Valentines Day Special

How about a delicious treat for your Valentine? Food and drink is a primal need so what better way to reach your valentine's heart? At BigBarn we have some great ideas and have asked a few of our producer members to send in their ideas as comments below. Please also comment if you have a heart winning recipe or story.

To start with something basic. Ladies, your man will pander to your every whim for weeks if you cook him a delicious, locally-produced, well hung, juicy, steak. We recommend you look at the BigBarn map to find your local farmer or butcher and ask questions so you can tell your man the story of his meal. Please note that a local sirloin steak will probably be cheaper and better than a supermarket fillet steak.

And you men, forget the sweetie shelf at the local garage, or crappy flowers from the supermarket and give your lovely lady some hand made, high cocoa, aphrodisiac rich, hand made chocolates.

Simply visit the BigBarn map or MarketPlace to find and buy the best local steak or for a huge range of chocolate.

Burns Night/Week Celebration

Whether you have Scottish blood, love Haggis, need a tiny excuse for a party, or like wearing a man skirt, Burns Week is here. I say week, as my friends can't come until the weekend.

As one quarter of my body is Scottish and I love haggis, I will be carefully steaming my haggis for the big night. I will also boil some turnips, swede and carrots and roughly mash them, (to leave lumps) and mix with some butter and black pepper. Some potatoes will get the same treatment with butter, black pepper, milk and a pinch of mace, but be mashed finer and then whisked with a fork until my arm aches.

I am afraid I won't struggle through the traditional Burn's grace for the cutting of the haggis especially now that I have found this recording. I will put my laptop near the table, click the link and have the big knife poised over the beastie, ready for the word 'cut' in the 3rd verse!

To find your local haggis try your local butcher, or use the BigBarn MarketPlace.

Farmhouse Breakfast Week 24-30 January 2010

I enjoyed a hearty breakfast in London yesterday to mark the launch of this years Farmhouse Breakfast Week. Thank you to the HGCA and well done!

Health professionals all agree, and I am sure we all notice, especially with kids, we should start the day with a healthy, balanced breakfast. Breakfast really can benefit your energy levels, concentration, mood and can even help you manage your weight.

To get involved and join farmers, producers, schools, retailers, caterers and individuals in celebrating the benefits of breakfast. Hundreds of events of all sizes are expected to take place across the country. For great ideas and tips on organising your own event, click here.

Farmhouse Breakfast Week also provides a perfect opportunity to promote the wealth of wonderful breakfast produce available around the country. From butchers style bacon and sausages to speciality breads and cereals, there is a fantastic choice to benefit the start of your day.

To buy your great breakfast foods in our MarketPlace click sausages, bacon, black pudding, porridge, muesli or visit our map to visit your local producers/retailers.

Happy New Year

A very prosperous money saving year to all.

To get your finances in order, or start the New Year saving some money for the next celebration, switch from the supermarket to buying locally. Seasonal and local is cheaper and you will not be tempted by the BOGOFs and cheap DVD movies that will be on telly very soon.

You may already have noticed our "cheaper than the supermarket" flags on many icons on the BigBarn map, meaning that the producer or retailer is cheaper, normally on the products they produce. That's not difficult when on average only 9p in every pound spent on food in the supermarket goes to the farmer.

All you have to do is find your local supplier and ask questions about price, quality and what is in season. Change to shopping locally every week, and if you have to, visit the supermarket once a month for the tins, washing powders, etc.

Christmas Beer

Christmas is a good time to be a beer drinker. For centuries brewing and religion have been closely aligned and it fell upon the brewers to produce a tasty tipple for the seasonal celebrations. The tradition continues to this day as many breweries produce a "premium" product for the Christmas season, be it a British real ale microbrewer's "Winter Warmer" or Danish brewing monolith Carlsberg's Christmas Beer.

These Winter beers are generally stronger and richer than the brewer's standard offering. Many German brewers consider these beers to be a "thank you" gift to their customers since the increased amount of ingredients, plus the additional duty incurred by the higher alcohol content, make these beers more expensive to produce with therefore a small profit margin. Gotta love those Germans.

Here in Britain, our beer of course is real ale - beer which has been naturally carbonated in the package from which it is served (the bottle or, more commonly, the cask). For the scientifically-minded amongst you, the beer is transferred to the bottle or cask shortly before fermentation is complete. The container is then sealed so that the carbon dioxide produced by the remaining fermentation cannot escape and is absorbed by the beer to create the soft carbonation common to these types of beer. Bottled beer is then stored cold until gravity pulls the suspended yeast to the bottom of the bottle leaving a clear beer. Cask beer is more commonly "fined" whereby a substance is added to the beer which binds to the suspended yeast cells to encourage the beer to clear quicker. Often this substance is "isinglass" - a gelatine-like substance obtained from the swim bladder of the sturgeon (gotta love those sturgeons) - and so vegetarians and vegans should be careful to ask if beer has been fined. Once fined, the cask is shipped to the pub, where the cellarman stores the beer in the pub cellar until it is ready to serve.

Because real ale is "alive" - ie: it contains active yeast - it is vitally important that the beer is kept well and this basically means cold and still. Shipping a cask of real ale the length of the country in an unrefrigerated truck will do it no good at all, so it's no surprise that real ale tastes better the closer you get to where it was made, for example, Shepherd Neame in Kent, Ringwood in the New Forest and Wadworth's 6x in Wiltshire.

So when it comes to trying a few Winter Warmers the best place to try is your local. Most pubs worth their salt will regularly stock their local breweries wares, and a good publican will serve the beer when it's in peak condition. But what if you want to enjoy a few pints at home or take beer to a party? Few small real ale producers bottle their beers due to the cost of bottling equipment but many sell "polypins" in five or ten litre sizes which are perfect for a party or just for having at home to keep you in beer over the holiday period. Polypins are the beer equivalent of bag-in-a-box wine, but are in actual fact a pretty good receptacle for real ale. Of course, if you really, really like beer, many breweries will sell you a full cask and rent you a hand-pump or a tap through which to serve the beer. These generally come in four and a half or nine gallon sizes but bear in mind that as soon as you tap the cask, air is allowed in which will gradually oxidize and spoil the beer. Some real ale connoisseurs favour ale that has been "on" for a day or two and is showing some signs of oxidation. Slight oxidation can be identified by a caramel or butterscotch sweetness that can often add to the appeal of a beer. Too much oxidation though makes beer taste like cardboard so unless you're confident of draining the cask within three to five days, buy smaller vessels, eg: two "pins" (four and a half gallon casks) rather than a "firkin" (a nine gallon cask) or two polypins rather than a pin.

There are a number of fantastic breweries selling polypins or bottled beer in the BigBarn Marketplace so maybe you can find your Christmas tipple there. But please remember to order early so that when your beer arrives you can set the polypin, cask or bottles somewhere cool for a week or so to settle before you start enjoying it. Or a day, at least...