Kendal Festival of Food 2013

This weekend its the annual Kendal Festival of Food and this year under new ownership its much bigger with lots going on. Its a celebration of local food and drink with a chance to try, buy and see top local chefs in action. Today the centre of Kendal was pretty busy with people coming to see what was on offer:

There was plenty of local produce on offer both to eat there and then or take away for later. Ubarrow sausages were doing a roaring trade with these beauties:

Being in farming country just round the corner there was a chance to get up close and touch the animals from which all the meat comes from!

Herdwick sheep

Dairy cow Mary

2 week old lamb

"Call me Mr Ram"

As well as meat items there were plenty of stalls selling chutnies, jams, cakes etc. My daughter soon got the hang of the the tasting process:

Friendly Food and Drink: Chocolate and Orange Curd

Sarah M's Damson Jam

The town crier was out and about to remind everyone about the demonstrations going on in the Town Hall and elsewhere:

Its lovely having a proper town crier and he does a grand job. As the children weren't interested in any of the demos he mentioned I dragged them down to the Vats Bar at the Brewery where there was a mini beer festival. There was a good range of local ales to choose from:

I was pretty abstemious and just had 2 halves which meant I only sampled Barngates Brewery - Red Bull Terrier and Bowness Bay Brewing -Teal Tipple. Both nice mid range ales. I still haven't got around to trying this:

With all of us fortified by pizza it was time to collect a Herdy trail which used cryptic clues and anagrams to take us round some of the lovely local Kendal shops. We had to find the Herdy and answer a question as to which item he was with. This took us over quite a bit of the central shopping area and down the yards. Just hope one of our entries wins us the Herdy prizes.

There were plenty of other prize draws at other stalls too so several chances to win local produce or meals out. On Sunday there are more children's activities with things like Little Kickers in the market place. If you live near enough its a great day out for people of all ages. We are looking forward to the 2014 festival!