Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Top Tooting Cook

  • Foodival Continues … Thank You Donors!

    Thank you to everyone who donated fruit and vegetables last night. We seem to be doing well for apples, but could do with more squash! 

    Head down to Hereward Rd off Tooting High St, by Mushkil Aasaan (see map) from 11-5 TODAY to see what our chefs cook up, tuck into the Community Feast, enjoy the music, stalls and creative spaces at Tooting’s sustainable food festival. Late entrants to Top Tooting Cook accepted!

  • Foodival features …

    A Grower 2018

    This year’s Tooting Foodival includes some new features alongside some familar favourites. We start this coming Friday evening with donations of fruit and vegetables from local growers. Can you spare anything from your allotment, window box or garden? These donations are used by our chefs to cook up a great sustainable feast in the Hereward Rd on Saturday 14th.

    Here’s where to find the Foodival

    The Top Tooting Cook Competition is an annual keenly fought tussle between local cooks to rustle up the best home made locally sourced dish. Follow the link to find out how to enter.

    This year we have several special guests including May Webber from Butterfly Conservation and Ocean Plastic Warrior Mermaid Jasmine Seales. Don’t miss the chance to catch a selfie in a sea shell!

    Mermaid Jasmine Swims By Foodival

    Of course we have a good array of sustainable and foodie stalls plus a long rosta of dance and music action via Dermot’s Meltdown.

    Dermot Melting Down

    In a late change to the running order we expect to hear Dermot himself opening the show with his eclectic trug of homegrown songs and lovingly plucked instrumental covers!

    So we look forward to seeing you this Saturday for what should be a great event. Friday evening for the much needed produce donations at Mushkil Aasaan 222 Upper Tooting Rd, SW17 7EW.

    A full schedule of events will be posted shortly.

  • A Magical Festive Feast

    St Marks United Reformed Church in Balham festooned with vine leaves, fairy lights and candles, offered the perfect backdrop for a magical festive evening at TTT’s Christmas Dinner last night. The invite to “Norah’s Magical Feast” promised a festive culinary celebration and what a feast it proved to be!  Norah won the overall Top Tooting Cook competition at Tooting Foodival in September scoring not only for the taste and look of all her entries to three categories, but also for her exceptional use of locally sourced ingredients including fruit, vegetables, eggs and honey.

    In true MasterChef style, Norah delighted the guests with a sumptuous three course meal starting with a platter of sharing plates of courgette and haloumi fritters and three different kinds of homemade vegetable dips. Generous mains of roast salmon, lamb shank or a winter vegetable tagine followed. Dessert was a splendid affair of sticky fig pudding with salted caramel & coconut topping, roasted fruits with black cherry sorbet or a selection of artisan sheep & goats cheeses served with a variety of chutneys and oatcakes.

    Aided by her assistants Dani and Chris, Norah gave us a Christmas dinner to remember for years to come. If you want to sample the delights of Norah’s Kitchen please get in touch with her here. 
    Thanks to Bryony Williams #findmeintooting for her photos.

  • Tooting Foodival 2018: Congratulations to this year’s Top Tooting Cook competition winners!

    Thank you so much to the competition entrants, the judges and to the local enterprises who donated prizes for each class in the ‘Top Tooting Cook’ competition.
    We had fabulous entries made with love and delicious fresh local ingredients…all adding up to good tasting and decision-making challenges for our panel of judges. The panel judged several classes as well as the overall ‘Top Tooting Cook’.
    Thanks loads to Bryony Williams for her beautiful photos in this post.

    Overall ‘Top Tooting Cook’ Winner: 
    Norah Jane Brasington – not only for taste and look of all her entries to three categories, but also for her exceptional use of locally sourced fruit and veg, eggs and honey. 
    Her choices symbolised the fundamental reasons of this festival which are encouraging the community to consider sustainable living by Growing Local and reducing the air miles our food travels –  thereby reducing carbon emissions.
    A fabulous example of a community action response to addressing climate change!
    Winner in the Savoury Class:

    Farhana Wahab who made delicious Spinach and potato burgers from locally grown vegetables. The judges commented that ‘they are amazing and have great texture’.

    Winner in the Dessert Class:
    Rachel Crosby who made a blackberry and mint cake using locally grown fruit and mint. The judges were impressed especially by her beautiful presentation.

    Winner in the Apples and Pears Class:
    Norah Jane Brasington for her “beautifully moist” gluten-free apple and honey cake from locally sourced apples, eggs and honey! 

    Winner in the Jams and Pickles Class:

    Debbie Morey of Good Sorts won with her “delicious” Damson Jam with fruit sourced from a local allotment.

    Special Commendation to ‘Baked Bean Boy’ for his hot kale and tomato salsa with “great heat”, all ingredients sourced from donations to Foodival 2018. 
    The judges cogitate!
    The audience enjoying a taste of the entries
    Why not enter ‘TTC’ next year in Foodival 2019!
    Yum!

  • Top Tooting Cook 2018 at the 11th annual Tooting Foodival – all welcome to enter!

     
    Top Tooting Cook, the Tooting Foodival‘s fun local cooking competition is ably co-ordinated by ‘firm but fair’ Belinda. Using locally-grown fruit and vegetables which you can collect from us on 14th September, you make your dish overnight and then bring it to the competition at the Foodival on Saturday 15th. See the details of how to enter by clicking here and checking the Top Tooting Cook info in the menu at the top. You can also follow us on Instagram: @TootingFoodival.


    In 2017 we had a record-breaking number of entries: do join in this year!
     
    This is Imira, who won the overall award of Top Tooting Cook 2017 with her squash compote! It’s a Brazilian recipe.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    All 2017 competition dishes are in this photo – crying out to be tasted (some people had to be held back…) 
     
     
     
    There was a wonderful variation of international cultures, ingredients, skills and why-not-have-a-go represented. So – how about entering the Top Tooting Cook competition this year? All welcome!
     

    Here are some local pickles at a secret location – maybe you’ll see them again on Saturday September 15th at the Foodival!

    tootingfoodival's profile picture

  • Join the 10th Foodival This September

    Tooting Foodival is back this autumn.  What are you growing now that could be cooked up in 3 months time?  
    On Saturday 16th September we’ll be celebrating the range of low food mile food that can be grown in and around SW17.  Come along and join in, in whatever capacity you like.  We guarantee it will be FUN!

    We Need Local Vegetable & Fruit Growers
    And We Need Local Cooks!
    Could It Be YOU? 


    For more information or to get involved please email transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

    Full PRESS RELEASE HERE

  • Foodival Top Tooting Cook entries – wow!

    Feast your eyes on these amazing photos of the #Foodival2016 Top Tooting Cook entries!  All grown principally from donated home grown produce. More details on recipes and prize winners will follow … but I thought you’d like to see this hot off the press!

    Thank you to Charles for these stunning shots.  There’ll be some from the Soup Disco photo booth soon too!

  • Foodival, Top Tooting Cook, Soup Disco

    Don’t miss the Foodival 2016 Soup Disco at Tooting Market this evening. Low food mile sustainable veg peeled, chopped and cooked up into a community feast to the sound of classic dance beats.  You couldn’t make it up!  Well you can if you come tonight …

    Optional checklist: peeler, glitter, apron, platform shoes, wig, chopping board, friend, inner Travolta

    Before that, check out the Top Tooting Cook competition from 4pm at Mushkil Aasaan.  Still time to plunder the vegetable patch (or your neighbour’s!) and enter. Cooking demos and taster dishes from Minestra.  All sorts of other malarkey.

  • Soup Disco … What Are You Wearing?

    This year’s Foodival culminates in a Soup Disco in Tooting Market on Sunday night at 7pm. What are you wearing and what veg are you chopping?  Send us a picture inspired by veg and disco (see above!). Bring a peeler and your dancing shoes, DJ till 10 pm, Unwined and Graveney Gin will both be open, too.

    As usual the Tooting festival of sustainable food starts with donations of locally grown produce at Mushkil Aasaan on Saturday 10th, where you can enter the Top Tooting Cook and Ugly Vegetable Competitions, learn about bee-keeping and sample some taster dishes.

    All the info you need is HERE on the Foodival blog.  We look forward to seeing you this weekend.

  • Counting Down To Foodival

    This year’s Foodival is nearly upon us as next weekend we will run our 9th annual celebration of all things local and sustainable in Tooting’s food culture.  For the latest news head to the Foodival blog.


    As usual we will be collecting donations of locally grown fruit and vegetables at Mushkil Aasaan on Saturday and there’ll be a chance to enter the Top Tooting Cook and Ugly Vegetable competitions, as well as check out many other food related goings on.

    On Sunday we have the truly marvellous concept of a Soup Disco where you can help wash, chop and cook all the fantastic locally grown, donated produce to make an enormous soup, before cutting up the dance floor with your vegetable-themed moves!  

    Other dance styles will be perfectly acceptable and our resident DJ will be keeping you grooving till 10pm.  We hope to see you there!