The Sloth Organic Foodie News - Chef Doug Crampton Blazes an Award-Winning Trail at Eight at Gazegill, Glorious Organic Farm Milk, BlanxArt Chocolate and the Best Organic Small Producers & Shops to Know
Hello Luminaries and Slow, Organic and Pasture-Raised Food lovers. Here is my Spring and Easter roundup of delicious slow, pasture-fed and organic food news, offers and awards from the very best organic and regenerative farm 2 fork restaurants and hotels, organic and regenerative box schemes, small producers and seriously good artisan organic chocolate in time for Easter. As a journalist and foodie, all the farmers and producers featured in this article have been unearthed, sampled and tasted by me. Please support our farmers and small producers this Easter and buy organic, local and pasture-raised real food. To begin I will include stories from the UK and then the USA as Robert Kennedy Junior inspires America and the world at large to MAHA. Welcome to the good food revolution. Here's to a deliciously healthful, fruitful and nutritious April and beyond.
Alison Jane, Editor-in-Chief and Life-long real foodie.
Eight at Gazegill
Eight at Gazegill, the organic farm to fork restaurant at Gazegill Organic Farm is fast becoming the organic restaurant to make an organic farm to fork foodie pilgrimmage to. The restaurant is the only finalist from Lancashire in the Visit England 2025 Awards for excellence in the new tourism business category.
All the more impressive that the restaurant opened just a year ago with Chef patron Doug Crampton at the helm. Doug developed a passion for cooking under the careful tutelage of his Grandma who adored baking.
Incredible Quality, Taste and Local Provenance
What really stands out is the quality and provenance of every ingredient that goes into the exciting menus for brunch, lunch and dinner. The dishes are colourful, exquisite to behold and showcase time, passion and alchemy in the kitchen. Anyone for steak tartare with Gazegill organic hens eggs, kelp cured cod with Morecambe Bay mussels and pulse butter sauce or Emma's Dairy soft serve ice cream with hibiscus and sorrel?
A Destination Farm 2 Fork Organic Restaurant
Doug made his name at the award-winning James Martin in Manchester, where he was executive chef. Then, it was only a matter of before he went solo. Now, Crampton's flair, love and passion for slow food and nature's seasonal larder is creating an exciting slow, organic food destination restaurant for locals, foodies and tourists in search of an exceptional and delicious farm to fork dining experience showcasing the freshest produce from Gazegill Organic Farm along with foraged, wild foods and interesting ingredients from artisanal local producers.
"To be the only Lancashire finalist in such a prestigious national competition is a huge honour," says Ian O’Reilly, MD and owner of Eight at Gazegill and Gazegill Organics Farm. "From the very beginning, our mission has been to create a truly unique, sustainable, and locally rooted dining experience, showcasing our
produce from the farm and promoting the connection between land and food. Being recognised at this level reinforces that we are on the right path, and we couldn’t have achieved this without the dedication of our team and the support of our wonderful guests."
Don't Miss the Feast Nights
Look out for the feast nights when Doug and his team curate a tasting menu to showcase the finest organic, seasonal and pasture-raised food. Food that looks almost too beautiful on the plate to eat!
To find out more about Eight at Gazegill, Gazegill Farm's Organic Box Scheme or to Book at Table, visit the website - Eight at Gazegill.
Eight at Gazegill, Dancer Lane, Rimington, Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 4EE
01200 445 519 (option 2)
reservations@eightatgazegill.co.uk
Organic Chocolate Lovers
Real chocolate is the food of the gods. The very best single estate organic chocolate is one of the life's greatest delights. For me, eating chocolate is the closest thing to feeling madly in love! I like the complexity of dark chocolate rooted in terroir, just like the greatest grand cru wines. Here are three of my favourite chocolate marques for you to explore -
Blanxart - Complex very dark single origin chocolate made in Barcelona. Work your way around the world's cacao hotspots and savour chocolate from Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Congo and The Dominican Republic and many more places that grow cacao and support the farmers.
BlanxArt
Cox and Co - I'm smitten with Cox and Co's 85% organic dark chocolate embellished with fruity cacao nibs that resemble multi-coloured rough-hewn cacao jewels. The chocolate is deliciously creamy, smooth, with multi-faceted tasting notes of red wine and dark cherries and quite irresistible!
England's Hottest Garden Plants a Citrus Grove
Visit The Ventnor Botanic Garden, England's hottest botanic garden and you might be able to snap up the first harvest of plump grapefruits, oranges and lemons from the garden's very own citrus grove.
The Ideal Microclimate for a Mediterranean Citrus Grove
The garden is loved and celebrated for its very own microclimate. Over the years, the garden's curator's have planted curious and exotic trees, flowers, grasses and fruits from the four corners of the world. Now, oranges, lemons and grapefruit adorn the new grove, which joins the established olive grove. Plants and fruits that require a warmer climate, protected from frosts flourish in the garden nestled in the famous Undercliff made famous during the reign of Queen Victoria.
Sublime, Dainty Artisanal Macaroons and Tea at Roseate Reading
Okay, I confess that I adore cakes and dainty authentic macaroons! Of course, Paris is the very best place for handmade artisan macaroons. What is a girl supposed to when she can't get to Laduree for yummy macaroons free of appalling artificial sugars and other ultra processed additives, blah, blah? Well, I am delighted to tell you that I have discovered the most wonderful, sinful, fruitful, melt in the mouth, crumbly handmade, authentic macaroons to accompany an exquisite cup of wild rooibosh tea at The Roseate Reading. These delightful and delicate macaroons are made by the hotel's in-house bakery and patisserie.
And finally, some new organic and slow food producers and shops to know about, tried, sampled and tested by AJ, our editor.
The Natural Grocery Store
I recently discovered the Natural Grocery Store online, whilst searching for organic chicken livers to make delicious liver parfait. It's amazing how hard it has become to find organic chicken livers. Why is that? Has everyone suddenly discovered the nutritional wonder of organic offal? Or is it because our small farmers are having such a difficult time surviving? The store sells Rhug Estate Organic meat cuts and my favourite mild and delicate goats cheeses which are often hard for me to source from The High Weald Dairy and delicious goats cheese chevre and sheeps cheese from the French organic cheese producer Bergerie. I have been buying Bergerie cheeses for years, but it became more difficult after Brexit. Both cheeses have an exquisite, delicate flavour and they are so versatile. I use them in salads, on crackers and to bake my favourite souffle with the fluffy, melting goats cheese.
The Natural Grocery store is also excellent for organic unhomogenised milk, cream, kefir and buttermilk from the delightfully sounding Jess's Ladies Dairy and for interesting fruit and veg including blood oranges, turmeric and red onions. I also approve of the reasonable delivery charge! It is £3.95 if you are having any perishable, fresh food delivered. If you are local to Cheltenham, you can also visit the store and enjoy the unbeatable experience of picking out the organic food that sustains you.
Forest Foods
Forest Wholefoods Organic, based in Dorset, is a recent discovery and worth knowing for dried organic goods and some interesting small producers we have not come across before. So far, the quality has been excellent for organic store cupboard staple ingredients such as dried pulses, organic seed mixes, artisanal low sugar marmalade from Italy and very interesting herbs and roots such as marshmallow root, which is very soothing to the digestive tract, and tastes delicious when steeped in boiling water as a tea.
The prices are fair too, and I am thrilled to have found a high quality source of organic sour cherries, devoid of seed oils, processed sugar or other additives.
Easter Organic and Bean to Bar Chocolate! There is still time to order your favourite organic and single origin chocolate works of art! But do it this weekend. William Curley and The Chocolate Detective are still accepting orders. Curley is one of my all-time favourite chocolate masters. Curley transports the chocolate aficionado with sublime, sophisticated chocolate, free of additives, using the most wonderful ingredients, as it should be. Chantal Coady, AKA, the Chocolate Detective is collaborating with Pump Street Chocolate and she has her gorgeous birdie Easter Eggs, which are alway a big hit and make a delightful gift.
Oh, and I wouldn't leave it to Monday, as these wonderful small producers frequently run out of the their exquisite artisan chocolate masterpieces.
Copyright Alison Jane Reid/The Luminaries Magazine. All Rights Reserved. April 2025. No Copying or Reproduction in any format including Ai. Don't Steal the work of journalists and authors.
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N.B All the organic food, businesses and ingredients featured by the editor in this article were paid for my the magazine. When we received a sample for review we disclose this as journalists. We also reserve the right at all times to write honest reviews and tell you whether an experience was good, great, bad or indifferent.
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