Two years after walking away from the Quarryman’s things couldn’t be looking rosier for us, we’ve had a stream of really positive trip advisor reviews (no we don’t please all the people all the time, but we try) a great write up in Devon Life magazine, Paul was absolutely bowled over with it and a great review on, standard issue magazine, “a smart and witty online magazine for women by women” but with an appeal to men, they do like to know what we’re up to and talking about.
The first bank holiday of the year saw glorious weather and a major
influx of visitors to the area, hampers were raffled, eggs for the children,
extra football games played, a few pink bodies and great to meet some real characters,
all in all Easter was amazing and things haven’t let up since.
Since my last ramblings we have been lucky enough to take on a new chef
to enable me to go “ front of house “ a bit more, to help train and encourage
the young staff we now have. So a massive welcome to Tom, we do hope you enjoy
your time with us, and by the looks of things he has a little fan club that
have all come to see how he’s doing, new converts for The Swan maybe?
I must say that I have had a week of feeling extremely miffed, some of
the afore mentioned reviews and comments from customers whilst being front of
house have driven me crazy. (feeling slightly invisible) Occasionally I forget
that the catering industry is a male dominated world (some years ago applying
for a chefs job, I was offered a waitress position, because there were only men
in the kitchen!!! What did they think I was going to do to them?) But the recent fawning over Paul (yes
he is pretty amazing, but don’t tell him I said so) and everything that he does
that is so amazing, they forget that its most definitely a team effort, no one
person could possibly do all the prep work and cooking in the kitchen, as well
as all the other things related to running a business, bills to pay, cleaning, potting
the plants, decorating, rotas, ordering, the list is endless, Jamie and Gordon
aren’t cooking in all of their 100s of restaurants every night. Rant over.
Next week sees us hosting our first ever ‘Devon Chefs Club” dinner, the
menu has been changed more than a few times and Paul and I are very excited
about it, through the power of Twitter and Facebook the numbers are growing and
there is much interest, I’ll report back next month. Along side this Paul has
been asked to cook with Michael Caines and Mark Dodson from The Masons Arms for
a Trencherman’s Dinner at Kentisbury Grange next month, exciting times indeed.
We have now entered an exciting time for food, lovely English fruit is
appearing, great veg is more readily available and as the waters calm fish is
becoming much more available and more reasonably priced.
Donnas’ Quick and Easy Hollandaise Sauce(the cheats way)
2 Egg yolks
8oz Butter
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp vinegar
Salt and pepper
1 . Place egg yolks,
mustard, vinegar and seasoning in to a bar blender or food processor
2 . Melt butter in
microwave or in a pan, just melted, be careful not to burn
3 . Set mixer on
highest setting and gently and slowly add the butter
4 . You should end up
with a beautiful creamy sauce
Should the sauce split or be to thick, take half out
of the blender, add a couple of spoonfuls of boiling water whilst mixing on
full setting, then add the rest of the mix.
This recipe has served me well over the years and is
a long way away from the time consuming and arm breaking way we learned at
college, add what you like to this or grill on top of a dish, enjoy
