field&flower at the V festival

We are truly delighted that we have just been announced as an event partner at the 2010 V Festival VIP Virgin Media Louder Lounge! We will be serving up the evening menu in a 'pop-up' field&flower restaurant at what's often cited as the 'Rolls-Royce' of festival hospitality.

The lovely Alison Gram of Virgin Media said about us: ‘We are delighted to have field&flower as an event partner at the 2010 Virgin Media Louder Lounge. The Louder Lounge at this year’s V Festival promises an incredible VIP experience and the food provided by field&flower will complement this perfectly.’

We must say that the Virgin Media Louder Lounge is the pinnacle of what has been an immense first year for field&flower which has seen us showcase at Taste of London, Borough Market, and the Real Food Festival. To have also worked alongside Bob Dove, one of the best butchers in the UK has really inspired us in our first year of business. So thank you Bob!

We've decided that our menu at the Louder Lounge will include 7 hour slow cooked spit-roasted Gloucestershire Old-Spot pork, Marinated butterfly Somerset lamb steaks and 4 week hung steak baguettes.

Bring on August 21st!

The boys

field&flower at Taste of London

Flowers, Tabs and James at Taste of London

Tabs sees the funny side of rib-eye steak.

A lesson in the beauty of rib-eye steak!

We downed tools on the farm in June and headed to Regent's Park to sell our beef at the Taste of London restaurant event. We showcased our beef alongside the very best restaurants in the country, from the Rhodes Twenty Four to Le Gavroche.

We had a great time listening to Heston Blumenthal talk about the best way to BBQ steak, and we even spotted Matt Dawson taking a look at our steak.

We'll be back at Taste of Christmas 3rd - 5th December, see you there!

James&James

Mollie the collie

Mollie is the most valuable member of the field&flower team! She is 7 years old and has been trained by James to be a very reliable cow dog. She works long hours and doesn't often get the chance to rest on the straw bales.

This is Mollies favourite field on the farm, she often manages to find sticks and logs over in the woodland, which she'll sometimes carry around all day!

Her favourite job is counting cattle at the end of the day before going home for the dinner.... these were the first ever beef sausages we made at field&flower and she definitely only gets one of these for dinner when she has had a tough week!

field&flower pop-up kitchen at the Northcote Road Carnival

The queue builds early on....

field&flower hand made gourmet burger

J.Flower hard at work over the BBQ

Photos by El Benerini (2010)

On Sunday 13^th June we opened the field&flower pop-up kitchen for business at the Northcote Road Carnival. Once again Bob Dove hosted us outside his famous butchers. We were overwhelmed with the crowds for our field&flower kitchen burger and 4 week hung steak baguettes. We even managed to serve a few local celebrities!

We’d like to thank everybody that waited in the queue, which got up to 60 people deep at times. It is great to have so many repeat customers as well!

We managed to sell over 500 burgers that day which was a great feat on one BBQ! We can’t wait for the next Northcote Rd event, watch this space....

We couldn't have done it without the support of Dove and Son butchers – thanks Bob, Jo, Vicky and Millie!

The boys

Hampton court foodies festival

Hampton court foodies’ festival

We had a great time at the Foodies Festival at Hampton Court Palace last bank holiday weekend. We ran the field&flower kitchen menu from our stand, serving up our four week hung steak baguettes with a tarragon and mustard sauce with roquette and our homemade gourmet burgers with a spicy relish.

Having hand made our burgers and hand cut our beef it was great to see so many people enjoying their field&flower lunch/dinner in the gardens over the weekend, enjoying the sun and a glass or two of pimms!

We’re taking this menu to the Northcote Road Carnival on Sunday 13^th June and will be outside Doves and sons butchers all day! We’re also gearing up for the Taste of London festival in Regents Park (17^th – 20^th June).

We’d like to say thank you to everyone who came along and had some of our beef last weekend. It was great to meet you all. We had lots of great feedback – so thank you!

We’d also like to thank Molly and Tabs for doing a great job over the weekend too – star waitresses!

See you soon,

The boys

The wildlife on home farm

We have been very busy on the farm this week as the cattle are still calving. These pictures show the land on Home farm that is protected by the National Nature reserve in the Gordano Valley.

The farm has many wildflowers growing within the fields including thyme, marjoram, rock-rose, autumn gentian and violets. Butterflies are also particularly notable including the common blue, brown argus, grizzled and dingy skipper, green and purple hairstreak, and dark green fritillary.

Other insects such as grasshoppers, glow-worms and moths are abundant on Home farm. The scrub and woodland edge (seen in the photo) provide food and nest-sites for buzzard, kestrel and sparrow hawk which can be seen hunting across the common at dusk at the moment.

Without farming with the environment in mind, much of the valley would revert to poor woodland and many of the grassland species for which it is famous would be shaded out.

The cattle which benefit from such varied pastures in the photos are South Devon and Hereford cross of about a year’s age. They're enjoying the new grass growth in this lovely spring weather.

Lets hope it lasts!

James & James

field&flower at the Real food Festival, Earls Court, 2010

After a few weeks of planning we have just finished our first big event with the Real Food Festival at Earls Court. It was a great show to be involved with and we managed to meet loads and loads of really nice people and lots of beef enthusiasts!

We served our four week hung minute steak baguettes, with rocket and a roasted onion marmalade topped with a tarragon and mustard sauce and we even sold out on Sunday! The most popular steak of the weekend was Rib-eye and fillet, and we really appreciate the great feedback we’ve had already.

To be amongst so many other great producers from the south-west was brilliant, from Orchard Pig Cider, and Pinks Organics tomatoes to Pullins bread and Mendip Moments ice cream.

We would like to thank everybody that took the time to have a chat, who bought some beef and for just being interested in what we did. The feedback has been fantastic and we look forward to staying in contact with many of you.

Here’s to next year’s show, and maybe we’ll see some of you at the Hampton Court Foodie’s show on the 29^th, 30^th and 31^st May....

James & James