THIS week the Review is offering one lucky reader the chance to win a family ticket to the Forest Showcase Food Festival at Speech House this Sunday, October 6th. You will have to be quick to enter our competition as we are drawing the lucky winner at 11am this Friday, October 4th - so don’t delay to be in with a chance of winning!

From the nutritional and healthy, to the indulgent naughty but nice, the Forest of Dean comes alive this Sunday, October 6th, with the annual Forest Showcase Food Festival held in the grounds of the Speech House Hotel.

The Forest Showcase is an event with a lot more going on than most food festivals - featuring the best fresh regional produce from over 100 top local and artisan producers. From gourmet burgers and handmade scotch eggs, to award winning preserves and chutneys, fine cheeses, farmhouse ciders and speciality wines, ales and plenty of flavoured gins it’s a great opportunity to get a real taste of the best of the area.

This year there will be free family foraging sessions brought to you by The Rewild Project. You can join local foragers as they take you on a family foraging walk through the beautiful Speech House woods. As you walk, you and your children will learn how to identify and gather a range of wild foods including spices, seeds, nuts, berries fruit and more, turning what grows in your garden and in the wild into store cupboard ingredients. With expert guidance, you’ll learn how to preserve all these finds to make your winter diet packed full of delicious flavours, there will also be some wild cooking on rocket stoves and washing drums.

The cookery theatre will bring you a variety of cookery demonstrations from some of the areas top chefs including meat based, vegetarian and plant based diets, designed to get you cooking with hints, tips and secrets from the experts.

Gareth Jenkins, head chef at The Speech House Hotel will be preparing a dish using a pigs heart from Plump Hill Farm and Wye Valley gin. Yvette Farrell, owner of the Forest of Dean’s premier award winning cookery school, will be showcasing some free from recipes and Dan Blewitt from Esse Stoves will be making Butternut squash and chickpea curry with fragrant rice, garlic & coriander flatbreads!

Their new talks and tastings area will bring you classic gin cocktails from Duncan Fox, owner of Haven Distillery, Matt Newell from Wye Valley Meadery, a classic cheese board from Debbie Jones owner of The Forest Deli and Kerry Voke from Leaf and Petal. 

Also returning this year will be their popular parent and child cookery classes with healthy eating advisor and cookery teacher Glyn Owen from ‘Kids and Food’. This year they will be making bean burgers flavoured with sage, rosemary and spring onion. Places are limited, so don’t delay - book your place on these classes and the forage by heading over to the Forest Showcase website.

After you’ve done your foodie shopping, you can sit and listen to some great live music whilst enjoying tasty hot food from some of their top street food vendors and a refreshing drink (or two). They have some great gins, prosecco, beers, wines and ciders to try!

The event will feature children’s activities with entertainment throughout the day from Jitterbug Circus, there is a Mad Science show with a lab bursting with foodie inspired chemical concoctions. There are also plenty of free food related arts workshops.

With a selection of arts and crafts on display along with green ideas on composting, an animal or two, a vintage cider press crushing apples, tips on vegetable growing and keeping bees this really is an event worth visiting - so come with empty tummies and they promise you will be full to bursting when you leave.  

The Forest Showcase will be held in the Speech House Hotel grounds, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, this Sunday October 6th, from 10am. To avoid queues tickets can be purchased in advance from the website www.forestshowcase.org

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For your chance to win a family ticket to the Forest Showcase Food Festival at Speech House this Sunday, October 4th, simply answer the following question.

What country is Guinness associated with?

To enter simply post your answer in the comments box at the bottom of this article. Good luck!

You will have to be quick to enter this competition as the closing date is 11am this Friday, October 4th, with the winning entrant notified by email on Friday, October 4th.

The usual Review terms and conditions apply.