2023: A Review of the Year at High Grange
Now that it basically gets dark just after lunchtime in East Devon we thought that it was a good time to look back at some of the highlights (and lowlights) of our second full season at High Grange.
As ever, our year started with the butchering of a lamb for HG haggis and the butchering of the ‘Address to a haggis’ by me to celebrate the eating of it. My Scottish wife generously refuses to take part in this public humiliation instead allowing me the ‘honour’ of standing, sweaty and discombobulated in a kilt in front of our lovely Burns Night guests, as I mangle the bard's famous poem. The whisky helps and as Jean, our now resident Essex Girl bagpiper plays in the steaming beast, I wonder what our non-Scottish guests think is going on. A ridiculous but truly magical night and probably our favourite of the year.
As a bleak winter slipped into a soggy spring the wild garlic was plentiful, our first home grown new potatoes made an appearance and we started to welcome our first outdoor guests of the year with our full day Fire Schools, a private party for our good friends at Millers Farm Shop and our first full day wellbeing retreat. It’s at around this time that my memory becomes a hazy whirl of fires, menus, guests and staff as we got into full swing. There were too many events to mention individually but we loved each of our 6 weddings (though the absolute day-long deluge in Somerset at the end of July was ‘challenging’ for a fire cook…. ). We had sold-out Fire Schools and Feasts, collaborations with our friends at Soul Shine Cafe and The Strawberry Tree and a blur of informal Fire Suppers cooked over our fire pits where we dug out an extra table or two to accommodate our guests. We packed up the new truck and cooked short ribs for a hundred festival goers at The Spring Classic Festival, we did demos and private events all over the country from Hampshire and the home counties to Wigan (!) and more recently on the stage at The Dartmouth Food Festival.
Sara continues to develop the wellbeing side, continually testing where the line of “too much woo woo” is for East Devon. We’ve invited speakers to talk on everything from trauma responses to parenting, and the Shippen has become a warm and welcoming space for all sorts of practitioners from yoga and massages to sound baths and breathwork.
We are nothing here without our staff and our suppliers so a heartfelt thank you to Jess, Emma and the rest of our fantastic team and also purveyors of the best produce that I have ever had the privilege of working with - truly exceptional ex-dairy beef from Olly at Meat Matters, the freshest fish from Corinne, Nigel and Sam from their own boat - The Twin Sisters, fantastic meat from Haye Farm and everything from Bridget’s veg, Millers Farm Shop and our own organic gardener, Helen. We are truly blessed with the best larder in the world and it makes my job so much easier and more inspiring.
We’ve also enjoyed working closely with several BBQ brands - specifically Kamado Joe, Vulcanus and BBQ magazine. These relationships and collaborations are really what it’s all about and I’m so proud to work with all three.
I genuinely judge our success by how many happy people we feed and teach but this year I can’t pretend that it hasn’t been nice to achieve some recognition from the industry - our Quince and Scotch Bonnet HG Hot Sauce won a Taste of the West Gold Award, we were a finalist in the Food Reader Awards in the ‘Best Cookery School’ category and did one better at the Food Drink Devon Awards when we picked up Gold Awards for our feast nights and fire school as well as overall winner in the Training School category. What a night! We were then assessed by James from The Independent Cookery Schools Association who said ‘So thank you… for igniting my desires for outdoor cooking - An amazing and inspiring day - fuelled by Luke's clear passions and knowledge for all things fire related. I've rarely experienced such a hands-on, passionate, and indeed self taught tutor’. We are now delighted to be a fully ICSA accredited cookery school. Sara and I head to Torquay in a couple of weeks where we’re up for best Experience in the South West Tourism Awards - we’ve never been head to head with a dog retreat or a waterskiing facility before so could be interesting!
In the grounds, we have our new HG Woodland Bar which is situated right in our woodland behind the feasting table. We’re finishing it off and we’ll soon be serving our takeaways from there. It has a beautiful view over the feast table and woodland kitchen, and will be a great place to hang out, as well as give us the chance to offer bigger events and everything from coffee mornings to wine tastings…more on that soon!
Which neatly leads us (if you're still reading!) to our announcement that our award winning feasts and fire schools are now available to book HERE (up to the end of July). We’ll be adding Fire Suppers nearer to the date depending on the weather as a kind of guerrilla pop up night.
If you’re looking for Christmas Gifts then we sell vouchers available HERE for all of our events and even our takeaways - which this week is a Classic Chinese Takeaway of char siu, sweet and sour chicken and special fried rice. Don’t forget we also have a few tickets left for our popular Christmas Feasts and of course Burns Night in January.
Finally thanks to all of you for supporting us throughout the year - we have made such wonderful relationships with our guests both new and returning (as our brilliant 5 star tripadvisor ratings show) - THANK YOU!