8 minute read
SAVING LIVES BY COOKING
>> Darren’s niche makes an enormous amount of sense, really. We all love inviting friends over for a dinner party, after all, but then we end up stuck in the kitchen preparing, cooking, plating and serving each course… to say nothing of the washing up that ensues the following morning once that nasty hangover is doing its worse.
There must, Darren reasoned, be a better way. How about having a chef create bespoke menus, then prepping each course in his kitchen before coming to your home and setting up your table, then finishing each dish, serving on his own crockery and taking away all of that washing up afterwards?
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“It’s a really great way to make a living from a love of cooking,” says Darren. “I always know how many covers I’m working with, so there’s that predictability and security.”
“But also with a menu pre-agreed – bespoke and designed in conjunction with the client – I don’t have to prepare several choices per course. Instead, I’m able to just concentrate on the one starter dish, the one fish course, the one main course and the one dessert and for a smaller number of diners than a restaurant environment.”
“It gives me more time to concentrate on making those dishes absolutely spectacular. It also means I’m free to include treats and special flourishes like amuse bouches, or predesserts, whatever the client would like.”
“I’m also free of the need to deal with staff (although a waiter is available if the client would like) or the upkeep of a building… all of the stuff that ordinarily takes a chef away from the kitchen.”
“I’m able to complete much of the prep work in my own kitchen prior to my arrival at a client’s house, so there’s less fuss on site, dishes can be served in a timely fashion and I can chat to the guests and introduce them to each dish, if they’d like.”
“It’s pure, unadulterated cooking. And with many of my clients quite knowledgeable when it comes to wine, they can supply their own favourite wine to enjoy.”
Roughly, Darren’s prices range from around £125/head for two diners; £85/head for four diners; £65/head for six diners and he typically caters for an average of six to 12 diners right up to 28. That’s a rough average, naturally, as each menu is bespoke, tailored to a client’s requirements.
Over 150 diners each year certainly saw the benefit and business was brisk until the rule of six, so instead, Darren decided to wait out lockdown by doing something constructive.
“I’ve always considered LIVES a really important charity,” he says. “It’s not the first time I’ve worked with them, having been involved with their Sausage Supper campaign a year or two ago. The idea was to encourage people to host dinner parties online at home, with the good old Lincolnshire sausage featuring prominently on the menu.”
“We hosted online recipe videos for the October campaign, which coincided with the Lincolnshire Sausage Festival, and we invited people to make donations to the charity.”
“It was really popular and they’re a great charity to work with, so when the idea was first put forward to create a cookery book I jumped at the chance, and it was a more convenient time for me given that bookings of dinner parties over six people had diminished.”
The cookery book has 50 pages and features 30 recipes, including some of Darren’s flagship dishes and those the chef has created in collaboration with some of the county’s finest food and drink producers –Alfred Enderby Smokehouse, Lincolnshire Honey, Ulceby’s Poacher Cheese, Hawken’s Gingerbread, Boston Sausage, Uncle Henry’s, Myers, Belvoir Fruit Farms and Stones to name just a few.
“Producing recipes for a book is quite an undertaking,” says Darren. “Chefs tend to measure by eye and naturally know how to combine or prepare ingredients, so putting those into words and turning out readable, common-sense copy with exact measurements and timings is the first challenge.”
“Then there’s the photography. We were really lucky to work with David Harrison Photography, who gave his time and experience to the project free. But the photography is only one part of producing the images as each dish needed to be prepared and styled.”
“We shot the book’s imagery over two Mondays; one in October and one in November. I’ve some really good friends, Natalie and Tom, who run Ashlin Farm Barns, five really beautiful self-catering holiday cottages near Welton. They donated a cottage in which we could prepare and photograph the dishes. I did all of the prep work a day or two before and we worked from 8am to 6pm to photograph them.”
“As I cooked and David photographed the dishes, Epix Media were on hand to support as they worked on design. The LIVES Fundraising Team project managed the book to ensure we could have the book ready for sale at Christmas.”
“It was quite a challenge to create an entire book in such a short space of time but we’re all so proud of the result. It’s bright and beautiful, with the kind of recipes that really shout about what great food and drink we have in the county, and it enables everyone to enjoy cooking some really amazing dishes. There are some more technically challenging dishes but most of them are accessible, and all of them are incredibly rewarding.”
“My favourite dish, personally, is a beef blade dish which was contributed by Doddington Hall and features ingredients from the estate. Even I was massively impressed with the taste, it’s a huge dish in terms of its flavour, I really love it!” n
HELP SAVE LIVES WITH OUR RURAL CHARITY More about LIVES
LIVES is a vital Lincolnshire Emergency First Response charity, that attends 999 medical emergencies around the county.
Their volunteer army of 700 First Responders and Medics are based within local Lincolnshire communities, meaning they are able to get to the scene of a 999 medical emergency in minutes, arriving before the ambulance 81% of the time.
As a charity, they need essential funding to keep volunteers on the road and ensure that they have the training and equipment to respond.
LIVES Responders attend over 14,000 incidents a year, from road traffic collisions to cardiac arrests, and ensure your loved ones receive treatment when they desperately need it.
They need over £1.4million a year to ensure they can keep this service running.
The charity’s cookbook has been created to raise money for the lifesaving work of Lincolnshire Emergency Response charity, LIVES.
All profits from the sale of this cookbook will support the vital work of LIVES. You can purchase the book from the charity’s website where you’ll also find information about the charity’s 50 year history. n
See www.lives.org.uk or call 01507 525 999.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL
This year, spring isn’t just a time for new growth in your garden, it’s also a chance for the hospitality industry to put a devastating year behind it. Here, landlord and chef Tom Kerridge reveals why supporting your local pub, restaurant or hotel is more important than ever before...
Words: Rob Davis.
THE NEW YEAR is usually a pretty flat time for the hospitality industry. We’re stuffed from Christmas, all spent up, and determined to follow a new year’s resolution to eat more healthily, cut down on booze or lose weight... and those are hardly conditions which are music to the ears of publicans and chefs.
But this year is different. Worse. Much worse. And that’s why it’s incumbent on us all to support our local pubs, restaurants, coffee shops and hotels to ensure they can claw back some of the lost ground from a miserable 2020.
“Pubs are the living rooms of the whole community,” says Tom Kerridge. “They are spaces where people connect, they get rid of loneliness. People connect in pubs and restaurants.”
“They’re so important particularly at times like these. And now, there are so many places that are losing money hand over fist.
“Places that were close to breaking even, or just making a very small profit, pre-lockdown, now being locked down and coming out the other side, the profit margins are just not there to be able to repay any loans, let alone break even or make any money.” 44 The hospitality industry accounts for 10% of UK employment, 6% of businesses and 5% of GDP. It’s is the third largest private sector employer in the UK after retail and social work – double the size of financial services and bigger than automotive, pharmaceuticals and aerospace sectors combined.
It creates £130bn in economic activity and generates £38bn of tax receipts for the Exchequer, funding vital services whilst employing 2,900,000 people.
The message, then is not only simple, but it’s also not that unpleasant to follow. This month and in the months that follow, it’s imperative that we dine out, drink up, and support as many local independent pubs, restaurants and coffee shops as possible.
“If we don’t use those pubs, restaurants and coffee shops, they won’t be there in the future. If you don’t just call in for a couple of drinks or just a coffee and a slice of cake every now and then, or for that Friday night meal, that pub’s not going to be there. They need your help to survive, please support your local!”
n Over the page we’ve selected a few of our favourite Lincolnshire venues as a reminder of what they have to offer their customers this season. Meanwhile Tom’s series Saving Britain’s Pubs, is on BBC iPlayer now.
