River Cottage all set for Christmas
I do, as you would expect of someone living on the Somerset/Dorset border, aspire to some elements of River Cottage living. So it was with great anticipation that I visited the River Cottage shop and canteen in Axminster last week to meet the producer of the latest River Cottage series, on a break from filming the forthcoming River Cottage Christmas Special.
The Channel 4 series isn’t actually filmed in Axminster because River Cottage there is just a (viciously expensive) shop and restaurant-cum-cafe. All the filming is done a few miles down the road, in Devon, at Park Farm, which forms the throbbing hub of River Cottage HQ. Even Park Farm isn’t the real home of hedgerow gourmand Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall; he lives elsewhere since vacating the original ‘River Cottage’ some years ago. Park Farm is a mostly empty farmhouse with a wonderful kitchen garden (created by a friend of mine, so it must be good) with a working farm around it.
Hugh’s minions presumably work the farm and the whole place fills up from time to time with people paying to eat at one of River Cottage HQ’s open evenings or attending a course in, say, allotment gardening or meat curing. And, of course, the place is teeming with life when a TV programme is being filmed, as it is this week for the Christmas special.
So what is in store for your town-weary senses on December 18 when the special is due to air? Hugh is tackling beef and venison, plus the perennial problem of how to make brussel sprouts appealing (and the afternoon movie relatively wind-free).
What you might not see is mistletoe. Although the designer has apparently done a lovely job with festoons of holly and clove-spiced pomanders, the team hadn’t - as of Friday last week - found any mistletoe. This seems odd in a location that is not only rural but right next to Somerset, cider-making country where orchards and apple-loving mistletoe abound. Will the problem have been fixed in the eight days it took to film the programme? We’ll have to tune into C4 next month to find out.
If you’re interested, the RC shop lived up to expectations with cheeses, biscuits, cakes, drinks and other sumptuous offerings to die for. But you would need to die and cash in a life insurance policy to do a serious shop there. I parted with £5 for a modestly sized lemon drizzle cake and balked at spending £13 on the 2009 River Cottage diary although it is beautiful, ring-bound and packed full of info so I’m hoping Santa will drop one into my stocking instead.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Interestingly enough Terry Wogan came up with an idea on how to make sprouts more interesting which I think you might appreciate. It was to cover them in chocolate and offer them to trick-or-treaters.
Personally I like sprouts and am not too vexed by trick-or-treaters, provided of course, that they are under 5 and supervised. But a worthy suggestion, you have to admit.
On a similar note to your drizzle cake but on a more indulgent scale perhaps, my good wife and I ate at the said restaurant in Axminster and I found myself being unusually content with the bill, not because of the quality of the food but because the food had been cooked by the ‘chef on the telly’. The price of being close to fame!
December 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
[...] River Cottage Christmas Special: Airing on December 18th this is a welcome treat. Hugh is back at his best featuring the whole River Cottage team and tackling ingredients such as the humble sprout. [...]