2nd Birthday Bash at Childerley Hall
- posted in: Blog
September 22nd was Grub Club Cambridge’s 2nd birthday! We can’t quite believe that two years have passed since we had the idea of setting up a networking group for food and drink professionals.
Our venue for this fab event was Childerley Hall. Our dinner was held in the aptly-named ‘Long Barn’ – thought to be one of the longest timber-framed barns of its type in England.
Once again we’d be celebrating our birthday in conjunction with British Food Fortnight, so what better caterers for the event than FoodCycle Cambridge.
FoodCycle is a national charity that combines volunteers, surplus food and spare kitchen spaces to create tasty, nutritious meals for people at risk of food poverty and social isolation. The Cambridge FoodCycle Hub serves a delicious lunch at Our Lady and the English Martyrs every Saturday to a range of people from the community.
We started the evening with a refreshing cucumber gin and tonic from the English Drinks Company. A perfect drink for the still warm late September evening.
Jocelyn from Childerley kindly offered our guests a tour of the stunning gardens while the sun was still shining.
After a few words of welcome and thanks from us, we sat down to a very exciting 3 course menu at our beautifully set tables. Big thanks to A Place Setting for the loan of all the cutlery & crockery!
It was great to read where the food we were eating had been rescued from.
The Starter – Veg tart
These irregularly sized onions were rescued from a field near Wisbech by Feedback’s Gleaning Network. Feedback work in partnership with FoodCycle on a project called ‘From Farm to Fork‘ which helps 18-24 year olds learn about waste across the food system.
The Main – Pip’s veggie tagine with salad(s)
This contains all sorts of vegetables that were destined for the bin, and we’ve used British veg where possible. You’re now eating about 25 kg of carrots from Fife and Norfolk, Irish mushrooms, Kentish courgettes, coriander from West Sussex, organic peppers from Somerset – and even a lone marrow from an allotment in Shepreth!
Thank you to the lovely Pina of One Two Culinary Stew for the fab photos!
In between the main course and pudding, we heard from our wonderful sponsors for the evening, Birketts.
Birketts is a full service, top 100 UK law firm, operating in Cambridge, Chelmsford, Ipswich, Norwich and the surrounding areas. With a rich heritage spanning over 150 years we’ve built an enviable track record advising businesses, institutions and individuals in the UK and internationally.
A special thanks to Nellie for her educational talk on Advertising: the legal rights at issue with advertising and marketing of products and services. It certainly a mine field and we’d advise anyone setting out on this journey to contact Birketts for advice.
We asked people to move around to different tables at this point so people could enjoy the company of more lovely people. Then Alex and her team brought out the most incredible cake, topped with candles!
Toffee Apple Cake
This contains apples from lots of local orchards. The majority were freshly picked by Alex from the gardens of Newnham College.
Alex said a few words and then kindly helped draw our raffle. We were so grateful for the generosity of people, both in donating prizes and purchasing tickets.
We raised nearly £320 from the raffle on the night, great work everyone! There’s more to be added to that so we’ll keep you all posted on the final amount.
We had extra treats from the Gourmet Brownie company – those amazing brownies! And we even had a taste of Christmas from Lilly Puds delightful Christmas Puddings.
Big thank you to Alison Lusis of Ali’s Baltic Bakes for the Piragi in the goodie bags.
And a huge thank you for all the awesome raffle prizes!
- Foraging Fox – ketchup
- Foraging Fox – Hamper of goodies from Speciality
- Face2Face HR – a two hour consultation, or one contract or policy for any business
- Cambridge Cookery School – “lunch with wine for 2”
- Mama Bombon – Boxes of my handmade truffles and Bombones. Tablets of chocolates Spanish candy oranges covered in fairtrade Belgium chocolate
- Farrington Oils – gift bag including our Oil, Classic Vinaigrette and our Mayonnaise
- Cambridge News – Hamper
- Fitzbillies – voucher for champagne afternoon tea for two
- Dinner for Two with Provenance Kitchen
- Tania & Kirsten – One place on our people management workshop, “How to Build and Manage a Team to Success”. This would be for a date early next year to be confirmed!
- Alison Lusis from Ali’s Baltic Bakes – Pīrāgi Masterclass – intense and fun day with Ali creating Pīrāgi, lunch, chat and as many Pīrāgi as you make to take home
- Rubber Cheese – 1 hour digital consultation with coffee & cake on me 🙂
- Cambridge Food Tours – Lunch tour for two
- Lilly Puds – Pudding of your choice
- QUE RICO TAPAS – Tapas masterclass for two people
- Saira Hamilton – cookbooks and a fully stocked spice tin
- Food Marketing Expert – 1 hour digital consultation with coffee & cake on me 🙂
What an incredible evening! FoodCycle Cambridge really blew us away with that food. Every course was delicious and that cake – wow! Crazy to think that everything we ate last night was headed for the bin. I’m sure that will make us all think twice about our food spends and consumption now, and I hope you’ll consider FoodCycle for your next catering project!
Thanks to each and every one of you for making it a birthday to remember. We are, as ever, very humbled by the success of Grub Club Cambs and the fantastic support we receive.
Kelly & Vhari x