So every man and his dog is banging on about food waste so it was a fantastic opportunity this Autumn for Feeney to get his head down in the development kitchen with some other chefs to do a little experimenting with a rather interesting ingredient! This is not the first time we’ve talked about Green Banana flour and we don’t think it will be the last. We all know Feeney is completely bananas so getting to grips experimenting with GB flour turned out to be a brilliant challenge, this time he invited along an enthusiastic young lady at the start of her career in the food industry to help. While…
The Birds & The Bees
In fact 1 million bees! When two brothers from a pig farm in Suffolk asked a small group of visitors to come on down and take a look at the farm’s latest sustainability project Feeney wasn’t quite ready for what Mark & Paul Hayward had in store. Feeney was over the moon to be invited to Dingley Dell for an educational day, learning all about “the birds and the bees (as if he didn’t already know!) Instead of being knee deep in pig sh*t he was waist deep in sweet-smelling flowers, with meadows buzzing with bumblebees, butterflies and other fragile little pollinators busy at work collecting nectar & pollen from…
Pork to Fork!
I hope everyone has enjoyed a great start to the year and you haven’t broken all the New Year’s resolutions just yet! As part of my role as a development chef for Griffith Foods I meet some incredible people in the food industry, from state of the art equipment manufacturers, talented chefs to growers and producers of fantastic ingredients. In my first blog post for 2018 I wanted to sing the praises of pork farm Dingley Dell in Sussex. Brothers Mark and Paul Hayward work closely with Direct Meats who supply high-end chefs including Michel Roux & the Gordon Ramsay Group (I’ve even had a sneaky posh bacon sarnie or…
Piggin’ Awful Weather but Piggin’ Great Fun!
Well folks we did it again with the help of some old friends and amazing new ones added to the UCFF family in Padstow this year – when Padstow didn’t quite know what had hit them! Our big top tent went up on one of the pastures at Padstow Farm Shop thanks to the help of the Watson-Smyth’s family allowing the use of one of the fields on the family farm, a great location where you can see and smell the sea – brilliant! Just down the road Ross Geach (former head chef for Rick Stein) from the Padstow Kitchen Garden was busy cutting kale and some amazing vegetables for…
After Hours!
With only a week to go until UCFF17 in Padstow team Feeney just wanted to step back and take a few moments to remember why he along with his fellow “amigos” Lee Maycock chairman of The Craft Guild of Chefs and Ian Nottage chef director from Reynolds created Universal Cookery & Food Festival and what it means to them. It’s probably not a widely known fact that this trio of chefs give up their time to put this event together every year totally free! This is no mean feat and takes a huge amount of input from all of them to ensure Billie and her events team at McCullough Moore has…
Going Green Bananas at The Raby Hunt!
While most people were enjoying the bank holiday weekend with their family Feeney was on his way to take part in a rather special day, cooking at The Raby Hunt’s 7 chefs lunch takeover which had a couple of additions to the impressive stable of James Close’s kitchen buddies making a total of 9 incredible chefs all working together. The line up including Michael Wignall from Gidleigh Park, Tim Allen from The Wild Rabbit, Peter Sanchez from Casamia, Larry Jayasekara from Petrus, Shaun Hurell from Barrio Comida, Mark Birchill from Moor Hall and John Freeman from Restaurant Sat Bains. Each chef gave up their Sunday to cook for a…
Skills for Chefs
The elephant in the corner of the room! Well this year so far has been the busiest yet for Feeney in his career as a development chef, the balance of work, family and personal commitments to charities he’s passionate about has become a real challenge! One date in the calendar he never misses is Skills for Chefs in Sheffield. An industry event organised by David McKown from Sheffield University in conjunction with the amazing catering team & facilities from Sheffield College. Skills for Chefs is one of the biggest chefs events in the UK packed in to a 24 hour period with 200 delegates hungry to learn and share skills.…
Anything to declare?
Anything to declare sir? It’s not every day you meet up with a stranger at an airport and he asks you to carry two bags containing 5kg of white powder in your suitcase – luckily it was only tempura batter mix! One of the ingredients JF intended to use for his “British fast food” treat for the villagers at Lura….. A trek in Nepal climbing 4,000 metres is definitely not for the faint hearted, but when the gauntlet was thrown down to Martini Chef – John Feeney in a bid to raise much needed funds for the Springboard Charity he found it hard to resist! A group of 30 willing…
Nepal trek – shaken not stirred!
“I will be shaken but not stirred!” “So this is a new life experience for me – literally taking me in sight of Everest. As I rise to the challenge of supporting a school hit by an earthquake where we will spend three days rebuilding and repairing damage after the devastation left behind. I will also be trekking to raise funds for people closer to home in an industry I love with a passion. This is my way of giving back to those less fortunate than myself who face challenges and barriers in the hospitality and food industry with Springboard, an amazing charity supported by some of the greatest and well respected chefs in the UK.…
Bollywood Vienetta!
October was a busy month for JF but he’s never too busy to give a little back. On 4th October he joined Simon Young & Sarah Hartnett at Cyrus Todiwala’s Café Spice Namaste restaurant to cook in memory of a much loved chef and friend Peter Hazzard who sadly died earlier in 2016. The dinner inspired by Peter’s love for food and drink raised funds for a great charity supporting those in need in our industry. For the past three decades, one man – chef Peter Hazzard, former Food & Beverage Director of Sodexo – worked harder than most on behalf of Hospitality Action, helping to raise hundreds of thousands…
Latest Posts
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Did someone say GREEN bananas??
So every man and his dog is banging on about food waste so it was a fantastic opportunity this Autum
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A Chip off the Old Block!
Where cutting edge - meets tradition With the ever-changing demands of food-savvy consumers, de
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The Birds & The Bees
In fact 1 million bees! When two brothers from a pig farm in Suffolk asked a small group of vis