Following the independent wine merchant blog it was only a matter of time before a decent deli set forth on the blog-front. It seems a natural synergy; offering recipes and how to use the products they sell without too much of the hard-sell.

Del Sole Delicatessen is the blog in question. Their ‘about’ page could do with some content but the recipes such as Mixed Rice Salad With Peppers, Feta Cheese And Fresh Herbs, Millet Salad With Goat’S Cheese, Avocado, Sour Cherry, Oven-Roasted Plum Tomato And Spicy Aubergine Jam, and Goat’s Cheese And Caramelised Red Onion Savoury Tart are backed up with some excellent photography.

The deli itself is based in Bath, 37 Moorland Road to be precise.

London’s Regent Street is to be transformed into India for a day this Sunday, with a range of free outdoor events showcasing India’s ‘incredible variety, colour and creativity’.

The street is to be traffic-free and will decorated by artist Sumant Jayakrishnan.

There’ll also be painted booths and stunning decorative designs from Delhi-based Xylem Papercraft, bringing further vibrancy to the street. Near the Goan beach area, complete with palm trees, there’ll be food stalls, restaurants and traditional Indian handicrafts (block printing, embroidery and beadwork.) Children won’t miss out either with hands-on arts workshops, as well as traditional string puppet performances by the Aakaar Puppet Company.

For the foodies, from noon until early evening, there will be three stalls from the Masala Zone (Indian restaurants) serving snacks ranging (according to Metro) vegetable samosas with curried chickpeas and aloo tilli chaat, which is a spiced mash cake with yoghurt and chutney.

It has been an age since I last cancelled my weekly veg-box delivery. There was nothing wrong with the contents, far from it in fact as I thought it was excellent value, it was just I seldom used the contents before they ‘expired’.

Featured in the September issue of Delicious, under their Blogstandard section, is The Veg Box Diaries. Written by Toby Travis and Cara Morgan the blog’s theme is ‘coping with your weekly veg box delivery’.

It doesn’t seem to be updated that often, there was nothing posted during July for example, but globe artichokes featured in June alongside ravioli.

Liverpool is getting ready for the biggest celebration of food and drink ever to take place within the city.

The Liverpool Food Lovers Festival starts on Monday September 3 and promises some mouth-watering events from local food producers to suit all palates over the two-week festival.

The celebration will start with a special gourmet dinner at London Carriage Works created by head chef Paul Askew and will follow with record breaking attempts for the tallest sandwich, a chocolate fantasy evening, fish dishes on the Mersey Ferries and a one off 1000 pint giveaway from local breweries.

As well as the fun food events, the festival will also showcase talented young chefs, with a cook off at the Malmaison Brassiere and will embrace Liverpool’s cultural heritage with a competition asking for photographs of Liverpudlians sharing food.

The festival is supported by the Capital of Culture and will see the Liverpool Food Lovers Festival launching a competition to create an official cocktail for Liverpool 08.

All food featured throughout the festival will highlight the finest local producers and will comprise of a wide range of food and drink offerings.

EVENTS ALREADY CONFIRMED FOR LIVERPOOL FOOD LOVERS FESTIVAL

Monday 3 September
The Ultimate Food Miles Dinner London Carriage Works
The official launch of the Liverpool Food Lovers Festival.
A gourmet dinner for 50 people with tickets free for VIPs and competition winners.

Tuesday 4 September
Seafood Across The Mersey Mersey Ferries
Celebration of local seafood on the famous Mersey Ferry. Free Southport Potted Shrimps and other seafood delicacies available on the Direct Commuter Service between 4.15 – 6.25pm.

Wednesday 5 September
Wine Matching Workshop The Side Door
Food and wine matching dinner at The Side Door restaurant on Hope Street hosted by Sheila Benson and Sean Miller in particular focusing on British wine that is often ignored, and on how the British wine industry is set to grow as climates change both here and abroad.

Thursday 6 September
Cinderella Meat Day Liverpool wide
Featured butchers around Merseyside offering free ‘cinderella’ cuts of meat with recipes on how to prepare delicious meals.

Friday 7 September
Start of Best Butty Week The Quarter and Liverpool wide
Offers on sandwiches around Liverpool
The Quarter to have specially created sandwich menu for the day.

Sunday 9 September
City Food Crawl
Go for a Sunday stroll, take in the wonderful city views and get free food on the way. Sounds perfect… Get free food and drink samples from various Food Outlets around and about Liverpool.

Monday 10 September
Capital of Culture Cocktail Competition The Racquet Club
The chance for bars to construct the official CoC cocktail for 2008.

Tuesday 11 September
Chocolate Fantasy Evening Everyman Bistro
Showing of Chocolat at the Everyman followed by a specially created Chocoholic menu. A dinner for 20 competition winners.

Wednesday 12 September
Lunch for Local Heroes Simply Heathcotes
Lunch for 3 students from 6 schools nominated, and accompanied, by their teacher (Year 8 and Year 9). Tour and talk them through local produce.

Thursday 13 September
Eat Like a Footballer Everton Football Club
An event run for kids to include a training session to learn about the importance of exercise, a workshop on healthy eating and nutrition and then a tour around the ground.

The World’s Tallest Sandwich
Record attempt to build the world’s tallest sandwich with help from members of the public.

Friday 14 September
Night of a Thousand Pints Liverpool wide
Give away one pint per person local beer from breweries such as Cains, Wapping, George Wright etc. Highlights brewing in the Merseyside area.

Saturday 15 September
Merseyside Young Chef Showcase Malmaison
Top 3 from Merseyside Young Chef Competition to cook a lunch service in the Malmaison brassiere alongside 3 food writers from key media partners. Menu to consist of a course from each of the Young Chef entry menus and to be co-ordinated by Mark Bennett. Lunch will be attended by invited guests including families of Young Chefs and key participants from the Festival. Winner of Young Chef Merseyside heat to be announced.

Sunday 16 September
Hope Street Festival & Farmers Market Hope Street
Culmination of Food & Drink Festival with series of events centred on Hope Street including Local Producer Market and events at Hope Street restaurants.

Running from 22nd September to 7th October and now in its sixth year, British Food Fortnight is the biggest national celebration of the diverse and delicious range of food that Britain produces.

The event’s initiative inviting cooks and chefs to work with schools to teach children how to cook is being expanded three-fold. This year, organisations representing over 9,000 chefs have volunteered to take part signifying the stirrings of a major mass movement. This means that British Food Fortnight has already over-taken France’s long-running Semaine du Gout which sends chefs into French schools every October to teach children about the delights of their national cuisine. Retailers, farmers and producers are also signing up to participate.

To complement the initiative, all schools are being invited to bring chefs into the classroom to teach children how to prepare simple meals using the best of Britain’s in-season produce and to enter the British Food Fortnight ‘Cook for Life’ Challenge, sponsored by Kenwood, to find the school that incorporates cookery in the national curriculum in the most imaginative and innovative way.

For the first time, all the major supermarkets and all medium-sized retailers are being invited to run British food promotions during the event. The gauntlet is again being laid down by Budgens and the independent sector with a mass of in-store promotions already planned. However, with three of the major supermarkets participating last year and with the attraction of 30% plus sales increases that the event generates, expect to see more shop shelves than ever bursting with British produce this autumn.

Restaurants, pubs, tourism attractions, hospitals and staff canteens will again be putting the best of British on their menus. Four major pub groups, all the chef associations and four of the largest food service groups, led by ARAMARK, are all taking part so there will be an abundance of British food on menus.