Here and There

My life is now a curious mix of deeply rigorous academic study and a never-ending popping up at different London spots in the choc van. The two could seem far removed from each other but what I love is how well they feed into one another.

Studying cities is what my Msc is all about - how we all negotiate and interpret our urban space, despite of/because of our apparent differences and how we claim ownership of those spaces and through doing so help contribute to the health and well-being of the city.

I love that Choc Star takes me here:

Choc Star + friends were invited to trade in the Jubilee Gardens as part of the Thames Festival in September. It was a great opportunity to show off eat.st's wares in one spot - a whole strip of high-energy, high-quality, flavour and personality driven food stalls/vans lined up, shimmering.

And here:

The '80s style Fashion Fete at Covent Garden found us back on familiar territory - except with a doggy catwalk show. And an Anna Wintour coconut shy opportunity.

Oh, and with us serving Elvis Sundaes (choc ice cream, vanilla ice cream, brownie bites, banana, hot fudge sauce, salted peanuts and gold dust). Here's one happy partaker:

Then there was the Warwick Wingding. This is an interesting one. Over in Peckham there's a whole scene going on. People tend to think of Peckham as crawling with miscreants where every step is a run of the gauntlet through gnarled chicken bones and eyeballing pitballs. But what about the quaint village life that exists alongside it?

A whole community of arty folk keep the area around Warwick Gardens ticking along with a real homespun, homemade, DIY kind of lilt. Every year they hold the Wingding for the people of the area to come and sell their creations, listen to local musicians, eat well, dance, drink and so on. I was lucky enough to be invited, despite the SW9 postcode. Everyone was extremely friendly, interesting and interested. I just felt a bit sad for the small number of quite-clearly-not-part-of-the-scene kids who strayed over for an ice cream, £1 coins clasped in their mitts, and looking nervous and like real fish out of water amidst all the folksy reverie.

There was nothing stopping these two though - all the way from Canada they came (they said) to visit us!


Back on the Southbank for the Real Food Festival market. I love seeing our vehicles nestled in amongst all those clean lines and imposing edifices.

Down at the Deptford Project for a food night with The Meatwagon. This bloke turned up and started asking me lots of questions...

We bonded over the fact that one of my old friends had her first ever snog with him in a bus stop in Essex.

Then the Towpath event took on a further lease of life as we staged a two day event down by the river there - all in aid of War Child and brimming with East Londoners all looking for a bit of edge to their outdoor dining that weekend.

More of these to come as the Waterways people are excited by the possibilities that putting on events like these - self-organised, grass-roots, fabulous food, nice music, better vibes - can create. And what a wonderful opportunity to re-animate the dead zones of the canal in this way - the place was heaving! (Not in this pic - this was early).


I loved this Mad Max themed party we catered for in an old warehouse in Battersea the other day. The costumes were outrageous - but this guy trumped them all for all round squishability (little smorgasbord of choc treats for his table):

And this dude did stunts that were eye-popping:


And then there was Brent Cross. Britain's first stand-alone shopping mall - a 1970s powerhouse of hardcore consumerism. Despite seeming a little dated and past its best now, its postcode guarantees a huge number of avid, high-spending shoppers every week.

The Centre decided that the recent interest in curbside eating should be realised in their carpark every month in the form of a mini-food festival.

I actually loved being there and think it looked great. Not only our strip - which included eat.st stalwarts Churros Brothers, Brewed Boy, Healthy Yummies, The Meatwagon, Bhangra Burger and Ca Phe VN - but the contrast of that bleak, almost Brutalist facade as a backdrop to the informal, quirky arrangement of food traders who couldn't be further from your typical Nandos-fest usually associated with the mall experience.

This could have potential for real growth but it's going to require a bit of a re-think on many matters - not least of which being, how do you divert indoor mall mentality to outdoor ad-hoc style street food eating?

The good news is that pondering exactly these kinds of questions is all good for my course. Now I just have to remember how to write an essay...

One day only!

We'll be back on the Southbank this Saturday for one day only.

As it's sunny and rainy and windy and all we'll be selling all sorts: ice creams, milkshakesm hot chocolates, sundaes, truffs, brownies, Willie's Cacao...

10am-6pm, Belvedere Road side of the Southbank Centre.

Warwick Wingding - Peckham, here we come!

We're so excited because this weekend we barely have to leave our neighbourhood. To some people the differences between Peckham and Brixton are massive - even the way a person walks can denote SW9 or SE15 - but when it comes down to me and Jimmy it's well local.

The Warwick Wingding is a one day urban fete kind of affair - the result of all those who know and love the green space of Warwick Garden coming together to have a bit of a late summer shin-dig.

Alongside us will be the properly local likes of The Meatwagon, Ganapati, Helen Graves serving up mezze and some storming music and fabulous japes from all manner of others.

It runs from 12-7pm and is followed by an after-party. So if you're coming from North you'd better pack an overnighter.

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

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.

September sojourns

Jimmy parked up outside Chiddingstone Castle for a wedding special.

At Monsoon HQ - we swung by their offices to serve hot chocs, ice cream, truffles and brownies...this guy came along after the crowds had dispersed. (Beautiful offices by the way - full of whacking great pieces of pop art).

The bright, deep blue skies of sunny Suffolk where we pitched up for the Aldeburgh Food Festival. As ever it was magical to be there and back on home soil.

ORMS anniversary party in EC1 - this incredible old Victorian warehouse. And the whole thing was catered by local joints: the salt beef guy, Gujarati Rasoi, Cafe Kick, Moro (the best, most smokily delicious gazpacho ever)...and Choc Star!

We also made it up to Ludlow for the magnificent food festival, now in its fifteenth year. What an operation! And so nice to see a whole load of new food stalls - all from the Shropshire area. We stayed on my old friend Chris' pig farm, ate loads of sausages and drank perry galore.

Maradonna! A wedding that was so wonderfully colourful. Theme: UN costume. And it was all held in the divine grounds of Wadham college, Oxford.


And after a few months away we are happy to have returned to the Southbank for the Slow Food market. Lots of familiar faces cropped up. I love this girl's quiff.

...and this family hired the van for their baby's 1st birthday party when Choc Star was in its first year of business. Great to see them still enjoying the treats so much.

And these two are just too darn cute.

Hanover Day, Brighton (Or how we ended up on Muesli Mountain)

There was something so retro about Hanover Day in Brighton on Sunday. I could imagine great tressle tables, groaning with sausage rolls and Jammy Dodgers lined up the streets as Chuck n Di ambled down the aisle, back in the day. The area - Muesli Mountain - seems like it was meant to have bunting streaming along its technicolour streets. And the people who sat outside their houses with their makeshift stalls, selling flapjacks, iced buns, old books and general, glorious TAT, seemed born to do it.

I worried a bit when I spotted brownies for 60p all over the place - Lawks, what will they make of us coming down here with our hiked up London prices? But I think they knew a good thing when they saw it and we were hit with a steady, mellow tail of choc lovers/ice cream fans all day. Especially the young'uns...

This weekend

Come and find us on Millbank for the arts fete of the year - Saturday 4th July, 11am-7pm.

Or....Hanover Day in Brighton on Sunday 5th July, 11am-6pm - for a big old street party (whoop whoop!)

Fetes & parties...

We loved heading way up north to Barnet - all that leafy suburbia and mock-Tudor - and what a great party for Sophie's 18th. Suddenly the quiet, pine-scented streets were engulfed with the whoops and hollers of a double-decker bus load of teen-agers back from their tour of town. When they saw what was waiting for them in the driveway the hysteria reached critical levels and we steadied ourselves for the job at hand - Malteser muffins, Rocky Road, rum hot chocs and chocolate ice cream, all to be doled out in record time.

These two were brimming with delight at the though of the envy they'd incite in their classmates when they showed up with Malteser muffins for break time.

Here's the queue for the Big Event in Myatt's Field Park the other day. Damn I loved that fete - there was a tea dance and a procession, magicians, face-painters, fancy dress and of course, Choc Star. Opposite sat Mr Whippy, dishing out bright blue bubblegum flavoured stuff. I'd like to have been behind his counter to see how different the punters were - from where I was it looked like SW9 was a seething hotbed of allotment dwelling, cloth bag donning, multi-cultural embracing, ear to ear grinning folk.

And then came this lot at a party in Oxfordshire...

She wasn't smiling quite so much after her 9th scoop of raspberry sorbet. Roald Dahl could have written a great little skit on what became of all that sorbet.

These two, on the other hand, went all out for the frozen choc-dipped bananas - a bit eye-watering, perhaps, to begin with, but momentum was soon gained and with it a real satisfaction.

Marylebone Village Summer Fayre - this Sunday

Choc Star will be in the Blue Zone (Paddington Gardens) - near the Pimms tent - so as I'm sure you can imagine, we're pretty delighted. Apparently the crowd go wild and it's a real rumpus affair. We are girding our loins....

Hope to see you there, in the sun, with a cucumber-laced summer cocktail and a greedy need for chocolate.

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.

Chocolate festivities

This was pretty much all I saw of the Chocolate Festival last week as I scooped and sliced and shook and stirred. Betsy and Molly came to help - as did my brother. It was mental - if you put chocolate stalls together, tell everyone about it and insist the sun comes out then the traders really get it in the neck...in a good way.

I was delighted to see so much good chocolate around - namely William Curley, Paul Wayne Gregory, the wonderful Deirdre of Co Couture in Belfast and my all time favourite and true master of his art, Damian Allsop. We looked after each other - I released chocolate ice creams: Nutella, triple choc, mint choc chip and organic choc in their general direction whilst they returned the gesture. An eye-popping care package of D.A's best arrived on my counter and saw me through...about an hour or 2 of bliss. How can you get anything more perfect than posh Reese's Pieces? The dark choc and the creamy, textured, salty peanut centre. It feels good for you, nourishing, deserved.

Regulars dropped by - my cycling wild man from the bridge, the architecture student with a penchant for brownie fudge sundaes, the adorable Kumi with a present of freshly picked walnuts, the hot choc fanatic from the apartment block next door and little Leon and his family - whose birthday party we attended way back.

Also came some new visitors - food worshipper and blogger Eat Like A Girl in her gorgeous red shoes, sausage roll enthusiasts (and most other kinds of food I understand) Helen and Lizzie and the elusive Bellaphon accompanied by rampant desire for all things inside the choc-mobile - love his write-up of his Choc Star experience!

Ice cream was the big hit over the weekend but so too were the classic brownie fudge sundaes and the new kids on the scene - the blondie fudge sundaes! Picture this: a brownie made with white chocolate and scented with vanilla. The cocoa butter makes it sunshine yellow and fudgey beyond control. Atop sits a scoop of cool, creamy chocolate ice cream and over all of this is poured our molten chocolate fudge sauce. I ate one each morning before the crowds arrived. I couldn't help myself - it seemed like life or death a little bit.

Giant Oreos

I spent yesterday baking: brownies, Malteser muffins and a new kid on the block - the large, in charge, pimped-up homemade American classic...Oreo cookie. I have loved them so long - the equal part top/middle/bottom layer, the almost salty black cookies that contain that whiter than white, kinda wrong in a right way vanilla creme. They would make my whole mouth black but I'd get so lost in the reverie that to attend to the carnage would ruin it all.

Not quite sure how to fully replicate these noir/blanc icons I did my usual and made them way too big: too wide, too thick...so too much filling and...well, what transpired was a rather gulp-inducing proposition. But, as Mickey Rourke would say, 'If they ain't got the balls then f*** 'em'.

Luckily the crowd at Bazaart weren't daunted and saw off the G.Os quick smart - along with endless rum hot chocolates (it was chilly under that railway arch) and brownie fudge sundaes. There was something of the festival vibe about last night in fact; as my buddy Jemma remarked, full of kids with so many distinguishing features it wasn't only the art on the walls that had you gawping.

I'd left the house earlier with hardly any warm clothes, imagining somehow that it really was summer, and Jimmy had had a rupture en route, so as we departed the party there was a kind of vibration-off between us; me gently, subtly and easing off with each notch that I jacked up the heating. Jimmy meanwhile chuntered through the City like an out of work tractor looking for a field...I await the new part with baited breath.

Bazaart

Quick heads-up to anyone who likes a bit of street art in their week. Or, as the organiser puts it...

I am co-hosting an event which will be an eclectic blend of visual and aural artistic endeavor.
Expect free drink early on plus plenty of interactive stuff including a huge paint by numbers canvas to be raffled off at the end of the event.
We've got live screen printing and a great line-up of artists, DJ's & Bands.
This event is entirely free which may leave some cash in your pocket to purchase some one off art pieces, limited edition screen printed posters, and bespoke jewellery.
Check out www.bazaart1.blogspot.com for daily updates on artist participation.
Please respond either way as we need to know how big to make the dance floor!
Feel free to pass this on to all your friends, we have a 5000 sq ft warehouse we need to fill with lovely faces.

Me and the van will be there on the opening night (Thursday) with our chocolate treats - p'raps a few Make It A Jamaicans and iced chocolate martini shots for good measure. Hell, if it continues like this there may even be some ice cream!

Address: 3 Colts Lane, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, E1 - Thursday 19th - Sunday 22nd March.