Summer slinging

The summer has been going by in a haze. What a great one we've been having. Jimmy's been getting stuck into some new places and befriending lots of new people as ever - and really shaping up pretty well for someone of his age.

I discovered recently that I have been accepted on a Masters course at UCL - an Msc in Urban Studies - and I am beyond excited at the prospect of getting my brain cranked up again. So, this summer marks the last one of things being as they were. After this year, who knows? Choc Star will most definitely continue but my role in it won't be as hands-on.

So I'm enjoying every event with Jimmy - and delighting in the excitement I still feel when hitting the road, bound for somewhere I've never been before...

In May we went to Letchworth Garden City for its first food festival. I was totally rivetted by this place - Britain's original Garden City and in possession of it's first roundabout (built in 1903). The whole town had a really extraordinary atmosphere: heavy duty, high-design suburbia with a touch of the Legoland about it.

Punters in Letchworth = all incredibly friendly and easy-going. Must be the Quaker influence.

Prime example = this couple. I marveled at her very ostentatious necklace and she tried to insist that I should keep it. Too much! Then they went on to divulge the secrets of her current husband having snatched her away from her original husband. They looked utterly delighted that things had all worked out for the best and really tucked into those Choc Star treats.

My pal and fellow eat.st founder Giles brought along Mary, his caravan of joy. While we all roasted in the upper 20 degree heat, Giles stood over a pulsing pot of games stew - chunks ahoy of rabbit, pigeon, guinea fowl, quail and venison. Next on his agenda is to incorporate some Suffolk squirrels into the equation.

The County Arms in Wandsworth booked us to be part of their re-launch at the end of May. Along with Morris dancers, face painters, jugglers and other such pageantry, we served the pub's patrons with as much sweetness and joy as they could cope with. Great burgers too...


...Although not quite as special as Yianni's. We finally got to go side-by-side again - this time outside the independently run Red Lion & Sun up in Highgate. Joder! I felt like I was crawling up out of the Brixton swamplands and onto a great precipitous ledge. Felt like another city altogether.

No sooner had I arrived than I was met with a series of food ramblers. People who love food so much that they will hunt high and low for the best on offer - no matter how far or out of the way. I was impressed by the dedication of some of them and did my best to answer all the very detailed questions about sourcing and ingredients and baking methods.

The Meatwagon delivered great juicy American style burgers (never had one in this country that tastes quite so much like the ultimate one I ate in a Wyoming roadhouse several moons ago), and we provided the sweetness.

I drove home that night (getting massively lost in Camden as ever), marveling at the pull of the informal/transitory food offering. We need more of this cutting out the middle man type trading.

Mid June found us back at the Teen-age Cancer Trust area of the Marylebone Street Fair. Loads of great people stopped by for milkshakes and chats - including this family, the man of which was one of my first ever customers when I used to take the van to Portobello Market.

He turns up occasionally and makes all the necessary 'ooh' and 'ahhh' type noises.

I have to include a pic of this lot because they were so rowdy and wild. I love kids like that - roamers, tree-climbers, camp-makers, scuffed knee-ers. One of them was called 'Mushroom'. Priceless.


And then came Winterwell....a magical micro-machine of a festival in a valley in Gloucestershire. The theme for fancy dress (because there's always a theme for fancy dress) was The Complete Works of Roald Dahl. Well blow me down, if the place wasn't run amok by a sea of Oompah-Loompahs, Fantastic Mr Foxes, Willy Wonkas and even a Snozzcumber (who revealed to me during an intimate moment at the choc counter, that his shins had had to be dressed by the St John's Ambulance for custume chafing).


But my very favourite costume of all came courtesy of this dude. Whilst other would-be Hungry Crocodiles lagged around in matted old costume cupboard type affairs, this guy went above and beyond and made the thing himself. I told him, listen, you and Jean Paul Gaultier should hook up - this lime green PVC thing is all that. I was crazy for that guy and his costume and I didn't care who knew.
Meanwhile one of my little helpers turned up for her shift as a Giant Peach. We never lost her again for the whole night.

Later on that week I returned to almost the very same spot for the OnForm bi-annual sculpture exhibition at Asthall Manor. It was an idyllic setting, marred only slightly by my having to listen to the England-Algeria game on a wind-up radio that kept needing re-booting.

Back on the road to Essex after that for the Colchester Food & Drink festival in ancient old Castle Park. I used to knock around in that park as a teen-ager. I probably slept the night there on the odd occasion when I knew not where I was or how I came to be. It felt great to be back there - almost like a county show, complete with Suffolk Punches, donkey rides and a flower competition.

This lot were eating for seven...


And I had a great little helper with me but she did try and eat her way through the profits somewhat. I'm looking forward to when my god-daughter Zahara can actually drive the thing.

The following week we returned to the Southbank for the first of the Real Food Festival monthly markets. It felt like coming home and the sun poured its sugar on us all weekend.

Favourite customers of the event was this Christopher Wallace fan and his reluctant sidekick. There's Biggie on his T-shirt. He got very excited when I told him my sitting-on-Biggie's-stoop story. Then I cranked up Playas Anthem and he fairly skipped off back into the throng.

Choc Star joins a Meating - tomorrow night.

Choc Star and The Meat Wagon (guerrilla burgers) will be making a special pilgrimage from our South London hang spots to The Red Lion & Sun pub in Highgate tomorrow night (Thurs 3rd June).


From 7pm onwards Yianni will be serving up his famous burgers (that the whole food obsessive world have been going mad for lately) and I shall be serving milkshakes, ice creams, truffles and sundaes.

It's going to be fun - do come along if you're in the area!

Big up, choc on and enjoy the sun,

This Weekend - The County Arms gets a Makeover

Hey there. Back in London now after choc van trips to Brighton and then to the fascinating planned suburbia of Letchworth Garden City. We'll be hot-footing it over to Wandsworth on Sunday for The County Arms' festivities to celebrate its new makeover.

As well as ourselves (serving up sundaes, ice creams and milkshakes), there'll be Morris dancers, magicians, face painters, story tellers, a treasure hunt, a Pimms & caipirinha bar and hopscotch.

Imagine that - hopscotch!

We're excited. If you live around South-West London and fancy some fun, get on over.

The County Arms, 345 Trinity Road, London SW18 3SH

Time Flew!

Hello y'all! Greetings from the midst of a rather interesting and experimental epoch in the Choc Star experience: Brighton Fringe Festival....

For almost three weeks Jimmy will have been parked up in the central concourse of the town's marvelous one-way system as part of the Free Range event.

A massive red and blue dome rises up in the midst of this micro festival within a festival and puts on wonderful performances every night. The highlight so far has been the physics-defying kids from Circolombia. Pure magic. If you're anywhere nearby in the next few days you must witness this!

Other fun times - both in and out of the van - have been found at...

The Kingston Food Festival.

I feel a little bit in love with Suburbia that weekend.

The brilliant Food Junctions. UCL have collaborated with local food adventurers to pull together this event in the rambling and off-piste location of Camley Street Natural Park.

I was asked to go along and give a tasting and you can imagine my delight when I was offered up this teepee as the possible location.

That's it! I squealed, and then set about transforming it into a little chocolate den (no pics, sorry - I got mobbed!)

There have been a lot of chocolate tastings at schools lately too. The local press even came along to the last one in Kent to take pics of the excited kids. (If I ever figure out how to post a scan on here I'll insert it toutes suite). I love going to primary schools and showing everyone the cocoa love - it's a whole fresh sheet upon which to lay down the stories and magic of chocolate for curious minds.

And this wedding last week was fun - a Scottish knees-up right in the heart of Dulwich. God, talk about a sure-fire way of ensuring everyone has a damn good time. I LOVE all that prancing around and getting out of breath and being spun around and it certainly worked up their appetites...


New sweet encounters also have been fun. A visit to Hawksmoor for their legendary burger was given a dash of extra pleasure by a scoop of their Cornflake ice cream for pudding. It was delicious - like crushed up Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in the most purely churned vanilla ice cream. It actually reminded me a bit of those crazy ice-creamists at Momofuku Milk Bar.

Then, while doing some pavement pounding in Hackney the other day, I finally got to see my friend Claire's new bakery. After almost five years as the most popular cake stall on Broadway Market, Violet has now added a bricks and mortar string to its bow.

It's so great to see someone with Claire's taste transform an old building and offer up a spot that you just don't see in this country very often. Very Bay Area with an E8 twist.

Now can we start seeing some more of this please? I have a patio that needs inhabiting...

Brighton's 1st Ever Chocolate Festival This Weekend

You have to come on down if you're anywhere near the pier or the promenade. It's going to be a hoot. We're getting ready to hurtle southwards, all saddled up with beaucoup de chocolat for the first Brighton Chocolate Festival.

This w/e: Peruvian marching truffles, hot chocolate floats and other soothers, fudge brownies, Millionaire's shortbread and the return of the sundae! Yes folks, that means ice cream will be making its first real return to the Choc Star stage since...ages.

Try as we might to maintain ice cream productivity during those bitter winter days, it was just too hard. Frozen people would stand waiting for the frozen cream to loosen up a little so that we might plunge a hot scoop all up in it. They waited and waited...but now, what with this new change of character in the climate, I think there could be a return to more scoopable days.

Also attending this event will be two of my personal favourites, Damian Allsop and William Curley, along with fellow Experimental Food Society member, Paul Wayne Gregory.

Hope to see some of you there!

Chocolate Thoughts from India

In February I escaped from here. Accompanied by my darling mum and her narcoleptic friend, we high-tailed it off to India and a warmth that had seemed unimaginable in London. I retrieved some ghastly old gear from one of my charity shop-bound bags and swiftly gave it away on arrival in Mumbai - at once shedding not only winter encumbrances but all feelings of wanting to hibernate as well.


In between dealing with narcoleptic 'crashes' (quickly resolved with a ready lit cigarette) in busy places, pokey G&Ts and cramped, saddle-sore taxi rides, I threw myself into that city with zeal. It engulfed me with its thick heat, each noise and smell that rang out and clamoured towards me felt somehow cushioned.

Safe. I felt safe. I felt like I could've gone anywhere and, though surrounded by so much and so many, I was just caught up in the horizontal life that everyone else was rumbling along in too. India for me was about a life lived in the open air - with all the grimness and magic that this entails.


In Crawford Market at the end of the day, there is the meat enclosure - dangling pieces of fraying red flesh providing a tennuous curtain for the bathing butchers in the background. Each one delighted to be washing clean the days blood.

On Chowpatty Beach we picked past the burrowing rats and the soggy plastic bags to find families bedding down in smog-worn bivouacs, street hawkers plying bhel puri, itinerant chai-wallahs serving up beachside nectar and a whole swathe of neon-lit food shacks competing for your rupee by promising the best pau bhaji on the strip.


I rode the trains from the Northern Mumbai suburbs to the gut of the city's established order in the South. How the view changed - from sprawling organised chaos to unfinished concrete structures; disused buildings, over-used chawls, armpits in my face, warm sticky skin next to my warm sticky skin; hot breeze, funky odors, oiled hair, Bhangra ringtones...


In Bandra chickens pick around in fresh soil under the shadow of Swarovski's Indian flagship and super handsome men serve scamorza risotto in a/c dominated cafes. And down at Oval Maidan are a hundred separate cricket matches being played by teams of varying size and ability - from full whites and trophy tent to sandals being used for wickets.

And then there are the long distance trains! Nudging up against accommodating neighbours, the whole carriage seems animated. At each stop comes another opportunity to snack: vegetable cutlets, bhajis, pakoras, banana fritters, chai, ice cream, bhel puri...and then there's lunch - a 35rp feast of vegetable biriani, curds and soup. Luckily those locomotives are long and I could walk it off by striding from carriage to carriage.


There is much to say about India but what can't be ignored is the eating! From the land of impeccable, relentless service comes food - at all times, in all ways. We barely came up for air. In Goa we nyammed fish curry, millet fried mussels, tandoori Kingfish and real-deal pork vindaloo. We ate masala omelettes for breakfast, Goan bread, butter and jam, fruit salad, pancakes...

Spicy, fragrant, rich and meaty, what I began to crave - and very quickly - was my beloved CHOCOLATE. Sometimes it just wasn't available save for a little pack of cookies bought from the shop. But I did what I could in the name of sweetness - here are some of the results:


I knew it was never going to blow me away but I had to try Trishna's take on the brownie sundae. Best things about it were that it was sweet and warm, otherwise a bit on the Grade D side of things.


Train sweets - peanut clusters, bars, brittle. Kept us quiet for a bit.


La Plage on Aswem Beach right at the top of Goa was such a nice surprise. Despite threats from encircling Russians and protection demands they are still turning out French-style desserts. This crepe with Nutella and toasted walnuts went perfectly with the 'vanille fraiche' Chantilly cream.


But it was nothing next to the Captain Morgan flambeed bananas with iced white chocolate chaser. My God - I was in my clover!


Less successful was Monginis cake shop in Panjim. I loved Panjim in all its dusty, noisy, withered Colonial glory but this bakery didn't really cut it. I'd been sold the place as somewhere that made proper English biscuits so was pretty geed up. The mistake was taking this literally. I had a massive cake craving though so set about devouring as much of what was on offer as possible: dry, vanilla packed fairy cakes and some seriously plastic looking frosted layer cakes...


We had about seven cakes between us, three bottles of Coke and it still only came to about 75p. I certainly sprang back onto those hectic streets with renewed vigor after that little session.


After a Thali that had no end we were nigh on spherical. Our distinguished looking head waiter with the lustrous white hair looked so crest-fallen when I declined the sweet option so I went for it. It was strawberry ice cream - lurid pink, bubblegum fruity. He was pleased anyway.


Aah, the pancakes! I'd forgotten how much I love and need pancakes. The best ones of the whole trip were above, at Casa Susegad in Loutolim (honey & banana) and the Nutella smothered beauties on Cola Beach. Sometimes I'd have three a day.


Margao market, end of the day. Who will buy these bouquets of buttercream?


Gujurati sweets given to my mum on her birthday. We looked at them, took them out of their box, took pictures of them, carried them round with us and eventually they were infiltrated by some particularly determined ants in our Rajasthani tent on the beach.


Off in the interior, living on a purely South Indian diet with no cookies or pancakes for gimmicks, I tucked into this Kheer most heartily. It's a kind of rice vermicelli take on rice pudding: Warm, buttery, cardamon scented it was welcomed after the fiery gobi curry. I think I had about three helpings. (The bowl was quite small).


Hampi and backpackers' central. Quite a rude awakening after coasting between the lines for so long. Right along the river and through the moonlit drenched banana groves lay this barrage of reassurance for the homesick traveler.





Back in Mumbai we headed for the Salt Water Cafe in Bandra and none of us could resist the opportunity to eat flourless chocolate cake, chocolate and hazelnut torte or dark chocolate truffle cake. It was all a bit Sara Lee if we're being honest here but after tying a few Margaritas on none of us cared.


It's a bit embarrassing to admit this but, joined only by my Cola Beach pancakes, the most satisfying desserts for me on the whole Indian voyage were these two souffles from Indigo and Indigo Deli. For savouries there is no contest - I went wild for all that that country was dishing up - but for sweet things, for chocolatey things, the prize has to fall here: Vanilla souffle with bitter chocolate sauce plunged in by night; by day the bitter chocolate souffle with creme anglaise and a warm peanut butter cookie.

I don't remember having better souffles for years.

Introducing...The Experimental Food Society

Hello choc fans. Please forgive the uncensorious lapse in time since my last post, it really is too rude. I went away you see; escaped the brittle clutch of a ghastly February and fled East. There will be pics of my (largely futile) attempts to consume choc whilst in India to follow, but I just wanted to draw attention to a wonderful new cause.

As Britain charges along at full pelt with an ever-increasing choice of food festivals and food-related events, some have wanted to take the next step and progress things along a bit. It's not that we don't all love a good chutney stand or that cider stalls, goats cheese stalls, muesli stalls and onion bhaji mixes to-go don't pique our interest, it's just that we need a new slant now.

And so to food PR and creative thinker Alexa Perrin. She has created the Experimental Food Society to showcase 'a troupe of ground-breaking gourmet artists that demonstrate there is more to life than just swallowing.'

I am delighted that Choc Star has been asked, along with jelly rock n rollers Bompas & Parr, The Rebel Dining Society, food adventurer (we like food adventurers) Stefan Gates and others who have come at food from new and exciting angles.

Have a look at the website and look out for future events of which we'll all be a part. And if there are any tables groaning with jars of chutney please be assured that there'll be a lot more going on than water biscuit paddling.

Choc Star in SW4

There's a new market on Venn St in Clapham (map HERE) - Sourced have branched out from festivals and are now running this new street market and it's full of goodies! As well as choc treats from us there will be cheese from Neil's Yard, fine pieces of meat from Moen's, fragrant delights from Arabica, plus others who know what they're doing when it comes to the mangia.

Choc Star, on account of Jimmy's length and girth, will be down the end of the street holding it all together, (reggae, hot chocolate, truffs - you know the drill). If it goes well we'll be making the short journey from Brixton to Clapham every last weekend of the month.

Hope to see you over there - this Friday and Saturday: 12pm-7pm.

Spacemakers in Brixton Village this Weekend

There's some fun stuff happening this weekend in SW9 - Spacemakers have taken control of the wonderful, disused gem that is Granville Arcade in Brixton Village and turned it upside its head!

All this empty space, all these bright ideas - Saturday 16th January will see all sorts of tasty shenanigans rocking the 1930s lot: A Mad Hatter's Tea Party hosted by Bridget of Wild Caper with myself, Arno, Edwina and Henrietta adding to the mix.

Also, Ms Marmite Lover's pop-up lunch, Travels With My Fork Mexican pop-up, Etta's Seafood Restaurant, The Olive Tree delights from Morocco, Jerk, Colombiano cantinas, cake designing, Ghanaian sweets, Transition Town activities and a whole load more...

I'll be serving mini hot chocolates, truffles, mini Trilli bites and Willie's cacao. We're at No. 40 - hope to see you there!