Octopus partners with Manchester Food & Drink Festival for event series

Octopus is hosting a series of food and drink events with high-profile authors including “Great British Bake Off” star Rahul Mandal and School of Wok’s Jeremy Pang at Manchester Food & Drink Festival next month. 

The publisher will have a pop-up space in the Festival Hub on 24th September. The event series covers a range of themes including budget cooking, seasonal eating, home-baking, vegetarianism, wok cooking and at-home drinking. It features The Slimming Foodie and Slimming Foodie in One’s Pip Payne and author of the upcoming It’s All About Dinner, Nicky Corbishley, sharing tips, ideas and hacks for putting dinner on the table every night without breaking the bank. 

Author of Your Daily Veg, Joe Woodhouse, Berber&Q On Vegetables’ Josh Katz and Vegan Love’s David Bez will be appearing on a themed panel sharing the top reasons why we should all be incorporating more vegetables in our diets. 

Mandal will be alongside fellow Bake Off star Edd Kimber discussing their love of puddings from childhood to becoming professionals and everything in between as well as providing tips, tricks and solutions to baking mishaps at home. 

School of Wok’s Jeremy Pang will be giving a demo from his latest book, Jeremy Pang’s School of Wok and introducing his simple "Wok Clock" cooking technique. 

TV presenter, writer and debut cookbook author Kate Humble will be talking about Home Cooked and eating with the seasons with author of the bestselling annual The Almanac Lia Leendertz. 

To close off the day, author of Wild Brews, Jaega Wise, will be in debate with Joel Harrison and Neil Ridley, authors of multiple drinks books including the upcoming 60 Second Cocktails, to determine if beer or cocktails should be crowned the winning beverage. 

Waterstones Deansgate will be the official bookseller for the Cookbook Confidential event series, as with the whole festival. 

Octopus group publicity and marketing director Caroline Brown said: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Manchester Food & Drink Festival for its 25th anniversary. We’re long-time admirers of the festival and it’s wonderful to be working with the team there on this series of Cookbook Confidential events. We have such an exciting line-up of authors covering everything from seasonal cooking to how to mix the perfect cocktail, it’s going to be a fantastic day.” 

A spokesperson for the Manchester Food & Drink Festival added: “The Cookbook Confidential event is a highlight of our festival programme and will be a very popular one so make sure to book ahead!” 

The events are now open to all attending the festival and are bookable via the festival website. The full line-up and tickets are available here.