Category Archives: Food for Thought

Best of Food for Thought

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If you’ve never listened to Food for Thought before then this ‘best of’ episode is a great place to start. I like to interview the people running Lincoln’s cafes and restaurants so I get to learn about the amazing food that you can find in Lincolnshire as well as hear people’s interesting stories.

This week’s show is snippets of interviews from the past few weeks, including the Angel Coffee House, Baked by Eileen and The Little Espresso Company.

Listen to this week’s show here:

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The places featured on this best of are:

Little Espresso Company

The Little Espresso Shop on Silver Street in Lincoln. | Photo: Charlotte Reid

The Little Espresso Company is the smallest coffee shop in Lincoln, and possibly in the country. Remember though, good things come in small packages. Adam Lowiss, who owns and runs the Little Espresso Company, opened the shop because he wanted to have his own space to share great tasting coffee with others.

He’s also just started a coffee delivery service. During the day if you’re unable to escape the office for lunch he will bring the Little Espresso Company to your desk at work. And you get to order online. Find out more about the new delivery service here.

Angel Coffee House

We’ve had the smallest and now to the prettiest, the Angel Coffee House. It’s an independent cafe based in the old vestry hall for St Swithins Church.

The new owner CJ used to work at the Angel with the previous owner so she knows what the customers want. At the same time she has a few plans of how to put her personality into the place as well.

You can listen to the full original interview here.

Revival Lincolnshire

Revival Lincolnshire is a community cafe, run by the local community, for the local community. Revival is a pop-up store on Sincil Street and offers workshops, a health and wellbeing centre and a craft cafe.

I met up with Angela Porter, who leads the Revival Lincolnshire project, to talk about the importance of supporting Lincolnshire and the people who live in the county.

Revival Lincolnshire | Photo: Charlotte Reid

Baked by Eileen

Eileen Robertson makes all her cakes in her kitchen at home using local and seasonal produce. Eileen mostly sells her cakes at the Castle Sqaure Market in Lincoln, but some of her cakes are also stocked in cafes around the city too.

Baked by Eileen is a relatively new venture for Eileen. She’s surprised by how successful her business is when it started as a simple idea a couple of years ago. Find out more about Baked by Eileen here.

Next time

On next week’s show I find out more about how we can stop wasting our food and and I’ll be explaining what is cultured beef.

Angel Coffee House

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The Angel Coffee House is one of the prettiest cafes I’ve visited as part of Food for Thought. The cafe used to be the vestry hall for the nearby St Swithins Church and is a very peaceful space for the centre of Lincoln.

Angel Coffee House

CJ is the new owner of the Angel and it’s a place very close to her heart. In my interview with CJ she explains that she used to work at the Angel as a waitress with the previous owner so knows what the customers like and expect. At the same time she has ideas to put her own personality into the place too.

Also on this week’s show I chat to Ben and Alex from Snap it. Taste it. Blog it. They blog about and review food, but there’s a difference with their blog. They’re a couple in a long-distance relationship, Ben lives in Boston, Lincolnshire and Alex lives in New York.

Reading Snap it. Taste it. Blog it. is a fascinating look at the difference in food and food culture between the UK and US but also a glimpse into Ben and Alex’s relationship. To find out more I invited Ben to the Siren FM studios and we called Alex in New York so I could chat to both of them about the blog.

Listen to this week’s podcast here:

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You can listen to the show live on Siren FM every Wednesday at 2pm and repeated on Saturday at 3pm.

I’ve also been working on a Pinterest board for Food for Thought to group together all my photos of Lincoln’s cafes and great food.

Baked by Eileen

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On Food for Thought I like to feature a variety of food businesses, this means chatting to not just the people who run cafes and restaurants but also people who run their cookery businesses straight from their kitchen. That’s certainly the case for Baked by Eileen who makes homemade cakes using local and seasonal produce.

Baked by Eileen

Eileen makes her cakes for the local farmers market in Lincoln and supplies some of the independent cafes around the city. It’s only become a recent venture for Eileen and she’s surprised that her business is so popular after it just started off “as a germ of an idea”.

Also on this week’s show I chat to Eddy Gadd from the Lincolnshire Beekeepers Association about looking after bees.

I’ve not been enjoying the bees inviting themselves into my house via open windows during the recent sunny weather, however, it might have got you thinking about looking after bees properly. In that case Eddy has plenty of advice for people starting to look after bees as well as explains the benefits of looking after bees.

Listen to the latest episode online here:

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Next time on Food for Thought I talk to the new owners of the Angel Coffee House in Lincoln and chat to Ben and Alex behind the food review website Snap it. Taste it. Blog it. You can listen to the show on Siren FM on Wednesdays at 2pm.

The Little Espresso Company

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The first time I stumbled across The Little Espresso Company it was completely by accident. It really is little, it looks just like a doorway in a crowded street. A bit of research later I found out that they were once trying to be officially recognised as the smallest coffee shop by the Guinness World Records. Yet it took me about a year to organise getting The Little Espresso Company onto Food for Thought.

Luckily it was well timed as Adam Lowiss, the owner of The Little Espresso Company, is about to start a delivery service alongside the shop. Adam says the soon to be launched service is “like bringing an entire coffee shop to your desk at work”.

The Little Espresso Shop on Silver Street in Lincoln. | Photo: Charlotte Reid

Although the first impression you get of The Little Espresso Company is just about how tiny the space is. Originally being a small coffee shop was a bit of a ‘gimmick’ says Adam but the size makes sense very quickly. It’s cheap to run, and mostly serves takeaway drinks to people on a quick break from work. These people have no need to hang around, sit and read a paper.

Adam also knows a lot about coffee. Not being a huge coffee lover myself, he already knew what to recommend to someone like me and this impromptu test worked a treat. He also uses local products, suppliers and high quality items like Suki Tea and Chocolate Abyss.

Listen to this week’s Food for Thought here, which includes the interview with Adam and a chat with the Children’s Food Trust about encouraging children to have a healthy diet.

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Chatting with Michel Roux Sr and Brian Turner

Mondays are stereotypically rubbish. Not this week though as Sam Pidoux and I chatted to the three Michelin star chef Michel Roux Sr and one of Britain’s most successful chefs Brian Turner.

Roux Scholarship 2013 | Photo: UKTV

The interview was a chance for the pair to chat about The Roux Scholarship, which after 30 years of providing support for British chefs, is being televised on Watch. We also chatted about the importance of being able to cook properly at home and educating and inspiring people about food.

The full interview with Michel Roux Sr and Brian Turner will be on this week’s Food for Thought on Siren FM, and online shortly afterwards. In the meantime here’s a little tease. It’s not every day that Michel Roux Sr says my name.

listen to ‘Michel Roux Sr’ on Audioboo

Creme egg brownies

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Creme egg brownies | Photo: Charlotte ReidThe latest episode of Food for Thought ended up a bit of a mixed bag. I was hoping to interview a local tea room but I was leaving it a bit late.

I record the show on a Tuesday evening and had arranged the interview on a Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately it didn’t work out as when I arrived my interviewee was ill and at home. Hopefully we’ll be able to rearrange the interview soon. As a result the show ended up being a bit rushed. Luckily I have lots of interviews which I like to reuse every now and again.

I also realised that it’s almost Easter so I should try making something. There are recipes for creme egg brownies on Facebook and thought I should give it a go. So the brownies get reviewed on the show too.

You can listen here:

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Recipe

Easter hasn’t arrived until you have had a creme egg. There may be bigger eggs or better chocolate but nothing compares to the childlike wonder of a creme egg. There’s something very Heston Blumenthal about them.

I, perhaps foolishly, decided that they could be made better with cake. I admit this recipe is not mine, I found one on the internet here and then tweaked it according to what I like.

If you would like to try them out I made a video recipe guide. And if you do try them out then let me know how they went.