My notes!

Brisket 5 x briskets – slow cooked Thurs and sliced (Ruth) with horseradish and chutney on side. I’ve got tons of chutney.

Coronation Chicken 30lb whole chickens. Roasted Thurs (Ruth) and cut up and made into Coronation Chicken on Friday. (mayo, curry, grapes, celery)

Fresh Salmon 30lb fresh salmon filleted into sides, served on shredded lettuce with lime and coriander mayo and prawns to garnish. To be assembled on Saturday.

Samosas Ruth will get from Leicester (serve with raita)

Spanakopita -the Guardian/Hugh Fearnley Whittingstalls recipe online is very good. His recipe will make enough for 12 people so suggest recipe x 8.

Hummus and breads and butter (garnished with whole chickpeas and drizzled with olive oil and pickled lemons)

Cheese, (Baron Bigod, Dorset Blue Vinny, Mrs Kirkhams) crackers and grapes a wonderful display!

Chinese noodle salad – noodles, water chestnuts, bean shoots, red peppers, spring onions, carrot ribbons, tom juice, soy sauce, honey and ginger dressing.

Coleslaw – carrots, cabbage, mayo (Sat morning Ruth)

Tomato and mozzarella salad – garnished with basil and salt and pepper, balsamic and oil (Sat morning Ruth)

Green salad – lettuce, rocket, cucumber, green stuff

Potato salad – potatoes, mayo, chives

Roasted vegetable and cous cous  - med veg, olives, herbs etc

Welcome drink - Prosecco or Elderflower Fizz

48 bottles Prosecco

EldeflowerFizz (Cordial/Sparkling Water/Lemons/Mint)

On the tables – Wine – Two whites, Rose and Red (45 bottles for the tables the rest to sell behind the bar

48 Sauvignon Blanc (white)

48 Esmerelda (white)

48 de Bortoli (red)

24 Rose

 Bar –

Beer and cider

2 x 36 pints polypin Old Cannon best bitter

40 litres/70 pints canned lager

40/50 bottles Aspalls cyder

Mojitos & Elderflower Collins Cocktails and Spirits (Gin, Rum and Vodka)

6 litres rum

6 litres gin

6 litres vodka

6 x Gomme syrup

6 x Elderflower cordial

6 x Jiffy lemon juice

24 lemons

48 limes

5/6 bunches mint

Light brown sugar for mojitos

36litres each of soda, sparkling water, tonic, lemonade, diet coke, coke and orange juice

8kg ice cubes

6kg crushed ice

I'm loving the green chilli sauce that Buckshot sauces sent me. It's slightly astringent with lots of ginger and cumin and I am pouring it over everything! I can't eat a samosa without it. Maybe I am addicted. (We really liked the brown sauce too).

We are loving the look of the new café at Framlingham Castle which has opened following a major revamp by English Heritage. The menu includes Suffolk Grumbly, a regional dish made with sausage meat and  a mustard and cheese sauce, and a Tudor Tarte Owte of Lent, made with ingredients you’re not allowed to eat during Lent – cheese, cream and eggs; cooked in a light pastry case. Lots of other local produce too, including Maynards juices, milk and cream from the Marybelle Dairy in Halesworth and beer from St Peter’s Brewery.

• beautifully incorporated modern facilities in the castle
• family friendly cafe
• delicious home made cakes
•  

Discover the Suffolk coast with the East Suffolk Food and Drink Trails interactive platform. Lots of places to stay and things to do, as well as eat. Take a look.

Actually it doesn't need to be ice cream weather to enjoy a visit to Hadley's Parlour in Lavenham. We went on rather a chilly day but enjoyed tasting a selection of the handmade icecreams that really do offer satisfying, smooth and creamy flavours using locally sourced Fen Farm milk and cream, Elmsett Game Farm eggs, Maldon sea salt and Pump Street chocolate, to name a few. You can get very good coffee and mini cakes as well, if you are greedy like me.

• coffee and cake
• just some of the flavours offered
• milkshakes and waffles too
•  

Is this the best pub in Ipswich? An astonishing range of craft beers from around the world, a beer sommelier, gorgeous gins, street food on a Friday and the friendliest staff.

• a gin Mare and wheat beer with Alice
• wonderful craft beers to choose from
•  

There's been a huge increase recently in the number of people who claim to be coeliac or have a dietary intolerance. One of my best friends is a diagnosed coeliac and she has my full understanding and empathy for the difficulties she often has to face when eating out. I'm always more than happy to cook something for her using potato, buckwheat, maize flour or other gluten free ingredient, and she never moans, complains, or gives restaurants a hard time when she goes out, despite being very ill if she does consume gluten in any recognisable amount. So when I recently heard at a local cafe, a customer asking if the soup, which was gluten free and had run out, had only been served to gluten free customers and another who was happy to eat bread pudding for dessert after asking for gluten free options throughout the starter and main courses I was very annoyed.

May 13th. Today's the day, my dear old Dad would say to make a rook pie. How I miss him.

Don't miss this four week celebration of food, farming, landscape and the arts at White House Farm, Great Glemham, near the Suffolk coast.  Intermingling arts with food, farming and heritage crafts, farm suppers, festival talks and a pop up shop and a tea room. Festival talks include 'Unearthed' this Friday 12th May by local food writer in residence Tessa Allingham. Tessa, who co-authored Unearthed, is going to use the book and the stories in it to explore some of the things that are important to her, and that she loves writing about - food provenance, and the people who grow, rear, fish, farm, bake, cook and sell the wonderful food we have in Suffolk, as well as some of the wider issues about traceability and honesty in food that this subject invokes. The talk includes a delicious soup, bread and cheese supper afterwards.