Grenada: My 5 favourite things about the island

I will shortly be making my third visit to the Caribbean island of Grenada. My first visit was two years ago when I was invited to experience the Grenada Chocolate Festival, then in it's second year.  I had been to the Caribbean before but I was not expecting to fall in love with this spice paradise like I did.

The island is a very complex place and it's impossible to narrow down the reasons that I love it there so much, however I thought I would just list a few. In no particular order they are as follows:-

Chocolate: Grenada has three main chocolate producers, all of them growing the cacao, harvesting the wet cacao beans and processing them into top quality, world class chocolate.  The future of the chocolate on the island is championed by Magdalena Fielden who has organised The Grenada Chocolate Festival to educate, enlighten and inspire generations of future Grenadians and visitors alike.  This year is the 4th Annual Grenada Chocolate Festival will include some of the familiar events and some exciting new ones as well.  Click here to check it out.

Spices: Grenada is a spice paradise on earth.  You don't need to look far to find nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, turmeric, vanilla to name but a few and all growing in abundance on the island.  One of my goals was to pick my own nutmeg.  As well as a visit to the Grenada Nutmeg Processing Plant in the small fishing village of Gouyave I had the immense pleasure and opportunity to pick my own nutmeg from a nutmeg tree on the Crayfish Bay Cocoa Plantation as well as stuffing my pockets with the ones that had already fallen on the ground.

The local spice market in St Georges is an explosion of colours and smells to treat all your senses.

I visited the home of a local man who had turmeric growing on his land,

and cinnamon trees.  He and his wife showed me how to remove the bark from the cinnamon tree with instructions to lay it out on our balcony for the rest of our stay and it would dry and curl and look like the cinnamon we know.  On the trip home the smell in my suitcase was intoxicating!

People: Generally I have found that the people who live in Grenada are warm and friendly. The residents of this paradise island want you to enjoy your time there. If you ask anyone for information or help in finding somewhere they will go out of their way to get you there.  Grenada is not a wealthy island for most of the inhabitants however they take great pride in the jobs that they do whether it is supplying bananas they have growing on their property to the hotels or a family ice cream company.

Beaches: Grenada has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world! Grand Anse beach is often considered one of the top 10 beaches in the world.  Over 2 miles of beautiful white sand - you can walk the whole length dipping into the calm and warm waters to cool off at regular intervals!

Food: The focus on food is freshness and local, simplicity yet innovative, intricate and innovative!  There is a plethora of high end restaurants, small food bars and street food available.

We stopped by the side of the road to chat to this young lady who was cooking corn on the cob from her home garden and selling to passing motorists.

Then markets have piles and piles of fresh produce all locally grown, bananas, coconuts, limes, breadfruit and more.

And of course don't forget the rum.  Rum is my spirit drink of choice, on it's own with an ice cube, a splash of Coca Cola or local pineapple juice, mmmm!!

I was not paid to write this post. All opinions and photos are my own. No photos may be reproduced in any manor without my written permission.

St Albans: 1st Annual St Albans Street Festival

St Albans, Hertfordshire does love a good street fair, farmers' market, french market or Christmas market so it was no surprise to find the St Albans Street Festival was so popular.  The whole town centre was taken over by street food stalls, children's activities and family fun.

The street was closed off with tables and chairs lining the main St Peter's street, I have lived here 12 years and never known them to do that before!

The children were looked after with lots of activities like a giant sand pit in the middle of Market Square!

Face painting

and even the new ones were catered for.

There was a plethora of different street foods available, more than I had time to put here but a good representation is:-

Riverford Organic Farmers Vegetable Service

Food from Indonesia

mobile pancakes - what's not to love about that ...

Local Bar Meze treating us to some authentic Cypriot food

The Caribbean was represented by Carmen's Caribbean Kitchen

German sausages no 1 ...

and further down German sausages no 2!

Pop over to Brazil for a taste of The 2016 Olympics!! (a regular in the town centre)

From the same side of the world Mexican cuisine was represented

St Albans' very own Smokehouse Deli invited people to stop by for a delicious, slow roasted lamb in a bun and a quick gyrate of hips from Facebook video sensation and owner Gels!

Local Heaven is a Cupcake tickled our sweet tooth with her beautiful and delicious creations

Well known Tiptree jams came all the way from Essex to join the festivities - introducing St Albans to the new Plum gin and Strawberry gin! They were delicious!!

The stage was set at the top of the town with live music and entertainment -

so grab a locally brewed beer and sit and enjoy:- Farr Brew, brewed locally in Wheathampstead

3 Brewers, brewed right here in St Albans (watch out for a post coming about both of the local beer brewers from St Albans the home of the Campaign for Real Ale)

I loved this eco-friendly and avant guarde Christmas tree!

There were many more stalls and street foods available. The atmosphere was really lively and up beat.  I even heard a rumour that there will be a 2nd Annual St Albans Street Festival next year.  Worth coming out for on a Sunday!

Take to the Streets with Voltaire this Spring at Crowne Plaza London City

Voltaire Champagne & Cocktail bar, nestled in the vaults of the Crowne Plaza London City (across from Blackfriars Station in London) celebrated two special associations recently with a lavish launch for media, journalists and bloggers.

First of all the bar is working closely with three pop up restaurants over the next three months; Bill or Beak, The Cheese Truck and Randy’s Wing Bar.  Each one of these pop ups will take over a part of Voltaire’s kitchen Wednesday to Friday evenings (5:30pm – 10:00pm) for about a month and produce a small range of their signature food for customers of the bar.

The Cheese Truck, known for their meltingly gooey toasties served from their bright yellow food truck, will be in residence 25 March – 10 April 2015. Using artisan cheese and local free-range produce they will feature Classic Keen’s cheddar, Ogleshield and mixed onion; Cropwell Bishop Stilton, sweet cure bacon and pear chutney; Rosary goat’s cheese, honey, walnuts with rosemary butter and Queso Chihuahua cheese, choritzo and rocket.

Bill or Beak will serve fully loaded burgers 15 April – 22 May 2015. The burgers will be filled with either duck (bill) or chicken (beak) and topped with unusual sauces and served in a toasted brioche bun.

Bill: shredded duck and pork, topped with spring onions, coriander, mint and a Vietnamese dressing with tempura shallots.

Beak: grilled, corn-fed chicken drizzled with Caeser dressing topped with tempura capers, rosemary croutons and fresh Parmesan.

Sides of fries topped with hoisin, pickled cucumber mayo and finished with chicken scratchings.

Randy’s Wing Bar is a wonderful addition to the London street food scene with American style chicken wings will be at Voltaire 6 May – 22 May 2015.

Buffalo wings with blue cheese and celery; Asian wings sprinkled with crushed fried peanuts and toasted sesame seeds as well as Buffalo shrimp with a lemon and dill dip.

The Voltaire bar is cosy and comfortable and as well as ample seating inside also has a smoking passage and several little alcoves built into the wall which have recently been decorated with a whiskey theme by Glen Fiddich. You can book these alcoves if you want a cosy and private seating place, they are heated and tables have room for a large ice bucket should you have champagne or white wine to keep cool!

The second collaboration is with The Amy WinehouseFoundation, run by Amy’s father, singer and band leader, Mitch Winehouse. 

The foundation works closely with young people who are trying to recover from drug and alcohol addictions. The three paintings of Amy in the background of the photo will be auctioned at a gala event at The Savoy to raise funds for the foundation.

Everyone had a great time listening to some wonderful jazz music, drinking prosecco and eating the plentiful street food.  If you are in London pop into Voltaire’s Champagne & Cocktail Bar especially during their Tastes Of The Street this Spring promotion Wednesday – Friday evenings, 25 March – 22 May (5:30 pm – 10:00 pm).

I was an invited guest to the Tastes of Street Food launch. I was not required to write a positive review.  As usual all opinions and photos are my own.