Hello Everyone

Thanks to a cancellation we finally got to appear at Levenshulme Market on Saturday 16th April. We had never been there before except for a quick look round a few weeks earlier. Though it was late and had just poured down – what’s new, it is near Manchester – the capital city of rainy days 😉

Anyway we took our hot food set up and this included Fresh Pumpkin Soup, slightly curried served with pumpkin oil and pumpkin seeds together with a Carrot Brioche bun. This is a classic Russian soup. Forget about Borscht – this is what everyone in St. Petersburg wants to eat – the other is for the tourists !

We also had an array of our multi-award winning savoury brioche pies – see news of our awards here – including Chicken & Chorizo and Cheesy Mushroom. Plus the unusual stuffed potato cakes – the choice today was mushroom or beef. Both dishes were served with our legendary handmade garlic sauce, plus the two most popular Russian salads – Spicy Carrot and Winter Salad.

Well what can I say – nothing but we were blown away by the positive response. Let’s see what those who tasted our food thought.

Here’s a review from our Facebook page: (here)

We had the pleasure of working next Leeza at Levenshulme market on Saturday. She was kind enough to let us sample some of her pumpkin soup served with homemade pumpkin bread and I can honestly say it was the most amazing soup I have ever tried. Then came the pies… OMG the pies. First of all we had the mushroom pie and it was amazing, the effort and skill in the baking really speaks for itself.. we then had the spring onion and egg mayo and all I can say it was pure magic. Then came the bacon and black pudding pie, we took this one home and reheated it in the oven and it was delicious. The pastry on all the pies was a semi brioche and baked to absolute perfection. 10 out of 10

While a couple of tweets echoes the great comments we received at our busy stall.

I think @CossackCuisine gets my vote for prettiest food here @levymarket today. #pumpkin

Ohhh.M.G. Amazing Russian lunch from @CossackCuisine Everyone must come to @levymarket today, for Russian food

We hope to be invited back soon. We will post future dates here. <bookmark it 🙂

Note – We have similar positions available in Cheshire (e.g. West Didsbury, Wilmslow), Staffordshire (e.g. Uttoxeter), Nottinghamshire (e.g. West Bridgford) – note: we will deliver and collect everything from you. No need to drive over to Sheffield.)

What we have:
Uniquely, we – Cossack Cuisine – are the only people offering fresh, handmade Russian food at public events in the U.K.

What we need:
In brief, we want a small team of people – each of whom will ultimately become responsible for running our food stall at an artisan food event.

Food enthusiasts based in or near to Sheffield to help us grow in the North and Midlands region. Those who join us will be passionate about being part of creating the next big cuisine in the U.K.

We require you to be a driver, with a full British and clean licence. Also we would prefer an owner of a hatch-back style car/van. We pay AA recommended per mile car allowance. Sometimes we will hire a van for you.

What you do:
Tasks include taking boxed food and stall equipment, setting it up, selling produce, taking payment, offering advice and information to our customers, packing up, delivering unsold food/equipment back to our Sheffield base. The cycle concludes with completing appropriate paperwork. The typical day starts around 6am and finishes around 6pm.

What you get:
A fair rate of pay for working on a stall at a farmers market. Mileage allowance. A 30% staff discount on our highly praised food.

What you do now:
Email me if you are interested. Even tell me what your favourite food is and why – OR – tell me a great food shop or restaurant that I should go to. Then tell me why I should hire you. Thanking you, Steve – steve@cossackcuisine.com

More Info > here

The heritage of Leeza Murina’s Cossack Cuisine goes all the way back to the early 1800’s in St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia in those days. Then her family owned two of the city’s largest farmer’s markets and their own business was in the supply of grains and wheat through the Grain Commodity Trading Exchange that they also owned.

On top of this they also ran a chain of shops selling milled flour and fresh bread products. One of their most famous customers was the Tsar of Russia whose staff made the same kind of food Cossack Cuisine has available today.

In recognition of the good service provided by her family, Leeza’s great grandfather was the 3rd generation of the family to carry the title of Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg in recognition of the services provided by the family in the provision of wheat to the city.

As a sideline, they also had a family bakery supplying their neighbourhood with baked goods similar to that Cossack Cuisine makes today in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

This food business was seized from her family during the Communist Revolution of 1917. After this her family went on to become internationally famous in the field of music – like her grandmother who was the first and youngest music conductor in Russia in the 1920’s and went on to teach so many of the world’s best conductors such as Dmitri Kitayenko.

Her mother, Ekaterina Murina is professor of St.Petersburg conservatoire and has toured over the Russia and abroad, most recently China (March 2016). [Live concert]

Thankfully Leeza did not receive the musical gene of her family of outstanding hereditary musicians – otherwise Cossack Cuisine would never have come to be!

Instead it was the creative artisan food producers in her family tree from the 19th century, particularly the baking maestro’s, that gave her the natural born talents to make her award-winning food for her Cossack Cuisine catering company in the 21st century.

At our beginning, we decided to see if the people of Sheffield might like our Russian food, so we popped over to Crosspool Street Market and offered 50 small Brioche Pies for sale at 1 pound each. They were sold out in under one hour!

Encouraged by that we progressed and expanded in every way. Now we have debuted at Meadowhall at their first Artisan Market – such a big contrast in venues ! That’s a sign of how far we have come – never mind the SIX medals at The British Pie awards earlier this month.

Despite going BIG in Meadowhall we will be back at Crosspool’s Festival Street Market on Sunday (12-4pm) 26th June 2016. See you there !

After last years success in the highly competitive British Pie Awards (here) when Cossack Cuisine won a Bronze medal for their Chicken and Chorizo Piroshki (pie), in 2016 we went SIX times better !

The 8th Annual Pie Awards took place in Melton Mowbray on 11th March 2016 and this year 816 pies were entered from 132 professional bakers and butchers. Undergoing a thorough judging process from over 100 top pie experts including TV chefs, food writers and expert pie makers in their own right the winning pies were awarded an accolade based on a range of criteria including appearance, taste and texture.

This year Leeza exceeded last years award collection by 600% by picking up six awards for the following pies:

• Salmon & Cream Cheese – *Highly Commended (*This is higher than a Gold Medal)
• Sea Bass & Cod Pie – Silver Award
• Spring Onion & Egg – Bronze Award
• Bubble & Squeak Pie – Bronze Award
• Lamb, Apricot & Chestnut – Bronze Award
• Forage Fruit Pie- Bronze Award

Over the next few weeks and months these award winners will be added to the range of pies offered at the events (here) we are attending and you will be able to taste what the Judges at the British Pie Awards thought were  “exceedingly nice pies” !

I know it’s only a small thing but we were more than delighted to find that Bakewell Farmers Market have featured a photo of our stall and food in their 2016 Dates leaflet.

I remember when we were waiting and waiting to move from their waiting list to attending the market – what is now – all those years ago!

I have to say that it is now our busiest market and we have a small army of regulars who come to buy our Russian food. We have expanded our range of artisan foods to include Chicken Stroganoff, Salmon and Cream Cheese Piroshki and the best selling Russian Winter Salad.

I would encourage you to go visit their Facebook page for all the latest on what’s coming up at the nest Bakewell Farmers Market.

Lloyds Catering Equipment Ltd of Rotherham (here) have written up an interesting and hopefully helpful case study of how they helped us get started with the right equipment for our new cafe premises in Sheffield.

• My quote sums up how we got alerted to Lloyds:

“We spoke to a number of experienced chefs in and around the Sheffield area and we kept hearing that Lloyds were the people we should speak to about getting our business operating at a higher level”
Steve Jones Cossack Cuisine

 

• And why we chose them:

“We found Lloyd’s to be very informative and none of the hard-nosed sales tactics we expected to find at a successful catering equipment company. They were interested in making our business a success because if that happened they could be sure we would come back for further advice and equipment, and that’s how it has turned out”
Steve Jones Cossack Cuisine

 

 

• Read the full case study at their web site here.

Lloyd Catering Equipment

New Road
Rotherham
South Yorkshire
S61 2DU

Sunday 14th June – let’s see you there 🙂

See what was said about last time we came to this event – here

Top rated Russian artisan food producer in Sheffield seeks weekend staff in London

What we have:
Uniquely, we – Cossack Cuisine – are the only people offering fresh, handmade Russian food at public events in the U.K. All of our food fayre is based on traditional Russian recipes.

Our range includes small, medium and large brioche bread-dough pies – with sweet and savoury choices – e.g. apricot & sweet cream cheese pie, or our Great British Pie Award winning Chicken & Chorizo piroshki, plus main course dishes, like stroganoff, Russian breads, soups, potato cakes, salads, tarts, cakes, celebration gateaux and sweet things. Our Russian food is typically bought for home consumption.

Who we are:
We (Leeza and Steve) are the owners and most importantly chef/business manager – between us we have a huge amount of experience in food, wine, marketing and customer service and we both work in the business every day.

We each have Masters degrees and have left behind executive posts to create THE first Russian fresh food brand in the U.K.

Where we are:
We are based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. We sell throughout the middle third of England and have been operating at farmers markets & food festivals & street food events for 3 years now. Our food service business is extremely highly rated on Trip Advisor. We began our entry into the London region this year.

What we need:
Clever people based in London to help us enter and grow in the central London region. Those who join us will be passionate about being part of creating the next big cuisine in the U.K.

In brief, we want a small team of people – each of whom will ultimately become responsible for running our food stall – for one day – at one of the best artisan food markets in London. The typical day starts around 6am and finishes around 6pm. We would like your help on a once-a-week or once-a-fortnight or a once-a-month basis – including the occasional multi-day food festivals. We can agree your schedule in advance for each coming month.

We would require you to collect of our fresh food and supporting equipment from our base in London in your own car/van. Then travel to a sales location with a colleague of ours, and when experienced enough, going solo and running the food stall on a regular basis by yourself.

Tasks include setting up of the stall, selling produce, taking payment, offering advice and information to our customers, packing up, delivering unsold food/equipment back to our London base. Here you will complete an audit sheet/checklist against the inventory of left over food with unsold stock re-packed as appropriate. The cycle concludes with accounting for the revenue from the day, updating the food stock sheets and updating Steve on how the day went.

Who you are:
Your idea of fun is to potter around Borough Market or sniffing around a new opening in Brixton Market or Soho.

You talk confidently and laugh. You speak English well. You are willing to learn from us to give yourself the best chance of selling increasing volumes of our food – as well as telling us some smart ways we could encourage purchases.

You will have experience in a quality food, retail or restaurant environment – or if not that, a demonstrable enthusiasm for good food, e.g. making it, eating it, writing about it. You will be comfortable in coping with a busy and sometimes stressful customer-facing role, and cheerfully serving – for 4 to 8 hours per event – a diverse range of personality types who come to shop at our market stall.

You will like people very much and take the time to learn our customer’s name, remember what they bought last time and to make recommendations based on that recollection next time they visit you. You are prepared to work hard to make Cossack Cuisine the stand-out food seller at your market. You accept that we may ask you to work a 2 day weekend occasionally, i.e. Saturday and a Sunday. Certainly one of those days. Sometimes Fridays too for the three-day weekend events. We will agree with you the work days in advance for the coming month.

Later on – once a proven promoter of our food, you might want to manage the team of people selling at our London events.

We require you to be a driver, with a full British and clean licence. Also we would prefer an owner of a hatch-back style car/van. Sometimes we will hire a van for you.

What you do now:
Write me a letter- tell me what your favourite food is and why. Tell me a great food shop or restaurant that I should go to, in London that I might not have heard of. Then tell me why I should hire you.

The letter is non-negotiable. If you can’t be bothered to write a covering letter or read all the way down to here then I can’t be bothered to open your CV.

Please write to me at  steve@cossackcuisine.com

What you get:
A fair rate of pay for working on a stall at a farmers market in London. An incredible, fun but frantic working environment selling some of the most interesting food you will have ever seen and tasted, at some of the busiest and best food events in London. A 30% staff discount on our highly praised food and the prospect of building a new company from the beginning – and expanding your role in our endeavours. We are driven and ambitious and want to give our staff every chance to better themselves with training, encouragement and personal support.