SAVE THE DATE!

It's fast approaching that time of year and the

MAINSTREET CHRISTMAS SHOPPING EVENING

 is the best way to kick off the festive period! 

Join us on THURS 12th NOVEMBER 7-9pm 

for a night of jollyness and merriment!

Click below to see what we have in store this year:

Margaret Atwood is coming to Mainstreet!

This posts needs little explanation - other than, 

DON'T MISS THIS!

Mainstreet & Mons in France - Part 1

Abondance Cow

It has been an exciting few months for the Mainstreet DELI, with The London Coffee Festival under our belts we geared ourselves up for the next foodie adventure - FRANCE! 

The UK leg of our French cheese suppliers MONs are based in Bermondsey, London (you may have spotted their stall at the famous Borough Market) and work with us to select the very best seasonal cheese to stock in the Mainstreet Deli. When they offered to take us to France to meet cheese makers and visit MONs HQ we jumped at the chance.

And so with the guidance, knowledge and expert linguistic skills of Jon Thrupp, Director of MONS Cheese UK, Bill Shaun and Phillippa left Mainstreet for the mountains... Here is part 1 of our French diary.

Olia Hercules - Mamushka

Olia Hercules

We are feeling full of inspiration after a wonderful event with the beautiful Olia Hercules. Her debut cookbook Mamushka, published this month by Octopus, is brimming with delectable recipes and mouth watering photography. We were lucky enough to have Olia with us for her first cookery demo, she cooked Kurka Tabaka (Garlicky Georgian Poussin) for our hungry audience and we assure you - it was delicious!

More below!

Penguin Little Black Classics

HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY 

PENGUIN!

To celebrate 80 years of publishing, Penguin have released the

LITTLE BLACK CLASSICS

Pocket size snippets from 80 classics, for 80p each!

Check out the website - www.littleblackclassics.com

After scouring through the stacks, picking the ones we wanted for ourselves - we decided to continue the penguin party throughout the shop. Including a window display filled with books and coffee from another OCC (Ouseburn Coffee Company) whose coffee we sell in our DELI. We like to think coffee plays a big part in fueling classic literature! Click the link for more.

The London Coffee Festival 2015

A couple of weeks ago Bill, Shaun and Phillippa headed off to The London Coffee Festival  in search of information, inspiration, - and caffination! (As if we need extra encouragement to drink more coffee!) Here is a sneak peek at what we got up to...

Mouse Mansion

Welcome to Mouse Mansion!

Over the past few weeks, Shaun and Phillippa have been secretly building a mansion in our HOME department. It has finally made its way into our windows, and the new inhabitants of Main Street St Boswells have a home!

Inspired by our current favourite picture book, 'Mouse Mansion with Sam and Julia' by Karina Schaapman, our version is designed around the little Maileg Mice that we sell in our bookshop. 

Dutch author and artist Karina Schaapman spent years building and furnishing the Mouse Mansion in which her collection of stories takes place. Each room depicted in this incredibly detailed book is inspired by stories from the artists childhood. The elaborate house is 6 feet wide, almost 10 feet tall and made from cardboard boxes and papier-mâché. Karina's mansion contains more than one hundred rooms to explore - our version may be a little smaller, but we like to think of it as more of a Scottish Tenemnet...
See more below..

Mainstreet HOME Spring 2015

Our HOME department is an ever evolving space that each season refreshes and replenishes itself with all manner of objects old and new. Beautiful reclaimed pieces of the old Mainstreet buildings are re-worked and installed to house carefully selected books, quirky antiques and unique homeware. This Spring welcomes a host of heavenly textiles, iconic utility essentials and serious coffee kit.

The 'It' shelves behind the counter
Clockwise L-R: Stoneware mugs from Plum & Ashby, Handmade leather notebooks from Art Box Design,
The iconic Bialetti Moka Pot, enamelware from Emalia Olkusz
books, from selection

See more :

Everyone's talking about...

Hemsley + Hemsley, The Art Of Eating Well

by Melissa and Jasmine Hemsley

The Hemsley sisters Jasmine and Melissa, are seriously 'In Vogue' - but really though. As contributing editors for Vogue and The Guardian, these girls have their fingers on the pulse of the super cool, superfood industry. This beautifully bright inspiring book is full of delicious recipes that happen to be gluten, grain and refined sugar free. Best of all they work hard to dispel the myth that fat makes you fat, quite the contrary, 'low fat' food full of emulsifiers and sweeteners are the real enemy. The Hemsley sisters encourage the use of animal fats and butter - natural ingredients that our bodies were built to digest and gain nutrition from. “For the past 60 years, we've been discriminating against all kinds of saturated fats, natural or not,” says Melissa. “The whole time we should have been discriminating against processed and hydrogenated fats.” The book is brimming with inspiring recipes which offer a modern take on 'back-to-nature' eating. Try the insanely good recipe for BBB (that's Black Bean Brownies) and the girls secret weapon vitamin, mineral, collagen and keratin boosting 'Bone Broth'. You will be adding coconut oil and chia seeds to shopping basket before you know it.

"Melissa and I realised that despite loving to cook and eating 'healthily', we were still suffering from everyday ailments such as acid reflux, painful bloating, IBS, eczema and being constantly exhausted from the stress of our jobs," explained Jasmine, also a model. "We started to research and read everything we could get our hands on, but we couldn't find just one ethos that we could live by. After many months of using ourselves as guinea pigs we finally found a way to eat that made us feel vibrant, strong and healthy." - Jasmine Hemsley

#BOILYOURBONES    @HemsleyHemsley   

Check out the girls making 'courgetti' at the brilliant Riverford Farm in Devon:

Hemsley + Hemsley is available to buy here at Mainstreet, that is if we haven't bought all the copies for ourselves! It would make a great alternative Easter gift for those not of the chocolate persuasion.. (or to have as well as chocolate, -  more likely surely?)

Supplier Focus: TEMPEST BREWING Co.

We are pretty big on beer in the Mainstreet DELI, our range of ever expanding craft beers is really interesting at the moment, worth a look! So with that in mind, this month's SUPPLIER FOCUS are award winning local artisan brewers TEMPEST Brewing Co. 

Testing the wares at the Traquair House BEYOND BEER festival

CLICK BELOW FOR MORE...

A Very Mainstreet Christmas To You!

Pretty snow scattered our beautiful old buildings

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
from all of us at
The Mainstreet Trading Company!

What a season it has been, filled with all kinds of festive cheer and goodies. The shop was full to the brim with treasures, fairy lights and freshly cut holly, all to set the scene for a magical Mainstreet Christmas.

Here's to a another fun filled year behind the blue doors!

As always - click the link below!

Our Mimi and The Mountain Dragon windows!

Main entrance to our bookshop and cafe, with Helen at work

This year we were honoured to have super talented author/illustrator and friend of Mainstreet, Helen Stephens paint all five of our front windows. She has transformed our shop front into the wintry Alpine world of her new book, Mimi and the Mountain Dragon, her latest collaboration with another firm friend of Mainstreet, Michael Morpurgo. Click the link below for more...

Everyone's talking about...

GIRLS!
Not That Kind of Girl 
by Lena Dunham

A funny, poignant and frank collection of essays from the acclaimed writer/director/star of HBO's hit series 'GIRLS'. Lena Dunham offers brutal wit and stumbled upon self-awareness from the eyes of an honest young woman. This book is the most blogged about, most instagrammed 'IT' book of the moment and a sure fire win for twenty-something women in search of imperfect wisdom.


Theo Decker

The Goldfinch 
by Donna Tartt

The long awaited third book from Donna Tartt caused all kinds of excitement to ensue when it was released last year. The endeavours of perilous Theodore Decker and his Carel Fabritius missing masterpiece continue to be hot topic several months later. Tartt's characters are becoming household names, they have exceptional hold on you long after you put down the book. Full of big, complicated ideas beautifully constructed and passionately portrayed.

Mitchellian Charm
The Bone Clocks 
by David Mitchell

Metaphysical twitching, genre switching, narrative jumping, soul cycling. David Mitchell delivers a supreme free-wheeling exercise in first person narrative, telling the story of one woman's life through those that encounter her. This book begs to be taken apart, read twice and put back together again just to fully appreciate Mitchell's stylistic prose. A real feat of complex storytelling that will satisfy fans of 'Cloud Atlas'.

Good Art vs Bad Art

Playing to the Gallery
by Grayson Perry

While the majority artists manifesto's are an expression of personal taste or artistic beliefs, this book from self proclaimed 'Essex transvestite potter' Grayson Perry, turns this formula on its head. Based on his hugely popular series of Reith Lectures, Perry breaks down the taboos of the art establishment and encourages us to pose such questions as "Is art still capable of shocking us?" and "What happens if you  place a piece of art in a rubbish dump?" Full of  hilariously truthful illustrations and thought provoking comments on contemporary art today.

DELI OF THE YEAR 2014

Proud winners! - Vivian, Phillippa, Bill, Rosamund and Shaun in our deli

The Mainstreet Trading Company

DELI OF THE YEAR 2014

UK and Ireland

We are so proud to hold the title DELI OF THE YEAR 2014, awarded by the Farm Shop and Deli awards in association with Olives Et Al. To gain such recognition after only 2 years of business is a truly rewarding achievement for Bill and his team. Huge thank goes to all of our brilliant suppliers, producers and wonderful customers for making our deli such a success!

Welcome Back!

Andy McNab hiding in the shelves

After a temporary hiatus, THE MAINSTREET PRESS is back in the blogosphere! We welcome you back to our little online space with a quick catch up. Here is a quick round up of some of 2014's highlights so far...

To Autumn...

 Crab Apple, Golden Spire Apple, Rosehips, Haw and Rowan Berry

After a long and hazy summer, the season of 'Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness' is finally upon us - great news for the Kitchen team at Mainstreet! This week has seen vinegar vapours, sugary spoons and many a jar filled with jewel coloured relishes. And we've been foraging for treasures at home too, Vivian and Phillippa braved the thorns to gather all kinds of hedgerow goodies. Vivian made delicate Rosehip Syrup - (brilliant for adding to cakes and puddings) as well as super delicious Sloe Gin (despite limited berries on the Sloe bushes this year). And Phillippa gathered windfall Crab Apples, Rosehips, Haws and Rowan Berries to make Hedgerow Jelly - (great with cheese!)

Books Are My Bag

                             BOOKS ARE MY BAG                                             Last week, the Mainstreet Hare had a makeover...                                                                                                                                 The book selling world has gone ORANGE! Saturday the 14th of September saw the launch of a very exciting new campaign, kicking off with a Big Bookshop Party in celebration of bookshops everywhere! The first 50 people through our doors got a BOOKS ARE MY BAG tote bag and a free publishers proof, plus our team was of course on hand to offer advice and booky recommendations! There was a fair amount of cake involved too...

BOOKSARE MY BAG gallery - Clockwise L-R: Phillippa and our BAMB window, Scottish rugby legend Chris Patterson and Vivian's son Mully, MSP John Lamont shows his support, Vivian's frosted ginger cake, Super cool team of bikers en route to Lands End, A very orange table of goodies, lovely author Barbara Mellor, Bill's Late Summer Salad.

From Mainstreet, to Market...

Once upon a sunny Monday, Bill and Shaun left sleepy St Boswells, and headed for the busy streets of London - in search of Jamón and Cheese...

Humble By Nature

“I’ve spent a large part of my working life being upstaged by animals and although this book is ostensibly about the joys – and perils – of rescuing a farm, it is also a warning to anyone who loses their heart to a mongrel.  You will never be the centre of attention again.” - Kate Humble

In 2007, after nearly twenty years of living in London, Kate Humble and her Husband Ludo packed their bags and left the noisy city streets for the muddy hillsides of The Wye Valley. They rescued a smallholding from near closure, re-built it to its former glory and set up a rural skills and animal husbandry school alongside it. And is if that wasn't enough, Kate has continued to win her way into the nations hearts with her various TV projects and documentaries. 

"In A Shop With Books In..."

The Bookshop Band

@TheBookshopBand just had a customer in talking about last night - 'I'm lost for words...' (in a good way!).

— Mainstreet Trading (@mainstreethare) June 23, 2013

This tweet is the only way we could think to describe our evening with 'The Bookshop Band'! The supremely talented, (and equally charming) Somerset three piece, delighted our SOLD OUT audience with a whole library of bookish melodies and witty tales of bookshops past. All washed down with scrumptious Paella (made by Shaun and Vivian with game from Burnside Farm Foods, and seasonal local vegetables) and a pint or two of Foxy Blonde Ale from The Scottish Borders Brewery.