Apologies for the last-minute change of venue. However, the Summerhouse is a lovely place, close to the York Rd entrance to the Trinity Theatre. Easy to find ~ simply look for the throng of Photowalkers!

All Photowalkers (ie those that purchased a ticket!) are entitled to bring one guest with them to help cast a vote for the winning entry.

We have kept aside a small amount of money from the ticket price to help provide drink and nibbles on the evening ~ but anyone who wishes to help support the event and bring along a bottle or provide some nibbles will be extra-welcomed with open arms!

Please remember this is a non-profit event, it runs with the goodwill and support of the local community and businesses.

Special thanks must go to Hari Covert who is helping to provide some special nibbles for the judging evening.

The second Big Slurp was as resounding a success as the first. If you missed it… and unusually for a Twuttle / Twuddle event, it is kind hush-hush… please leave a comment below together with your email address, and we’ll include you on the invite list for the next one.

Overall winner of the soup competition was Nick Pope with his utterly-delicious Carrot Soup with Coconut & Lemongrass. However, there were so many great soup recipes, it was nigh on impossible to pick a winner. Next time, we’ll devise a fairer voting system (not that Nick’s soup wasn’t worthy…) as those who’s soup was heated up last perhaps got a unfair crack of the whip. (Sorry Lesley, I didn’t even get to taste yours… which I’m told was delicious).

Winner of the bread competition was Hari Cover… Hari are you going to let us ‘publish’ your recipe or do you want to keep it secret?

We were even treated to two superb desserts… another winner from Nick with his gobsmacking Pear & Almond pudding / cake… and a gorgeously moist Carrot Cake by Sharon Abrams.

By popular request, recipes are below including (by popular demand), Hari Covert’s Beer Bread.

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CARROT SOUP WITH COCONUT & LEMONGRASS

Serves 4
Prep 15 mins Cook 35 mins Freeze up to 3 months

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 lemongrass stalk, trimmed and tough outer layer discarded

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 teaspoons finely grated root ginger

1 tablespoons red Thai curry paste

450g (1lb) carrots, sliced

900ml (1½ pints) hot vegetable stock

3 kaffir lime leaves

165ml (6fl oz) can coconut milk

salt and freshly ground pepper

lime wedges, to serve

Method:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion, and fry to 3-4 minutes or until starting to soften.

Meanwhile, finely chop the lemongrass, then add to the pan, along with the garlic and ginger, and fry for 2 minutes.

Add the curry paste and fry for 1 minute, stirring all the time.

Add the carrots and fry for 2 minutes.

Pour in the stock, add the lime leaves and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the carrots are tender.

Remove from the heat and take out and discard the lime leaves.

Pour in the coconut milk, then whiz in a blender or food processor until smooth.

The soup shouldn’t be too thick – dilute with more stock if it is.

Season to taste, then serve with a grating of black pepper and lime wedges.

From “The Soup Book” (Soil Association) published by Dorling Kindersley

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PEAR & ALMOND PUDDING / CAKE

Serves 8
Prep 10 mins Cook 45 mins

2 pears

125g/4½oz butter

125g/4½oz caster sugar

2 free-range eggs, large or medium

65g/2¼oz plain flour

65g/2¼oz ground almonds

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 table spoon flaked almonds (optional)

1 dessert spoon of caster or demerara sugar (optional)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180o/350o/gas 4.

Peel the pears and cut into 4 lengthways, removing the seeds and core. You should end up with 8 pieces.

Grease and lightly flour a round cake tin.

Beat together the butter, caster sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.

Add the flour, ground almonds and baking powder and mix thoroughly.

Spoon mixture into the cake tin.

Arrange the pears on top of the mixture.

Sprinkle with flaked almonds (optional) and additional sugar (optional).

Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes, checking at around 35 to 40 minutes.

Serve hot, warm or cold.

© Nicholas Pope

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SHARON’S CARROT CAKE

8oz self raising flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

5oz muscovado sugar

4 oz carrots (grated)

2 ripe bananas (mashed)

2 eggs

5 fl oz sunflower oil

Topping:

6oz low fat soft cheese

2oz margarine

4oz icing sugar

Few drops vanilla essence

Method:

Pre heat oven to 180 C / 350 F / gas mark 4

Line an 8″ (20cm) deep round cake tin

Place all ingredients for the cake in a large bowl and mix well until roughly

blended and smooth, turn into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Bake in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes until well risen and shrinking away

from the sides of the tin.

Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out and leaving to

cool completely on a wire rack.

For the topping blend the ingredients together until smooth and spread onto the

cold cake.

© Sharon Abrams

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HARI COVERT’S BEER BREAD

375g Self Raising flour
3 tablespoons Caster Sugar
330ml Beer ( I use a Moodleys beer which is live with natural yeasts)
Teaspoon of salt

Mix all ingredients to a wet batter then pour into well greased loaf tin
sprinkle top with sesame seeds or whatever you prefer!

Bake for 40 – 50 mins in preheated oven at 180 degrees C

© Hari Covert

For more Hari Covert recipes and for information on his Secret Underground Restaurant visit his blog here.

The Fourth Tunbridge Wells Photowalk takes place on Sunday 1st of April. The theme is LOVE & HATE ~ what you love and hate about Tunbridge Wells. We are asking you to take one photograph for LOVE and another for HATE.

Tickets, priced £7.50 each, are available exclusively from REDBOX CAMERAS on Monson Road. They go on sale from Saturday 24th March. Each ticket gains entry into the competition plus a large photographic print of your chosen images, which will be exhibited at Wobblybridge Gallery on Camden Road. As with the last Photowalk, entries will be judged by all who attend the opening night of the exhibition ~ one vote per person.

Here’s the clever bit… both of your chosen images must be arranged to make a diptych. What’s that I hear you cry? Well, quite simply, your two images ~ one for LOVE and one for HATE ~ should be arranged within a single frame. The two images can be the same size, or one can be smaller than the other. You can divide the image as you wish, by a straight line or a curved line. It’s totally up to you!

Some suggestions as to how you might arrange the two images are shown below. The staff at Redbox Cameras, who have great experience in all aspects of photography, will be able to help you and make suggestions. They will also create the ‘diptych’ image for you if you wish… just brief them and they’ll do the rest.

And of course, you don’t have to have a fancy dividing line between the two images at all… they can simply sit side by side, or one above the other. But the final overall ‘canvas’ size MUST be landscape and not portrait.

The event starts between Noon and 1pm at FLOWERS AT COLONNADE (the florist shop/café on Monson Rd in Tunbridge Wells ~ opposite Redbox Cameras), where in exchange for this ticket you will be registered to take part in the competition. The café will be serving their excellent teas and coffees… plus a range of grub if you’re feeling peckish.

The event will finish at SANKEYS in Tunbridge Wells, from 3.30pm onwards, where we’ll all be gathering to sample their famous fish fingers sarnies (kindly donated to the event by Matt Sankey) and no doubt sampling a glass or two of their finest ales.

If you have any queries, or to express interest in taking part in the Photowalk, please leave a comment below.

For anyone who hasn’t yet been down to the Christmas ice rink in Calverley Grounds, Tuesday 20th, from 7.30pm to 8.30pm could well be the ideal opportunity. Bring your friends and family and join the assorted Twuttlers & Twuddlers skating around the rink in a suitably festive fashion (reindeer antlers and Xmas hats are entirely optional). It doesn’t matter whether you’re a dab hand at the triple salchow, or have never strapped on a pair of skates in your life… the event is open to all and suitable for skaters of all abilities.

For more information on the rink, click here to visit their website.

We’re told that hot drinks and food are available down at the rink ~ although we suspect that skating whilst slurping a latte and nibbling a mince pie is probably frowned upon. Actually, there are t&cs on their website, so please take heed of the dos and don’ts.

There is a spectator area for non-skaters to watch proceedings and shout helpful advice from the sidelines.

Next Tuesday evening is also the date for the last Bedford quiz before Christmas. This starts at 8pm and a Twuddle team usually enters, so once the skating is over, it would seem rude not to nip over the road to this most-excellent pub to give them some support. But no help in answering the questions please ~ you wouldn’t want them disqualified would you?

We hope to see you on the 20th! ~ Any questions & queries, please leave a comment below.

PS. There is a discount scheme for parties of 10 or more, so if you are thinking of coming along, please let us know. Get enough people together and we could save some money on the ticket price.

OK OK, so this’ll be 24 hours too late… but what the hell. The idea is simple ~ you beg, borrow, steal (we of course could not condone this), buy or even grow* a suitable pumpkin… and you carve into it a design so fiendishly horrific, that the gathered Twuddlers cannot help be impressed. Or scared witless.

Best design wins. As voted for by those at Sankeys on the evening of November 1st (a regular Tuesday Twuddle night). No prizes (unless a kind sponsor would like to step forward!), just the honour of being the best darn pumpkin carver in Tunbridge Wells!

Candles etc allowed, to illuminate your creation. But please be aware that we will need to light them ~ do NOT do this yourself when you get to Sankeys. We’ll allocate an area for the pumpkins to be displayed, and when the time comes for judging, we’ll light them for you.

*If anyone claims to have grown their own pumpkin, we will be most impressed. But expect to be treated with much suspicion should you make this claim. Especially if your leave the Sainsbury’s price tag on.

A fantastic late edition to the Mad Hatters Tea party, is a local business, “the Waffle Bar”. They are also based in Bodiam, East Sussex and have an amazing van called The Waffle Bar. They began trading at the beginning of summer 2008, selling their homemade waffles (yeast free/cooked fresh on site) and their real dairy homemade ice cream (made by them from local produce to them with no additives or colourings)…the ice cream has a shelflife of approx 3 weeks and is made especially for events, plus all their disposables are bio-degradable.

At present they have a dozen or more ice cream recipes to call upon, all the old faves plus a few new …all made from Northiam Dairy produce and free range eggs from Staplecross. They use no artificial additives, colourings or preservatives. Fruit based ice cream is seasonal of course and made from hand-picked fruit from Maynards at Ticehurst, East Sussex.

Mad Hatters are throwing open their doors (and the grounds of their lovely house overlooking Bodiam Castle) on Sunday 31st July from noon until 5pm to all Twuddlers, Twuttlers, Cruddlers, Skuttlers, Oakuddlers and their friends and families. This event is open to all, so if you want bring people along with you, they’d be most welcome!

The gardens of the Mad Hatters HQ make an absolutely ideal place to have a Summer picnic… beautiful formal gardens, orchards, fields, a small woodland… even a secluded pond! We’re free to use them to picnic in ~ Mad Hatters are even giving the garden an Alice in Wonderland theme for day ~ just for us! We don’t want to say too much more about this… it’d spoil the surprise.

Then there’s the Mad Hatters shop and storeroom ~ these just have to be seen to be believed, crammed to the rafters with amazing fancy dress costumes of every conceivable description. Have a look at their website for a taster of what’s on offer. And the best bit is we’re free to try on as many outfits as we wish… and to wear them at the picnic!

To make the day even more special, a swing jazz band will be on hand to entertain us… and the local Tunbridge Wells photography group (the ‘Flickrites’) are going to be present to take photographs. Simply ask a photographer to take your photo, and they’ll kindly oblige! No charge… free… gratis!*

Of course, you don’t HAVE to wear costumes, and you certainly don’t have to have your photo taken ~ the photographers realise some people don’t like having their picture taken. We are also aware that some parents don’t wish for their children to be photographed ~ in which case, simply make a member of Mad Hatters staff aware of your objection when you arrive. However, if you do take this opportunity, you’ll have some amazing photographs of you and your family!

You are also welcome to take pics yourself, so please bring your cameras.

Entry to the entire event is 100% free, there’s ample parking on site and Mad Hatters have arranged toilet facilities for us. Please note that some of the fields have horses, chickens and (some very exotic looking) sheep. When we were down there, wild rabbits were running all over the place… it really is lovely place, but because of the farm animals, visitors are asked not to bring their dogs with them.

If you’d like to come to this event, please send an RSVP email to info@madhattersfancydress.com. Although numbers are not limited as such, Mad Hatter’s understandably want to keeps tabs on how many people will be attending. If you have any queries, please leave a comment to this post.

*There is one exception ~ Steve Collins will be setting up his photography equipment to help raise money for charity by taking people’s ‘avatar’ pics. This is your chance to have a stunning avatar on your Twitter or Facebook pages. Whether or not you choose to be photographed in fancy dress is completely up to you!

We look forward to seeing you in Bodiam next Sunday ~ don’t forget your picnic!

For directions please click here.

PS. One further thing to mention. Should the weather on the 31st prove inclement, we may have to cancel at short notice. So if it is raining on the morning of the 31st, please check with the Twuttle website to see if the event is still on or not.

We’re pleased to announce that the entries for the Photowalk will be on display at Wobblybridge Gallery from Tuesday 15th February until Saturday 19th February. Judging will take place on Wednesday 16th February from 7pm until 8.30pm.

Everyone who attends the judging evening can cast a single vote for a photo in each of the following categories. You must attend the evening to vote. The evening is free and open to all ~ as indeed is the exhibition.

The categories are:

1. Best shot from brief one

2. Best shot from brief two

3. Best shot from brief three

4. Best ‘series’ ~ a complete set of all three images, one for each brief

5. Best overall photograph/image (judged from all three briefs).

Each photograph will be displayed with its brief to assist with the judging.

In addition to the above five categories, a judging panel from Redbox, Wobblybridge and Hop House Design will make awards for:

6. Best photograph shot using film (judged from all three briefs)

5. Best image shot using a mobile phone (judged from all three briefs)

6. Best example of digital manipulation (judged from all three briefs).

The organisers will be providing wIne and soft drinks on the evening of the 16th ~ but everyone who attends is being asked to contribute to the evening by bringing a bottle.

On Wednesday the 2nd of March, we’re being given an opportunity to sample some of Taywell’s latest (and most adventurous!) ice cream creations ~ BEFORE they’re unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Alastair Jessel of Taywell Ice Creams is going to personally host a special Twuddle tasting evening at his Paddock Wood HQ ~ and give us a tour of his production unit. Dare you miss this fantastic opportunity?

Numbers are limited ~ we can only take 15 people at a time on the tour ~ so we’ve decided to have two tours, one at 6:30pm and a second at 7:30pm. Please leave a comment below if you wish to attend, stating your preferred time.

One last thing, the ice cream Alastair is going to present to us will be rather special ~ several flavours with, ahem, an ‘alcoholic’ flavour! Taywell Ice Creams will be entering these new flavours in the 2011 Great Taste Awards (www.greattasteawards.co.uk) and Alastair would love our opinion on them… so don’t hold back! Although it’s a pretty fair bet they’re gonna be fab eh?

Quick reminder that the re-scheduled Twuddle Curling Night is on January 26th. The venue is the same ~ Fenton’s Rink near Pembury ~ the first and only curling rink in England!

Cost stays the same, at £18 per person. If you wish to take part, please leave a comment below (with your email and/or contact phone number). Numbers are limited but we have some places still available. We also have the option to increase the number of lanes we have pre-booked if numbers increase greatly. Would be fantastic if we could take over the whole rink!

Fenton’s’ are providing all you need, including equipment, shoes and instruction. And for those that have asked, yes, the rink has a fully licensed bar!

For further information visit www.fentonsrink.co.uk