This is the palette not of an artist, but of a food judge (they're a mixture of sauces and salad creams).
I was honoured to be asked to help judge the FreeFromFood Awards 2016 and was not as easy as you might think. Tasting a long list of store cupboard essentials takes a a lot of careful consideration and is a huge responsibility.
Finding my own favourites was easy (not that I knew what they were at the time as everything is kept anonymous) – Bute Island Foods' Creamy Scheese in Spring Onion & Cracked Black Pepper, Origin Earth's GF crackers with caraway, Natural World Almond & Coconut spread, Sweetpea Pantry's Grainy Brainy Pancakes and Miso Tasty's Classic Shiro Miso soup were all contenders, from my point of view, and I'd happily give them a home in my cupboard. But after we'd noted our own preferences came the (sometimes heated) discussion. Who was it actually aimed at? Did it fulfill a need in the 'free-from' community? Was it properly labelled? Did others actually agree that it was nice? Hearing other people's points of view was fascinating - what might eg. impress a judge from the food industry because of its clever packaging, might not impress a judge more on the consumer side because it had so many additives.
In fact, many of the products that didn't make it onto the overall shortlist received high scores from one judge or other, so it's definitely worth checking all the product entries as well as the shortlist if you're after ideas - and well done to all those on the shortlist, as they've definitely earned their stripes. Now all you need to know is the winner... and that'll have to wait until April!
See www.freefromfoodawards.co.uk for more details and the shortlist!
