fabulous Growers, Thank You!

 

Tomorrow is going to be the biggest Foodival celebration yet!  Thank you to all the fabulous growers who have donated produce today.  This will be cooked up for tomorrow's feast at Samaj Hall.  We look forward to seeing you there!

And here is the full list of everyone who donated:

Who	What
Indrajit Epsom	Lavender, beans
Hilary Trevelyan Rd	Plums
Marin Wendlesworth Community Garden	Red onions. Beetroot, mint, parsley, yellow courgette
Sue Chillerton Rd & Garratt Lane allotments	Apple, potatoes, radish, beetroot, dill, cucumber, sweetcorn, horseradish, berries, squash, rosemary
Jenny Heaton Rd	Chillies, chard, mint, lemon balm, rosemary, thyme
Tooting Community Garden, North Drive	Potatoes, onions, sorrel, thyme, rosemary, safe, garlic, blackberries, raspberries, tomatoes, marrow, Jerusalem artichokes, heritage runner beans
Lillie Beechcroft Rd	Yellow courgettes, runner beans
David         Ramsden Rd	Kohl rabi, tomatoes, Portuguese cabbage, tiny carrots, grapes
Belinda Beechcroft Rd	Rhubarb, apples, horseradish
Jan Hebdon Rd allotment	Mini pumpkins, potatoes, marrow, squash, tomatoes
Valerie Fishponds Rd	Apples – huge cookers
Josie Montana Rd	Pears
Fio Dahomey Rd	Rocket, apples
Stella Gassiot Rd	Greengages
Debbie Ridge Rd Allotments	Cabbages, runner beans, tomatoes, apples, pumpkins, marrows
Tooting Bec Housing Coop, Longley Rd	Pears
The Smiths Woodfield Ave & Hampshire	Runner beans, tomatoes,, cookeing & eating apples
Susan Cornford Grove	Grapes apples and bananas!!!
Richard Upper Tooting Park	Mini carrot, sage, parsley, thyme, rosemary, dill, runner beans, broccoli, beetroot leaves
Lea Streatham Cemetery	Round courgette, rosemary, sage, chives, apples (red perm)
Kath Khartoum Rd	Mini pumpkins
David Rogers Rd	Honey
Jane Ribblesdale Rd	Courgettes, nasturtium, mint, sage
Jon Kettering St	Rosemary, rhubarb
Tonie Grange Rd Allotments, Dulwich	Apples, potatoes, beans
Lucy Woodnook Rd	Tomatoes, figs, potatoes
Sue Garratt Park Allotments	Tomatoes, potatoes, runner beans, courgettes, herbs, blackberries
James Tamworth Farm Allotment	Marrows… many marrows, and herbs!
Maggie Burntwood Lane	Mint, oregano, lavender, pansy heads
Kim Brudenell Rd	Apples, pears
Teo & Poppy Spa Hill Allotments W. Norwood, & Hocton Rd	Chard, pumpkins, courgettes, French beans
Jenny Share Community Garden	Kale, tomatoes, courgette, apples, sage, chillies, peppers, aubergine
JP Tamworth Farm Allotments	Yallow round courgettes, rhubarb

Foodival Restaurants

Thank you so much to the restaurants, cooks and community groups cooking for this year's Foodival.  Just a reminder of who is doing the cooking that you can try at Sunday's event:

Al Mirage
Pakistani and Indian Restaurant at 215 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7TG, Tel: 020 8772 4422 www.al-mirage.co.uk

Brixton Peoples Kitchen  
Community kitchen on a bike www.brixtonpk.wordpress.com

The Gorringe Park Pub
Serving locally sourced British cuisine at 29 London Rd, SW17 9HW, Tel: 020 8685 0469 www.thegorringepark.co.uk/

Meza
Lebanese Cuisine at 34 Trinity Road, SW17 7RE (07722 111299) & 70 Mitcham Road, SW17 9NA (07771 333157)

www.mezarestaurant.co.uk

Pooja
Indian Sweets and Savouries at 168-170 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7ER Tel: 020 8672 4523 www.poojasweets.com

Rick’s Restaurant
Modern British and European Cuisine at 122 Mitcham Road, SW17 9NH Tel: 020 8767 5219 www.ricks-restaurant.co.uk

Route to Juice  
Healthy juice bar at 165 Tooting High Street, SW17 0SY Tel: 0203 5422 979

The Kitchen Table
Serving comforting food for brunch and dinner at 134a Franciscan Rd, London SW17 8DS Tel: 07774 438284 www.kitchentabletooting.wordpress.com

Minestra Supper Club
Local foodies serving authentic Italian food @MinestraSupper Facebook.com/minestrasupper Minestrasupperclub@gmail.com

Thank you to our Sponsors!

At TTT we are very grateful to the sponsors who have stepped in to help us create Foodival 2015. The whole festival has been created with volunteer effort and no external funding, so without the sponsors who have generously given their time, space, contacts, expertise and food we would really struggle to make the event happen!  Have a read to see who they are and what they do.


Pearl Chemist Group is a family owned business based at 159 Mitcham Road, Tooting, London, SW17 9PG, stocking an extensive range of products for all your healthcare and well-being needs. We are very grateful for Pearl’s generous support and contributions for this year’s Foodival. Tel: 020 8672 2157 www.pearlchemist.co.uk / @PearlChemist

Famously described as a ‘mini Borough Market’ in the heart of Balham, Volker & Quinn is a high quality fishmonger and fine food shop run by chef and culinary expert Volker Nissen who has worked at Claridges and various Michelin-star establishments. www.volkerandquinn.co.uk / @VolkerandQuinn

With over 27 years of experience in delivering fresh organic fruit and vegetables right to your doorstep, Abel & Cole are pioneers of ethically sourced food with low food miles. The business has supported Tooting Foodival for many years and has been instrumental in making this event a huge success. www.abelandcole.co.uk / @AbelandCole

Mushkil Aasaan provides a generic model of support to families, young people and the elderly, experiencing crisis, social isolation and many complex unmet needs. Regulated by CQC, Mushkil Aasaan provide a Specialist Domiciliary Care Service to more than 120 families. Many thanks to Naseem Aboobaker and Mushkil Aasaan for their continued support of TTT! Tel: 020 8672 6581 Tel/Fax: 020 682 3054 E-mail: mushkilaasaan@btconnect.com

Running Order Foodival 2015

The running order for this year's Tooting Foodival will be:
 
Saturday 12th September 12-4pm
Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW
• Vegetable & Fruit Collection
• Vegetable Photos
• Cooking Demos with Volker & Quinn
• Ugly Vegetables Competition Entries Accepted
• Produce delivered to Restaurants & entrants to Top Tooting Cook

Sunday 13th September 12-5pm
Samaj Hall, 26b Tooting High Street, SW17 0RG
On the Stage ...
12.15 Dermot Jones
13.00 Slim Estrada
13.45 Balham Ukulele Society
14.00 fanSHEN & Giant Pea
14.30 Ugly Veg Parade & Winner
14.45 Amy Fitz Doyley
15.15 TTC Winners Announced
15.45 The Renegades

Throughout the afternoon home grown vegetarian food will be served, cooked up by Rick’s Restaurant, Minestra Supper Club, The Gorringe Park Pub, Meza, Kitchen Table, Pooja, Al Mirage, Route to Juice & Brixton People's Kitchen.

For more information on this weekend's festival check out the Foodival 2015 booklet.

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!

Entertainment Line Up Announced

Dermot Jones

We are very happy to announce the final entertainment line up for this year's Foodival including exciting perfomers both familiar and new to the event.

Opening the show on Sunday, Dermot Jones will be performing some self-scrawled, lyrically vivid songs, plus a range of acoustic instrumental covers from David Bowie to Scott Joplin. www.soundcloud.com/dermosongs / @DermotTJones

Slim Estrada

Next up, Slim Estrada, bluesman extraordinaire, takes a break from the deep south to be joined by Pablo X, on guitars, banjos and harmonica and Washboard Bob on backing vocals, congas and percussion. www.slim-estrada.com

Balham Ukulele Society

Amy Fitz-Doyley

Balham Ukulele Society is a teaching workshop, uke jam and social at the Balham Bowls Club every other Sunday night. They’ll be playing an eclectic mix of ukulele-infused covers of popular songs and are proud to have been rated as one of the top 100 ukulele societies in Balham. www.facebook.com/groups/balhamukesoc / @BalhamUkeSoc
 
Amy Fitz-Doyley is a local singer, song-writer, innovator and tea drinker! Alternative Jazz is Amy’s speciality and her voice is her main instrument. She’ll be performing all original material at Foodival 2015. www.soundcloud.com/amyfitzdoyley / @AmyFitzDoyley

The Renegades

The Renegades are 40-something chirpy London chappies embracing their mid-life crises by playing a selection of covers of rock classics from the 1950s to the present day.  They hope you'll enjoy watching them roll back the years. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVrzi9VB0CehMn8iL6NydxQ

 
fanSHEN return to Foodival as part of their Field Day series, this time incorporating some making and carnival involving a Giant Pea!  

fanSHEN are a Wandsworth based professional theatre company who use theatre to help people imagine what they haven’t thought of yet and their work promotes ideas of environmental, social and financial sustain-agility embedding these ideas in the making process www.fanshen.org.uk / @fanshentheatre

Peas Come to Meet & Make on Weds

Hoping lots of you can apPEAse TTT and join in Jeni's Meet & Make on Wednesday. She is very PlEAsed with the poster she has designed.  Do you have experience making 

GIANT PEAS?  

This is not necessary.  Can you paint a bucket?  Or draw a sign?  We need high level experience for this ... such as the ability to apply paint to objects or write in a West Germanic Indo-Eurpoean language commonly used all over the world ... (yes English).  PEAs just turn up and join in!

Help us decorate Foodival! What could it pea?

What's made of two PEAfect circles and bright green?

Come to SMART Meet & Make at Sprout next Wednesday evening and help us paper maché one of the centre-PEAces of Foodival's Festival Day! Led by Jeni Walker, you can also help to make signs and posters for the weekend.

The session is open to all ages and abilities. Everyone is welcome and it's free to attend!

SMART Meet & Make

"A Special Foodival PrePEAration Session"

Wednesday, 9th September 

6.30pm - 8.30pm 

at 

Sprout Arts

74 Moyser Road, Furzedown, Tooting, SW16 6SQ

More making for Foodival at fanSHEN's final Field Day

Join the final Field Day of 2015 for some Foodival fun. Meet at Tooting Market at midday to make and decorate percussion instruments and hats and then join the carnival parade to Foodival for 2pm.

Find out more on fanSHEN's blog.

BYO

Today we are launching our Bring Your Own (BYO) campaign for Foodival 2015.  In an effort to reduce our environmental footprint and waste caused by the event, we ask you to BYO plate and cutlery to Samaj Hall on Sunday September 13th.  It seems appropriate on the day we hear that 90% of seabirds have plastic in their guts, a horrible example of human waste culture.  We will have biodegradeable alternatives for purchase on the day, but would love to see as many of you as possible BYO!  For more on waste, plastics & fossil fuels see a longer post on the TTT main blog.

Clapham Magazine Article

Great to get featured in one of our local magazines, thank you "The Clapham". Will anyone be able to rival this splendid haul from one of our well known local residents this year?!

Are you growing for the Foodival?  #seedtofeast

Who's cooking for Foodival?

The Foodival team have been busy bees this week, signing up more fantastic cooking establishments to deliver delicious dishes to you on Festival Day.

Already signed up (see previous post for details):

• Al Mirage
• Meza
• Pooja
• Rick's
• The Kitchen Table

 And newly signed up this week:

Brixton People's Kitchen is a community kitchen, who sometimes cook on a bicycle! Working with the local community, they deliver hot nutritious meals and cooking lessons to young people and adults alike. They'll be cooking up a surprise medley for us. We can't wait!

Route to Juice are a welcome addition to Tooting's High Street this year. They'll be whizzing together fresh, power-packed, nutrient rich juices and smoothies on the day. So if you've got fruit to donate - you know where it'll be going!


We have more restaurants, cooks, entertainment and announcements to come, so stay tuned, and add the dates to your diary:

Saturday 12th September

Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Tooting High Street, 12-4pm

• Donate your locally grown fruit, vegetables and herbs
• Watch cooking demonstrations
• Enter the Ugly Vegetable competition

Sunday 13th September

Samaj Hall, 26b Tooting High Street, 12-5pm

• Join the giant pea parade
• Eat delicious food
• Enjoy live entertainment
• Meet local producers
• Have fun!

Home Grown Lunch

Home growing is not always easy! Yes I support the laudable idea of the Foodival #seedtofeast but hey slugs, aphids, snails & caterpillars don't make it easy.  However, that said, August is a month when one can cull from one's humble cottage insect attacked vegetable patch a meal that is totally local, organic, non-food miled, low waste and energy efficient!

Please witness the above, clockwise from the top left: chard, choy sum, spring onion, cherry tomato, Lamb's lettuce, rocket & celeriac leaf. All grown from seed! This was my lunch. Some CO2 was saved. #veryproud.  And it tasted good!

But enough of me and my miniscule endeavours.  What of you?

ARE YOU GROWING FOR THE FOODIVAL?

Growers we need you or the festival of South London food would not exist.  What are you growing?  Can you spare any?  Can you add to our growing map?  You could be immortalised in a frame ...

We look forward to seeing you on the weekend of 12th & 13th September, it should be delicious! dt

Make a Pea for Foodival!

Want to contribute to Foodival, but don't grow or cook? Maybe you can make!  All welcome tomorrow for a maker session at Streatham Cemetery to get going on the creation of a Giant Pea for the opening ceremony. Using withy (sticks of willow) and paper mache, you'll learn how to construct amazing shapes just like the carnival professionals.

We'll also be making decorative plant pot covers using the same technique, so you can brighten up your window sills.

Join us from 6.30 - 8.30pm at the vestry at Streatham Cemetery - Garratt Lane, Tooting, SW17 0LT.

Thanks to both SMART and fanSHEN who will be leading the session. 

Any questions, please contact transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

Can you donate locally grown fruit and vegetables to Foodival?

Last year, we dished out over 600 servings of deliciously tasty vegetarian food, cooked by local restaurants to some very happy festival goers.

But we couldn't have done that without the amazing generosity of all the people who donated fruit, herbs and vegetables, that they'd grown in their allotments, community gardens, backyards, gardens, roofs and window sills!

Just some of the donations from last year

Do you grow any fruit and vegetables?  Do you know someone who does grow?  Do you know an allotment or growing space near you that might?

Whether you have a handful of salad leaves, a giant marrow, a punnet of plums or a piece of rosemary - it all counts.

Please help us promote Foodival to all your friends who grow fruit and vegetables.

• Send them a link to this blog
• Tweet them to see if they can donate #growingforfoodival
• Share a Facebook post to see if they want to enter the vegetable competition
• Download a flyer and pop it up on a noticeboard or give it out to your grower friends
• Or if you know a garden near you, let us know!

If you're growing or know a growing space, add them to the Foodival map. 

Let's see if we can get more than the 60 growers who donated last year. !

Saturday is Donations Day

• Drop off your locally grown produce anytime from 12pm - 4pm at Mushkil Aassaan, 222 Upper Tooting Road
• Enter the Ugly Vegetable Competition, or your Best Vegetables. We'll have master gardeners judging the entries, with winners announced on Sunday's Foodival Festival Day
• Enjoy cooking demonstrations from local chefs
• Pick up some seeds and cuttings to grow on for next year
• Find out all about our new project, Growing Tooting

 Leave a comment below and tell us what you're growing for Foodival!
 

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!