April 2023
Someone far wiser than I once said, that to appreciate the unseen hard work of others, you must ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’. *
Well, this past week I took up that mantle to watch the Crouchers chefs in action during a particularly busy locals’ night service. **
I wanted to understand more about how the food we grow in the potager garden is used in the dishes they create, how they cook each item and retain the freshness of the produce harvested often less than an hour before.
On the menu this week were tender stem broccoli and radishes – the former being used alongside a delicious guinea fowl and sweet potato main, and the latter used in various guises in a ham hock or quail egg starter.
The broccoli is blanched for no more than a minute or so – chef tells me this ensures it maintains both flavour and colour – before being lifted into a hot pan to briefly cook alongside the game.
As for the humble radish – it was either sliced thinly as part of a garnish, or (and I bow to the inventiveness of the chefs) poached in a water bath, before being cooked through in the oven to become the prominent side in the quail dish.
Now, we all desire affirmation in our lives, so to see the guys using the produce Jason and I work so hard to provide was a great and humbling experience.
And if the stream of empty plates being brought back from you lucky diners is anything to go by, then I’m guessing you enjoyed them very much – which is the icing on the cake.
I am now wondering if the dining guests I spoke to during the day and to whom I recommended any dish containing broccoli took me up on it? I hope so.
In other news, sowing season has begun. Brassicas, tomatoes, beans, mange tout and many more are happy in my greenhouse.
We’ve started the rotation sowing of carrots, spring onions and beetroot. The chefs have their own little greenhouses now which we’re filling with rotation sowings of pea shoots, lambs lettuce and salad leaves. The shallot seeds are in the ground.
In a few days I’ll be sowing our various chilli peppers, sweet peppers, luffa gourds and courgettes.
In the beds and borders around the hotel, Cider House Kitchen and cottages, we have almost completed the seasonal mulching, maintenance, dividing and replanting, in an effort to give the plants the best possible start to the summer.
So it is exciting times right now, and when the damn rain finally decides to stop, and the sun comes out, then you just watch the colours explode!
* The phrase to ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ has been attributed to Mary T Lathrap in her 1895 poem “Judge softly/Walk a mile in his moccasins”.
** Diners can rest easy because my kitchen brief was to just observe, not to cook. Not the other way round – that would be hideous.
~ Tim
