Paul has been serving contemporary cuisine at his restaurant in Bottesford for eight years now.  It is without a doubt my favourite restaurant locally. 

The restaurant is a great place to meet friends, but be warned you do need to book, especially at the weekends.  I can’t recommend their Seabass Fillet on Grilled Asparagus with Sunblushed Tomato and Lemon Dressing highly enough.  I have something different every time I go and have never been disappointed, they also have a wide range of delicious wines.

My husband and I often pop in to the Wine Lounge early on a weekend evening, you can’t book there but if you do go early, especially in the Summer when you can sit outside, you will usually get a table.  The food is just as good as in the restaurant but the menu is slightly smaller.

Go to www.pauls-restaurant.co.uk for more information.

The Essentials of Classical Italian Cookery by Marcella Hazan

“This book is my Italian cookery bible” says Louise Lee who works in the Gonalston Farm Shop office “recipes are simple, clear and delicious creating traditional authentic Italian dishes”.

You can buy this fantastic book at www.amazon.co.uk

The University of Aberdeen have completed a new study into the consumption of apples in pregnant women - BBC news reported in May.

Apparently women who eat apples during pregnancy may protect their children from developing asthma in later life.  They have also discovered that children of mothers who ate fish had a lowered incidence of doctor-confirmed eczema.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6669173.stm for more details.

To celebrate our 4th Birthday, we would like to invite you to our Farmshop Family Extravaganza on Sunday 12th August between 10am and 4pm.

We were hoping to have pens of friendly farm animals at the shop but, unfortunately due to the recent outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in the South East this will no longer be possible.  However there will still be lots going on!

We will have a bouncy castle, a model cow that you can actually milk(!), Vera Oxby and some of her Prize Winning chickens and our trusted friend Barney the Bull here all day.

We will be running a competition for the Under 12’s to make an animal from vegetables… the only rule is that no plastic pieces are allowed to be used (cocktail sticks and straws are OK!). All entries are to be in the shop by 1pm on the day for judging. We are really looking forward to seeing what budding sculptors we have amongst our younger customers.

Lurgershall Winery, Mr Pitchforks Pickles, The Cookie Stop, Premier Cheese and Thaymar Ice Cream, will be offering scrumptious morsels to taste and, of course, our own Award Winning sausages and beef burgers will be available.

We look forward to welcoming you on the day for fun, games and many delicious treats!

One of our very helpful Gonalston Farm Shop customers has given me a gentle nudge to encourage me to write about our favourite restaurants closer to home. He made a very valid point that although it is interesting to hear about exciting places to eat around the world, wouldn’t it be slightly more useful to hear some reviews of places we actually might get to visit?!!

So going forward we will regularly be featuring our favourite restaurants in our local region. This week we will be starting with Kevan’s reviews of two restaurants in Nottingham, having read about them I am now longing to visit. Please let us know your special eateries too!

The first is called French Living, I believe established in 1994 - you may be familiar with it? It is small establishment with an excellent cafe and delicatessen at street level and a wonderful restaurant below stairs. The proprietors, who are a married couple, are, I believe, one from Corsica and the other from Nottingham. The environment is pleasant, the service is both excellent and friendly and the food divine, fresh and authentically French in every detail. I can heartily recommend a visit to it. I discovered French Living about ten years ago when my daughter, then only eleven years old, and I used to visit it for fresh coffee and croissants on Saturday mornings, before I dropped her off for her drama class. We’ve been going back ever since.
www.frenchliving.co.uk

The second restaurant, which currently shares the title of “my favourite” is located just a few doors down the hill from French Living, towards the Market Square. It is called the Lock Fyne Fish Restaurant. Though I believe this is part of a chain of similar restaurants situated around the country, that fact takes nothing away from the experience of eating there. The environment is very comfortable and very professional. It reminds me, in style, of a sea-food restaurant I’ve eaten in in Soho. The service is good and the seafood served there is of the highest quality. Again, I can heartily recommend it.
www.lochfyne.com