Monthly Archives: April 2014

Gums are burning

Posted on April 29, 2014 | Leave a comment

Nice weather for them

How can we dance when our stomach’s churning
How do we sleep while our gums are burning

(With apologies to Midnight Oil and their fantastic song ‘Beds Are Burning’, which they played at the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony)

Before I explain the inclusion of the rather mangled politically-inclined lyrics above, let’s start this week with some fantastic news. Jamie from The Wiltshire Chili Farm entered four products into this years Taste of the West awards, and has come away with three golds and one silver award:

Chipotle Chilli Salt – Gold

Lemon Chilli Pepper – Gold

Fireside – Gold

Chipotle Chilli Sauce – Silver

Anyone that’s tasted these will not be surprised – all four are fantastic products that I just love selling at events, especially the Chipotle Chilli Salt – the roast spud’s best friend! Congratulations to Jamie on the well-deserved accolades.

OK, on to the lyrics. Well, this weekend just gone has seen me selling our hottest ever sauce – God Slayer. This ferocious little number was hatched by Jamie and Bond a couple of weeks back when I was unfortunate enough to be working at the Farm and hence available for taste tests. The words that sprang to mind (the printable ones, anyway) were ‘incendiary’, ‘malevolent’ and most importantly ‘why’? It tastes fantastic but damn nearly warps holes in space-time. Plenty of people sampled it over the weekend’s events, with the best comment coming from fellow trader Claire from Hive Originals (check ’em out, they’re great) who claimed some time after tasting that her tongue, lips and even gums were still burning. That just makes me think we need to try harder, we want to get teeth to hurt…

Salisbury St Georges Day stalls in Guildhall Square

No exciting tales of criminality to report this week. Rather it was another weekend of the very British hobby of moaning about the weather. I tried out Lechlade Garden Centre’s Friday Food Fayre (I’ll leave you to work out when) and left, after three hours of attempted trading, with a tide mark that soaked up the legs of my jeans to mid-thigh height. Now I can hear you saying ‘that’s not very far on you’, but I do believe that if I’d have toughed it out till the end I would have drowned thanks to the capillary properties of my own clothes. Unpleasant though it was I shall be back next month, new event organiser Laura is very keen to make it work so I’ll give it another go, and do a little anti-rain dance beforehand.

Saturday saw a regular trip to Royal Wootton Bassett, which was blowy but somehow stayed dry. Another unspectacular trading day but God Slayer saw it’s first proper outing with me, and drew it’s first public expletives. The wind played havoc with packing up at close of play, and I’m so thankful I invested in a sturdy bugger of a gazebo…it was a big expense at the time but is worth it in April weather.

Jingle jingle jingle bloody jingle

On Sunday I was in Salisbury at the St Georges Day celebrations. Lots of bunting, medieval jesters on stilts (as if I don’t feel short enough already), songs and plays, and – bloody hell – Morris dancers right in front of my pitch. Now don’t get me wrong…there’s nothing I don’t like more than a bit of tradition…but the sounds of jingling bells all day is enough to give a man nightmares. I can still hear them, jingling, jingling…

Having said that it was a nice event – plenty of people around celebrating the day of our favourite sainted Turkish lizard-botherer, the weather played ball during the event itself, and I managed to inflict God Slayer on quite a few customers with generally hilarious results.

So what’s on the menu for this week? Well, it’s a busy old time I can tell you. I’ve already spent some time at the Farm bottling loads of Chipotle Sauce, Hellmouth and Sweet Chilli…having a paperwork day today (such fun) and there’s a rumour of the press visiting the Farm tomorrow. I’ve had my hair cut just in case.

The weekend coming is mega busy – starting on Thursday I will be at Bristol Temple Quay, Tidworth, Devizes, Frome Independent and Wanborough May Day Fayre. Pink Chilli Hobbit will be at the ss Great Britain in Bristol on Saturday and Marlborough on Sunday.

On top of that little lot we’ll also be in Oxford, Reading, Swindon, Bath and at Eastnor Chilli Festival. Phew.

Advance notice for any Frome-ites out there – we won’t be at the Farmers Market at the Cheese & Grain in May, due to having more bookings than I can handle! If you need your chilli fix then come and see me on Sunday instead 🙂

Am I obsessed by chillies? Take a look at the shower gel I bought today and make up your own mind.

Seriously, how could I resist?

This weekend will see the start of the cricket season for me. I’ve not touched a bat or ball since last August, but I’m hoping that my magnificent athletic prowess will enable me to wobble up to the crease and deliver my slow to even slower in-duckers with customary accuracy. I’ve been saying for some time that once I lose the uncanny knack of bowling line and length I’ll give up and play golf instead, but I’m hoping that won’t be the case yet. I still enjoy playing for my club Potterne and even though I’ll manage less games this year because of work, I’ll still support them when I can get there.

Well that just about wraps it up for this post. Needless to say, I hope you have a good week and we’ll see you at the weekend!

PS I’ve just noticed that the bar of chocolate I’m currently munching has the words ‘easy reclose pack’ on it. How does that work?

Blizzards of tweed

Posted on April 23, 2014 | 1 comment

Well, that was the weekend that was. A busy old few days to be fair, and your friendly hobbit bloggist needed a bit of a slow day yesterday to recover, hence the tardiness of this weeks post.

So why so busy? Well, Wednesday was, as usual, a day spent at the Farm…occasionally stirring the pot…occasionally filling large numbers of empty bottles…but mostly fighting with my nemesis that is the labelling machine.

I have discovered a new condition – Bottler’s Thumb. This is caused by many, many twiddles of bottles on the labeller causing some of the ink from the heat-shrunk caps to rub off on my hands, making it look like I’ve been fingerprinted by the rozzers. It weren’t me Guv, you can’t prove it, I weren’t there, besides it was some geezer from Peckham what dunnit…

Trading wise it was a case of TCH on Tour – three events, none of them in Wiltshire. Thursday was a visit to my old professional stomping ground at Temple Quay in Bristol. Some former team members popped along to say hello, which was much appreciated (hello Nick & Jonathon!) and a pleasant market was spent observing the huge queues at the hot food stalls. It was a bit slow, but I know from personal experience that the Thursday before Easter can be a bit quiet in the offices there.

Saturday saw me in Nunney (which still sounds like a Sarah Millicanism to me) for a craft fayre. Nice place, lovely people, no-one came…luckily I had the foresight to take a book with me! The best bit of the day came with a Dark Ghost chocolate eating competition – Sefy and Josh bought a bar and had a race to see who could eat their 50g bar the fastest, and more importantly with the least show of heatstroke. As you can see from the pics below Sefy won. Josh had a few tears in his eyes (I don’t think it was the emotion of the defeat) – and hence had to eat the lollipop of shame to recover from the heat 🙂

The Pink Chilli Hobbit was at Sherston’s lovely market on Saturday – a very pleasant event, frequented by plenty of Easter Egg hunters from the event next door! Martin and Jane always run a lovely, friendly market and despite it not being a huge event in terms of sales we just love doing it. The one thing we’ve found out since we’ve started doing markets is that it’s hard work, physically quite demanding, but it’s also really lovely to meet people and sell stuff we believe in, often in lovely settings such as Sherston. It somehow doesn’t feel like a proper job, even though it seems to keep us busy 24/7.

My first big event of the year was on Sunday and Monday, the Thame Country Show in Oxfordshire. This was a much bigger event than anything else I’ve done before and I learnt a few things as a result:

a 4 metre wide pitch is quite a lot of space to fill up
the day goes amazingly quickly when you’re busy
hobbits can last surprising lengths of time between comfort breaks
Thame likes Chipotle Chilli Salt and Hellish Habanero

I was next to a pie/pasty/sausage roll/pork scratching seller who was very friendly, but who spoke auctioneer-speed East End frontier gibberish that left me completely baffled for much of the time. He could have been a time traveller giving me hot tips on tomorrows races for all I know, but frankly I didn’t have a bloody clue what he was saying half the time. I suspect he thought much the same of my West Country tractorese.

The biggest shock to me was a bit of a reality check, and a sign that nothing is sacred. All us traders keep a close eye on our stock ‘just in case’, and the vast, vast majority of visitors to events are as honest as the day is long. Those of you that have visited my stall will know that I keep a supply of lollipops to hand out to small children/single women/people that need relief after trying the hot stuff. I give them away for free. I gave loads away for free over the two days in Thame. So I was rather disgusted to find that, halfway through Monday afternoon, some larcenous scrote had stolen the jar with my remaining lollipops in it. Now I will repeat – I give them away free – yet some lowlife had seen fit to scarper with the jar. It’s not often that I’m lost for words, but for a period after discovering the Great Thame Lollipop Robbery I was just a bit flabbergasted. Of course the words I was then capable of using are not fit for publication in a family blog such as this, but you can guess a few of them I’m sure. Don’t think I’ll be submitting an insurance claim though!

Looking forward (a looong way forward) I’m pleased to say that our application for Salisbury Christmas Market has been accepted. This is the single biggest event of the year for me, and will entail 24 days trading in a row in a chalet in Guildhall Square. I’m really, really chuffed to have got in and am already looking forward to setting up a chilli hobbit hole for the event. We’re also confirmed at Winchester, with other applications pending – it’s a hugely busy period for us and will doubtless cause logistical nightmares, but we will prevail. Somehow 😉

So this weekend sees me in Lechlade Garden Centre (Friday), Royal Wootton Bassett (Saturday) and Salisbury (Sunday)…the Pink Chilli Hobbit is in Bradford-on-Avon on Sunday…and our other itinerant chilli peddlers are in Oxford Gloucester Green (Thursday), Blackpool (Saturday), Swindon Designer Outlet (Sunday), Oxford Summertown (Sunday) and Bath Union Street (every day). You have no excuses to run out of anything these days, you know.

Finally, another image warning of the effects of repeated exposure to hot chilli sauce.

You have been warned.

Laters dudes.

Today’s blog co-authored by Fudge.

1 Comment

Posted in Chilli, General

Tagged Bristol, Pink Chilli Hobbit, Sherston, Thame, WCF

Mr Rotavator

Posted on April 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

Back in the day, those of old of us to know better would watch a madman on breakfast TV who would exhort us to jump about like a lunatic, in some kind of attempt to make us get fit, or at least to make us dunk biscuits in time to music. His name was (and still is) Derrick Evans, but you may remember him better as Mr Motivator.

Now we don’t have a Derrick, but we do have a Jamie, and this week he has been our very own Mr Rotavator. It’s the time of the season when all those lovely polytunnels, ignored over the long winter months, have to be prepared for the seasons chilli goodness. So on the hottest day of the year so far (impeccable timing being our specialty) Jamie attacked the tunnels with as much gusto as could be mustered with a hangover and 40-degree temperatures. And a fine job he made of it too, the soil was actually in great condition to turn over and the job – though hot work – was done in a day. Unfortunately that’s only the first part of the preparation work – beds still have to be dug – but it’s a start.

Now I don’t want you thinking that I just sat there laughing and pointing at Jamie struggling away, whilst all I did was take a few snapshots. I did help clear the rotavator blades of all sorts of string and garden wire that had become entangled – proof positive that all those years of clearing the vacuum cleaner of my daughters’ long hair was good practice for something.

Desperately attempting to flex

Look at that concentration

I’ll see you on the other side

Somewhere to park your bike, I guess

The plants themselves are coming on in leaps and bounds. Much discussion was going on between Jamie and his Dad regarding irrigation techniques, and if the weather holds up like it has done over the past few days that’s going to be a subject of continued debate. Even on a nice April day the tunnels were nudging upwards of 40 degrees Celsius – that’s enough to melt hobbits, I can tell you.

I found the Reapers this visit. They look…malevolent. There’s something about the way they were just lurking in the corner, sort of glaring at me in a knowing way…I definitely had the feeling that somewhen, somewhere, I’m going to feel the full force of their many, many Scovilles. I’m scared Ted.

Away from the Farm it’s been another busy weekend of trading. Between us we covered events in Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Marlborough, Frome, Chippenham and Swindon. The weather on Sunday especially was lovely, though I did have the rather surreal experience of having a stall next to the Pink Chilli Hobbit (a.k.a. my ex-wife Kerry for the uninitiated, running a stall for Hive Originals) – hence the photo below.

Next weekend we’re all over the country again – Carlisle, Bristol, Nunney, Oxford, Sherston, Swindon, Thame and Newbury. It may not be world domination, but by ‘eck we’re giving it the real college try.

This is what chilli sauce does to you

On a final note, this is William. I’ve met William on a couple of occasions (this time at the Marlborough Spring Fayre) and William is a MONSTER. He has tried everything I’ve thrown at him, and despite all my best efforts he just shrugs off the heat as being ‘a bit tingly’. Most children save up their pocket money for an iPhone, or a new PS4 game, or even a new football kit. William wants to save up his pocket money for a bottle of God Is Dead.

I’d better have a word with his parents about what it says on the label…

And with that, fair reader, I will step away from the keyboard and go and watch Pointless. It’s not all beer and skittles, you know.

Have a good week!

TCH

Growing up

It’s Monday, it’s raining, so time to write a blog entry.

The big news this week is that the Wiltshire Chilli Farm will have a new regular pitch in Union Street in Bath. This is a huge opportunity for us and one we’re really excited about. The pitches don’t become available often, and we were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to nab one. We’ll be there pretty much every day (aiming for 7 days a week in summer) so staffing is causing us a few headaches at the moment! We’ll figure it out, and we’re looking forward to getting cracking with it next week 🙂

It’s been a busy few days at Chilli Hobbit Central. Last week I had my first taste of production proper at the Wiltshire Chilli Farm, helping Jamie with a bit of cooking, bottling, capping and labelling of batches of Mango Hot Sauce and Hellish Habanero. It’s an insight into a world I’ve never really been party to (27 years in IT doesn’t prepare you terribly well), so whilst not a complete culture shock it was certainly a different view on earning a living.

Things I learnt from my days work:

Mishka. Slobber not shown.

it’s quite therapeutic, especially the bottle labelling machine
it’s tough on southern softy hands like mine
it’s a precise business, even with hand-made products
I really must buy Jamie a new radio for the capping/bottling area. Need Planet Rock, not Heart FM.
Mishka the farm cat is noisy and slobbery

Growing at the Farm is in the early stages. Lots and lots of chilli plants, but very young still and needing to be planted out. As always there are lots of varieties being grown, from the mild to the frankly loopy, and somewhere in the mix (not found them yet) are some Reapers, the hottest in the world. I dread to think what Jamie has planned for them…I will, in my professional capacity, have a taste – but probably just the once. I love the taste of chillies, but I don’t go for the super hot ones!

DSCF7856 - cropped

The big polytunnels are looking a bit sad right now, but that’s normal for this time of the year. Very soon there will be a work party descending on them, waving their magic wands to turn them into fully functioning Gardens of Eden – only instead of forbidden fruit, there will be the wonderful world of chillies. And not forbidden at all. Forbidding maybe, but not forbidden. It promises to be a hard few days labour, but if we don’t do it – we have no product!

20140403_120145[1] The weekend’s events were many and varied. Thursday saw my debut at Bristol’s Temple Quay Market. Well…when I say debut, I mean debut as a trader. I used to work in one of the offices overlooking The Square (my desk was just above the peak of my red gazebo in the photo), so I’ve been a customer on many occasions. It was somewhat surreal being on the outside looking in this time round, but it was nice to see some friendly faces. It’ll be a regular market for me this year, at least twice a month.

Friday was another new one, in Tidworth. This is a monthly market and was well supported, so looking forward to doing that one again. Saturday saw me on home turf in Devizes – where I had visits from my daughter, granddaughter, brother, sister-in-law, and several friends! Made for a lovely morning 🙂 Sunday was an old favourite, Swindon Designer Outlet. A visit to the Cadburys shop happened. Diet on hold. Again.

Marlborough Community Market was supported by Pink Chilli Hobbit, it was by all accounts wet and windy, and was closed early thanks to general miserableness. That’s the second month in a row for that market – we’re not getting much luck there 😦

Stalag Polytunnel #3

On the non-chilli front it’s welcome back to Game of Thrones. I’m pleased to see that it’s now being broadcast here at 2am on Sunday morning, to tie in with the US broadcast. Thank heaven for Sky+, one quick press of ‘series record’ and I was enjoying it first thing Monday morning, with no danger of accidental spoilers sneaking up on me. What a way to start the week 🙂

Remember…winter is coming!

DSCF7858 - cropped And with that folks, I will sign off. This promises to be another busy week and I need to prepare for it by…well…having a bit of a snooze actually. I’ve been up for hours already, and I’m not getting any younger you know 😛

Speak to you soon.

TCH

Monthly Archives: April 2014

Gums are burning

Blizzards of tweed

Mr Rotavator

Growing up

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