Food

As Easter approaches and families gather to enjoy meals, picnics and barbeques together, it’s natural to include your dog in the celebrations and sneak them an odd tasty treat or two. Whilst it’s perfectly fine to offer your pooch small snacks in moderation, there are lots of foods around at this time of year that your dog may help themselves to if they aren’t stored away - and many of them are extremely toxic and can make your dog seriously ill. 

Pet Expert and Founder of Yappy.com John Smith explains which Easter foods are dangerous for our dogs, and the safer choices to give our fluffy friends as a well-deserved treat.

Abby Lee is standing at her kitchen island in Hackney, east London, chopping some long red chillis. “Don’t bother deseeding them,” she says, chucking the slices in a big silver bowl.

“They are quite mild, but we have dried chillis to provide the heat.” The Malaysian chef and founder of the open-kitchen concept Mambow in Peckham, south-east London, is demonstrating how to cook the sambal for her steamed okra and prawn floss dish (you can find the recipe below).

The Anguilla Culinary Experience 2023 (ACE) will welcome guest chefs Jennifer Carroll of Spice Finch of Philadelphia, PA, and Top Chef USA fame; Daniele Lippi of 2 Michelin-starred Acquolina in Rome, Italy; four-time James Beard Award Winner David Waltuck of New York; and Anthony Rose of Toronto, Canada’s Fat Pasha and Fet Zun Camp, when the award-winning festival returns for its second year from May 3rd to 6th in Anguilla. Janine Edwards, executive with Sunset Homes Anguilla and Trudy Nixon, creative director of True Anguilla magazine/TV are this year’s festival co-hosts.

Damian Clarkson, a former Royal caterer, food designer, and high-profile events planner, has predicted what guests will be eating at HRH King Charles III Coronation banquet on May 6.

Damian, who has catered for Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, King Charles, and Princess Diana, has more than two decades of event catering experience working for major names, including The Admirable Crichton and Mosimanns, before starting his own company The London Kitchen.

BBC Good Food has revealed the best supermarket Easter products of 2023, after its panel of expert judges blind-tasted over 120 products across 17 categories to find the top hot cross buns, Easter eggs, simnel cakes, Easter main courses and desserts.

The judges tested products, with all packaging removed, from 10 supermarkets to decide on the winners, including their picks for gluten-free hot cross buns, vegan Easter eggs, and vegetarian or vegan mains for a special Easter lunch. 

The first week of April will be dedicated to food and fun in Wolverhampton with the council organising a week of activities to help people still enjoy healthy, tasty food on a budget during the cost-of-living crisis.

Kicking off on Saturday, April 1 there will a 5k run ‘Race for Hunger’ in both West Park and East Park, which will tie in with the normal park run events. The community shops, which the council helped launch across the city, will be on hand to tell people about how they can get great value groceries and save at least £30 a week on average on their weekly shop.

For 160 years, Camus has created expressions of exceptional quality, making it a sought-after Cognac globally. It is the largest Cognac house that remains fully family-owned for five generations. The brand has been associated with history, tradition but also innovation and entrepreneurship especially under the direction of Cyril Camus, its current President.

Food and drink innovation centre The Food WorksSW has launched an exciting competition offering food and drink producers, hospitality businesses or start-ups across the United Kingdom the chance to win a unique prize worth over £3,000.

Based in the heart of the Weston-super-Mare Enterprise Area, the centre, which is the only one of its kind in the south west, is offering five days' free use of a state-of-the-art development kitchen, each of which contains specialist equipment tailored to five key areas within the industry - bakery, dairy, drinks, commercial and trial.

When Shahed Amanullah started a website that crowd-sources lists of halal businesses, he found 200 U.S. restaurants serving food prepared in accordance with Islamic law. Today, 25 years later, the site tracks nearly 13,000 U.S. halal restaurants, with menus featuring cooking from Malaysia to Mexico.

While representing a relatively small number, U.S. Muslims’ share of the U.S. population is growing —  the Pew Research Centre projects it to more than double (from 0.9% to 2.1%) as a share of the population in the period from 2010 to 2050.

Culinary diplomacy is back.

The U.S. Department of State, with the James Beard Foundation, on February 9 relaunched the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership, a network of 83 noted American chefs and culinary professionals. The American Culinary Corps will encourage cross-cultural exchanges by planning menus and preparing cuisine at diplomatic events, such as state dinners and embassy receptions abroad.

Broad Street’s premium Indian restaurant and cocktail bar, PushkaR has been named as the Best Of Birmingham at the Nation’s Curry Awards.

The Nation’s Curry Awards - which is a celebration of the best curry houses and chefs across the UK - were held on Monday 20th February at the Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel.

Batman, Harley Quinn, Superman and Wonder Woman join forces with Tom and Jerry and The Flintstones*, to name a few, in the latest McDonald’s Happy Meal promotion. As restaurants across the UK and Ireland welcome the latest Happy Meal promotion, customers can look forward to this exciting Warner Bros. takeover, to commemorate the Studios’ centennial. Available until 21st March, each Happy Meal will feature 12 double-sided Warner Bros. toys with swappable aluminium heads and paper construction bodies.

University College Birmingham’s training kitchens provided the backdrop for a community culture cooking session where more than 70 families got to roll up their sleeves and learn how to make Jamaican dishes with an expert chef. Let’s Get Culture Cooking with Families, delivered by 2 Much Passion CIC as part of a Bring it on Brum! food festival, gave local people the chance to master a range of Caribbean food with Chef Dane from Dane’s Caribbean Catering, inspired by his place of birth.

1800 guests visited luxury Ribble Valley hotel, Northcote between 20th January and 5th February, for the annual Obsession culinary festival, sampling innovative, original dishes from 23 world-leading chefs that hold a combined 15 Michelin Stars between them. 

The event was a sell out success as usual, living up to its reputation as an unrivalled highlight in the UK's culinary calendar, this year raising an enormous £73,000 (approx.) for charity, Hospitality Action. 

The U.S. Department of State, with the James Beard Foundation, relaunched the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership, a network of 83 noted American chefs and culinary professionals.

The American Culinary Corps will encourage cross-cultural exchanges by planning menus and preparing cuisine at diplomatic events, such as state dinners and embassy receptions abroad.

The Three Counties Food and Drink Festival, a brand-new two day celebration of local food and drink producers, taking place this summer at Three Counties Showground, Malvern, has announced the exciting details of their Saturday line-up of activities, including some very famous guests.