Find us at Petta Fiesta on July 4th - 6th where our gnarly ole chuck wagon will be popping up. There will be camp-fire cooking, food from the Wild Wild West, mexican breakfasts and delicious afternoon teas by the moat. We promise that you won't leave hungry.  Book your tickets here!

Smart Casual - jacket not required. Smart - no jeans, no trainers, no shorts but ties not necessary. Casually Smart - jeans and trainers acceptable, jacket and standard shirt collar, tie not required. No sneakers... I do not want to be told what to wear when I eat out. Daft dress codes in dining rooms make me mad. A scruffy suit, an un-ironed shirt and a bad tie can look far worse than a smart pair of jeans and sneakers. There are many different pedigrees of jeans and sneakers and who is to tell me if mine are acceptable?

We called in at AquaShard last week - you don't need to book to get into to the bar on the 31st floor! We made it through the welcome party on the door to the fast and direct lift up to the bar. 'Sorry, I can't let you in' said the Maitre D' at the door. 'You are wearing sneakers'.

'Young man', I said in my best Suffolk dialect, 'there are people inside wearing sneakers'.

'They booked a table' replied the Maitre D'. 'If you had booked, we wouldn't turn you away, but as you have not booked, I cannot let you in wearing sneakers'.

We thought for a minute, then went up one more floor, in our sneakers, to Oblix, the bookings-only restaurant. We told them we had diamonds on the soles of our shoes. They let us in.

• Cocktails at Oblix
• Our sneakers
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Delia isn't very happy as Norwich are relegated from the Premier League this week, but us Tractor Boys are. We are also happy that there is now a monthly street food event at The Forum in the centre of Norwich - who are ya?

Treacle, Ginger and Orange Bundt Cake

200g/7oz butter

200g/7oz dark muscovado sugar

175g/6oz black treacle

2 tbs ginger syrup from the jar of stem ginger

250ml/9floz milk

2 large eggs (beaten)

330g/12oz plain flour

1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

75g/2½ oz stem ginger (chopped)

zest of 1 orange

4tbs orange curd

for the icing

zest of 1 orange

4tbs orange juice

140g/5oz icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 160C/140C/Gas 3

Grease a 10” round Bundt tin and dust a little flour in to ensure a non stick finish.

Place the butter, sugar, treacle and ginger syrup in a saucepan and melt together over a very low heat, until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool.

Whisk the milk and the eggs together.

Weigh out the flour and add the bicarbonate of soda, ground ginger, stem ginger and orange zest.

Whisk the milk and eggs into the cooled butter, treacle and sugar mix, stirring well.

Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, a little at a time, mixing to a smooth batter.

Pour into the cake tine and bake for 45 mins, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave to cool a little in the tin then turn out onto a wire rack.

Slice the cooled cake into three layers and spread the orange curd between the layers and sandwich back again.

In a small bowl mix the orange zest and orange juice and heat in the microwave to warm.

Stir in the icing sugar (you may need to add more icing sugar or more orange juice) to get the right drizzling consistency.

Drizzle over the cake and decorate with stem ginger or crushed sugar crystals.

At the arty Alde Valley Spring Festival we found Henrietta's Pop-up Patisserie which was tucked away inside White House Farm at Great Glemham. Tea and cake for two cost £6. Wow!

• apricot & almond tea loaf
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• lemon cream and curd tart
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Thank you Mrs Bennett for sharing your Mango Chutney recipe with us. Keeley Bennett makes pickles and chutneys from her home in Polstead, Suffolk using recipes handed down through four generations of the family. You will find Mrs.Bennett's Pickles and Chutneys at Lavenham Farmer's Market or look out for her products in farm shops and local deli's. Keeley says that she finds most people like a mango chutney with their poppadoms even if they don't like a chutney with their cheese!

MANGO CHUTNEY

Ingredients:
900g ripe mangoes - peeled, stoned and chopped
300ml of cider vinegar
225g cooking apples - peeled, cored and chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic (or two small ones) - crushed
200g demerara sugar
5cm root ginger - peeled and grated
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

Method:
1. Prepare the mango and place in a bowl with the salt. Set aside while
you prepare the rest of the vegetables.
2. Place the vinegar in the pan and heat gently (do not boil). Add the
sugar slowly until all of it has dissolved.
3. Add all of the remaining ingredients to the pan and bring to the
boil, stirring frequently so that the ingredients do not catch on the
bottom of the pan. Reduce the heat and simmer for approximately 1 hour,
stirring occasionally and until the chutney is thick.
4. Place into sterilised jars*. Leave for approximately 3 weeks to
allow the ingredients to mature.* You can easily sterilise jars by placing clean jars (and lids) into a hot oven for 10 minutes. Obviously taking care when handling them.

• chilli jam
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We are pleased to tell you that we will be popping up again at The Chequers in Gazeley on Saturday May 3rd  with our "one great price, one great menu" supper.

Saturday May 3rd from 7pm

Brilliant writing, always updated and covers London food.  This is such a well set out food journal....quite envious really.

We went "In Deep" at the Grapesense wine class this week, we went to South America. We tried Atlantico Sur, Marselan from the Garzon Vineyard in Uruguay. Then we started talking about Uruguay and how it's remembered for Fray Bentos meat pies. Fray Bentos is a large Uruguayan town where the Liebig Company produced tinned meats and beef oxo for export to the UK. The Fray Bentos brand was launched in 1899, initially for corned beef, then later pies. By 1961, when Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney was launched, pie production had shifted to Hackney. From the dozen or so of us at the wine class, no one admitted to having ever eaten one of the pies! I remember my Grandma always had one in her kitchen cupboard but I have never tried one, so for the sake of my Grapesense friends - here is the photo story of the Steak and Ale pie that I bought and ate.

I chose the Steak and Ale pie as it had the highest meat content (25%) and by the way the pastry is 24% so not sure what the rest is?! The smell of the pie still lingers in my kitchen an hour or so later, that kind of school-dinner, cheap chip-shop pie smell, like kidneys cooking, although the pie doesn't have any kidneys in it. The pastry looked revolting when I took the lid off the tin but had an impressive puffiness to it when out of the oven, which soon deflated leaving a soggy under layer. The gravy was very salty with scruffy small pieces of beef that were all on one side of the tin.

Interesting Fray Bentos Facts!

Sales of the pies plummeted during the Falklands War. Uruguay being the neighbour of Argentina.

Sean Bean (the actor) always has a Fray Bentos pie on hand when filming abroad, he loves them.

The empty tin makes a good dog bowl.

• Impressive looking puff pastry out of the oven
• Soggy bottom of the pastry lid
• Small pieces of beef
• Surprising choice of pies at Morrisons
• The deep fill steak and ale pie
• Slimy pastry when opened
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The Dark Horse in Stowlangtoft has re-opened.  Anyone been? Please let us know via the comment link.