A world’s first, award-winning deckchairs – not a stripe in sight – and fish filleting demos by the experts: just three of the delights on offer at this year’s Hastings Seafood & Wine Festival which takes place on the 17th and 18th September 2011.
This year’s festival welcomes on board some exciting newcomers. Hastings’ very own Classroom on the Coast, situated alongside the brand new Stade Hall; Billingsgate Seafood Training School, a partner of Classroom on the Coast; winning deckchair designs; the crew from The Ship at Winchelsea Beach. They’re all getting ready to welcoming a bumper crowd of visitors this year.
Classroom on the Coast, a project of Hastings Fishermens Local Action Group (FLAG), is to be the world’s first teaching kitchen and classroom at the heart of an MSC Fishery*. Not to be missed are the free ticketed events on offer which include: a fish filleting demonstration by CJ Jackson, director of Billingsgate Seafood Training School; a talk on the thorny issue of fish quotas by Paul Joy, Hastings fisherman and Chair of the Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society; a showing of ‘Shingle Film’, a short film about beach-launched fishing fleets.
Judging is now over of the immensely successful ‘Design a Deckchair’ competition, the winning designs have now been made up and will be proudly on display in the VIP area of the Stade Open Space. If one takes your fancy, you can place an order too!
A welcome arrival in beautiful Winchelsea Beach is the stunningly refurbished restaurant/deli ‘The Ship’, incorporating Rick Stein food hero, Jamie Wickens’ butcher’s. Come and see what they have to offer during their first foray into the Seafood & Wine festival.
Back by popular demand are some old favourites. The festival opens with ‘Walking the Fish’, a colourful, musical parade of paper and withy fish sculptures created by local school children; fish cookery demonstrations by acclaimed local chef, teacher and restaurateur Paul Webbe; net making and Stade guided walks; cookery demo and talk by Tom Kime, internationally renowned chef and staunch supporter of the MSC accredited Hastings Fishery, and co-author of ‘Fish Tales’; a different kind of Fishy Tales and seaside songs with master storyteller Kevin Graal in the Children’s Tent; fantastic live musicin the entertainment marquee with great beers served there from Hastings Old Town’s First In Last Out micro brewery; the Sunday morning Jazz Breakfast, with Glastonbury and Ronnie Scott’s headliner Liane Carroll.
Then there’s the wine. Sussex has the highest concentration of vineyards in the UK, the soil being similar to that of the Champagne region. Sedlescombe Organic vineyard is the UK’s first established organic vineyard and ‘eco-hero’ Roy Cooke is an advocate and practitioner of biodynamic cultivation. Sedlescombe Organic will be back, alongside other local vineyards, to demonstrate how justifiable is the growing reputation of English wine – and just how good a companion it is to the fantastic food on offer during the weekend.
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