Celia, very concerned about the clouds rolling in at Jamie Oliver's Feastival this weekend
I’ve been supremely distracted these last two weeks. I’m now a parent. Celia is two weeks old, and all I can say is that while labour is pretty rough and breastfeeding even rougher, I’m a fan of this parent gig so far.
Celia came into the world via emergency C section. Thumbs down to the midwives who didn’t identify that Celia was a breech baby until after I’d labored for what felt like forever. Thumbs up to the surgical team at UCH for being great communicators and total pros.
Feeling restless and with Jon on his last day of paternity leave, we spent this afternoon at Jamie Oliver’s “Feastival,” a three-day music-slash-food festival this weekend on Clapham Common. While I’m no music connoisseur and therefore generally characterise the bands performing this afternoon as fun for a sunny day out, I was pleasantly surprised that the food stands were as good as they were. The restaurants represented are pretty legit from a food lover’s point of view, and the mains sold are all priced at £5. It was good value once you forgot about the sunk cost of admission to the festival (£35 at the door, but do some googling and you’ll find a few half-price deals on-line).
porchetta muffuletta sandwich from Fifteen
popcorn shrimp from Redhook
chicken satay and roti from Awana
roast lamb and minted yoghurt sandwich from Providores
I enjoyed the food we sampled and am happy to report that La Fromagerie has its own large-ish tent selling freshly-fried donuts and chocolate chip cookies for £1 a piece, and enormous brownies for £2.50 (all of which I’ll vouch for because, umm, I ate one of each).
"cocktail bar" at the Feastival on Clapham Common
Peter Gordon (The Providores) does a cooking demo
In the “cocktail bar” area, we snagged seats on comfy outdoor sofas and enjoyed Pimms (a somewhat-pricey £7.50 a glass) in the sunshine, and then we checked out the Providores‘ Peter Gordon doing a cooking demonstration (winner tip of the day: cook couscous in cold or tepid water so that it doesn’t get claggy).
Overall, a relaxed and tasty experience for a sunny weekend. If you’re at loose ends tomorrow or Sunday, give the Feastival a try. All proceeds go to charity, so even if you find the admission price a bit high, just remember the money goes to these good causes.
As for me, I’m going to take a break from this blog. I’ll be back in three weeks (on Monday, 25 July), hopefully with an idea of what to do with this restaurant and travel blog now that I’ve got un bebe. Suggestions welcomed!
Jamie Oliver’s “Feastival,” on Clapham Common from Friday, 1 July through Sunday, 3 July. Admission is £35 per adult, and food and drinks are additional (but generally reasonably priced) once you’re admitted.
Half-price tickets were available earlier in the week via LittleBird, TimeOut, Lastminute.com, and Groupon, though I’m not sure which of these offers are still available. Closest Tube station: Clapham Common. Look for the tents when you exit the station – it’s less than a ten-minute walk.
Congrats on Celia – a San Francisco reader …
If you continue travelling, post tips on travel with babies. We travelled a lot with C in her first year and I was always giving others advice. On the baby front, I can’t believe you didn’t know she was breech!! Sometimes the excessive testing US docs favor is a good thing. Yeesh – I hope your labor wasn’t too scary b/c of that. Johanna
Congrats on Celia! Good to see you getting her going on the foodie vibe early!!
Congratulations! Great to hear that you went through the labour fine. The midwives are really a hit and miss, isn’t it? Well, enjoy the ride!
Congrats Alice! I can’t believe you’ve managed a blog post with a 2 week old! X
I second the comment about blogging about travel with a baby! I’m sure lots of readers would welcome the tips and experiences you could share.
Super congratulations, Alice, Jon and to the newly arrived Celia! She is adorable!
Congratulations!! She’s adorable! Looking forward to the Big Feastival this afternoon. All the best and happy adventures in parenthood!
Aww congratulations! She looks very cute indeed.
Oh my heart melts at these photos – she is such a little cutie. Glad to hear the festival was better than expected – I was a bit sceptical as well when I heard about it.
Congratulations! Celia is the image of you
I only got to Feastival for a few hours and as a bit of a music obsessive, was very happy to see The Bees and Guilemots there. Overall a good festival I thought, especially for families. Sadly I missed most of the food as by Sunday mid afternoon a lot of the best ones had sold out.
What to do next? Well why not restaurants and travelling WITH Celia?
Enjoy your most well-deserved break! Can’t wait to see more pics.
But remember…Wordpress for iPhone…so easy…just a picture and a sentence or two and you’re done…
This is the first ever food blog I’ve read and first ever comment and what a great one, looks amazing!
Missed Feastival but good call on Pitt BBQ. We were able to snag a pulled pork – yum!! And yes, cover restos/food with Celia. Use Tumblr if blogging too time consuming.
Hi, Thanks for mentioning LittleBird in this post. Glad you enjoyed The Big Feastival. Sarah (Co-founder of LittleBird)
[...] Jon and I mustered all the energy we had left and took our then-two-week-old daughter, C, out for Jamie Oliver’s Big Feastival in Clapham. The outing exhausted us, but we were glad we finally left the house. We’ve since taken C [...]
The porchetta muffuletta sandwich looks absolutely delicious, I want one!
~ Khle