BRIDPORT Food Festival is just around the corner and with that in mind we caught up with one of its leading players, Amanda Streatfield.
Amanda has been involved with the festival since its second year and this year there are plans to make it the biggest yet.
As well as working hard to organise the festival Amanda is also a Director of major local food producers Denhay Farm alongside her husband George and recently helped out the town by offering up land to help ease the local allotment waiting list.
Amanda is also passionate about her village of Symondsbury where she is Chairman of the parish council. In her remaining spare time Amanda relaxes by singing with the Broadoak Village Choir.
The Bridport Food Festival runs from Sunday, June 13th to June 20th.
WHAT do you like most about Bridport?
It’s a town with a great community spirit. The actual town itself is very attractive and the big wide streets and wide pavements make it a special town. The fact we have a very vibrant market on a Wednesday and a Saturday is great and there are so many activities going on.
WHAT would you like to change about the area?
We have this amazing food culture here with lots of good places to eat and lovely food shops, which I think are very special to Bridport. But, i’d love to see more independent shops in the centre of Bridport, that’s something that could make Bridport even more special.
WHAT can people expect to see at the food festival this year?
This year I’m really thrilled because we are doing more things in the town in the week beforehand. We’ve got the Electric Palace, Waitrose and the community orchard all doing special events. There is cider tasting in Bucky Doo square on the Friday and a chutney competition on the Wednesday and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall is opening it up on the Friday. On Saturday we are very much focusing on the real local people and local chefs. We have got a new seafood tent this year where people will not only be selling seafood but talking about it and demonstrating different things you can do with it. I think that will be very exciting because part of Bridport is being so close to the sea.
WHY did you recently decide to offer land to the council for allotments?
The council have taken that on and I’m really pleased about it. It has been a nice area but I feel it could be appreciated more. I hadn’t realised there was quite such a waiting list for allotments so it would be great to help that.
IS IT important to grow your own then?
Oh yes, it’s terribly important. I’m lucky I’ve got a garden where I can grow things, or rather George does, and I pick them, and it’s a real joy to be able to do it. There is nothing better than being able to go out in the evening, dig up a potato plant and cook those potatoes straightaway. I think the more people who get the chance to do that the better.
AS chairman of the parish council, what are the issues affecting Symondsbury at the moment?
Well obviously there is the dreaded waste transfer station. We attended the recent exhibition and looked at the sites which are proposed in the Symondsbury parish and we are not very happy with them. We feel they are really not suitable for our very rural landscape. Affordable housing is the other thing. We are trying to get some schemes together for more affordable housing either in the village or very close by.
WHAT are your favourites songs to sing with the choir?
We did “The Lord Is My Shepherd” which is the theme from “The Vicar of Dibley” which we all enjoyed singing. We are very lucky that our choirmaster is the composer Chris Reynolds and he writes some really lovely contemporary music which we all enjoy.
WHO would be your three dream guests at a dinner party?
Stephen Fry because I think he is one of the most entertaining people ever who has such a huge knowledge of just about everything there is. David Attenborough, I worked for him at a distance when I worked at the BBC, he made such an impression on me as a child on wildlife issues. Betty Boothroyd, she was a such a brilliant example of how you can be a real diplomat as speaker of the house of commons and to be the first woman speaker was a brilliant achievement.
www.viewfromonline.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment