STEVE REID'S FRIARS FARM

   Jam is made from sugar, water and fruit.
Friars Farm Marmalade is made from
grapefruits, oranges, sugar and water.
Friar's Farm is a real food concept
which I am trying to track down.

THE BACK STORY
I was walking across Northampton Market Square trying to get my bearings.  The square has been a bombsite for years and I believe before that it was a scruffy market full of tat and it was felt it could benefit from an upgrade.  The council decided to clean it up
and took its council time about it. 

They put up tasty pitches,
signed for that unified look.
I found the butcher some time ago
and  I liked his wares.
I ignored the 'artists collective' beside it.

Today I looked at the sign more carefully,
t actually said "Artisan's Collective NN"
and there was no 'arty' stuff to be seen. 
The stall was full of shelves of jars with jam,
chutneys, pickles, marmalades, relishes. 

On closer inspection cheeses, charcuterie
and BREAD were noted and the display in front was crammed with all sorts of my goodies.

Suffice to say I walked away with a sourdough loaf, a jar of Relish, a bit of cheese and returned to the boat to unload
and slaver over my spoils before realizing my wallet was missing.  The last time I remembered seeing it was in Market Square.

So with heart lodged beside my front teeth I went for a bus hoping against hope the wallet would be found and saved.   Just as I sat down my phone rang, unknown number "Are you the sailor on the Canal Project"  The bus floated to Northampton on air and I floated alongside on cloud nine.

Steve had found the wallet on a ledge with my phone number in it and became my best friend for life. 

It was quiet hour at the market so we talked awhile and I found Steve was more than just a good Samaritan. 

He had run a small-holding in Towcester where he had produced food for sale including veg. and bacon and built up a trusting clientele.  But he wanted to expand a dream of selling high quality local produce on a market.  He started with a successful pop-up in Milton Keynes (and I suspect his Towcester clients followed him). He was waiting for the Northampton market to open which of course it now was.

Steve sources local produce to augment his own kitchens just yards away in Foundery Lane  where he makes jams and chutneys and cheeses and gathers produce from other local sources.  All his stuff has provenance. The bread is made in the kitchens of Northampton Hope Centre less than 500m away in Campbell Street and is pure "Chleb Bubuni", the finest and purest sourdough you can eat, introduced during this century by Polish immigrant bakers.

Jeyes Relish intrigued me. Steve told me that Jeyes Fluid was invented and developed by a Northampton pharmacist
which still trades in a neighbouring village as Jeyes of Earls Barton and had developed a unique relish to compliment and compete with Worcester Sauce Hoisin Sauce Yorkshire Relish
and he had a story for just about everything on display. I would later meet his cheesemaker who had retired from