Weekend in Bath + Love Food Festival

This weekend we went up to Bath for a couple of days. Partly to see my Dad who lives up there (although we only got to see him Saturday lunch as he was then flying to South Africa for work) and partly to go to the Love Food Festival on the Sunday.

We arrived in Bath late morning on the Saturday - just in time to unpack our things at my Dad's house, before heading into town to eat. I'd wanted to go to Demuths for lunch, but unfortunately you aren't able to reserve a table on Saturday lunchtimes and just before we got there a couple took the six-seater table which seemed to be the only table big enough to seat us. What bad timing! We were told it would be a 45 minute wait but we couldn't really wait that long as a) my Dad had to go to the airport and b) the children were getting hungry. Next time I'll hopefully get to try Demuths - the menu looks great! They run a Vegetarian Cookery School as well which I'd been nagging mentioned to Liam a couple of times, so maybe one day I'll get to go there too! :)

We ended up going to The Real Italian Pizza Co for lunch instead, which was nearby and I remembered going to years ago with my Mum. I ordered the Vegetariana pizza which came with roasted peppers, courgette and aubergine plus goats cheese...

I don't normally really like aubergine but this was really tasty. The vegetables were sliced really thinly which was good as I think it's the mushiness of aubergine that I don't like, and the goats cheese tasted fantastic.

Izzy was pleased to see her Grandpa. Hopefully next time we go up he'll actually be around the whole weekend to babysit so we can spend some more time with him! :)

After lunch we headed to the Fudge Kitchen that I mentioned visiting back in 2009. My Dad has lived in Bath for several years yet had never been (!) so I made him come with us to try a sample, yummy. We were a bit more restrained than our previous visit - only buying 4 slices of fudge (a box of 4 slices came to exactly the same price as 3 slices charged by weight, so we got a 4th slice for free!).

Clockwise from top left: butterscotch (Liam's choice - the sample we were given in the shop), peanut butter (my choice, much to Liam's dismay!), choca mocha swirl and chocolate caramel.

We didn't stay in town much longer as the children were getting tired, so we headed back to Dad's house for them to have naps and for Dad to go to the airport. Once they woke up, we went back out to Waitrose to pick up some dinner. No photos as it was a bit of a disaster - Liam was ok as he had ready meal curry, but the rest of us ended up eating mini Quorn scotch eggs for our dinner as I couldn't work out how to use the oven (!) It was only about 8.30pm that I texted Mum and she suggested checking it was turned on at the wall (doh!!) so I ate the planned roasted vegetables then!

This is a photo Liam took on the way back to Dad's house in the early evening...

So pretty. I do love all the buildings in Bath, even if there are lots of hills to walk up!

And this is some of what kept me going while I was being incapable with the oven...

My Dad has stocked his fridge with loads of juice and mini chocolate bars, so there was no shortage of snacky food! I love this fudge the best though - it forms a slightly crisp outer layer whenever it's cut, but then is all soft and gooey inside. The choca mocha swirl was perhaps a little too gooey - I had to eat that one with a spoon! The peanut butter fudge had peanuts running through both the peanut and chocolate layers, delish.

*****

On to Sunday, and I started the day with croissants with raspberry jam and nutella...

plus Rachel's mango, pineapple and passionfruit yoghurt...

plus an unpictured latte. I perhaps shouldn't have eaten quite so much food when we were headed to a food festival that morning, but I'd got a bit overexcited at being in Waitrose (for the first time in 3 weeks) the night before!

After we were all ready, we headed out to find Green Park Station. We'd tried to find it on a previous visit as there had been a farmers market on, but this time we were more successful thanks to iPhone technology!

Going to a food festival with the children proved to be a very different experience than when I went to Exeter Food Festival with just Mum! This was a lot smaller anyway, which was probably a good thing as otherwise I'd have been even more frustrated by the lack of time to myself. Luckily there was a really good kids' area, so after an initial look at all the stalls, we headed there for Izzy to decorate a cupcake...

The finished cake...

This activity was run by Minky Kitten Cakes and was really good value (and good fun!). For just £1 Izzy was given a plain cake, unlimited icing and sprinkles, plus a paper bag with the sweets you see above which was plenty to cover the cake.

After this, we decided it would be a good time to have a snack. Izzy ate her cake (slightly reluctantly as she thought it was too pretty to eat!!)...

I bought a chocolate raspberry mudcake which looked pretty, but was a little disappointing as the cake was quite dry - I think it would've been better warmed.

Toby was happy though as it meant I gave lots to him! The boys munching, haha, sorry Liam - he got a mahoosive slice of chocolate biscuit cake as you can see!

My Mum had given me some money to buy her a few bits at the food festival, which gave me a good excuse to revisit the stalls while the others finished the cake. I couldn't really decide what to get her so bought two of each thing so that Mum could choose one and I could keep the other!

Spreads to go with cheese - apple and walnut (which I kept) and fig honey (Mum's choice):

Sauces from Woodchester Fine Foods - a coconut, lime and ginger cooking sauce for me, and a mango and dijon mustard salad dressing for my Mum:

Finally, some delicious falafel from Jacob's Finest - Mum and I split these half and half - falafel with sundried tomato, and 'falapple' falafel sweetened with apple:

Rubbish photo, but luckily I've already eaten the tomato ones so you can see them in a better state - with salad and Sabra houmous (yes! There was a Sainsbury right by the food festival so I finally got to buy some Sabra houmous that I've heard such great things about!!)

So good. Back to Sunday though. Once I'd finished buying everything, we went back to the children's area where Izzy had great fun painting a bag...

Apart from the ribbon tying, she did it all herself because I don't have an artistic bone in my body. Doesn't it look good?? :)

By this time, all the lunch tables were taken at the food festival, so we decided to head back into town and go to Mission Burrito for lunch. This was the stall I'd been planning to eat at at the festival anyway. I had a vegetable burrito - it tasted much better than it looks!!

We then headed back to my Dad's house to pack up and go home. Not without a quick stop at Ben's Cookies though - we'd discovered this shop back in 2009 also, and their cookies were just as good as I'd remembered!

I had a white chocolate and cranberry cookie. I love how big the melty chocolate pieces are!

Whew, that's it! Long post - I hope you managed to keep up!!

Random question today... but what would you eat the apple falafel with? I asked the man who was running the stall but he wasn't overly helpful, just suggesting eating it however you normally eat falafel?! It does still have the spices, but it is also lightly sweet so I kind of want to eat it in a different way... My mind's drawing a blank though so any suggestions would be welcome!