I’ve read Eat Love Pray and pretended to hate it (but there is nothing not to like about stuffing your face with pizza in Naples); I got addicted to Carol Drinkwater renovating an impossible house in the south of France and I’ve read Chris Stewart’s Driving Over Lemons (the follow up wasn’t as good). I’ve even had a go at some D.H. Lawrence in Italy and had a dose of realism from Tim Parks and Peter Robb. But the romance still lingers: a long table in an overgrown garden behind an old Tuscan farmhouse, sea in the distance, jugs of local wine on table filled end to end with family and friends.
Interview with chef Emily Scott
photo by David Griffen
The world of food is undoubtedly a male-dominated one. I say this not as a feminist but simply as a matter of fact. I wrote a piece on the Great British Menu 2012 in which it was noted that only one out of the 24 contestants was female. In an interview last year, Angela Hartnett described how she had to prove to Gordon Ramsay in her early days that, “I could last in the kitchen like men could.”
2011: A year of saffronbunny in pictures
To send out the old and ring in the new, here is a selection of photos from 2011, the very first Year In The Life Of saffronbunny:
Reviewing Nathan Outlaw’s masterclass with Tom Kerridge. (photo by David Griffen)
The best. Massage. Ever. Goldeneye resort in Jamaica.
Running into the sea with wooden toys – a revelation in water (photograph by John Isaac).
Learning to be a preserving goddess with Pam Corbin and Liz Neville.
A coiled ray wing with confit duck skin for lunch at Paul Ainsworth‘s Number 6 in Padstow for BBC Olive mag.
The multi-talented co-founder of The Tea Appreciation Society, Shayne House.
The first ever Clandestine Cake Club in Cornwall.
Two inspirational food friends: Joanne Schofield and Sanjay Kumar.
Discovering The Wheelhouse, Falmouth with MM of the GCG.
Chris Ranger and the March Oyster Gathering at Mylor.
Meeting and interviewing Philip Stansfield who won the world’s best cheese in November 2010 (spot Alex James in the background looking excited).
Bubbles and booze at BinTwo, Padstow.
Cooking with Paul Ainsworth.
My first ever focaccia waiting to go in the oven, a day of many firsts with yeast, baker Tom and Gastrogeek.
Crab apples at Tresillian House.
Meeting the moon gardener and guru John Harris at Tresillian House, an inspiration (photo byJohn Such).
The importance of foraging, especially for nettles.
Cooking and eating en plein air, doesn’t get much better.
Loving life in Cornwall (photo by John Such).
Foraging feast at the Porthminster café
Last week saw me sitting down to blinding sun and a ‘sunglassed’ lunching companion overlooking St Ives’ Porthminster beach. Memories of camping just outside the town with university friends, living on a shoestring but managing to indulge in spider crab, white wine and cream teas (not all together of course) came flooding back. Read More
Baker Tom Baker Tom, bake me some bread
The story of Baker Tom isn’t unlike a comforting nursery rhyme. After a gap year in India, Tom came back to the UK and started working in a farm shop. One day, this little farm shop couldn’t find a bread supplier. Tom went home, baked four loaves, and biked the bread back to the farm shop. The bread sold out, Tom got on his bike and baked more, the bread sold out again and again and the farm shop, Tom, his bike and his bread all lived happily ever after. Until, that is, the bread got too big for Tom. It grew and it grew but it didn’t blow this man down. He biked the bread to not one, but two farm shops and got his own kitchen. Then one day, disaster struck: Tom was run over. But he picked himself up, blood wounds and all and still delivered his bread.
He saved up and he bought a van and moved into his own bakery, the size of a garage. But the bread, it grew and it grew and Tom moved to another bakery with a shop and the customers they came by word of mouth and loyalty to the magic of his kneading hands. Like a beanstalk on yeast it grew still and Tom made a final move to Pool, near Redruth, opening bakeries in Truro and Falmouth.
Our floury legend celebrates three years of baking delectable bread this December, serving customers such as Fifteen Cornwall Watergate Bay Hotel, Riverford and Trevaskis Farm. According to him, “it just happened.” His dad is a chef and Tom has always baked. As he sits down to chat in a café above his bakery in Lemon St Market, Truro, a discerning palette is evident:
“Do you want apple juice? I’ll get a sour one, there’s nothing worse than sweet apple juice.”
He accepts that he has always been “quite a foodie at heart” as he sips his coffee, remarking that it’s bitter. But despite the sophisticated palette that is responsible for the variety of breads in his bakeries, from sweet potato and roasted pumpkin seeds to carrot, mustard and thyme, he admits to a few foodie weaknesses: cheap fried bread and occasional “dirty” chicken from the supermarket. But for me, such weaknesses make us all better tasters, less hypocritical and more open-minded.
The buzz of bread making for Tom is “putting it into the oven. You don’t know what it’ll do.” If the loaf is slightly charred, all the better, he explains, as “it gives character, feeling and personality.” And in these days of mass-produced breads that collapse into a soggy mass at the slightest hint of personality thanks to the infamous Chorleywood Bread Process of 1961, personality and character is what lifts Baker Tom’s bread up, up and away above any supermarket counterfeit.
Fluffy white floury clouds aside, he makes it clear that “we’re here to serve the customers” and Tom’s next mission is to take on the supermarkets by developing a non-organic, everyday white loaf, which will use oils to keep it moist and non-organic Shipton Mill flour to bring the price down. In a time of belt-tightening and re-assessment of organic foodstuffs, he is certainly tapping into customer needs and current trends. “There’s no fancying around, we produce good, wholesome food, done properly, not covered in icing with a cherry on top, which gripes me.”
His down-to-earth pragmatism and love of bread drives the business like the best sourdough starter culture and it is hard not to be infected by his enthusiasm. After cooking with him at the Bedruthan Steps Hotel bread-making course, he kept reiterating that ‘it’s impossible to go wrong with bread’ and inspired us all to make foccacia, ciabatta, bagels, sourdough and more to such a high standard that it was hard to believe I’d never done it before. The apprentices from Fifteen Cornwall are placed in his capable hands as part of their training and he aims to train up everyone who sells his bread in the art of bread-making so that they can talk about each product with expertise.
The moment is now to get in on the bread revolution: make some bread with Tom or simply buy some from one of his bakeries to understand just what Michel Roux was on about the other night on the telly in the Great British Food Revival. Let’s get back to basics and experience the true fairytale magic of yeast, flour, water and salt. It’ll end happily, I promise.
For more information on Tom’s courses at Bedruthan Steps, go to www.bedruthan.com/breaks. Visit Tom’s bakeries in Lemon St Market, Truro or 10b Church St, Falmouth or visit www.bakertom.co.uk
Saffronbunny 