Our Summer Sale Launches on the Open Seas

Why Set Sale?

Some small businesses shy away from sales events, but I find them a really exciting part of the year. For us, it's really important to strip out bits from our collection so we can refresh it. We've already spent much of the year lining up new potential suppliers. We spend what adds up to a couple of weeks a year at trade shows - we're even off to one in Denmark in August. To keep the business fresh and alive the Summer Sale is essential as it clears way for new designs and designers.

Why do anything if you don't do it in style?

We're really lucky to have a close collaboration with the House Doctor group and we're starting to stock their gourmet food brand, Nicholas Vahe. They helped provide ingredients for nibbles and drinks including a Sangria de Cava with rhubarb and raspberry lemonade and an Amaretto iced coffee - really simple but crowd pleasing cocktails great for a summer party. 

Sangria de Cava

60ml Cava

60ml Raspberry and Rhubarb Lemonade

15ml Brandy

Seasonal fruits and ice to serve

If making this in a glass put the ice and fruit in a glass, measure and carefully pour the other ingredients down the side of the glass so not to lose too much fizz. Stir.

Iced Amaretto Coffee

30ml Creme Caramel Espresso Coffee

100ml almond milk

30ml amaretto

Crushed Ice

Mix the ingredients in a jug or shaker. Pour over a glass of crushed ice.

Tofu Sticks Served with Spicy Mango Sauce

250g pack of firm tofu

Juice of half a lime

2 tbsp light soya sauce

1 tbsp agave nectar

1 tbsp sesame oil

Oil for frying

Slice the block of tofu into 2.5cm “steaks”. Place in a shallow bowl or food container. Mix the marinade ingredients together and pour over the tofu. Leave to marinade overnight or for 4 hours, turning halfway to marinade all over.

Fry the tofu steaks on a medium-high heat. Let them go brown on each side before turning. At the end, add the marinade to the pan - it’ll sizzle so be careful but let it reduce to form a sticky coating for the tofu. Once the tofu has cooled, cut into 2.5cm cubes and stab with a cocktail stick. Serve with Nicholas Vahe spicy mango gourmet sauce or another dip of your choosing.

Summer Rolls

250g celeriac - julienne cut or grated 250g white cabbage - finely sliced 40ml Nicholas Vahe mango vinegar 40ml cold pressed rapeseed oil ½ a cos lettuce

Coriander, mint or Thai basil to taste 12 rice paper wrappers for rolls Nicholas Vahe salad topper We developed this recipe to give people at our Summer party a salad they could eat as finger food. Mix the cabbage and celeriac with the mango vinegar and rapeseed oil, plus a pinch or two of salt. I like to let this mix “marinade” for a few hours if possible as it softens the slaw. Cut the lettuce and prepare the herbs so that they are in pieces about half the diameter of your rice papers. This makes it easy to assemble the rolls To assemble the rolls, make sure you have all your ingredients laid out and space to roll as the papers get sticky quickly. Dip a rice paper in a bowl of boiling water with tongs, remove it as it starts to soften. Lay out some lettuce, slaw mix and herbs in the centre of the roll leaving exposed paper all around. Fold the base and top of the circle in towards the middle, then roll from one side, keeping them tight. It takes a little practice. We cut the rolls diagonally and dip them in a seed mix to serve.

Simple Tartlets

We also made some simple pastry (shop bought - it's Vegan so made it easy for those who like plant-based food) pastry cases and filled them with Nicholas Vahe fig jam and Nicholas Vahe coconut and passion fruit jam, topped with a strawberry. Simple but delicious.

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Winner, Winner, Plant Based Dinner

Check out our social media for the chance to win a Nicholas Vahe hamper until 23rd July 2018.

Designed for a Simple Life

The simple life - what is that?

I’ve always been a planner. If I go on holiday, I like a packing list drawn up a week before at the latest. If I throw a party or have people over I need shopping lists, menus, music playlists, invite lists … it’s a pretty big list of lists. So the challenge for me is not throwing a fabulous party, but making it effortless.

The latest party I’m planning is a sale launch party at our Wapping Wharf shop. It might be business, but much of our heart and soul goes into that: many of our customers are friends and the connections we’ve built over the past few years are really important so I’m looking forward to it as much as a social as a work event.

When you want inspiration on effortless multitasking, look to busy mums.

“Grab some pasta, get a bag of salad, open a bottle - people just care about the company.” 

This is my sister’s advice on entertaining and I’m trying to take it to heart. We’ve got several new gourmet food lines in from Nicholas Vahe at the moment so I’ve designed a menu around opening jars and bottles. I can’t say that it’s been completely simple, but the food prep list is considerably shorter than normal.

Below is the first recipe for a simple carrot dip. We’ve designed the menu to be largely plant based for all our Vegan friends - this one, it turns out, is great on toast with some avocado or chickpeas. We’re serving it in filo baskets to make it easy “finger food”, but a crostini would be just as good.

The Fig1 Summer Sale Launch Evening is on 11/7/2018 6-9pm. RSVP by email for places.

Carrot, Cumin and Coriander Dip

Ingredients

500g organic carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
30ml Olive oil
30ml water
Pinch of salt
Small bunch coriander leaves

Place all the ingredients except the coriander leaf in an oven dish. Mix well and cover with foil. Bake at 180 degrees centigrade for 40 minutes, then uncover, stir, and bake again for a further 40 minutes or until the carrots are starting to soften (they don’t have to be completely soft).

Once cooled, place in a food processor with the coriander leaves and blitz until smooth. Add some extra olive oil, water and salt to adjust the consistency and to taste.

The Mother Load

If there was a mother of invention, it was mine. There was little she wouldn't make for us. Occasionally we wished it was chocolate and not carob cake in our lunch box, but mostly it made us feel special, treasured and nurtured. She's moved on from the Good Life phase and into the age of Prosecco (the Elderflower wine never was the best), although it's still usually served up with a home made meal for the ever increasing family she's now grand matriarch of. These are a few of our favourite finds for Mums this mother's day.

The Moth

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Mums like to listen, right? This collection of true stories from The Moth is like a nourishing soup for the brain cooked up in the melting pot which is New York. People from all over the world tell their life stories at the Moth and this is a collection of some of the best. Find it here.

Øy Hand Cream

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They perform some magic each and every day, Mum’s hands. Mums are a well of creativity - always able to turn their hands to a new project, fixing everything from bikes and grazed knees to broken hearts. They need their hands and we need them. Find it here.

Salted Caramel Truffles

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More than worth the calories, these hand-crafted and gorgeously boxed truffles from Somerset’s James Chocolates make a stunning gift. They’ll be a memorable moment on the lips. Find it here.

Prosecco Bath Soak

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A soak in the bath with a glass of the good stuff? Light and bubbly with a floral bouquet - just don’t get carried away and tip Aperol in the bath too. Made in Cumbria but inspired by Italy’s favourite way to kick back and relax, it’s one effervescent way to treat your Mum. Find it here.

Champagne Glass

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These classic beauties are the perfect way to raise a glass to Mum and celebrate how she makes life awesome. Paired with a bottle and a card it's the party she deserves nearly as instantly as she made you feel better last time you needed her. Find it here.

White Tea and Ginger Candle

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Mums help light the way through life but when mine does finally sit down with that glass of bubbly she loves some gentle candle light. This white tea and ginger candle from Meraki sets the mood for some well earned rest and relaxation. Probably best if you do the washing up too, though. Find it here.

Bird Candle Holder

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What is life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare? Not a sentiment my Mum would hold much truck with - she’s always way too busy doing something - but on the rare occasion she does stand still she likes looking at the garden birds. These beauties on fine ceramic dance in the candle light. Find it here.

Wow Factor Scarves

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Always making a difference in the background these scarves are a great way to bring out the leading lady in any Mum. Designed by Copenhagen design duo Beck Sondergaard, their scarves and accessories have playful character to match Mum’s joie de vivre. Find them here.

Hepworth Necklace

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Ready for a chain of inspiration? Barbara Hepworth, the sculptor, was fascinated by finding symbols of motherhood in the Cornish landscape. It inspired her work and that work inspired this necklace, by East End jewellery designers Wolf and Moon. Your Mum might like it too. Find it here.

Clematis Lights

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And if all else fails say it with flowers. Hand crafted metal decorations make these lights more artwork than ornament. Find it here.

Picnic I up - it's festival time!

Those long days where the sunlight lasts all evening, the grass smells sweet, the uptempo beat of the music keeps going sound tracking the chatter of your friends: that's what we love about summer.

We're not alone - perhaps it's the proximity to Glastonbury which means Bristol, our home town, is packed full of home grown festivals all summer long. We love it. This weekend is Bristol's biggest festival - the Harbour Festival - which is one of Europe's largest free festivals and takes place around the Harbour Side and other central sites. The crazy mish-mash of out there and loud local bands, contemporary dance troupes who can contort your concept of what shape a human body actually is, local history, the sweet dulcet acoustics of singer songwriters who sing poetry to music and a good helping of Bristol's best food and drink - all come together to make one amazing weekend.

Our new shop premises at Wapping Wharf is within the Harbour Festival site so it will be the first year we're fully part of it. To celebrate, we've a competition to win a set of Rice Melamine - the perfect companion to the festival picnic. The prize includes 4 cups and 4 small bowls in this summer's prints as well as a plate.

To enter all you have to do is like and comment on and share our posts on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter before the deadline 28th July 2017. Competition winners will be picked on 31st July and contacted via social media.