Does this address mean anything to you ? If you are involved in Free From food and drink, it should. Because this is where it all began, around a kitchen table in the house of Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, doyenne of the Free From world and founder of the Foods Matter website and the Free From Food Awards.
I can’t remember how I fell in with Michelle, or who introduced us. We were both very interested in food and both felt that something was wrong with how food was then being produced. I was very focussed on natural, organic and Fairtrade (still am) whilst Michelle was in the process of changing from a thriving catering business to trying to figure out the dairy allergies that were affecting her son Jonathan and her late husband James. By the early 1990’s this lead to the launch of the snappily titled Special Diet News which became The Inside Story and in turn became Foods Matter. By now products that did not contain gluten or dairy were beginning to be found in natural food shops and Michelle decided that the best way to decide whether these products were any good was to give a big monthly dinner party and get a diverse assortment of neighbours, foodies and waifs and strays to try them. The resulting reviews then featured in the magazine, now being mailed out monthly to an ever-increasing number of subscribers.
And so I would schlep on the Northern Line over to Belsize Park to eat, comment upon and attempt to digest 20 gluten-free pastas, or 18 gluten-free breads or (sharp intake of breath) 12 dairy-free cheeses. Conversation was always entertaining, the view over the garden was lovely and the organic red wine flowed freely but indigestion was inevitable.
As the market developed and the quality of Free From Foods (as they were now known) steadily improved products begin to appear in supermarkets. A natural extension of the Lawn Road dinner parties was to start judging products and give the best ones prizes. And so the Free From Food Awards were born, presented for the first time in 2008 by Antony Worrall-Thompson upstairs at his restaurant Notting Grill.
Those judges in full (left to right): Cressida Langlands, Nicki Clowes, John Burke, Simon Wright, Catharine Rose-Bloom, Alex Gazzola, Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, Janie Sutherland, Sue Cane (Christine Bailey not pictured)
And so today, 13 years later we have our final judging session at Lawn Road, as Michelle is selling the house. The expertise around the table is considerable, as is the care with each product is assessed and discussed. Throughout the course of the morning 40+ products are looked at, prodded, sniffed, eaten and thoroughly dissected. The discussion is thoughtful and committed but good-natured and respectful of dissenting views. After three and a half hours we have a Supreme Champion plus some runners-up for Michelle to announce at the Awards party on April 28th.
All credit to Cressida Langlands who makes the Awards happen as well as to Katharine and Kate who prepare the entries to ensure the judges get them in optimum condition.
And we should take a moment to remember those no longer with us – James would always wander down towards the end of the judging to see if we had found anything decent for him to eat, whilst Jeffrey Hyman was a loyal supporter of the Awards and a knowledgeable and opinionated judge. Both gone too soon.
Lawn Road is going, but the Awards will continue with Michelle and Cressida at the helm. I will miss sitting round the the kitchen table and I will miss stroking Boris the cat but I look forward to whatever comes next.