The Small Holding, Great Taste, celebrity drinks and food listening and events
And a summery recipe for Pomegranate, Halloumi and Avocado Salad
Hello Lemonistas,
Welcome to your latest edition of The Lemon Grove newsletter. In this issue, we take a quick look at a birthday dinner I enjoyed at a local, seasonally-focused restaurant, The Small Holding and suggest four things that you might enjoy reading, listening to or attending.
Finally, we offer a summery recipe for a Pomegranate, Halloumi and Avocado Salad courtesy of rapeseed oil producer Borderfields.
The Small Holding
A few years ago, two brothers, Will and Matt Devlin, respectively chef and front of house, took the plunge and made a bold move to reopen a pub in rural Kent and create a biodiverse acre of land supplying many of the ingredients used in the kitchens, all year round. It’s also been awarded a Green Michelin star.
The Small Holding is based on growing as much as possible and enhancing self-sufficiency: they grow fruit and veg while raising chickens and rare breed pigs. Seasonal produce informs the monthly changing tasting menu, blending British and Nordic culinary influences in dishes with bold, well-balanced flavours and lots of personality. In summer, grab a seat on the terrace for an aperitif overlooking the garden.
The Michelin Guide gives Green Stars to restaurants which combine "culinary excellence with outstanding eco-friendly commitments”. Speaking to the guide at the time of their award, Will said: “Growing our own produce is the most important part of what we do - managing our soil and starting to develop flavour in our food from the ground up. Our no-dig method is the most natural and sustainable way of producing food.”
For more information on The Small Holding click the links here, or for their other spaces at Birchwood and Forestside. [Not an #ad, meal self-funded]
We’re on Etsy
The Lemon Grove has landed on the giant online shopping website Etsy and will be building up stock and lots of lemony, foodie books, cooking tools and kitchenalia.
We've just opened our Etsy shop, and it's the place to buy my book, 'Cook Wrap Sell: A guide to starting and running a successful food business from your kitchen'. More culinary items and citrusy goods will be added regularly.
Cultural bites: images, words, textures
GREAT TASTE PODCAST: Launched this week, this podcast hopes to shed light on the process and reasoning behind the Great Taste awards, easily spotted on food and drink products by the black and gold stickers with one, two or three stars that indicate a ‘great tasting product’.
Disclaimer - I have been a judge for the awards for the past four or five years, judging hundreds of products each year in London and Dorset.
This podcast is well-crafted, story-based, and an interesting listen. Episode one introduces the process and chats judges and spends time with La Maritxu, maker of a three-starred Basque Cheesecake. In contrast, the second episode, launched today (August 21), visits a judging day in Dorset and a hot sauce maker in Nottingham, England. Listen to the podcasts on Spotify, here.
ABERGAVENNY FOOD FESTIVAL. SEPTEMBER 21 -22. Held across covered markets, streets, bars, and restaurants in the Welsh border town of Abergavenny, this festival is one of the UK’s most recognised food gatherings. Interestingly, George Egg, comedian and anarchist cook, aka Snack Hacker, is featured on the cover of our fold-out snapshot guide, which will be available soon. Sadly, I won’t make it to the event this time.
However, if I were to go, there are three events I would get tickets. Firstly for Marianna Leivaditaki, chef and writer of the brilliant Aegean: Recipes from the Mountains to the Sea, which aims to share the ‘experience of being a fisherman’s daughter and living a simple but simultaneously rich life on the island of Crete’. Secondly, Dina Macki, the first Omani to write a cookbook of her national cuisine. Dina shares her quest for identity in her debut book, Bahari, which explores Dina’s British-Omani-Zanzibari heritage with fresh recipes and nuanced essays. And thirdly, to up my baking game, I would listen to Nicola Lamb’s talk. Nicola recently published the best-selling Baking Demystified, now regarded as a modern baking bible. There are a gazillion other events planned for the weekend. Click here for the full events listing and here for the festival’s website.
Listen again to The Lemon Grove’s recent chat with the Snack Hacker himself, George Egg …
FOOD INNOVATION. Swiss-based think tank Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute (GDI) runs a food innovation conference each year seeking to explore ‘both technological and social changes in the food ecosystem’. This year’s events included a presentation by Marta Messa, the Brussels, Belgium-based Secretary General of the Slow Food non-profit’ organisation. Marta’s talk explored the idea that ‘despite ever-increasing wealth, many people around the globe are still going hungry, while a third of our produced food is wasted … [and] about the responsibility that goes hand-in-hand with enjoying food. Read her interview with GDI here.
Click here for information about GDI’s 2025 Food Innovation event.
CELEBRITY DRINKS. A few years ago, I started a website called Starring Wines. I’d noticed many people in the public eye, celebrities, were either teaming up with branding companies or corporate vineyards (Australian singer Kylie Minogue (wine), English cricketer Ian Botham (wine), movie stars George Clooney (tequila) and Ryan Reynolds (gin) ) or buying vineyards or distilleries (US-singer Pink). Although I got distracted by other projects and shuttered the website, I keep an eye on the market and so was intrigued to listen to BBC Radio 4’s ‘Food Programme’ edition about celebrity drinks. The programme was hosted by UK-based brewer and presenter Jaega Wise and makes for sobering listening. Hear it here.
RECIPE
Pomegranate, Halloumi and Avocado Salad
Ingredients
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
6 tbsp Borderfields Rapeseed Oil, plus extra for frying
1 pomegranate, seeds removed, juice reserved
Sea salt flakes
Freshly ground black pepper
250g Halloumi, sliced
1 small bag baby spinach leaves, washed
1 avocado, sliced
Method
This recipe comes to you from Borderfields, a UK-based company whose Sicilian lemon-flavoured rapeseed oil was recently awarded a three-star Great Taste award!
To make the salad dressing, mix together the honey, mustard, red wine vinegar, rapeseed oil, 2 tbsp of pomegranate seeds and the pomegranate juice in a bowl until combined. Season with a little salt and pepper.
Fry the halloumi slices in a little Borderfields Rapeseed Oil until browned on each side.
Put the spinach onto a large plate with the avocado slices and top with the fried halloumi. Generously drizzle the dressing over the top of the salad and scatter over the remaining pomegranate seeds.
Serve immediately.
Best wishes
Bruce
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My diary is a little quiet at the moment as I recover from full knee replacement surgery. I expect to be back on the Tonbridge Farmers Market cooking theatre stage in November.
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Bruce McMichael
Writer, Podcaster, Event Host & Cook, Lemonista
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