If there’s one thing my Dad and I can agree on it’s our love of good food. He’s a Microsoft user and loves sport, while I’m a Mac user who would always choose a bit of light retail therapy over watching a ball get kicked around. But we always agree on the importance of high quality, scrumptious food and we strive to find the best independent restaurants in our local area to share with each other. As I’m now working at a foodservice marketing agency, this seemed like a good way to combine work and pleasure.

When my 22nd birthday rolled around, my Dad and I decided to try out Boqueria restaurant in Vauxhall. Named after Barcelona’s most acclaimed Food Market and serving the most wonderful tapas, this is perhaps Vauxhall’s best kept secret.

As a self-proclaimed cheese connoisseur, I knew I had to have the Selección de quesos – a mix of yummy Manchego, Goat’s cheese and Cabrales with a sprinkling of nuts and grapes. This was followed by a number of delicious sharing plates including: Croquetas de Jamón y pollo (Croquettes with Iberian ham and chicken), Chorizo ibérico (Iberian chorizo) and Pan con ali-oli (Bread with ali-oli sauce).

The star of the show was definitely the Cochinillo asado – suckling pig with sweet potato crisps, apple sauce & lemon sorbet. This is a must-try for anyone visiting the Boqueria Restaurant, with the lemon sorbet being a perfect pallet cleanser mid-meal.

If you are a tapas-loving foodie or a supporter of local independent restaurants like my Dad and I, Boqueria is a breath of fresh air. Tucked away in the outskirts of Vauxhall and far away from the cry of the city, it provides a truly sensational experience.

Website: www.boqueriatapas.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/BoqueriaTapas
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BoqueriaTapas

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.

I started baking bread about 3 or 4 years ago. I already loved baking, and at first it fed my need to bake and create without consuming my own weight in sugar, but it soon became an obsession on its own, overtaking my love of baking sweet treats.

Due to living in a shared house, bread making took a pause for the last year or so – a kitchen covered in flour all the time doesn’t make you a popular housemate. However, having jumped on the property ladder last December, now it’s just my boyfriend who is bribed with fresh bread in turn for ignoring the heavy dusting of flour that covers the counter tops. Over January alone I baked; multiple batches of Fougasse, currently par-baked and filling up my freezer ready to grab and warm up; naan breads; pizza dough for some stonkingly good homemade pizzas; Foccaccia ; Bagels (always a tricky beast – did you know they are boiled before baking?); and a weekly white loaf from James Morton’s ‘Brilliant Bread’ (recipe below).Yes, I am obsessed. There is something fascinating about the process of yeast coming alive and feeding on the flour, and its temperamental nature – the fact that a heat or pressure change can be the difference between a lovely loaf or one as flat as a pancake.

Whatever the reason for my obsession, there’s little doubt that homemade bread is superior to any store bought sliced white. Four things go into a homemade loaf – Flour, Salt, Yeast and Water. A manufactured loaf from a supermarket could have any number of additions to those, including flour proteins, vinegar, dextrose, fructose, soya flour, re-hydrogenated vegetable fat, preservatives, E472e emulsifier, E300 flour treatment agents… none of that sounds particularly appetising, plus it ups the calories, sugar and fat in your sandwich. An additional benefit is the crust on homemade loaves. All that chewing through the thick tasty crust builds saliva which helps the bread digests in the stomach. As for the consistency of store bought bread, one of the key signifiers of an under baked loaf is when you squeeze it it turns back to dough (you may have seen Paul Hollywood wrench the middle of a loaf out in search of such a cardinal sin on The Great British Bake Off). Most manufactured loaves do just that and all that under baked dough is enough to make anyone feel bloated.

Ok, so I may be getting a bit preachy, and I know not everyone is like me, reading bread cookbooks like study books with my highlighter pen and a note pad, but it sure is enough reason to go buy proper bread from a baker rather than heading to the usual sliced store-bought manufactured loaf.

If making a homemade loaf does appeal, this recipe for a ‘No-Knead’ white loaf from former Great British Bake Off Finalist James Morton is a great way to start. Even alongside trying all those fancy breads, I still return to this simple no fuss recipe for my regular loaf as I can spend a total of about 20 minutes in the kitchen and still come out with something delicious.

Basic White Bread

500g Flour

10g salt

7g yeast

350g water (I weigh my water rather than use ml as you get more exact measurements that way)

1. Put the flour in a bowl, adding the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other (the two touching can stop the yeast working).
2. Add the water and mix together with your hands. When everything has come together into dough, cover the bowl with a tea towel of cling film and leave in a warm place for 30 – 40 minutes. It should noticeably increase in size in that time.
3. Wet the fingertips of one hand and slide between the bowl and the dough, and then fold the dough in half. Turn the bowl and fold again. Keep doing this until you have knocked the air out of it and the dough is smoother (although I have left it looking not so smooth and it still comes out great). Cover again and rest for an hour where it will rise again.
4. Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface, flour your hands and shape into a ball (there are tons of YouTube guides for how to do this – this one shows you how from 3:25 – 3:48 – ).
5. Place onto a heavily floured surface like upside down baking tray or chopping board and loosely cover (I usually use an oiled piece of cling film) and leave for another hour to rise again. Preheat the oven to 220°C, at least 20 minutes before you want to bake (with a pizza stone in the oven if you have one).
6. Give the loaf some shallow slashes on top with a serrated knife (I usually do four lines on the top in a noughts and crosses pattern). Slide off the floured surface onto pizza stone, or bake on a lightly oiled baking tray for 30-40 minutes until deep golden brown.

The way to know if you bread is done is by turning the loaf upside down and knocking on the bottom of it. If it sounds hollow, it’s done. This is because if it’s all light and fluffy and baked inside, the sound can travel from your knock, to the other side of the crust and back creating the noise. If it’s still stodgy and under baked, the sound can’t travel so you won’t get that lovely hollow sound!

Not everyone will share my bread obsession, but I can assure you that a homemade loaf is well worth the time. Next for me – it’s time to return to potentially the most temperamental of breads, but absolutely my favourite, Sourdough. To be continued.

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing agency. We help top brands with foodservice web design,  pr, food service marketing, foodservice digital marketing and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.

Has your dry January turned into “I only had a couple of glasses because it was my friend’s 30^th” and “I couldn’t not!”? Or is that shiny gym membership card in your new sports bag you got for Christmas gathering cobwebs? And as for the 5:2 diet, let me guess, it’s more 7:0 now…

Finally, what is perceived as the worst month of the year is coming to a close, and it seems our January health kicks came to an end very rapidly, with most people giving up on the 17^th January (it’s even marked National Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day!). But is it any wonder that the nation only lasts just over two weeks before indulging in the leftover Christmas Thornton’s, and splurging on a glass of red, we had been stuffing ourselves with mince pies and washing those down with prosecco for the past month after all…we deserve more than a lettuce leaf!

So, as it’s time to start dreaming of your summer holiday now that all festivities are FINALLY over, why not kick start your health regime in February?

Here are just a few reasons why February 1^st should be your January 1st:

1. You aren’t going to be queuing for the treadmill in the gym, let’s face it… nobody is in there anymore!
2. You’ve finally been paid after what has felt like a lifetime! So do a big food shop and start meal prepping for the weeks ahead and be sure to add any meals out into your diary in advance.
3. It’s a shorter month… less days to countdown until you break your dry spell and can have that drink on the 1^st of March!
4. The mornings aren’t as dark so exercising before work may be slightly more appealing than snoozing your alarm three times.

So as February 1^st quickly approaches, it’s time to don those lycra leggings, start that holiday countdown and prep your meals in advance…February is a shorter month after all.

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing and food service design agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, food service marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, foodservice public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.

Ok, so maybe this year I am not able to get to the slopes, but what is the next best thing after that? Delicious mountain themed food, of course! And as a proud representative of the leading foodservice marketing agency, this seemed like my kind of research!

Having lived in the French Alps for two seasons and loving nothing more than to fill my time with friends, food and everything après, I could not wait to get myself to the ever so popular pop up restaurant The Lodge.

Having booked a month and a half in advance, my friends and I were expectant of a really great night. We wanted to feel as though we had just stepped into a typical resort restaurant. That sensational world of skiing – wood inspired interior design. Burning open log fires. Tonnes of mulled wine. And, an atmosphere which bursts with excitement. We can happily say it lived up to everything!

After taking an age to discover the discreet doorway hidden away opposite Clapham North station, we climbed the stairs to be welcomed by an enormous Christmas tree and hit with the smell of delicious cheesy fondues. The bar had a magical buzz with everyone in their best chunky knits sipping Thermos flasks of mulled wine and cider.

Once sat at our comfy table it was time to order. What were the two most popular starters? Pan fried wood pigeon and a classic chicken liver and foie gras parfait. And, for mains? It was a unanimous vote, easy decision – all for a comte and coolea cheese fondue! Served up with bread, meats, potatoes and salad, we were all in cheese dipping heaven!

So, I would hugely recommend sneaking off from reality for an evening. Pretend you have just hit the slopes hard and enjoy this great pop up whilst it is still there!

Find out more on their website.

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing and food service design agency. We help top brands with food service pr, food service marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.

It’s a daunting thought I know. One almost too unbearable to think about. Is that the 21 year old in me saying that? Or is it the consumer and creator of information in me?

I’d like to argue that it’s not just the adolescent in me, as my Grandad would say. It is quite possibly the truth of the world we live in today.

With ever more hectic schedules, deadlines more demanding, responses to situations and messages required far more instantly (and that’s without taking in to consideration how active we’ve become as consumers and our desire to respond to the media and produce our own content) you wonder how we’d cope without mobile now.

Well, let me try and put it in to perspective.

The total population stands around 7.2 billion. There are just over 3 billion active internet users and almost 3.7 billion unique mobile users. That’s give-or-take half the world actively living in the same digital realm.

In Europe alone, approximately 70% of the population are active internet users with 57.3 million of the 64.1 million UK citizens actively using the internet. 38 million of us have active social media accounts and 32 million of these accounts are accessed via a mobile. So again, I repeat, we are living online!

For those of you reading this thinking, ‘that’s not me. I haven’t been absorbed by the digital realm’…let me share this with you.

In an average day, a UK citizen spends 4 hours on the internet, accessed through a computer, and 1.9 hours on the web, accessed via a mobile device. The average daily use of social media in the UK stands at 2hrs 13m.

And if that doesn’t shock you enough, on average the UK now spends more time on media devices per day (8 hours 41 minutes) than we do sleeping (8 hours 21 minutes).

The capabilities of the digital world accessed via mobile mean – amongst many things – that we are able to connect with whoever we want, whenever we want, from wherever in the world that we want. Whether it’s a phone call, text message, whatsapp, snapchat, facebook message, linkedin connection, skype…I could go on for a while here.

It also means that we are in demand a hell of a lot more than we were only a decade ago. There is no ‘off’ switch as we have access to email, social accounts, PDF files, spreadsheets, mobile banking…all from the device that sits in our back pocket (#BendGate). There is no excuse for not emailing back, texting back, reading and approving that all-important document.

But there are oh-so-many perks to living digitally. Immediate feedback and in-depth analytics of how far your video of a cat sliding down the stairs has gone. Who’s seen it, who’s liked, shared, unliked it. Being able to find that perfect outfit online Thursday night and having it delivered to the office the next day, just in time for the weekend. Paying for your Costa with your iPhone (thank you Apple Pay!). Reserving Friday night’s table for 2 at the local Italian. The opportunities are endless – or at the very least, a million and one more than life without mobile.

So I conclude, where would we be without mobile?

Behind schedule, behind the trends, behind the next generation. So here’s to the digital world, and loving every minute of it!

Sources:
We Are Social
Mail Online

Having forgotten what sunshine feels like after a typically awful British summer, I escaped to Ischia – a small island in the Bay of Naples – this autumn, to bask in the Mediterranean heat and enjoy the foodie delights on offer.

We stayed in Ischia Ponte, a town on the north-coast of the island boasting spectacular scenery, beautiful beaches and a plethora of restaurants and bars to choose from.

Dining in Aglio Olio E Pomodoro was by far the highlight of our trip. Based in the heart of Ischia Ponte, the restaurant is obviously a favourite among locals as nabbing a table proved difficult! Tempted by the delicious dishes we saw fellow diners tuck into, we rashly ordered enough food between us to feed a small family; gnocchi in a butter and basil sauce, Zucchini pesto linguine and – of course – a Neapolitan pizza each, which I can confidently say was the best pizza I have ever eaten.

Never too far from a gelateria, I indulged in ice cream beyond my wildest dreams; Nutella, Cioccolato, Pistachio, Frutti di bosco and – my favourite –hazelnut gelato, Nocciola.  Severe brain freeze was a small price to pay for this frozen delight which I’m not ashamed to say I enjoyed every day I was there!

It was with a heavy heart and a very full stomach that I waved goodbye to Naples. The withdrawal symptoms are severe – I imagine it’ll take a while for food to taste good again. But rest assured I’ll be back for more gelato!

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing agency and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, food and drink pr, digital and foodservice design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.

Feeling like we needed to get away from rainy old England, my boyfriend and I went on a quest to find a nice cheap break to somewhere that neither of us had been to before – here’s where we stumbled upon Lisbon, the capital of Portugal and boy am I glad we did!

We started off by walking around the town to see what it had to offer and to our delight we came across what would be our first taste of traditional Portuguese life. Unsure of exactly what we were queuing for, we joined a big line to what seemed like a little shop, where people were coming out with a shot of drink – excited to see what all the fuss was about we continued to queue! It was a big triumph when the shot ended up being the traditional Portuguese liqueur – Ginjinha – which is made using sour cherries and sugar – from this night forward this fruity shot became tradition after every meal!

As for the food, it was absolutely delicious, from chicken to shrimp cakes to steaks, all covered in my favourite…garlic. What topped it off for me though was their traditional ‘pastel de natas’ – a Portuguese egg tart pastry. This mouth-watering, delicate treat, which is not only offered as dessert but also sold across their traditional ‘pastelerias’ – little coffee houses full of tasty treats – was truly one of the highlights of my holiday.

Lisbon was full of culture, beautiful sights and great night life but what really made it for me was the small, picturesque restaurants, bars and cafes.

All in all we had a fantastic break and I’ll definitely be looking to go back to Lisbon to do more exploring!

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing agency and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, food and drink pr, digital and foodservice design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.

Last weekend, I took a trip down to Chichester with a few friends where we decided to treat ourselves to an indulgent afternoon tea at The Goodwood Hotel. Anyone who knows me will know just how much I love cake and so for me this was a perfect day out!

We arrived at the hotel and decided to have a wander around the grounds to make the most of the unexpected sunshine. The grounds are beautiful and you can see why many people choose it as a wedding venue. After our walk we made our way inside where we were shown to our table. Within a few minutes we were each sipping a glass of prosecco and presented with a choice of teas. We kept it simple and all went with traditional English Breakfast tea, which was topped up generously throughout our stay.

The afternoon tea itself was a delight and looked too good to eat! The finger sandwiches included truffle egg mayonnaise, hot smoked salmon with pickled cucumber and lime Crème Fraiche as well as traditional ham and mustard.

Once we had finished the sandwiches, we moved onto the next tier which was freshly baked golden raisin scones served with homemade clotted cream and raspberry jam which we all agreed were well up to Mary Berry’s standards!

Although by this point we were pretty full, there was of course still room for more. We finished our afternoon tea off with a selection of mini treats including chocolate brownie, banana loaf and vanilla posset – my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

We had a lovely time at The Goodwood hotel and I would highly recommend it for an afternoon of indulgence and a day off from the diet.

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing agency and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, food and drink pr, digital and foodservice design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, foodservice strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.

I recently moved back home to save money to buy a house of my own and my mum has very kindly taken to making my lunches and cooking my dinners. I was feeling rather guilty about how much time she was spending on all this food prep for me, but I just can’t bring myself to say ‘stop’ and stem the stream of such tasty food.

Menu items to date have included a summer fruit salad – it’s all in how she cuts the mango chunks – and turkey mince stewed with mushroom and potato – so greyish but so moreish.

But, I was thinking the other day, are they actually the best tasting meals or is it just my brain tricking me with nostalgic memories of home cooked food? Although my mum is a great cook, I have a sneaky suspicion it’s the latter. Apologies Mother.

My case-in-point being that I was once forced to eat Lemon Meringue Pie at school by a cruel, cruel prefect and now, although I literally love soft gooey meringue and creamy lemon curd, I can’t stand the sight of the pie itself. Probably for the best to be honest!

I’m just hoping the mum-cooked meals aren’t a phase and we move on to ‘if it’s’ – if it’s in the freezer, we’re having it! That will be a day of food mourning for me.

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing agency and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, food and drink pr, digital and foodservice design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.