Anoth­er Gath­er­ing in May: this time Ilfracombe!

It’s that time of year again…

The Gath­er­ing of Nuts in May, that annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of glut­tony – or gas­tron­o­my, as my Nuts and I choose to think of it – shared by a half dozen or so aspir­ing food writ­ers, reunit­ed every May after our 2008 adven­ture with the Arvon Foun­da­tion, at Totleigh Bar­ton, a pre-Domes­day white­washed house in the wilds of Devon.

Who would ever have pre­dict­ed that we six, sur­vivors of the orig­i­nal 15 writ­ers who gath­ered in the wilds of Devon sev­en years ago, for five days of instruc­tion by our tutors (some of it painful­ly, even bru­tal­ly hon­est!).  Oh, the hours we spent hon­ing our craft.

What hap­py mem­o­ries we all have of our shared exper­i­ments in learn­ing, writ­ing, read­ing, read­ing aloud what we’d writ­ten, in an ancient Eng­lish barn.

Fun­ni­ly enough, the least of our adven­ture back then was in the eat­ing!  Arvon arranges for its stu­dents to cook togeth­er every evening, in teams, but lit­tle did we know that for a week­end every May ever since, those diehards among us would even­tu­al­ly think of vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing BUT cook­ing, for the sev­er­al days we spend togeth­er.  Our mem­o­ries of our first meet­ing are bright, if fuzzy.

At our reunions, we are unabashed­ly obsessed with food.  There’s the shop­ping.  And the eat­ing. And the talk­ing about shop­ping and cook­ing and eat­ing. We none of us fin­ish a meal with­out instant­ly talk­ing about where the next one is com­ing from, what it will be, who will cook it. It’s a recipe for intense bore­dom for most peo­ple I know – includ­ing my long-suf­fer­ing fam­i­ly! – but for we six, it’s heav­en. Kris­ten, Rosie, Sam, Susan, Pauline and Katie: the GNIM.

And for the last sev­er­al years, we’ve been joined by one of our orig­i­nal tutors, the divine Orlan­do, such a staunch sup­port­er of all our work from Day One, gen­er­ous writer of one of the “blurbs” on my cook­book flap, cook extra­or­di­naire and writer to match.  Even with a flower behind his ear.

This year, Orlan­do offered to pick me up at the train sta­tion clos­est to our des­ti­na­tion – a tru­ly remark­able house found by our Susan, in Ilfra­combe, coastal Devon. This sort of favor isn’t real­ly prop­er­ly appre­ci­at­ed until I tell you what bur­dens I labored under. Because the Fri­day night plan, on our pre­cious week­ends, is for me to bring the sup­per and Rosie to bring the pud­ding, I had with me a large crust­less tart con­tain­ing a wealth of white crab meat and lash­ings of cream and goat cheese, plus a plas­tic box of del­i­cate pota­to sal­ad, made with new Jer­sey Roy­als just dug out of the ground. Not by me, of course, but fresh nonethe­less. So it was most wel­come when Orlando’s car pulled up at the local train sta­tion and we motored on over to the coast.

This was our view from the sit­ting room of The Round House, which was just what it said on the tin.

Built on a dare from one archi­tect to anoth­er, The Round House is tru­ly round. Curved everywhere.

Inside, it’s large enough that its round­ness isn’t imme­di­ate­ly notice­able, espe­cial­ly in the spa­cious sit­ting room, fur­nished like the very best Edwar­dian retreat.

We were aston­ished at the sheer wealth of THINGS that the own­ers left behind, so vul­ner­a­ble to the aver­age renter.

Fur­ni­ture sim­ply over­flow­ing with pre­cious things.

Some verged on the creepy, in an entire­ly charm­ing way.

Rosie, Susan and Pauline greet­ed us and began to give us a tour, but before we could prop­er­ly set­tle in, of course, pro­vi­sions of a lav­ish nature had to be delivered.

Oh, the but­ter, the cream, the eggs, bacon, olive oil, lemons and limes, gar­lic and onions, bread, mar­malade, cof­fee. The basics, so that we could focus our con­sid­er­able food-gath­er­ing tal­ents on the Stars of the Show each meal: the fresh meats and veg­eta­bles bought local­ly, for the max­i­mum in fun.

Rooms were appor­tioned, lug­gage stowed, hands washed, and Orlan­do and I set out on a voy­age of dis­cov­ery in the near­by town of Ilfra­combe, pro­nounced “coom.” Here we searched in vain for a wine shop, armed with Orlando’s phone video of Rosie’s describ­ing pre­cise­ly the type of cider she would most like to drink. We played this video for the young woman behind the till in the shop that final­ly yield­ed up the cider. “You can see that this is not a woman to be tri­fled with,” Orlan­do explained. The young woman backed away from us. “I think she was tap­ping her foot on some sort of pan­ic but­ton, there at the end,” he haz­ard­ed. “We might just have crossed that bor­der from friend­ly to frightening.”

Ilfra­combe itself was a lit­tle… odd. A bit of a town that time for­got, with all unique and rather tired, dusty shops con­tain­ing a pletho­ra of odd items.

More on the town lat­er, as it was time to set­tle in at The Round House.

As the after­noon came to a close, up drove the gor­geous Sam, still in his work clothes and extreme­ly glad to have left his stu­dents behind for the long weekend.

Orlan­do and Sam have a unique bond, forged in years gone by in the hot kitchens of Orlando’s lux­u­ry hotel.

Every­one feels bet­ter after the first hug from Rosie.

And then came our beau­ti­ful, calm Katie, fresh from the rig­ors of the Britvic inven­tion labs.

“Roomie!” she cried, arms around me. We always room togeth­er, even if we don’t stay up half the night as we used to do, younger selves who didn’t know each oth­er quite well enough.

And it was time to pour drinks, catch up with everyone’s news. Rosie has had a spell of feel­ing poor­ly and I think we all shared the sense of frag­ile relief that she is well, and with us for the cel­e­bra­to­ry week­end. She looked over the plans of Pot­ters Fields with Orlan­do, dis­cussing the kitchen, of course.

We munched on a selec­tion of cured meats, a treat I would nev­er nor­mal­ly think to buy, but so deli­cious, in the way that only some­thing so pure­ly fat­ty can be. The plat­ter rest­ed near a cer­tain cook­book that every­one was tru­ly love­ly about: the cul­mi­na­tion of the project that, when we first met near­ly eight years ago, was but a dream, the rea­son for my turn­ing up at the food writ­ers’ course.

Susan brought out her super sur­prise: one of the new dec­o­rat­ed cakes in the Marks and Spencer line she’s been proud­ly work­ing on.

Per­son­alised for us!

We trooped into the elab­o­rate din­ing room for our inau­gur­al sup­per. I brought along a spe­cial lit­tle touch.

We great­ly enjoyed the crab tart.

But is it a tart, if it’s crust­less? We dis­cussed this with the lev­el of detail that only sev­en such insane peo­ple can bring to a top­ic. “Strict­ly speak­ing, a tart does imply pas­try,” was the gen­er­al con­sen­sus. “It could be a frit­ta­ta,” I said, “except that it doesn’t start on the stove­top.” “How about a quiche?” “That’s real­ly a spe­cif­ic term for a type of tart from East­ern France,” Orlan­do clar­i­fied. “A tar­tine?” All very absorb­ing conversation.

We ate it all.

The pota­to sal­ad came under sim­i­lar scruti­ny for the lev­el of may­on­naise-y-ness. “I don’t real­ly think there’s enough mayo,” I apol­o­gized, “but I left some home for Avery and she real­ly hates glop­py pota­to sal­ad.” “It may have soaked up some in the jour­ney,” was sug­gest­ed, and the gen­er­al feel­ing was that any defi­cien­cy in the mayo was made up for by the del­i­ca­cy of the pota­toes and the zing of lemon grass.

Then Rosie brought in her divine choco­late mousse, the absolute star of the dessert sec­tion of my cook­book. Where I serve mine in a cham­pagne coupe, she serves hers in a gor­geous loaf, topped with bis­cuits and accom­pa­nied by lux­u­ri­ous shots of Amaretto.

We lay becalmed on the liv­ing room rug, talk­ing and talk­ing over each oth­er until the prospect of a good night’s sleep beckoned.

Next morn­ing found us fret­ting that the Duchess of Cam­bridge had gone into labor. We assuaged our anx­i­ety with huge num­bers of poached eggs (a pot of sim­mer­ing water remained on the stove­top for the dura­tion of break­fast, grow­ing pro­gres­sive­ly cloudi­er as eggs of var­i­ous lev­els of pro­fi­cien­cy were popped in and scooped out. Orlan­do was the king of poach­ing, every­one turn­ing out per­fect­ly. Bacon and juicy sausages, fried mush­rooms and toma­toes, bread of every descrip­tion toast­ed and slathered with but­ter and jam.  And there were Orlan­do’s incom­pa­ra­ble brownies.

Orlan­do’s ‘After-Din­ner’ Brown­ies (from his “A Table in the Tarn: Liv­ing, Eat­ing and Cook­ing in South-west France”)

(makes about 36 small brownies)

85g/6.5 ounces unsalt­ed butter

285g/10 ounces dark choco­late, bro­ken up into small bits

85g/3 ounces plain flour

40g/1.5 ounces cocoa

pinch salt

100g/3.5 ounces wal­nuts or pecans, cut in pieces and toast­ed light­ly in a fry­ing pan

3 large eggs

275g/9.75 ounces caster/granulated sugar

“Car­na­tion” tinned caramel sauce for drizzling

Melt the but­ter with the 185g choco­late (that por­tion that’s been bro­ken up), either over hot water or in the microwave (about 2 min­utes on high).

Sift the flour, cocoa and a pinch of salt into a bowl, then add the nuts.  Keep the sieve con­ve­nient­ly to hand.

Whisk the eggs and sug­ar togeth­er, using a stand mix­er or elec­tric whisk, for 3–8 min­utes (depend­ing on how pow­er­ful your mix­er is) until thick and foamy.  When you lift out the beat­ers, the egg should leave a short-lived trail on the sur­face of the mix­ture rather than sink straight into it.

Pour the choco­late mix­ture over the sur­face of the egg mix­ture, then gen­tly fold in with a large spat­u­la until even­ly mixed.  Now sift over the flour-cocoa mix­ture and start to fold this in.  Before it is ful­ly amal­ga­mat­ed, tip in the remain­ing choco­late that you’ve left in small squares.  Con­tin­ue fold­ing, stop­ping just before the flour is ful­ly mixed (you should spot some flecks of unmixed flour — trust me, this is correct).

Bake in a 20cm/8‑inch square tin at 180C/350F for 22–30 min­utes until the cake no longer wob­bles in the mid­dle and the sides are just begin­ning to come away from the tin.  A tooth­pick or skew­er insert­ed into the cen­tre of the cake should emerge with sticky crumbs attached (unless you acci­den­tal­ly speared a piece of choco­late in which case try again.

[Orlan­do assures me pri­vate­ly — and now you know — of a cou­ple of secrets.  “You must get the egg-sug­ar mix­ture tru­ly mousse-like. Fold in the choc mix and flour gen­tly, stop mix­ing while there are still light traces of flour evi­dent. And as always, under­bake, and as Katharine Hep­burn said, ‘Nev­er add too much flour to your brownies.‘”]

**********

Dish­es done, it was time to begin the jour­ney into town for lunch! To be fair, we also intend­ed to shop for the evening’s “pro­tein” and veg­eta­bles. Pauline, Katie and I set off on foot. Oh, the love­ly Devon architecture.

And unpar­al­leled flo­ral dis­plays, set into the rather tired, old-fash­ioned hotel and guest­house lawns.

Ilfra­combe. How to describe it? For a sea­side resort, on a Bank Hol­i­day week­end, it seemed odd­ly mut­ed and cer­tain­ly not flashy or full of itself. The nar­row pave­ments (what the British call side­walks) were chock-a-block with locals car­ry­ing chil­dren, doing their week­end shop, talk­ing in an accent that I found tru­ly chal­leng­ing unless the per­son was talk­ing direct­ly to me. The local Green Par­ty occu­pied space out­side one shop, extolling their virtues for the upcom­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion on Thurs­day. Sam succumbed.

We acquired a gor­geous slab of pork bel­ly and a cou­ple of roast­ing chick­ens from a sim­ply fan­tas­tic butch­er, Mike Tur­ton, since 1855.

Food always tastes bet­ter if the pur­vey­or has a sense of humor.

Susan always achieves the very best bargains.

“It’s a GIRL!” Orlan­do announced sud­den­ly, his first and last show of inter­est in the new Roy­al Baby, and talk of baby names occu­pied us for the dura­tion of our shop­ping trip. Oh, the shops.  One seemed to have a rather low bar for mer­can­tile appeal.

We all tried to imag­ine what this emp­ty shop might once have offered.

This bak­ery seemed pos­i­tive­ly steeped in the past, with pas­tries named things like “Japs.”

This restau­rant… not sure what to say about its menu.

We heard tell of a Farmer’s Market.

“We should go quick­ly, in case they sell out ear­ly,” Pauline advised, so we began what devolved into the Ilfra­combe Mar­ket Death March, up one street and down anoth­er, search­ing in vain for a clue to the market’s loca­tion. Locals were quizzed, and their patent igno­rance tak­en to be a bad sign. “How much of a mar­ket can it be if no one knows about it?” We enter­tained our­selves dur­ing this Quixot­ic trek with the shop names and often hand-paint­ed signs. Final­ly we began walk­ing up a hill so steep our noses were prac­ti­cal­ly on the pave­ment, in search of the church alleged­ly con­tain­ing the market.

In light of the new Roy­al Arrival, we felt this street sign to be fortuitous.

And there was the church! In we trooped, in hot antic­i­pa­tion, our eyes adjust­ing to a tru­ly extra­or­di­nary gloom inside. I wish I had tak­en pic­tures, the scene was so odd, but we were already attract­ing such atten­tion as obvi­ous “Lon­don­ers” that I felt inhib­it­ed. Oh, the sad dis­plays of a few scones. ‘I’ve sold out of most,” the sell­er assured us proud­ly. Hmm. One sin­gle sweater for sale, accom­pa­nied by a ran­dom pile of yarn that could pos­si­bly pro­duce anoth­er. Under a sign say­ing, “Organ­ic Meat,” a Sty­ro­foam box con­tain­ing three frozen lamb chops. And most bizarrely, a girl with a dis­tinct Amer­i­can accent stand­ing behind a table with four box­es of local eggs.

“I have to ask: where are you from and what are you doing here?” I won­dered. “I’m from Cal­i­for­nia, and I’m here on a sheep-farm­ing intern­ship.” She must have felt she had land­ed on Mars. All around in the air hung the silence of the sell­ers all scru­ti­niz­ing us open­ly, while 1940s music played from an invis­i­ble Vic­tro­la. We left.

And then it was time to walk down the long, LONG steep hill again, to achieve the seaside.

We bought fudge and Ilfra­combe rock, that unique and fun­ny British sea­side can­dy with the name of the local­i­ty built into the long stick.

We claimed two slight­ly sticky tables at a fishy pub, The Pier, that spoke clear­ly of sun­ny sum­mer days full of tourists.

On our grey, windy, rather damp Sat­ur­day in May, it felt a bit out of place. But the fried cod was divine.

The local cider was not to be despised.

It was a love­ly lunch.

We inves­ti­gat­ed the bizarre and mas­sive sculp­ture, “Ver­i­ty” by Damien Hirst, at the end of the pier.  Unsur­pris­ing­ly, it is report­ed that she’s divid­ed the town.  “She’s stand­ing on a pile of law books,” Pauline report­ed in some astonishment.

Noth­ing, after all, says law and order like a preg­nant naked lady hold­ing scales with half the skin on her bel­ly pulled off.

Sam and Orlan­do drove Rosie and Susan home, while Katie, Pauline and I decid­ed to give the town a bit more time.   We walked in a driz­zly wind around the more touristy parts, near the sea (“NOT an ocean,” Orlan­do cor­rect­ed me more than once. To a land­locked Mid­west­ern­er, all water is an ocean.)  I was remind­ed that Eng­lish is, in fact, a for­eign lan­guage.  I was hap­py to have trans­la­tors.  “What’s a knicker­bock­er glo­ry?” I asked. “A huge ice cream,” Katie said. “How about a saveloy?” “A giant red sausage,” she explained. “With bat­ter?  Deep-fried?” Pauline won­dered. We did not know.

“What’s the dif­fer­ence between a Cor­nish cream tea and a Devon cream tea?” we all won­dered, and a love­ly young cou­ple, offer­ing sam­ples of just such treats, answered. “A Cor­nish cream tea has the jam first, then the cream. A Devon cream tea has the clot­ted cream spread on the scone first, then the jam. And that’s what you’ve got there.”

We walked home slow­ly, paus­ing in the grave­yard of the church on our way. I came upon my first knit­ted pop­pies, a fine Eng­lish tradition.

Did you know there is a British activist group who knits GRAF­FI­TI?  “Yarn­bomb­ing, or yarn­storm­ing,” it is known as.  What a typ­i­cal­ly clever, sub­ver­sive, sub­tle, many-lay­ered way that this coun­try finds to express itself.

We approached the church.

“I emailed them to ask if I could ring with them,” I said, “but no one ever replied. Just then, as if sum­moned by my words, the bells began to ring!

As I was explain­ing “Devon call changes” to Pauline and Katie who prob­a­bly had absolute­ly no inter­est, a bride and groom emerged from the church door!

The charm of this encounter got us up the incred­i­bly stiff hill that await­ed us at the end of the walk home.  I tried to cap­ture the steep­ness, but I can see now that I did not suc­ceed.  But it was a love­ly path.

We were so glad to arrive home, panting!

We took a tour of the incred­i­ble, award-win­ning gar­dens that sur­round The Round House. Orlan­do and Rosie between them knew all the names of the plants and flowers.

Know­ing less than noth­ing about grow­ing things, I con­cen­trat­ed on the gar­den decorations.

Water fea­tures abounded.

What would an Eng­lish gar­den be with­out a gnome?

The flow­ers WERE lovely.

But the peo­ple were lovelier.

We posed, elab­o­rate­ly and repet­i­tive­ly, for our annu­al pho­to. Sam turned on the timer and raced back to us. “I’ve cut my head off!”

Sam is the best lit­tle broth­er I nev­er had.

As our pork bel­ly cooked slow­ly on its bed of car­rots, cel­ery, gar­lic and rose­mary, Jer­sey Roy­al pota­toes boiled mer­ri­ly, my beet­roots cook­ing in their foil wrap­pings, and Pauline’s cumin-dust­ed cau­li­flower roast­ed, we sat up in the rotun­da of The Round House and chat­ted, cock­tails in hand.

Susan and Orlan­do dis­cussed, from their var­i­ous van­tage points of a nurs­ing stint and a grow­ing-up spent there, the Island of Jer­sey, one of the Chan­nel Islands, and home to a tru­ly hor­ri­fy­ing-sound­ing muse­um, the Jer­sey War Tun­nels, chron­i­cling the treat­ment of the Russ­ian slaves by their Ger­man captors.

Rosie regaled us with sto­ries of her teenage years spent work­ing in retail at Har­rods, back in the day when the store closed at noon on Sat­ur­days for the dura­tion of the week­end and store employ­ees took pets home from the famed Pet Shop, to look after them dur­ing the off-hours. “Of course in those days,’ Rosie recount­ed dream­i­ly, “you could order a lion, or a zebra, from the Pet Shop at Har­rods.” And the employ­ee who, upon retire­ment, sim­ply moved him­self and var­i­ous items from the beau­ti­ful Har­rods col­lec­tions into the tun­nels under­ground where inven­to­ry was stored! He was dis­cov­ered years lat­er, only because the pup­py he’d “bor­rowed” from the Pet Shop was whin­ing! We all think she should write down her mem­o­ries and make a mint.

Din­ner was superb, of course, fra­grant with the sticky aro­ma of rose­mary-scent­ed pork and the lit­tle pota­toes tossed with lash­ings of but­ter and chopped pars­ley. And cumin and cau­li­flower? A match made in heav­en. What a fes­tive evening.

In hon­or of the Roy­al Princess, Rosie served her Pink Marsh­mal­low School Pud­ding, a favorite of her daughter’s from child­hood. It was strange­ly wonderful.

The mam­moth task of clean­ing up the kitchen was enlivened by the window’s threat to come off its hinges. Thank good­ness for two strong men.

To bed with visions of pork bel­ly danc­ing in my head…

And of course first thing in the morn­ing, Sam set the two lit­tle chick­ens to roast­ing, and a rich risot­to of car­rot to sim­mer­ing. We watched the very lim­it­ed but still addic­tive cov­er­age of the Roy­al Princess’s arrival, and pored over the news­pa­pers that Orlan­do had kind­ly brought back for “you females.”

“I have nev­er in my LIFE heard such oohing and gur­gling and blooey hooey [incom­pre­hen­si­ble male imi­ta­tions of female blither­ing] as is com­ing from you females at this moment!”

She is a very cute baby, now known to all of course as Char­lotte Eliz­a­beth Diana (sure­ly the ulti­mate in clever com­pro­mis­es that ever a baby name was), Her High­ness Princess Char­lotte of Cam­bridge. How lovely.

Orlan­do and Sam con­coct­ed the risotto.

 

I was allowed to grate the cheese, to the accom­pa­ni­ment of Orlando’s exper­i­ment­ing with var­i­ous Devon-ish pro­nun­ci­a­tions of “but­ter­rrr” and “Par­rrrme­san” in what we took to be the local accent, from our adven­tures in Ilfra­combe the day before.

We sat down – I with scant appetite, since I’d already some­how eat­en all four roast­ed chick­en wings, but mas­sive enthu­si­asm — for our chick­en risot­to lunch.

At this lun­cheon, fur­ther dis­cus­sion ensued about the dif­fer­ences between Eng­lish and Amer­i­can. “Why do you say ‘hotch­potch’ and we say “hodge­podge’?” I won­dered. “And why do you say ‘tit­bit’ and we say “tid­bit’? Prob­a­bly because Amer­i­cans can’t say any­thing to do with ‘tit’ with­out laugh­ing.” Orlan­do scold­ed me sev­er­al for – I think the term was – “nos­ing” the choco­late mousse. That is, I sliced off the cor­ner of the loaf, to give myself the tiny por­tion I want­ed, just a taste. “That is com­plete­ly unac­cept­able, espe­cial­ly in France, to do to a cheese, espe­cial­ly. The prop­er treat­ment is to take a por­tion that leaves the orig­i­nal serv­ing in the same SHAPE, just a small­er size.” I think I was sim­i­lar­ly tak­en to task about this years ago by my friend Vin­cent, on exact­ly the sub­ject of cheese, so I had bet­ter take note.

And it was time to go home. As usu­al far too soon, it was time to leave my glo­ri­ous friends who nev­er tire of talk­ing about food, who match me in my end­less enthu­si­asm for dis­cussing recipes and meth­ods, choic­es and menus. And above all, who strike such an unusu­al note of friend­ship: sev­en peo­ple who look for­ward all year long to just a few days togeth­er — warmth, hon­esty, inspi­ra­tion, laugh­ter, intel­li­gence, and culi­nary delights.

I sat in the dar­ling lit­tle train from Barn­sta­ple, watch­ing the gor­geous Devon coun­try­side speed by, think­ing of the fun we had had.

 

Until GNIM 2016…