126 guests, 65 helpers, 8 different feathers,

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650 glasses, 1950 pieces of cutlery, 1134 portions of food, 1 great cause!

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Following on from the highly successful Dingley Dell Flying Visits Pork Feast in 2013, which raised £7,500 and the Fishy Feast in 2015, which raised £9,500 for the NSPCC, Chris Le-Vien (Catering Manager) and the team at Corpus decided to embark on an even more ambitious charity event: a seven-course Feathery Feast. On Saturday 25th March the team pulled out all the stops for an evening of mouth-watering dishes and carefully selected wines. Each course was put together by an award-winning chef or industry expert, ably assisted with preparations and plating up by a team of apprentice chefs from selected colleges around the country.

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The evening began with wine and canapés, created by Corpus’ own Executive Head Chef Sebastian Mansfield assisted by Suffolk New College’s Adam Johnson-Hobbs, followed by a short welcome, to the evening by Chris Le-Vien.

Together with Brandon Finch & Cameron Haythorpe from Colchester Institute, Mark Poynton from Restaurant Alimentum produced the first course: Duck liver mousse, ginger bread, passionfruit, liquorice.

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The second course – ‘Feather caught mackerel’ cured mackerel, cucumber, yuzu, crispy wing,– was carefully constructed by Jeremy Medley of Infusions 4 chefs. Liam Connelly& Billi Rae Campbell from the College of West Anglia was by his side to lend a hand.

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Cyrus Todiwala from Café Spice Namaste created a dish that proved a favourite amongst quite a few of the guests – ‘Recheado de codorna cafreal com arroz’ Quail, minced quail, whey cheese, pistachios, spices. Cyrus was supported by Siân Dixon, Emily Bucknall & George Johnson, from Loughborough College.

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Next up was Murray Chapman, the driving force behind a ‘Passion to Inspire’, assisted by Jacob Wright & Brandon White from Milton Keynes College. Together they created a fabulous dish of Pigeon naan bread, white pudding and apple.

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Russell Bateman from the Collette’s Restaurant created the fifth course: feather blade of beef, mustard, onion, tongue, beef fat, beetroot with the help of Kallum Hart & Luis Scobbie from Henley College.

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The first of 2 desserts was a play on the classic – Rhubarb and Custard – this was produced by Hayden Groves, Baxter Storeys Executive Head chef, supported by Theo Oates & Georgia Coney from Bedford College.

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The last dish of the evening was a sublime dessert created by Adam Smith of Coworth Park, who worked with Beatrice Wehling & Amelia Bradley from Derby University to create - Amedai No9, Hazelnut, coco nib, salted caramel.

         

Every guest was positively fit to bursting by this point – but we were not finished yet. The front-of-house team, which was lead by the College Butler, Philip Shephard and his Pantry team were supported by students from Milton Keynes College, Megan Rogers and Courtney Jackson and Grace Pinder from Leeds College, served tea & coffee with a selection of petit fours, such as dark chocolate and crème de menthe ganache and creamed white chocolate fudge. These sweet treats were created by Nick Henn from Moor Hall support by Passion2Inspire students.

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Emily Cherry, Head of Participation at the NSPCC gave a very poignant speech regarding the current level of sex offences against children in this country – On average; police recorded one child sex offence every 10 minutes last year.

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Jean-Luc Benazet, with his knack for appearing everywhere and anywhere, managed to capture the atmosphere of the evening through the beady eye of his camera lens. All photographs, including shots from behind-the-scenes, can be found at

 

https://jeanlucbenazet.smugmug.com/Events/Feathery-Feast/n-fct9Q8/

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We would like to thank the following suppliers who kindly donated towards the evening’s proceeds, helping to increase the donation that we’re able to make to the NSPCC: Direct Meats, Anthony Byrne Fine Wines, Raynor Foods, Diversey, Fisher & Wood, Sherringhams, Bidvest, Town & Country, Select Recruitment, Interaction, Cheese+, Blunham Dairies, Matthew Algie, Olleco, Sweet Ideas, Aircover, Cambridge Juice Company, BI Services and Swiss Laundry. Finally, special thanks must go to all the amazing chefs, the Corpus staff, college lecturers and students for giving up their free time for such a worthy cause and helping to make the evening such a success and raising £10,500.

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Emily Cherry, Head of Participation at the NSPCC said “the donation will help so many children”.

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These thoughts were echoed by Sarah Lambley, Community Fundraising Manager for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Peterborough “We will be able to help lots of children and young people with these funds. This really is fantastic!”

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It was a pleasure to host this wonderful event with so many brilliant people..........here’s to the next one!