A FOOD fanatic soap star is making a guest appearance at this year's Alnwick Food Festival.
Sean Wilson, who played Martin Platt in ITV's Coronation Street, has been cooking with his wife Gaynor for more than 20 years and said: "I should be a chef really."
He appeared on Celebrity Masterchef, only to be knocked out in the first round, an
d was spotted by Alnwick Food Festival chairman Don Watson and snapped up as a guest demonstrator.
He said: "Don saw the cooking and thought it was wonderful and asked me to come along – it's not something I've ever thought about before."
He added: "I'm really looking forward to it."
Sean has been to Alnwick before with his family. He said: "It's nice, I love Alnwick – it's like a chocolate-box image."
At the food festival he will be demonstrating how to cook a tantalising mix of scallops with lentils and coriander, a dish by Sean Hill, former head chef at Gidleigh Park in Dartmoor.
He said: "The fragrance and the smells of the cooking will be permeating the theatre."
In his 45-minute demonstration Sean will also make a sweet, taken from Raymond Blanc.
"It's a crispy marzipan coating around a soft mousse with a morello cherry sauce. It's like a ship in a bottle – how do you get the crispy marzipan around the soft mousse? I'll do a demonstration on how to do that."
As a father of two, Sean is also an avid promoter of healthy eating in children, and thought the Alnwick Children's Food Festival, which is being held at The Alnwick Garden over the same weekend (September 20 and 21), was a good idea.
He said: "We promote healthy eating at home all the time. When our children go to other people's houses they'll eat anything but if it's really greasy they won't."
And he is also fulfilling a dream of making cheese, after being taught by fellow demonstrator Bob Kitching, who is also appearing at the food festival.
He is now well into his cheese-making experience and is hoping to make a blue cheese named after the area where he lives, calling it the Saddleworth Blue.
As a thank-you to Bob for his cheese-making expertise, Sean may also make a dish using his cheese.
Later this year, Sean is off to Nepal as part of a charity to help build schools for Nepalese children.
A keen fisherman, he has competed for the country a few times as well as appearing on angling programmes.
But he still loves his acting, and after leaving the Street he appeared in a few programmes with the BBC.
His acting career has taken a break at the moment, allowing him to spend more time with his family.
But he said: "When the phone rings I can drop the cheese for a while and go and do some work."
