We nipped over to the Wallington Hall Food and Craft fair on Saturday. I was pleased to see the popularity of these events remains strong.

I really enjoyed chatting to some of the producers who’ve gone out on a limb and set up in business or changed their structure to sell direct to the public.

http://www.northumberlandpoultry.co.uk/ was one, who specialise in organic free range produce (and probable source of the Xmas turkey this year) as do http://www.deer-n-dexter.co.uk/, who specialised in the small Dexter cattle breed and organic deer. Another was selling Alpaca meat which was a first for me. Might leave that for another day though….

There were many others though and I signed up for @tastenortheast information who supplied with the names of plenty of regional producers I was unaware of.

The chocolate and cake stalls were popular as ever, we got some salted rocky road which was delicious, and I couldn’t leave without buying the obligatory chilli sauce that will sit at the back of the cupboard with the rest.

Shame the ‘food court’ comprised three ‘Divine’ branded vans, a large catering chain. The food, invariably, doesn’t live up to it’s ambitious name and it’s a pity smaller independent caterers weren’t there.

Still, it was a nice day out. It’s Durham Food Festival next week, and more chilli sauce for me no doubt……