All that Jazz - Slow Food Market this weekend.

Hi ravers...and jazz heads - this weekend has your names all over it: Slow Food Market + jazz - imagine!

I'm not much of a jazz head but I love a good bit of live horn action on the piazza - and it makes a great backdrop for chocolate...

This weekend we will be serving special Choc Star hot chocolates (yeah, they'll be special all right - for those that know what to ask for), High-Rise Millionaire's shortbread with salted caramel, toasted walnut fudge brownies, Venezuelan hot chocolate shots and Peruvian Maker's Mark infused truffles. Oh, and chocolate bars of varying percentages.

Parp parp!

The Slow Food Market takes place on Southbank Square on the road side of the Southbank Centre, SE1.

Brownie Masterclass this weekend!

The debate about what a real brownie is, or should be, rages on. Who'd have thought that my adult life would be so peppered with conversations on the subject? I know what I think a brownie should be - crisp, almost meringue-like on top, nestling into a wickedness below - taking in rich moist cake and then plunging further to the cherished super-dense and highly-charged fudge centre. The overall effect is of cushioned chewiness and a sense of all being well with the world.

If you'd like to know more - or even fancy contesting these beliefs - I shall be holding a 'Brownie Masterclass' in the demo tent at this weekends Slow Food Market outside the Southbank Centre, 1pm, Saturday 6th June: Brownie discussion and the big unveiling of the national secret that is the recipe for Choc Star's Walnut Fudge brownies.

I hope that compere's there from last time, he were great.

Luvley Ludlow

I got to hit the road at the weekend. I'd been doing London based jobs for so long that I'd forgotten what it feels like to buckle up and rev off down big roads and onto smaller, lesser known lanes. Beth from the Ludlow Food Festival called me up a couple of months ago, longing for me to bring Jimmy to their new Spring Event. It was to be beer and bangers based - say the word banger to me and I'm there. I love sausages so much that I once got a job in sausage promotion for a rather unsavoury individual purporting to be the only black farmer in Britain. He turned out to be a omplete charlatan but the bangers were addictive.

I rumbled up the M40, collected some ice cream in Stratford and then headed West from Kidderminster. The Ludlow lot had rallied round and found me a lovely couple to stay with in Hopton Wafers. We got on like a house on fire and I lapped up all the Slow Food ex-HQ news with fascination. It seems that all is not right in the upper echelons of the Movement.

I remember when I first heard about the Slow Food Movement. I was in Tuscany on my old stomping ground about five years ago and I had just had an epiphany that food would be my future. My friends fed me stories about this revolutionary occurence that was rippling through Italy and beyond. Magic, I thought, I want to know more. Since that time it has grown hugely and has become embedded in the language along with those other ambiguous terms; 'sustainable' and 'locally sourced'. The notion of 'Slow' now comes with extra baggage and I regualarly find myself in discussions with hardcore food people about its merits and relevence.

In Ludlow there is outrage because someone has pledged cash to the Movement on certain conditions, one of which was to have the HQ moved from Ludlow to London. Despite a majority voting against this, Mr Petrini sanctioned the move. Outcry! It's all far more convuluted than this but what it has served to bring about is a deep-rooted local scepticism about the values of the Movement.

I smell a revolution...and surely, the whole point of Slow Food is tied up with a localised reclamation of food production and selling. Yes, it's nice to be affiliated with the broader group but it's not about being sheep-like at this stage. Ludlow - I'm intrigued to see what your next move will be.

Anyway, Choc Star was warmly received - perhaps one too many orders for 'vanilla cornets' for my liking but hey, the truffles went down well. By Saturday night I had moved from my position by the castle to the punk gig in the Ludlow Brewery. I loved it. I love the way in the country you get everyone coming out to play together rather than sectioning off into appropriate groups. There were scruffy kids and committee members, middle-aged ex-punks and tweenie cider drinkers.

I left Ludlow on Sunday afternoon, laden with flagons of beer, Welsh perry, marmalades, bangers, chocolate bars and a promise to return in September. I hope to get back there - it rocks. Shropshire is special.