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Hyde Park nettles on £1,000 organic menu
Elizabeth Hopkirk, Evening Standard22 Feb 2008
It's the £1,000 dinner with a difference. Guests at a charity banquet in London next month can look forward to soup made from nettles picked from Hyde Park, and wild fennel plucked from the banks of the Regent's Canal in Hackney.
Jemima Khan, Sophie Dahl, Laura Bailey and Richard E Grant will be among the 400 guests at the Feast of Albion, at the Guildhall on 13 March.
Entertainment will be by Annie Lennox and the Ronnie Scott's All Stars. The champagne will be magnums of Perrier-Jouët 1996 Belle Epoque. But the dinner itself, organised by lifestyle group Quintessentially, will be made from food sourced as locally as possible. Proceeds go to the Soil Association.
Chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Mark Hix are also making sure the ingredients are transported by zero-carbon means. So the organic vegetables will be rowed down the Thames and the purple sprouting broccoli, froman organic farm in Berkshire, will be delivered by bicycle.
Herbs like bittercress and dandelions come from Mr Hix's garden in Kingsland. He said: "If you keep an eye out you come across all sorts of things in hedgerows."
The event also features an auction. Lots include a gardening masterclass with Monty Don, and dinner for 10 cooked by Raymond Blanc at Arundel Castle hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, followed by a day's shoot on the estate.
