At this year's Festival, writer/cook
Maite Cicognini is serving up food at the
Italian Kitchen stall in the Park. Following last year's
excellent blog, she's kindly agreed to write about her experiences for us again.
Monday, 21 June
We are adamant that, this year, we will have enough time to set up in a relaxed and efficient manner.
To help make this happen we spend the night in a campground ten minutes away from Worthy Farm, surrounded by bleating lambs, newborn calves and crops of waving daisies. The only traffic jam we encounter on our way to the site on Sunday morning is made up of a herd of cows, both timid and curious, and just like that we are in the queue of traders by 7am.
There is a little mud, and I am suspicious of it, but there are also modern-day knights sitting atop JCBs ready to rescue people like us should we need it and, happily, the sun is winning its battle with the billowing clouds above our heads.
It isn't long before we find ourselves back in The Park on site S2/06.
So much is familiar. The birds are singing a riot, refusing to be outdone by the drilling; the giant washing line is being hung up and the finishing touches are being added to the gates that stand at the field's entrance. The toilets and their hostile odour. Our neighbours.
We are ahead of schedule and are feeling pleased with ourselves until we have a chat with one of our suppliers where they confess to being ignorant about the whereabouts of one of our most essential ingredients. I get a nasty chill.
So much for being organised. It just goes to show that it's not so much about planning for the Festival, as waiting to see what the Festival has planned for you...
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Trader Tales 2011
