Artisan Food – Wyedean Deli Confidential Blog

3rd June 2021

Brook Farm Bakery – The world is in need of great Bakers.

bread, WyeDean Deli Confidential, bakery, bakers, sourdough, David Broadbent Photography,

It’s 4.30 in the morning and the awakening Wye Valley dawn is a promising start to the otherwise wettest May on record. The air is fresh with the scent of dewy grassland and the fresh green leaves of late Spring. As I rumble along the sinuous farm track toward Brook Farm Bakery, baker Paul Grover is there in the gloaming to welcome me to his small batch sourdough bakery. His nascent baking corporation is based entirely within the small family kitchen! Don’t be fooled. This new baking HQ belies his recent start in the supply of bread to the local community. From small acorns…… Paul maybe new to commercial baking but this is no table top affair. Great food producers, and this is truly great sourdough bread, are marked out by their subject expertise, passion and pride. There’s the impressive small batch oven. The bakery organisation, the cold proving fridges, timers, alarms and his strict adherence to his pre-planned schedule, scribbled just about everywhere. All of this says “serious”, serious about producing the highest quality sourdough and serious about breadmaking. Like all great producers, he is also a well-read student of his own discipline.

The tables have turned on this former lecturer in architecture as he now discovers the thrill of learning new skills and developing his craft at the hands of inspiring mentors. All of this is based in, possibly, the most idyllic bakery you have ever seen in your life.

Paul see’s himself baking a couple of days a week to serve his stockists at Cowshill Farm, The Pantry at St Briavels and Brockweir Village shop. His Bread Club customers choose delivery (within 5 miles of the bakery) for a pound or collect at the bakery door. The rationale being that’s how he wants to do it and, in any case, properly made sourdough will last all week.

There is a recurring myth in business. It’s called growth. Economists, traders and politicians are obsessed by it for wholly different reasons which basically all boil down to the same thing – money. But if you believe that business can be sustainable whilst supplying a living wage – what is wrong with that? After all, “Baker” – one of the oldest of trades imaginable. One of the exclusive group of trades that gave rise to British surname dynasties. No one in ancient Britain was called Baker until someone made a bigger oven and began allowing local working people to use them.

It’s really refreshing to hear someone say, and mean it, this is it. This is as big as it’s ever going to be. A couple of bakes a week and that’s all she wrote. It’s sustainable business with a long pedigree.

Some time ago, I noticed in the Pantry village shop in St Briavels a rice sticker on a loaf of sourdough from an unfamiliar brand. I took my loaf home and tasted it. I knew instantly that I needed to meet the person who had made it. I’m a massive fan of proper bread and sourdough in particular. Brook Farm Bakery make proper sourdough bread, earthy and solid and verging on a bakers deep-bake colour with a great taste and texture.

Great bread, and in my humble opinion, and this is great bread, is made by people that set out to do just that. Paul is both student and master of his craft. Brook Farm Bakery’s range includes, farmhouse, spelt, seeded and olive sourdough recipes all of which taste as good as they look.

Starting this type of business is always exciting and scary in equal measure. You know you can make it, you’ve made it in a Dutch oven in your kitchen and your friends raved about. They implored you to scale it up and make it for other people. You know it tastes good because you like it. But one loaf at a time is never going to feed the five thousand. Now there is a leap. A leap to scaling up (not in this case in the conveyor belt sense of the term) and now comes the inner self doubt. Is it that good? Am I that good? Will people buy it? What if they don’t like it? What if someone finds out I’m not a proper baker? If I’m wrong, we can’t eat 12 loaves a day.

Very seldom do humans first ask “what if it all goes right?”. What if it all goes right, I convert the kitchen into a mini bakery, mortgage an oven, get up at four and try not to wake the family, make bread and people like it? It’s true we need to stay grounded and logical but we still need to dream. We still need to, having though it through, get on with it.

rofco, bread, WyeDean Deli Confidential, bakery, bakers, sourdough, David Broadbent Photography, — Brook Farm fabulous artisan sourdough bakery, Brockweir.

We briefly breath the valley dawn again as Paul steps outside with four perfectly rounded rustic spelt loaves. Set on a wire rack the misting honey sprayed over the wholemeal spelt sourdough scents the early morning dew point and sweetens the smell of dawn.

Inside the kitchen, there are no vats of unruly starter, just carefully measured, small amounts of chemistry, flour and water mixed and set aside for the next batch. Just enough and just in time. Enough starter for the mix with some left over for a new starter. Any left over after that is made into a batch of Pennant millstone shaped and coloured table crackers. And repeat.

For every wheatgerm of idea, there is a right time. A time to do. Do you do this thing you have dreamt of or do you choose caution and spend the rest of your life wondering what if…? Who knows? May be the pandemic has been a catalyst to all sorts of things starting and ending. Sometimes there isn’t an answer, it just is. Maybe Paul, supported by his family, this was just the right time. I’m glad that Brook Farm Bakery’s time has come. If you haven’t tried it yet, do so and you will be very glad their time has come too.

You were right. You have been found out Paul Grover. People have found out that you are the sourdough making real deal so good luck with keeping the baking to a few days a week.

Stuff

Brook Farm, Merricks Lane, Brockweir. NP16 7GD 07841 903036

https://www.brookfarmbakery.com/

https://www.instagram.com/brookfarmbaker/

11th January 202112th January 2021

Fine Dining Takeaway

Hospitality, for the moment at least, is no doubt taking the brunt from the lockdowns and restrictions across the UK. Question is, just how do we support our favourite local businesses and at the same time heed the safety measures we must all endure? If you take the need to help the NHS and therefore save lives seriously, it is very difficult to argue that there is no risk in visiting your favourite local pub or restaurant right now.

Was the money these businesses spent trying to make premises Covid safe a good investment? Things change, sometimes rapidly and with hindsight it may seem not. Corvid loves a crowd as they say and it can definitely party given an indoor crowd of strangers. We are perhaps seeing proof of that in the sobering numbers in the daily news.

Many of our great pubs and restaurants have stepped up and have been offering take away food throughout our health-imposed isolation. But fine dining takeaways? So, when The Whitebrook suggested that its past and present customers celebrate the New Year with just that – we were hooked!

What’s not to like? It provides revenue for the restaurant and a great night in for us. Being by far and away the best restaurant in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley area hasn’t immunised this (Michelin) star wielding restaurant – with rooms, from the pandemic’s hospitality implosion. But, like all eateries, livelihoods and jobs depend on them remaining profitable. So, we need to use them when and how we are able.

The “Dine at Home” programme launched by Chef Chris Harrod for New Year’s Eve homebound revellers was a real treat. And what a surprise – turns out that fine dining out of a takeaway bag – albeit a very smart one – was great fun and very, very doable.

The food tasted every bit as good as it would have in the restaurant. But, why wouldn’t it? All of the same people did the prep, made the sauces and sourced the produce locally. The only thing lacking was going to be the restaurant atmosphere and the experience of being well looked after by well trained, relaxed and chatty staff in a cosy environment.

Turns out that there is just as much fun to be had diving through the courses in your pyjamas and smoking jacket, by the light of the Christmas tree whilst listening to music playing loudly from the landing. We seemed to get our own little bubble of ambience going.

I have to say could not have been easier. Everything was packaged beautifully and for the most part in fully recyclable or compostable packaging. Something tells me that this was no accident. Chris Harrod and his team had obviously worked hard to make this process a success.

Chris was on hand to hand out the orders as I arrived to collect at our timed order slot. At the door it was great to see the table healthily laden with orders awaiting collection. The goodie bag came with full printed logical instructions. Clear and concise, this step-by-step guide was impeccably prepared but had missed one small detail, precisely how much “good will” the diners may have already indulged in prior to their 15 minutes of kitchen fame.

In essence, everything had been considered and explained. All that was required from the diner was a large pan of boiling water, an oven and the ability to read instructions. The latter thus, rendering the male half of the population incapable by default and a further 50% of the female population reduction due to a whiff of the sherry cork. What could possibly go wrong?

So a five course M starred menu, in your own home went like this for us: Our love of Italian travel so sadly cancelled and frustrated in 2020 was well fed by the outstanding Pumpkin focaccia decorated with seeds and nuts and deep green Ramson wild garlic oil. Really pungent and earthy focaccia that only, in our eyes, benefitted from a short reheating in a hot oven before serving. We ate this together with the Goats curd with a crunchy little nuts and seeds bonbon. Not everything went to plan though thanks in part to a couple of Martini’s and a Bushwhacker cocktail apiece. In a flagrant disregard for the step-by-step instructions and numbered ingredients, I’m afraid gin Martini’s got the better of me and I served the mushroom sauce instead of the Velouté – rooky error!

No matter, we had the velouté on its own with scavenged crusty croutons of focaccia – result! Smooth and beautiful acting as a more traditional soup course for us oh and an extra course The Whitebrook team hadn’t intended.

The baked parsnip tasted just fine even without the mushroom sauce and looked great with the foraged Pennywort garnish. The mushroom sauce by the way was simply awesome. The depth of flavour was astonishing – really deep and meaty.

Now for the tricky bit – the fish course. The Whitebrook team must have been holding their breath on this one. They took a big risk allowing us to get the fish course to the table – cooked by us at home, really? Amazingly (by bouncing the stereotype and following the instructions) that too was perfect. A little bit of Kholrabi on the plate, the fish baked on its bed of pine and juniper warmed in its wee cardboard box with a champagne sauce poured over – devine!

Main course of Fallow venison on celeriac puree with smoked baby beetroots as the grand crescendo to a great dinner – and there you have it. A total delight. Genuinely, the whole process was really, really simple and fun – thanks Team Whitebrook.

With dinner, we drank our very last bottle of vineyard sourced full bodied Anfidiamante Red I.G.T. Imported by overland Landrover transport the year before from the family vineyard of Fattoria del Teso – in the other Montecarlo, in Tuscany. A small friendly family vineyard with a just a view bottles in the range. A great red, great white, the stunning Anfidiamante, Vinsanto, their own Grappa and olive oil. It tasted superb, as ever, and all the better for a year and a bit in the bottle – on top of the 18 months it had already had. Fabulous by the way. Drink it now or store it for as long as you like – maybe save a bottle for when we join the EU again.

We did however, choose a lovely dessert wine from the restaurant recommended wines list, a Jurançon. This sweet dessert wine (dried by the sun and shrivelled by the Pyrenean winds before harvesting) tempted us and who doesn’t love a dessert wine – a feeling of genuine celebration indeed. We were not disappointed.

Personally, I’m not really a dessert person. My Achilles heel is handmade ice cream and I can always be easily tempted by a Francis Coulson sticky toffee pudding but that’s about it. So, we opted for the addition of a cheese course for two people expertly chosen and supplied by the great Marches Deli and that was just the ticket to finish.

So why would you splash on a fine dining take away? If you are the type who likes to tick Michelin stars, or impress your mates with where you had dinner or even give the staff the benefit of your wide and impressive dining experience, I can see how the offer of eating at home may not be that attractive. But if you love great food and great taste; want to invest in the longevity of a local beacon of culinary excellence and you’re comfortable with your own ambience (dress style formal or relaxed – it’s up to you) and random tableware then the news is good. From the end of January (22^nd) Chris and his team will be doing this again. Every Friday and Saturday. A three course £30 a head dinner. Light your pipe, pull on your best smoking jacket, rest your elbow on the mantelpiece and shout Hussar!!

If you can stay safe in everyday life my friends – lockdown just got a bit more bearable.

Links and stuff:

https://www.thewhitebrook.co.uk/

https://www.marchesdeli.co.uk/

http://www.fattoriadelteso.it/index-en.php

12th June 201912th June 2019

Pig & Apple

What do you do when a great opportunity presents itself? The people who answer “Go for it”, are the people who get things done. So why not pack your job in, begin a start-up business and run a café. That’s what former chef at Monmouth School, Jake, and his partner Jess are up to and they have set up shop for their first enterprise together at Monmouthshire rural skills hub Humble by Nature.

Pig and Apple, cafe, David Broadbent Photography, copyright, credit, WyeDean Deli Confidential, Humble by Nature, food and drink, new cafe, small business, Monmouthshire, Penalt, — The Pig & Apple cafe

Jake, who had already been in his catering career for several years at the flagship Monmouth Boys, felt gifted to be able to set up their own business in what was effectively a mothballed café ready to go. “Kate and her team have been so good with us”, says Jake. “They’ve just said use whatever you can. It’s been so helpful to us as a start-up”.

menu, Pig and Apple, cafe, David Broadbent Photography, copyright, credit, WyeDean Deli Confidential, Humble by Nature, food and drink, new cafe, small business, Monmouthshire, Penalt, — The Pig & Apple cafe

Jess, by an elegantly circuitous turn of fate, used to be an apprentice chef (and later also the Boys School) at Humble by Nature and so knew the sites potential. All it needed was a good clean up to clear the months absence of café hubbub, to throw open the entire opening side wall to the farm yard and kitchen garden and let the light and fresh air flood in. Next, sort out the logistics of your everyday electrical certificates and reinstate your food hygiene rating (a lot more time consuming than you might think) and hey presto – The Pig & Apple Café!!

Here’s a young couple (20 and 25) working hard and making it on their own. A sensibly simple menu that just the two of them can cook short order and serve on time even to a full house. Café food that’s good, easy to eat, warm (in a cwtching sort of way) comfort food that nails it. It doesn’t have to be complicated to be excellent. Far from it.

In our “celebrity”, “super food” world it sometimes feels like it’s ingredients that have the bragging rights. In food, good food at any rate, we have a rule. Don’t ask yourself what you are adding, ask yourself why.

So, for Jake and Jess the “Pig & Apple Burger” was a no brainer starting point for a signature plate. Great for lunch but also great to feed the party at their evening opening and entertaining shenanigans.

Our chosen religion is.. If you are going to put bacon on a burger it had better be well done, it had better be streaky and it had better be crisp. Otherwise what does it bring to a burger. If you have got a great burger nailed, and Jake has – home ground beef from Neil Powell butchers (doesn’t get much better on the supplier front), mixed, rolled and ready to rock. Add the secret seasoning, press and cook out on the hot plate to achieve flavoursome caramelised brown bits wrapped around fantastic quality local beef.

Our bacon argument goes like this; well done in lower heat with a bacon iron or topping pan keeps the bacon flat and it renders out the pork fat to a sweet and crumbly texture, streaky because you want that rendered pork fat to add a little flavour and additional saltiness to the stack and crisp to add a different texture to the whole thing. So, there you go. Bacon because it adds flavour, texture (crumbly and robust), salt and sweetness. Theory justified!

Wedge the aforementioned into a toasted sesame and seed bun, hit the bun base with a really, really good deliciously sweet apple relish, don’t fuss too much on the leaves – just something ultra-fresh, green and crispy, put it on the pass and call “service” on another Pig & Apple burger.

As anyone will know who has tried to find Humble by Nature, Kates rural skills and farm HQ, for the first time without the assistance or an orbiting satellite, there isn’t a stampede of footfall along this leafy lane. But build it and they will come. This location just gets busier and busier.

Already the Pig & Apple are making sausages from the farm pork produced by Tim and Sarah (agricultural heroes who run the 117-acre farm) as well as herbs from the kitchen garden and the intention is to source as much as possible from the farm itself.

It is one of the significant and founding principles of the slow food movement that is often all too conveniently forgotten – the food miles issue. Great, to be supporting local farmers to grow seasonal produce in order to support themselves and their families. But if the reason for doing that is to exploit market forces and the labour markets for profit before that food is then flown half way around the globe to the consumer, it kind of defeats the object.

“Where does it come from” is something we are all now more willing to ask, we do it all the time. But, it’s not that often that we are simply asked to look out of the window for the answer. This is about as close to “farm gate” as food gets.

Keep an eye on these guys, it’s down to earth, it’s no nonsense, it’s honest, it’s local and it’s tasty with a hint of fun. And the burgers are as good as any we’ve tasty, however many guys were involved in making them. Well worth meandering down the leafy lane.

Stuff you need to know

Upper Meend Farm, Monmouth NP25 4RP Wales

Jake & Jess +44 7868 138286

https://www.instagram.com/thepigandapple/

https://www.facebook.com/thepigandapple/

17th May 20199th January 2021

New Cheese in Town

Brooke's Wye Valley Dairy, David Broadbent Photography, Wales, Welsh, Monmouthshire, cheese, soft cheese,

Brooke's Wye Valley Dairy, David Broadbent Photography, Wales, Welsh, Monmouthshire, cheese, soft cheese, Angiddy, artisan, Jersey, cow, milk, — The Staff

When a great new cheese emerges from the green rolling valleys of Monmouthshire, we hit the road, our taste buds and then the keys to let all of you lovely people get the skinny on what’s happening.

It’s always great to hear about something new and delicious to emerge from this beautiful bit of earth that are privileged to occupy. When someone is making a new cheese, this is music to our ears and anyway, who doesn’t like British cheese? Add to that – Welsh cheeses are as good as any in the world! May we present – Angiddy. A mould ripened soft cheese; farmhouse made by the lovely family firm more famous for its award-winning artisan ice cream – Brooke’s. So, when this family decides to make cheese, expectations are high.

Hannah is the chief cheesemaker and expectations don’t come much higher than those that she heaps upon herself. Tucked away in her very own cheese cave, she crafts the silky smooth and unctuously rich milk from the farms Jersey cows with a bit of science and lots of love and care. In the serenely quiet and pristine environment fromage, she turns that milk from the rest of staff (the ladies) into a really, really tasty new Welsh cheese. It has been several months in development at the Food Centre Wales were Hannah worked hard perfecting her recipe.

All good science, in this case the magical biological reaction between milk and rennet encouraged by temperature and acidity and finally the crowning glory – mould, needs to be repeatable.

Satisfied that she had perfected her style, flavours, and texture – small scale production began in the boutique new cheese creamery a stones throw from “ice cream central” in this, the most beautiful of Wye Valley natural amphitheatres.

In 300 beautiful acres of Wales sits a natural depression above the Wye Valley. An amphitheatre of agriculture and surrounded by Forestry Commission woodland, the farm, Panta, takes its name from the Welsh for hollow. From a high point above the farm, the name couldn’t be more appropriate. The high ground slopes gently down to the Angiddy that has give its name to many an innovation. The brook slips away along the gentle contours to the industrial revolution it gave birth too, but here, in its gentler course, fed by the many springs on the flanks of the bole, it meanders unheard and unnoticed through the farm.

The gentle slopes that surround the farm on all sides are not flat enough to hold the rain and not steep enough to turbo charge it down the hill. Instead they hold it long enough to create perfect grazing fields, sheltered from the wind and kissed by the sunshine in the best of the Welsh weather. A majestic Oak beside the brook watches over river’s flow and a pastoral scene that hasn’t changed little over hundreds of years. In this domain Robert and Irene (Hannah’s parents) have kept a dairy herd since the 70’s. Today, the fields are dotted with a hundred or so chocolate brown Jersey girls. Happy to eat the lush abundant grass in the fields in which they we all born, then sit a while and ruminate on grass, the beauty of Wales, what’s tea and life in general.

All of this activity results in milk. Rich, creamy world-famous milk ideal for making cheese.

Within 24 hours, the farm milk is in the creameries for ice cream and now cheese, renewing a traditional farming cycle of old interwoven with the demands of farming in the 21^st century.

You may want to love this cheese because of your Welsh roots, Welsh pride or a wider appreciation of this outstandingly beautiful borderland. Or you want to champion great local produce from the area we live in and to show the world our producers are of the highest quality. In the end, you’ll love it for what is important beyond all else, the taste. Don’t just take our word for it (although we have brought you some pretty awesome new products over the years). In fact, the world has already said hello to the new Celtic cheese when it debuted at the World Cheese Awards (With entries from a record breaking 35 different countries judged at the 30th anniversary edition of the World Cheese Awards, which formed part of this year’s Taste of London Festive Edition,) and took a Gold medal!

This is a young cheese matured just long enough to form the velvety white rind. It is fresh tasting, rich from the Jersey milk, creamy and delicate. The young rind is bright white, soft and lacks the strong bitter flavour you get with some older soft cheeses. But at the same time, it has a fantastic savoury umami hint and real depth of soft earthy, mushroom flavour. All in all, it’s really subtle and sophisticated and the delicacy combined with the rich sumptuous flavour means that this cheese is a doer. Just as easy to see it simply spread over great bread as it is to see it paired with fresh figs or Conference pears at the centre of a luxury creamy ploughman’s.

When (?) we are out of the EU and have five minutes off from spending the daily NHS bonanza and being a tiny island boxing well above our trading weight, so the narrative goes, we’ll be able to do what we like and call our produce whatever we want. We’ll be able to call this Brie if we want. Never that simple. And why would we want to. Brie is named after the region in which it is made. This cheese is called Angiddy, after the tiny Welsh valley in which it is made and very soon, we think that you’ll prefer and ask for this “Angiddy” by name instead of its famous French cousin.

Angiddy is the new kid on the block and well up to the job for lovers of Welsh cheeses. With Brooke’s ice creams already gracing the shelves of Welsh branches of Waitrose, we are speculating that the farms cheese must be headed that way too.

Links www.brookesdairy.com

http://www.foodcentrewales.org.uk/

David Broadbent May 2019

23rd May 20189th January 2021

Plump Hill Farm – Crofting for the 21st Century.

Meet Debs and Stuart. Together they are realising their personal dream on a small patch of land at Huntley. Endless couples parade in line on seemingly equally endless property shows where the single most common motivation is to move to the county and keep some chickens. Most of these aspirations doubtless fail. But having spent a few short hours with this couple – it’s obvious that this partnership won’t be among the casualties.

Crofting is an old tradition perhaps best associated with the Highland and Islands of Scotland. Essentially a couple or a family work on small parcels of land both to supplement their meagre rations and to produce cash crops for sale in the local area, or at least they did before all the rich landowners and landed gentry threw them off the land to make way for sheep.

Here in the Forest of Dean & Wye Valley life must have been fairly similar for some. The echoes of small parcels can still be seen in the way that modest houses in the Forest & Valley sometimes also come with a little bit of ground. So, meet these modern-day crofters. Holding down day jobs and working on the land, their land.

Plump Hill Farm couple Debs and Stuart are though taking crofting to a whole new level. Faced with endless ambition but a limited budget from their day jobs they didn’t buy a farm. They bought farmland. Land going for sale in agricultural lots as an old farm was broken up and its sprawling buildings repurposed for the 21^st century. They’ve just bought another parcel adjacent to their existing lot and so its seems that the well-rehearsed business plan is right on track.

We spent a great morning walking the patch with Debs and Richard Kaye head chef at the award winning Kilcot Inn. Richard was Deb and Stuarts first customer and has been with them since. We chatted to Debs while Richard checked out the loins and conformation of the ever-growing young pedigree pure bred Old Spots. Debs had to feed her cade lamb (hand reared after being rejected by mum) which was eagerly awaiting its breakfast. “We’d put a jacket on her because of the cold and she (mum) rejected it”, “always learning – we won’t do that again”. And there is so much to learn. Sensibly, they invested in themselves and bolstered their passion and enthusiasm with some top-quality training at the hands of Tim Stephens the Farm Manager and trainer at Humble by Nature. A real success story for Tim and Humble by Nature as they gave Debs and Stuart the spring board and confidence to pursue their dream.

And Richard is just the kind of customer that Debs and Stuart are looking for. Outlets for their whole animal produce who care as much as they do about the quality of the meat they are producing. Ideally customers who will take straight from the farm together with all the provenance and good animal welfare you can shake a stick at. Word is spreading too. Only that day Debs had to, sadly, decline the M5 services request for supply because they simply couldn’t produce the quantity required. That’s not a missed opportunity though for Debs. She clearly has her focus on growing the business to a sustainable size and then consolidating at that capacity.

Animal welfare comes first here at Plump Hill Farm. Yes, the animals are being bred for food but that is no reason why they shouldn’t have a great life and great care while they are part of the farm.

Richard Kaye shares this ethos for all of his ingredients for his lovely country restaurant. “A great dish starts with great raw materials,” he said. “I’ve spent years sourcing local suppliers who rear animals with excellent animal welfare. Happy animals taste better. Slaughtered properly and in as a calm way as possible is really important to the final quality and important to me.” “It is also imperative that we support local business – keeping the money in the area can really help the economic situation for everybody. I have the flexibility to take animals from Debs whenever they are available- and she doesn’t charge me a delivery charge!”

We have exercised the viewpoint that Britain has largely lost the connection with where it’s food comes from numerous times in these pages. Why is it important? If you are a meat eater, it’s just a fact that those animals will have to be slaughtered to meet your demand. If you lose sight of this fact and insulate yourself behind the unsustainable polystyrene punnets and red lighting of the supermarkets, you, yes – you personally contribute to what happens next. If no one cares how our food is reared you, yes you, open the door to poor animal welfare. In the shadows, people will exploit the fact that you don’t care and they will stop caring too – in the pursuit of profit. Pretty soon you’ll be buying two chickens for a fiver without a second thought for how they can be sold so cheaply.

And right there you have the transition on this escape to the country life. This is where half-hearted dreams falter, when the dream turns into the daily reality of hard work, dedication and sometimes disappointments when you bear the immense responsibility of keeping animals. The caravan in the polytunnel tells it all. It became home for a few weeks during lambing. This couple new to farming and always learning were “absolutely worn out” physically and emotionally during the process and to have somewhere to crash on site was a life saver.

The flock of fine woolly Shropshire’s all looked pretty happy and healthy grazing in the early morning Gloucestershire sunshine. And amongst the animals and covered in muck, Debs looked very happy too.

Links

Plump Hill Farm https://www.facebook.com/PlumpHillFarm/ http://plumphillfarm.co.uk/

Kilcot Inn http://www.kilcotinn.com

Humble by Nature https://www.humblebynature.com/event-category/smallholding-animal-husbandry/

13th March 20189th January 2021

Grzyb is Polish for mushroom!

Poland is 1053 miles from Tibberton with a 17 and a quarter hour journey time plus the time it takes to roll on and roll off a cross channel ferry. Not that we at WyeDean Deli Confidential have ever driven from Tibberton to Poland or from anywhere else in the UK for that matter. But the mushrooms in your fridge probably have!

David Broadbent Photography, copyrighted, mushroom grower, farming, agriculture, — Chestnut mushrooms

Why, because Poland achieved world domination in the supply of mushrooms. They wrested the accolade from Ireland who in turned had deprived the Netherlands of this prestigious first place. And so, you can see that the force of globalisation is strong in the world of wholesale fungus.

But why this cut throat worldwide scramble for a dominating market share in mushrooms? One of the reasons is that mushrooms have for a long time been the crop with the highest margin and return for growers. Added to that, relatively quick growth time to be mature for market for their first crop, they provide a second and often third flush from the same mycelium impregnated compost blocks in which they are grown. And, they can be grown all year around – perfect then in most every respect for big corporations.

For fungis like us, we recently had the privilege of spending a short time with Dennis Nutting, who together with his son Simon, are the last of Gloucestershire’s mushroom growers. In this industry, which has no middle ground, you operate either a small and niche business or you grow on an industrial scale into multi acre warehouses measured in football pitches. This is an industry for whom the cash driven relentless sector by sector globalisation is poignantly illustrated.

In the UK there where once 500 growers. There are now not enough to keep a trade association alive and that has folded too. For the UK at least, it’s an industry in decline and we are staring into the abyss of having no UK based mushroom growers at all.

Dennis and Simon’s farm in Tibberton illustrates this well with insulated mushroom tunnels lying empty. The two lifelong farmers are now very much in the niche fungus market for the time being at least. They specialise in Chestnut mushrooms which if left to mature become large open cap Portobellos. All of the mushrooms are grown on long trays at three or four different levels. The mushrooms don’t need light to mature so what lights there are serve only the pickers which again in this case is now just Simon.

But fungi breathe like us, the need oxygen and an atmosphere at specific humidity and temperature levels. So warmed fresh air has to be pumped into the tunnel in winter and sometimes cooled in summer. When it comes to picking for market, mushrooms have, so far, managed to outwit the industrial robots replacing proper jobs across the globe. When you pick them from the substrate you need to do so gently and with a slight twist rather than a pluck. Pickers also have to decide which ones to pick. Size is obvious but if, like Dennis and Simon, you also want to grow Portobellos then thinning out is needed and that takes a cognisant human.

In fact, one of the hardest things to source in the mushroom growing business, even for the industrially sized operations, is labour. In a bitter twist of irony, even Polish growers so long the net exporter of labour to the mushroom growing world is struggling and now employs a significant number of Bulgarian and Romanian pickers.

This is something Dennis and Simon have struggled with in the past and brings to life those political arguments about how we need immigrant labour for some industries and the impact Brexit may have on us.

So now knowing that the vast proportion of the mushrooms you buy in the shops and supermarkets come from Poland, spare a thought for Dennis and Simon who grow the most exquisite brown capped Chestnut and Portobello mushrooms anywhere in the world. They do it with love and passion and they do a day or so before market. They are the last bastion of one aspect of local food production in Gloucestershire whilst incidentally saving 1000 food miles per harvest.

Hook up with Simon himself at the fabulous Stroud Farmers market or buy their produce from the stalls at Gloucester and Bristol Farmer’s Markets. With a typical rash of farming conservatism, their produce doesn’t even carry a brand name. But if someone tells you these Chestnut and Portobello caps are locally grown – you can thank Dennis and Simon!

For wholesale enquiries melkirtfarm@gmail.com

18th August 2017

The Preservation Society Wins Again!

Wow! The DeanWye has yet another producer, The Preservation Society, in the hall of fame that is the UK’s Great Taste Awards. The Preservation Society scooped a 2-star Great Taste award for the 2017 competition. Judges tasted Angharad Underwood’s Plum & Cuban Rum Jelly made with local swap/cropped plums & apples and declared it DELISH! The judges comments included “On the palate the jelly melts beautifully, the plums come through well and then a warmth of rum follows on. This feels very honest and as if made ‘of the countryside”. Too true mate!!

Angharad, thrilled to be awarded another accolade, said “We are delighted with our 8^th Great Taste award, we make all of our jars of deliciousness by hand and love using local seasonal ingredients, our Plum & Cuban Rum is made with plums from Mrs Corrick (Angharad’s Mum’s neighbour) and swap/cropped local apples so it’s a very personal little jar. Great Taste really does make a huge difference for a micro business like ours”.

Great Taste 2017 will reach its exciting finale on Monday 4 September, when the world of fine food gathers at the Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, London to find out the Golden Fork winners for each region at an Awards Dinner, with the final applause reserved for the Great Taste Supreme Champion 2017.

Angharad produces multi award winning chutneys, sirops & preserves all packed with flavour and made with love. Don’t just take our word for it, check the 2017 features in Country Living and Vogue. The Preservation Society work with great local producers for the DeanWye and produce an ever growing range.

You should try some. Eh, start with the Plum and Rum!

For more information on this and the other fab products in the range: angharad@thepreservationsociety.co.uk 01291 626516 or 07970 413574

8th August 2017

Jesus and the afternoon tea

David Broadbent Photography, copyright image,

Recently Jesus treated us to a fabulous Champagne cream tea at the equally fabulous Tudor Farmhouse Hotel in Clearwell – and we loved it!

I don’t think that I would ever describe myself as” religious” in the conventional sense. Current estimates, depending on your chosen reference source, put the world religions figure well north of 4000. How lucky then were we to have choose the right one! Similarly, I’m suspicious of the organisations behind religions. They are after all large organisations and like all others are often in conflict between protecting their faith and their organisation.

But I am intrigued by faith. Intrigued by the way in which all cultures (sometimes isolated ones) develop a faith. This suggests that there is something deep within the human spirit that needs to “believe” and I don’t think any part of the debate deals with that aspect. You feel the spirituality sometimes in expansive landscapes (high in the mountains of Nepal springs immediately to mind), in spectacles of the natural world or the light on a perfect day outdoors.

I’m also an enormous fan of parish churches. Take St Mary the Virgin at St Briavels for example. As a place of worship, it’s a beautiful parish church with a fantastic history. It (or its predecessor structures) has been a significant anchor in village life for as long as the settlement has existed. We held a blessing for our marriage there, our friends all came and it was a fabulous day. Each time I go into the church, I feel the peace and tranquility of it and I am calmed. It’s just a lovely place to be regardless of one’s own beliefs.

Supporting this village icon is a lovely group of local people who volunteer toward the upkeep of the church including the fabric of the building and they do such a great job. Finally, we get to the point of this story and their summer fund raiser at the home of a very active member in the “Friends” of St Briavels church and, crucially, their raffle. Cut to a beautiful DeanWye summer afternoon, a lovely historic farmhouse garden with an impressive view of the Wye Valley, some Kingstone beer on tap and a hog roast – marvelous! Be honest, can you think of a better way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon?

Now, I never win anything. Raffles, wagers, the horses or everyone’s Plan B for a better life – the lottery, are never going to get me out of trouble! And so, it was with some astonishment that I scooped second prize in the “Friends” raffle. The bottle had already gone – as it does – and there on the table was a stylish matte brown envelope with the words “Gift voucher – afternoon tea for two with Champagne.” Ker-ching! I won something – it is truly a miracle!

David Broadbent Photography, copyright image, afternoon tea, — We went for a jam, cream, jam stack

Voucher in hand, we turned up to a friendly welcome at the Tudor Farmhouse reception and were shown into the Tudor Room and seated to receive tea. Two pots, one of Darjeeling and one of fragrantly spiced Karma. We elected to start with a cool glass of champers each and then the tiered wondrousness appeared! Three layers be-decked with confectionery. Atop the spire, coffee macron, pungent chocolate cake and a tart cream pot with forest berry coulis on top, at the gallery level, fresh homemade scones still warm from the oven and deliciously light and crumbly. A thing so unlike the commercially available scones some of which tend to have the density of a small iron-cored moon. Cream or jam first? Oh, let’s not get into all that again. And, down in the engine room on the bottom tier, very cute sandwiches of ham with mustard, smoked salmon and creamy cheddar. A super indulgent way to pass a couple of hours and all of it delightful!

Thank you, Jesus, and everyone else involved.

11th July 201711th July 2017

Mint & Mustard – A small corner of Kerala in the Wye Valley

David Broadbent Photography, Mint & Mustard, Indian, street food, Chepstow — Grand opening of Mint & Mustards Indian Street Kitchen in Chepstow. July 2017

We have it all in this article, a VIP gala opening, great Indian food based on traditional Keralan cuisine, a new and exciting restaurant in the heart of Chepstow and the Wye Valley, oh, and a little bit of an exclusive….

http://www.mintandmustard.com/locations/chepstow/ — Traditional Keralan drummers

Well, street food has finally landed in the Wye Valley and for one beautiful July evening a very small corner of Chepstow town was transformed into a small section of the Chalai Bazaar (a famous market area in the Indian state of Kerala).

For the grand opening of the Mint & Mustard Indian Street Kitchen now firmly, and stylishly, located on the ground floor of this small part of the Keralan state. The throng of invited guests, from far and wide, filled the street-side patio to capacity. Excited chatter about the already well established fine dining restaurant on the upper floor (see our previous blog http://www.wyedeandeliconfidential.co.uk/blog/mint-mustard-opens-in-chepstow/) being the currency of the conversation together with excitement about what this new addition to this very popular and ever growing restaurant will bring.

As you might expect from a Grand Opening, the staff were on top form, with the management present in the form of the very friendly Mint & Mustard owners Ajit Kandoran and Latheesh Kottilil and their Operations Director of Chai Street (the Cardiff based Street Kitchen restaurant), Ankur Baria all on hand and really very charming.

But, although the crowd were enjoying the social side of their invitation to this fab event, the overheard conversations said it all. All of the chatter was about the smells now emanating from the Tandoori, Chat and Dosa stands set up around the restaurant wall inside the patio to represent a Keralan roadside – all eyes were fixed on the activity here. The tandoor blasted heat at anyone who got too close. When the tandoor chef moistened the Seekh kebab and lowered it in you could hear the crowd salivate. Chicken and a glorious paneer tikka followed and the whole marinated fish went in two by two. And like any good roadside food, much of Chepstow’s evening traffic slowed to see what all the fuss was about.

If you were in any doubt that this was about the food, you only had to observe Executive Chef Santhosh Nair for a few moments. His steely overseers’ glare saw everything, and we mean everything that his chefs were doing in preparation for our street inspired feast. His bonhomie was reserved specifically for invited guests and it was great to see an accomplished exec chef communicate with his staff by extra sensory perception alone.

As we walked into the VIP reception a Chaat stand dispensed tangy snacks consisting of crispy dough balls, onion, chickpeas, fresh coriander and yoghurt dressing. These stands (thought to have started in Uttar Pradesh) are now widespread across Indian, Pakistan and Nepal and serve these tasty pick-me-up snacks to workers and weary travellers. A Dosa stand dispensed wafer thin dosa (water and flour pancakes) with a masala sauce and next to that, the tandoor stand with blazing oven driven into the bowels of the earth and those wonderful tikka snacks on long skewers.

A stylish bijou room at the back now decorated in muted subtle tones housed the buffet serving the Master Chef’s lamb special and chicken biryani with the full nine yards of accompaniments for tonight. In operation this will also be a private function room for hire. Boy, we could just see it laid out as a private dining room for a couple of dozen people. The management would also like us to mention that the room (with IT if required) is also available for business hire for meetings etc. We’ve eaten a lot of business buffet food, but we’ll wager here and now, whatever you want that the Mint & Mustard food will top it all.

And there you have it. All fairly predictable for a Mint & Mustard event – top class service, a great and innovative idea delivered with aplomb and (most importantly) the best Indian food for miles!

The idea of Mint & Mustard was borne from a dinner conversation of two hard working doctors, Ajit Kandoran and Latheesh Kottilil, would you believe. Sitting in an Indian restaurant close by their hospital dreaming of the food they used to eat back home in Kerala. Wondering why they couldn’t find it all in the UK led to, just a year later, opening the very first Mint & Mustard in Cardiff. We often talk of passion as the magic ingredient in food and drink and surely it can’t get more passionate than that!

Grand opening of Mint & Mustards INdian Street Kitchen in Chepstow. July 2017

Our exclusive? Keralan Cookery courses coming to Chepstow! The very charming and engaging Latheesh Kottilil told us that it was definitely on the cards for Chepstow’s development. In the crowd we chatted to Dave and Lisa from Newport who had already been on the course in Cardiff. Ten minutes later they stopped telling us how good it was and how fantastic the chefs were and only then because the food was served!

Links

facebook.com/mintandmustard/

Twitter @mintandmustard

www.mintandmustard.com

6th June 2017

Monmouthshire Food Festival – Picture Special

Monmouthshire Food Festival at Caldicot Castle May 2017

A great local food festival which is set only to grow in popularity!

Ever since our last article (read that here) we’ve been really looking forward to this. We checked out the festival on the second day, Sunday, and had a fab time. The sun shone and everything was in place for a great foodie day out in the Welsh sunshine. For the moment, at least, the festival is completely contained with the Caldicot Castle walls which mean that there is a “big reveal” for everyone who crosses the drawbridge. Emerge from the shadows of the barbican through the second gatehouse into the Castle proper and the whole nine yards of food and drink goodness is there for all to see.

So, relax and take a look at the image special from the day and if it’s whetted your appetite then don’t forget that the autumn date is already set for this fab dog friendly event on 14th and 15th October – Don’t miss it.

Adrian Walker Accredited Master Butcher and the only one in Wales! Was on great form to entertain the crowd with a demonstration on preparing a Cote du boeuf. Because chef Tim McDougall had broken his ankle and couldn’t attend (get well soon Tim) Adrian crashed on and cooked it – a bit hit with the crowd in the Chef’s Theatre!

The only thing to worry about is that fantastic event will become too popular for the castle courtyard alone…….