Meditations of an itinerant cook
I have made many friends through first having discovered their produce. If the ingredient projects vitality and appeals to the senses, it is likely the result of a wholesome process. Establishing relationships with the people and environments that grow and rear what you eat has a subtle but significant effect: it encourages the endowment of respect to the food that graces your table.
Amongst the kaleidoscope of characters I encounter, certain gracious souls allow me to photograph them, and write about the how where and why of what they do.
I spent my early childhood on a hill farm on the Welsh borders, later attending school in France. My professional restaurant career started at Harry’s Bar, where I trained under Michelin-starred Milanese chef, Alberico Penati.
For the past 15 years I have worked from my farm in southwest France, as an itinerant chef, cooking for international brands and private clients.
My focus is on sourcing the finest seasonal ingredients, no matter where I am. I source food and wines from independent producers, thus honoring regenerative agriculture and peasant traditions.
The art of seasoning and an awareness of the natural synergies that occur between different ingredients were instilled in me at an early age, as was the notion that every vegetable keeps a mistress in the herb garden. My family is neither French nor English—we are both. Our approach to cooking is a celebration of raw ingredients and involves as little interference as possible from the cook.
The driving force of my work as a chef is to underscore the inherent synergies that occur between the disparate realms of vegetable, fruit, and herbs. Meat and fish play complementary supporting roles. The result is a celebration of the vitality of natural ingredients.
My cookbook Nature’s Larder: Cooking with the Senses, is published by Rizzoli NY.
Writing credits include, profiles, interviews and articles for various print magazines, including a cookery column for Vogue France.
What I write about
Recurring themes in my writing include: provenance, vitality, peasant culture, inter-seasonality, agro-ecology, cookery, meetings with remarkable people and what I refer to as The Mind’s Eye & Palate…
