By Andrew Jacobs, UK National Promotion group
On June 2nd, the UK IYP National Promotion group had a trial tasting of the menu for our Jan 6th 2016 IYP Launch event which will be held at our chosen venue, The Gate Vegetarian Restaurant in trendy Islington, London (www.thegaterestaurants.com). The Gate are partnering with us for UK launch event, having agreed to provide food, drink and staff at cost; they recognise it is in their self-interest to host such a prestigious food event. We will invite 150 stakeholders, focusing on food writers, nutrition and lifestyle journalists, retailers and pulse industry participants. Our goal is to create an excitement and buzz about how fabulous pulses can taste when prepared with flair and imagination. Whilst we have the focused attention of our guests, we will be plugging IYP events, our Teacher’s Toolkit, pop-up Falafel Street Food Festival May 2016, and pathways for the guests to get engaged with IYP.
The Gate designed various options for our stand-up finger food & bowl food reception. We had the pleasure of tasting all the dishes from which we had to narrow down from 12 dishes to a final 8. Especially enjoyable was the Jalepino Margarita with tequila infused Pinto Beans. However well the menu reads (see below) the tastes were even better; we came with high expectations from just reading the proposed menu, but our expectations were surpassed. Our problem was which dishes to cut; but after long deliberation and another cocktail, we made the harsh decision what not to enjoy on the big night. I took some photos with my iPhone but they don’t do the presentation justice. We are getting quotes for issuing a recipe card of all the dishes to go out with our “Save the Date” notification, aimed at exciting the journalists & retailers to make sure they put Jan 6th 2016 in their diaries. We know recipe writers have already finished planning Xmas dishes to be featured in their various journals. They will soon be turning their attention to healthy dishes to accompany New Year’s resolutions to eat better. Which is exactly where IYP and our UK launch menu comes to their aid…… Here is our chosen menu:
1: Drinks Reception
• Jalepino Margartia with tequila infused Pinto Beans
• Kir Royal with Shooting Lentils (Cava with Crème de Casis)
• House wine, fresh juices, still & sparkling water
2.1 Mezze food: a selection of 4 Mezze served for an hour
• Egyptian Faba bean and chickpea falafel with schoog
• Indian Aduki bean malai koftas with tzatziki
• American Red Kidney bean mini burgers
• Vietnamese rolls with sprouted pulses with avocado and mango with a soya and lime dip
2.3 Bowl food: a selection of 4 served over a period of 2 hours
• Turkish Mercimek Corbasi - red lentil soup with tomato and olive oil
• Indonesian Plantain and beluga lentil fritters with green mango and coriander chutney
• Mexican Tostada with refried black beans and served with guacamole and sour cream
• Chinese Crispy won ton basket with sprouted Mungbeans, bean curd in miso dressing
It is exciting that we are now moving from the planning and talking phase to the delivery phase, now we have our Global Pulse brand, soon we’ll have our consumer website to share, the Teachers’ Toolkit is going through final design, we are getting tangible results from our months, sometimes years, of work.
I hope this whets your appetite and inspires you to organise your National Launch event on Jan 6th, 2016 We should work to have rolling events starting in Australia, then Japan, China, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, South Africa, Turkey, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Norway, UK, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Canada & USA Add your country to the list?