The prize was A Gourmet Farmer & Chef Night: "A Burst Of Berries" at Claremont Farm, the venue for the Wirral Food & Drink Festival.
There should have been a dozen of us - six winners and another half-a-dozen paying guests, although two people failed to show. Losers! We were greeted by Andrew Pimbley, one of the fourth-generation tenants of Claremont Farm, with a welcoming glass each of Cava; then for a walk through the fields to view the fruit and crops. We'd been pre-warned not to overdress, and to bring stout shoes or wellies!
I think we tried three or four varieties of strawberry - all delicious! Followed by three types of gooseberry and numerous other types of berry before trudging back to eat. And, boy, did we eat!
Before she began to cook, Bernadette Bennett lovingly described what she would be feeding to us - my mouth was watering when she brought a portable cooker through into the dining room and began to fry what she called "Salmon Whitebait": baby fish dipped in seasoned flour and deep-fried.
The photographs, taken on my mobile phone, do not do real justice to the food!
Blue cheese mousse with blackberry compote and baby watercress.
Boned mackerel wrapped in bread, fried and baked. Served with a gooseberry coulis and a drizzle of a rhubarb one. I first cooked mackerel with gooseberries nearly 40 years ago so I was already a convert! The use of bread in this way reminded me of Rachel Khoo (Little Parisian Kitchen) and her Croque Madames.
Perfectly cooked Duck Breast with a cherry & tayberry sauce, on a bed of creamy mash, with new crop carrots and a scattering of freshly-podded peas.
Summer Pudding, made with the farm's own berries - of course! Served with clotted cream.
There should have been picture here of the sumptuous strawberry Pavlova........... but perhaps I'd had one too many glasses of the excellent Rioja!
Instead, you are treated to a photograph of the tree where a barn owl lives. I hope he and his family eat as well, down on the farm, as we did!
