Here are the details for the Blaggers’ Banquet Auction as promised!

Each day we are auctioning a new, fabulous food-related item in aid of Action Against Hunger.

On Sunday 15th November the Blaggers’ Banquet was held at Hawksmoor Steakhouse, London. Organised by the London Food and Drink Bloggers Network, the event was generously supported by UK food and drink producers, restaurateurs, kitchenware producers, events organisers and publishers who have also donated some fantastic items to this online auction.

We need your continued support for the online auction. Not only will you be supporting a great charity but you can also bag yourself a bargain!

All proceeds go to Action Against Hunger.

To place a bid simply click on the auction link and check out what’s on offer today.

Blaggers' Banquet

The Blaggers’ Banquet took place last Sunday and it was a roaring success, even if I say so myself! Most of us convened at around 11am (I was late as usual) to start prep and cooking duties, and it was really wonderful to see all of us come together for a common charitable cause, not just us bloggers, but all the really kind people who donated food for the dinner and prizes for the auction. The most heartwarming story involved the people from Fish for Thought who drove a 10 hour round trip from Cornwall on the day to deliver monkfish to us for our starter of monkfish and beetroot tartare.

And my hat off to the bloggers who were on kitchen duties – it must have been pretty pressured stuff, cooking a once off menu in a confined kitchen space for about 50 people!

All hands on deck in the kitchen

I was ‘leek girl’ for part of the day, chopping lots of leeks. Here is a picture of my handy work.

Leeks

And then I helped out with various canapé duties. For canapés, we served some lovely pomegranate and goat’s cheese on crispbread with vanilla salt and chives, tomato and mozarella skewers and gougeres.

Pomegranate & goat's cheese canapé

Tomato & mozarella

As already mentioned, starters was a monkfish and beetroot tartare.

Monkfish & beetroot tartare

Mains included buffalo steaks, and lamb and beef stews. Breads were from St John Restaurant.

Buffalo steaks

And desserts included chocolate fondants and Bompass & Parr jellies, followed by a selection of cheeses. All this was washed down with a selection of “Blaggers’ Cocktails”, ales and wines.

Chocolate fondant

Cheeses

So far we have raised over £3,000 for Charity Against Hunger, and hopefully we will raise more money when the auction for all the prizes that we have collected goes live. I will let you know when the auction site is ready for you to visit, so please bid generously.

Finally, thanks to Gekko the hotel recommendations website, from whom I managed to blag an afternoon tea for two at the Ritz worth £85 for the auction.

So here’s the official press release for the Blaggers’ Banquet which gives you the details on how you might be able to purchase tickets for the dinner which are now on sale. I will be on kitchen prep for the night, but don’t let that put you off! But first, a word of thanks to those lovely people who I have managed to blag some donations from for the auction. Look out for these listings when the auction goes up on Ebay.

1) The fabulous Junction Tavern for a £50 meal voucher;
2) A dinner for four at The Big Bang Restaurant in Oxford; and
3) A goodie bag featuring Maggie Beer products worth £30 from Of Wine & Yabbies.

And finally, here are the details:

On November 15th, Londons’ Food & Drink Bloggers will be taking over Hawksmoor, the revered steakhouse in Liverpool St, for the Blaggers’ Banquet.

There will also be a blaggers’ auction, where we will be auctioning exciting items we’ve blagged. This auction will be two fold, a portion of it on the night, and the rest in the weeks following. Tickets are on sale now in pairs for £150 and one table of 5 for £375. 5 pairs of tickets will be auctioned started from £75. Tickets are available on ebay:

On the 15th November, we food bloggers (or blaggers as some might like to call us) are taking over The Hawksmoore Steakhouse to host ‘The Blaggers Banquet’ to raise money for Action Against Hunger. Tickets will go on sale for a dinner that us bloggers (although maybe not me) will cook from produce that we’ve blagged. There will be an auction of any other goodies that we might have also managed to blag along the way, with all proceeds from both the ticket sales and the auction to go towards Action Against Hunger.

If you would like to donate anything towards this cause, eg, free dinners, booze, etc, such that we can increase the size of the auction pot, then we would love to hear from you. You can do this by contacting me or emailing blaggersbanquet@gmail.com.

For more details on The Blaggers’ Banquet, you can also visit Eat Like A Girl. I will let you know more about the auction, etc. when I have more info.

Signature dish of pig's trotter stuffed with veal sweetbreads & morel mushrooms

Pierre Koffmann’s Restaurant on the Roof, aka the latest craze in pop-up restaurants, was originally meant to open for six days only during the London Restaurant Festival. But due to popular demand its run was extended to the end of October. I’ve been a bit slow to jump on this bandwagon, procrastinating about whether I should go or not. But in the end curiosity got the better of the cat, so I finally went this past weekend during what I thought was going to be its final week.

However talk by the restaurant staff has it that the restaurant’s run will again be extended until mid-December, although this is still to be confirmed as it’s only in the discussion stage at the moment. My view is that they shouldn’t extend it. Instead, I think they should let the restaurant go out with a bang on the back of all the success and glorified publicity and return in force next year as there’s sure to be another London Restaurant Festival. Another month and a half and there’s the real possibility that the novelty factor will wear thin, although an extended run would give people who haven’t managed to secure a reservation and want to go that opportunity.

(Continue reading her story…)

Here are some upcoming July events that caught my eye and might be of interest.

Like London’s recent Taste of London, there is a similar event to be held in Birmingham. Its the Taste of Birmingham and will run between 9-12 July.

The month of July is cherry season, but did you know that in the last 50 years, Britain has lost 90% of its cherry orchards and now imports around 95% of the cherries sold. So FoodLoversBritain.com has come up with CherryAid, a campaign to support the British cherry. The highlight will be CherryBake, to be held on National Cherry Day which is on 18 July 2009. Foodies can register online and then come along with a baked dish which includes cherries. The dish will be entered into a competition for a chance to win a cherry tree in an orchard in Kent. The venue for CherryBake will be London’s Borough Market. For more details click here.

Maggie Beer

A few weeks ago, I blogged about how Maggie Beer, the famous Australian food writer, cook, TV presenter and food producer, was coming to London. Maggie is perhaps not that well known in the UK, but she is a bit of an Australian icon. And so when I was invited to the UK launch party for Maggie’s new products, including her acclaimed verjuice, at Australia House, I was absolutely delighted to go along.

As a consequence of being able to attend the launch party, I have managed to get hold of this never-seen-before recipe of the verjuice custard that Maggie showcased at the 2009 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in March. The festival was also attended by Heston Blumenthal from Fat Duck, Sat Bains from Restaurant Sat Bains, Shane Osborn from Pied à Terre, and René Redzepi from Noma. You can read all about the festival on the Australian Gourmet Traveller website.

(Continue reading her story…)

The BBC Good Food Summer Show is on next week in Birmingham, 10-14 June 2009. Details here.

And of course there is the Taste of London at Regent’s Park between 18 – 21 June. Is it just me, or do other people think this event has become increasingly pricey? A standard ticket costs £22.50 when you include the online booking fee. And this is before you even consider the cost of the vouchers that you need to buy so that you can taste the food.

On 30 June, Australia House on the Strand will play host to G’dayUK – Tasting Of ‘100 Best Australian Wines’. Contact rsvp@wineaustralia.com or telephone 020 7887 5259 (£17.50 single/ £30.00 double) for more details.