Bake Off star is Prue to form

David and Ione, owners of Salamander Cookshop, had a very special guest visitor in February - chef, restauranteur and presenter of the Great British Bake Off Dame Prue Leith.

She called into the shop with her husband John, prior to her one-person show at the Lighthouse in Poole.

She loved the shop and said: “What a lovely shop. Full of tempting, if not irresistible, stuff for a cook.

“All great quality too. And at reasonable prices.”

Prue has just started her 30-date tour culminating in a show at the London Palladium on April 6.

David added: “At 82 Prue certainly is a role model to us all.

“We really enjoyed her show and hearing everything about her early days running a catering business in London, her famous restaurant and cookery school and, of course, stories about working on Bake Off.”

David and Ione also met Dorset’s Maggie Richardson again at the event. Maggie was one of the contestants in the 2021 Bake Off

Salamander is also hosting two events in April, firstly there is a repeat of their popular Wimborne Food Walk on Tuesday, April 4. This time as it is during the Easter holiday children are welcome too. For details and to purchase tickets call into the shop or contact Salamander via the website salamandercookshop.com.

Food & Drink Ham, bam and thank you pann!

Foodies have favoured this local delicacy for hundreds of years.

But now that New Forest Pannage Ham has been successfully registered under a new government scheme, producers will be hoping that word of the unique foodstuff spreads fast.

Pannage Ham comes from the pigs which are released in the forest every autumn to eat up excess acorns, which can poison the New Forest ponies. Acorns give the pork a distinct, nutty flavour which is much prized by epicureans. The meat is darker in colour than pork from pigs that have not been fed this way and is air dried to preserve and accentuate the taste.

The ham has been recognised by the government’s Geographical Indication scheme, a form of intellectual property protection which specifies a product and links them to a place or a tradition. It means the Pannage ham will have the same status as Welsh Leeks and Melton Mowbray pork pies.

The ‘beauty and value’ of handwritten messages has begun bringing joy to residents of two Dorset dementia care homes.

It follows a pen pal exchange agreed between Colten Care’s Fernhill in Longham and its sister home, the Aldbury in Poole. Team members at the homes shared respective lists of residents who said they would like to participate.

First to put pen to paper has been Fernhill resident Doris Smith, known as Dori, who said that she had not had a pen pal since she was a teenager.

“Dori said she had two pen pals at that time, one she wrote to in America and one in this country,” said Ann Marie Knight from Fernhill’s companionship team. “She told us she would love the idea of having a new pen pal and receiving letters back.”

Ann Marie said it was a similar case for resident Elizabeth Wilson, adding: “She remembered writing to a girl who lived in