River Cottage blogger: Steven Lamb

Steven Lamb, River Cottage host and resident smallholder, takes us behind the scenes of the Strawberry Fair

It’s been customary to celebrate the bounty of the season and the end of filming with a mini festival at Park Farm. Our theme this year was the Strawberry Fair, which allowed us to think creatively about concocting food, drink, growing and fun activities, which would signify the arrival of summer.

The planning for the event is fraught with endless possibilities of things going wrong. Needless to say we haven’t really had a summer to speak of, the last few years and getting the site looking right, with enough shelter, was one of the main considerations. However, Cat Streatfeild, our outside events organiser, seems to have a direct line to Him upstairs when it comes to choosing dates for events because it’s nearly always sunny. This year was no exception and the site looked splendid with red and white marquees dotted around like an expanse of strawberry and cream teas.

There was a lot of ground work, which started way back in March with the garden team setting about growing enough strawberries to feed over 500 guests. We have over 65 acres at Park Farm but are limited to where we can grow things. This meant we were looking for all the available spaces possible and came up with some ingenious methods such as hanging them in upturned plastic bottles. The only problem with this method is you just can’t help but pick them as you walk past – or maybe that was just me? Anyway there was a ‘picking embargo’ set by Dave the director a week before the event. That was a very long week.

To get the party off with a bang there was a fruity strawberry and gorse wine cocktail handed out to everyone on arrival. We had a terrible time getting the taste just right – in fact Tim, John, Hugh and I were insistent we had several tasters before anyone arrived. It was purely a quality control issue. Of course, there were cream teas – which are still probably the best thing you can make involving strawberries – as well as lovely snacks from the local producers’ tent and lunch supplied by Gill and the River Cottage Kitchen Team.

The event turned out to be a lovely family affair with lots of familiar faces turning up throughout the day. The real highlight was the children’s parade. There was so much effort put into the costumes that it was a real dilemma having to choose a winner. Hugh and I decided to give all the participants an ice cream each and extended special praise to three outstanding entrants just so they all felt like winners (and took the pressure off having to single one out!)

The day was rounded off with a three-legged race across an assault course which had to be seen to be believed. I will take this opportunity to say, partnering John Wright on a forage challenge is a pleasure whilst having him as my race partner was just an unfair handicap. I’m not bitter but I thought, at one stage, he had fallen asleep.

Enjoy the rest of summer and see you in the autumn.

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