When you are meeting eco-warriors for lunch… you have to pick the right venue. We have chosen the organic farm shop & cafe at Abbey Home Farm and arrive unusually early. We can use the time to wander round the shop & replenish our stocks. Cali & Bug arrive fashionably late but, as I’ve now started drinking and enjoying a Tom Long amber bitter craft ale from the Stroud Brewery, I don’t care.
The menu at the organic cafe is entirely vegetarian during the week – they only serve meat on a Sunday. Rock picks her favourite dish – a small mixed salad (it is still huge by normal standards) served with home-made hummus. Cali fancies the french onion tart served with the full selection of salads. Bug and I both go for the Tamale pie with salads. The Tamale Pie is made up of vegetables covered in a Mexican spiced tomato sauce and cheese.
We haven’t seen Cali & Bug for nearly a year and it is great to catch up with them. I’m excited to talk about my time at the Green Man festival but my stories pale next to Bug’s – he had a truly mind-blowing experience at Burning Man last summer in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.
Rock & I do environmentalism in an amateur way – we make our own compost & leaf mould and use ecologically friendly materials in our home like bamboo & cork. Cali & Bug are on a different ecological plane to us – their latest moves include installing four sets of solar panels and placing an order for an electric car!
They don’t really do dessert here but they really do cake. Cali has a chocolate brownie with her coffee, Bug has an enormous slice of carrot cake – but leaves no food waste. Rock and I share a piece of ginger, date & treacle cake, which is rich, moist and indulgent.
Great food, great beer, great company – this is an experience that I would like to recycle over and over again!
