Yesterday we visited “A Country Affair”, also known as the Hampton Court Show. This annual event is a great place to wander around and chill out. A few of the traders deserved a mention:
- Herbal Haven have a wonderful collection of culinary and medicinal herbs (legal ones!), including varietes of mint I’d never even heard of. Raspberry mint, anyone?
- Hide Bound Tankards make wonderful replicas of medieval style leather tankards. I bought a great one with a Welsh Dragon on it!
- Chilli Pepper Pete, where I got some dried chilli peppers and made the mistake of tasting “Dragon’s Blood”. Made from naga chilies – the hottest in the world – spiced up with 5.5 million SHU capsaicin extract, this stuff is incredible. I had a tiny drop on a cracker, and the heat was just incredible: it just kept getting hotter and hotter for about a minute after I swallowed it – it seemed like a lot longer. It was something like 20 minutes before the effect wore off. Wow!
Despite being nearly chillied to death, it was a wonderful day out.
We also found out about the Emsworth Food Festival coming up in a few weeks…. That looks like a fun day out, too.