We asked Amanda Woodvine of Didsbury Dinners to write up an account of how last weekend’s “Food Trail” events went.

Highlights from Didsbury’s first celebration of local, seasonal food

We hope that some of you turned out to enjoy Didsbury Food Trail, which ran last weekend. Activities at all seven sites were packed. Here are some of the highlights from the Trail!

SATURDAY 22 SEPTEMBER
BARLOW MOOR ROAD COMMUNITY GARDEN, 4-6PM
TEA & CAKES ~ BLACKBERRY PICKING

The Didsbury Dinners team welcomed first-time visitors to its garden with tea and cakes (and a glut of blackberries ready for picking).

We had a reserve list for our blackberry-picking/tea party that could have filled the session twice. It was really lovely to meet so many new people, who left with big smiles and even bigger tubs of blackberries. If you missed a place on the session, why not recreate your own with our fab recipes? Recipes include marrow and walnut brownies, chocolate beet cake, and sourdough oatmeal apple cake.

Work started on transforming the garden in March 2012. You can follow the team’s amazing progress, and view more photos from our tea party, here.

SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER
FLETCHER MOSS COMMUNITY ORCHARD, 2–4 PM
BBQ ~ LIVE MUSIC
In July 2011, we used funding from Didsbury Dinners: The Low-Carbon Community Cookbook to establish our first new community orchard on Stenner Lane in Didsbury. Didsbury Greening and Growing Group planted 40 fruit trees on land at the back of the TocH rugby pitches – apple, pear, plum and damson. This fruit is there to be enjoyed by anyone, for free. Fruit has already started to appear.

Volunteers from Didsbury Greening and Growing Group put on a barbecue and live music as part of the Food Trail, which was supported by around 50 people!

THE ALBERT CLUB, 5–8 PM
STALLS ~ FREE FOOD ~ SHORT FILM ~ WORKSHOP ~ RAFFLE ~ COOKERY DEMONSTRATIONS ~ LIVE MUSIC
Our headline Food Trail event at the Albert Club was filled with cookery demonstrations, stalls, and workshops, and was the perfect end to the weekend.
Didsbury Dinners showed a short film charting its progress in creating a new community food garden in just 6 months. Harjinder Kaur (BBC TV’s Hairy Bikers) demonstrated how to make Punjabi lentil dahl, atta dough and roti. Jenny from Cottage Cupcake Co showed us how to make devine vegan cookies, and Chaat Cart rustled up some lovely dosas, under the cover of a gazebo outside.

Julie and Cheryl from WRAP led a Love Food Hate Waste workshop, explaining the benefits of planning, knowing your dates, savvy storage, perfect portions and lovely leftovers.

And the event was rocked out in style by the amazing Hugo Kensdale and his band. We’re looking forward to Didsbury Food Trail 2013 already!

Recipes from the tea party.
Short film about our work.