Norton mum sells ginger-based products in Fenwick store

An heirloom family recipe has given a North East mum a taste of business success.

Mother-of-three Liz Ramshaw, is now selling her ginger-based products in Fenwick, Newcastle.

Liz, of Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, cooked up the idea of The Gingerbread Mam using her late grandmother’s secret recipes three years ago in her home kitchen.

Liz, who still bakes at home, sells products such as gingerbread, cinder toffee, shortbread, parkin and ginger popcorn.

She is well-known in Teesside for being a popular stall-holder at Stockton Farmers’ Market.

Liz said: “My grandmother would have been absolutely amazed to see her recipes brought to life in places like Fenwick. She was a big inspiration to me, and I’m proud to think how good she would be feeling to see this today.

“I’m absolutely thrilled that Fenwick are stocking the complete range of Gingerbread Mam goodies, their food hall is famous in the North East.

“My son Ethan Palmer loves being involved in my business – he has worked with me a lot in Fenwick giving out ginger tastings to the Fenwick’s customers.”

She added: “Stockton Farmers’ Market is pretty much where it started for me. It’s right on my doorstep, so it doesn’t get much more local than that.”

Market organiser Lorna Jackson said: “It’s great to see Liz doing so well. She’s definitely a big hit with shoppers and, when you see her stall all set up first thing in the morning, I’m not surprised. “It’s no wonder that she sells out so quickly at the market, and it’s always the early birds who bag the best she has to offer.”

http://www.nebusiness.co.uk/small-business-news/2013/04/22/norton-mum-sells-ginger-based-products-in-fenwick-store-51140-33214989/

We all love a trip to the Cinema don’t we but it’s getting so ridiculously expensive! For instance a recent trip to see The Hobbit set us back almost £40! How? Well there was the cost of the actual movie, £20 then another £20 for 4 small cartons of popcorn and 4 beakers of coca cola! Yes it’s nice to treat the children and we did have a lovely afternoon but it did get me thinking and I soon had a large pan and a packet of popping corn on the gas. After a few attempts at creating a ginger butterscotch sauce for coating we were all sitting at the settee, lights out watching Skyfall and munching on delicious hot sweet ginger popcorn! Our home movie night experience costing less than a tenner!

You too can have a great night in, popcorn available at farmers’ markets and Fenwicks Newcastle priced at only £1.50 for a large bag

Shh, lights out, movies starting!

Scoffing is such a wonderful word isn’t it, I love it especially when I’m it doing it! Believe me we’ve been doing a lot of it in the ginger house, a trip out for us has to involve eating, even if it’s a picnic lunch we don’t go far without some kind of delicious edibles within a sniff away. A recent January trip to the Botanic Gardens in Durham saw us soon tucking into chicken & stuffing sarnies, marmite crisps, a flask of thick hot creamy home made mushroom soup to warm us through and ginger shortbread to nibble on the way round.

As well as eating I love looking at food, browsing shelves and shelves of new and interesting ingredients, one of the best ways of doing this for me is to go to a Chinese Supermarket, the one I visit is in Newcastle, Hiyou by Laus, it’s actually not on Stowell Street as you might expect but a short distance away on Newgate Street. It’s much more than a supermarket, it’s a deli, restaurant and sushi bar. The Lau’s have 6 restaurants in the region and have opened this Oriental supermarket for food lovers looking for that little bit more…

We spent a couple of hours in there with our boys just after New Year, all of us fascinated with the fragrant smells spices of the far east, the jars and jars of strange pickles & pastes, the packets of dried fish, shrimp, meats, seaweed and other things we couldn’t identify but using our imaginations guessed amongst ourselves settling on the most adventerous suggestions.

Of course we couldn’t not eat lunch there too could we, so taking a seat we chose the most beautiful looking buns, filled with chicken and sweetcorn and chinese pork, they were suprisingly and pleasingly sweet, with a bowl of spicy soup and to wash down with, a glass of strawberry bubble tea with a generous portion of fish eyes (well that’s what we think they are) sunken deep to the bottom only to be sucked up like pearls through a huge drinking straw-seriously yummy!

We soon had a basket full of exciting colourful packets, tins, boxes and jars which later that night we would open and cook the most delicious chinese meal we’d ever eaten! Oh and after lots of pleading from our boys we also bought a huge chinese firework that we let off that night too with its massive fountain of shiny confetti being the grand finale of what was a perfect ‘scoffing’ day!

I’m absolutely thrilled to bits to say you can now buy The Gingerbread Mam goodies in Fenwick’s Newcastle. After a really successful week at their Autumn Food market where the Newcastle people loved our ginger delights we are now a supplier to Fenwicks! You’ll find our goods in their food hall and also we have a special isle set up for us in their Christmas Shop on the 2nd floor. Products available to purchase are our ginger wine, ginger syrup sponge puddings, our jars of butterscotch sauce and our famous ginger pokey! Ethan and I have been lucky enough to be able to do tasting days every Saturday in December, it’s such a fabulous shop with lovely staff and great customers, it’s been a pleasure going up, here’s a couple of photographs I’ve taken of our goodies

I recently had a visit from Kaye Jemmeson, a reporter from the Teesdale Mercury. Kaye and I spent an afternoon together making Christmas gingerbread houses, we had a wonderful time, giggling at each others efforts, eating the occasional strawberry lace and drinking tea whilst listening to the fabulous voice of Louis Armstrong. Here’s what Kaye had to say…

It’s all very exciting this week, we’re going to be selling our ginger goodies in Fenwick Newcastle! We’ve been asked to have a stall within their food hall as part of ‘Taste of the North East’ Autumn Food Festival. We’ll be there Tuesday 30th, Wednesday 31st October and 1st November! Come along and say hello, join our pudding club and you could win a luxury Ginger Hamper! We’ll be selling lots of Halloween products including, bats, witches, ghosts and bonfire ginger parkin! The kids will love it!

Once again we’ll be attending one of North East’s finest food festivals at Durham City. The event takes place over 2 days and is held in the stunning grounds of the Cathedral on Palace Green. There’ll over 100 other foodies from around the region and we’re lucky enough to have Award-winning Michelin starred chef, Jean-Christophe Novelli joining us, we’ll be able to watch live cooking demos throughout the day! If you love food & drink you must get along to this….

www.durhamfoodfestival.com

Really pleased to receive a second Gold award in as many weeks, with a Gold Star Great Taste Award 2012 for my ginger syrup sponge. If you’ve yet to try, you can find my ginger goddies at Middleton farmers’ market on Sunday 26th September, Preston Park – Stockton on Tees on Sunday 26th & 27th September and I’ll also be at Bedale Farmers’ market on Sunday 26th September. Here’s an article from our local paper…

Stockton mother, receives GOLD award at NewcastleGateshead EAT! Festival.

A Stockton mother of three has taken GOLD during the NewcastleGateshead EAT! Festival for her Sticky Ginger Syrup Sponge’. Held throughout the city from Friday 20^th July to Sunday 22^nd July, ‘EAT!’  festival is the largest celebration of food and drink from around the North East.

Already a familiar face on Stockton’s farmers’ market, the Gingerbread Mam went head-to-head with some of the north east’s biggest foodie names. Each stallholder was invited to submit one product for judging by the festival foodie panel. Liz was awarded a commended GOLD by the judges putting Stockton on the map for local artisan food.

Liz Palmer, who cooks everything from home in her Norton kitchen, described the award as ‘completely out of the blue’. “I didn’t think I’d even be in the running and I’m still pinching myself”, said Liz who attends farmers markets throughout the region. “I make everything from home using locally sourced ingredients (where possible) and without preservatives, it’s very flattering to receive such an accolade from your peers.”

Lorna Jackson of Foodfirst who runs Saltburn and Stockton Farmers Market commented, “Running Award Winning Farmers Markets with Award Winning stall holders is a real pleasure of mine. Its just fabulous to see The Gingerbread Mam scoop this well deserved prize at the EAT festival, we all know how good food from Farmers Markets is so its great to have it reconfirmed from independent judges!”

The Gingerbread Mam has also added a second Gold to her medals in the shape of a recent national award from the Great Taste Awards 2012, the biggest independent benchmarking scheme for local, regional and specialty foods in Britain.

“It’s fabulous to receive a Gold Taste Award and I’m chuffed to bits”. I’d like to thank all those people who voted for me and being able to put Teesside on the map for great, award winning, local food.”

I’m delighted to announce The Gingerbread Mam received one of the highest northeast food accolades over the weekend at the NewcastleGateshead EAT! Festival 2012, which ran for three days from Friday 20^th July to Sunday 22^nd July. My ‘Very Sticky Ginger Syrup Sponge’ received GOLD in the awards, not bad for a mother of three, who still bakes everything from home.

The ‘EAT!’ festival is a celebration of food and drink from around the North East. Thousands of visitors arrived to sample some of the very best regional food.

Each stallholder was invited to submit one product to be judged by the festival foodie panel. The festival team presented the commended GOLD award while I was busy selling on my stall on Northumberland Street. It came as a lovely surprise and I’m still pinching my self. I have to say, I was completely blown over, and would like to thank the all the judges who voted for Team GBM. I met some really wonderful people during the event and would like to thank the organisers and everyone who visited for making it the food calendars highlight of the year.

This month I was very proud to be asked to come and talk to the lovely Middleton WI ladies about ‘ginger’! The talk took place in the old village hall and there was around 25-30 ladies all eager to learn and find out all about ginger. Despite the lashing rain outside it was a really sticky hot evening so to get the girls in the ginger mood we started with a glass of ginger wine on ice. There was plenty of more tasters too, hot ginger syrup sponge and a piece of melt in the mouth ginger pokey soon got the girls craving more ginger.

After finding out how The Gingerbread Mam started and the kind of ginger influences I’d had through life I told them how my passion for food and drink came about from the very first memories I had of baking with my Nannas, Some  of the recipes I use now are from Nanna Gladys’ original handwritten recipe book which got passed to me when she died a few years back.

During the talk the ladies learnt how to make a ginger beer plant from scratch, using yeast, sugar, ginger and water. We named our plant ‘George’ and all names got put into a hat and one lucky lady got to take George home and look after him for the next 7 days, feeding & watering him until he turned into a lovely bottle of firey ginger beer!

Seen as the talk was all about ginger…the ladies had a competition going and they all made ginger snaps and I got to judge the winning biscuit! Not easy I can tell you, some of these ladies have been baking for years and all entries were fab everyone slightly different-they were all winners to me! A great enjoyable evening was had by all, they made me feel so welcome I felt like a celebrity cook