What does a blogger do?

Last week was a busy one for Eat Around Tonbridge and it only involved a little bit of eating!  We had the Food and Dink Networking Club and a charity event with foodie connections – what will you host?   

Tuesday was the third Food and Drink Networking Club (FDNC), hosted at cafe and bakery The Bakehouse.  Sixty or so people came along which was fantastic – January is probably the quietest month for the industry and the FDNC reaped the benefits!  Here are some of the highlights …  

• Susanna Rynehart from Thomson Snell and Passmore introduced the evening.  Susanna and her family have been one of my blog subjects as they transition from supermarket shopping to buying their food and drink from independent retailers.  Susanna says that now 90% of what they consume is bought independently which is staggering – I will be catching up with them soon to learn more so watch out for that.  
• We sampled some English wine and heard from Sensible Wine Services who are based in Paddock Wood and organise a lot of wine competitions, the results of which we see as medals and rosettes on wine bottles in the suprmarkets!  Who knew that such wine connoisseurs were just down the road?!
• Matthew Sankey spoke to the room about the success of his new Tonbridge fishmonger!  Let’s carry on supporting it!
• Clare Barton of The Bakehouse at 124 shared her journey with the FDNC and what the future holds.  We ate some of Clare’s delicious, home-made pizza (and if you’d like to try some then The Bakehouse has a pizza night this Saturday 27th January – call to book 01732 360382).
• We heard from Sue Nelson of The Food Talk Show – she’s really interested in food innovation and food tech on her talk show and she encouraged the room to participate in their upcoming awards.  

You can read more about the event here, in my piece for Thomson Snell and Passmore.  If you’d like to attend the next event then please email me eatreviewer@gmail.com.

On Thursday it was the launch of Tree of Hope’s fundraiser, Dine and Donate at the Old Fire Station, Tonbridge.  The idea is that you host a dinner, lunch, afternoon, tea, morning coffee, cocktail party – you get the gist – and instead of people bringing wine, biscuits and the like, they make a donation to the charity.  Simple!  

The event was buzzing with local foodies and business people, as well as the Mayor of TMBC and The Great British Bake Off’s 2016 finalist Jane Beedle!  She showed us a simple and quick icing technique using Tree of Hope’s colours and produced a beautiful cake which was then up for grabs in the raffle.  Tonbridge blogger More than Just Carrots won and very kindly shared it.  Delicious – raspberry and rose so very pink!   

Tree of Hope works to help and support children with disabilities and their families.  The video they showed us was heartbreaking but inspiring at the same time and it certainly made me think about what I could host.  My first fundraiser is something I already had in the calendar for this week – afternoon tea/coffee with school mums.  It can be as easy as that.   

So that’s what a foodie blogger sometimes gets up to in a week!  Please do participate in Dine and Donate – it’s for a very worthy, local charity.

Eat Reviewer x