Luke's Cooking Journey to East Devon - A Homage to River Cottage!

Recently, we attended an East Devon Tourism Event for local independent businesses at River Cottage HQ - you know it, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s place - the one from the telly. I worked there for 10 years and I promise you it is as beautiful and rustic as you would hope. It’s just a few miles down the road from High Grange so you could make a super trip to both them and us.

Luke was one of 3 speakers at the event. He amusingly explained how River Cottage has been entwined In his life since 1999 when the TV show first aired. Back then he was in London living in grotty flats and the idyll of River Cottage seemed a distant dream. He met Tim Maddams while working at the fabulous Borough Market and later met James Whetlor selling him goat. Both Tim and James are former River Cottage TV chefs and have gone on to do exciting foodie things, and James happens to be my life-partner. It was a real pleasure for me to hear Luke speak about River Cottage, very much in the way that James and I had thought of it before we moved here, and for Luke’s tribute to me and James for encouraging them to come down to Devon and helping them out with that transition. I chuckled at his description of excitement upon seeing various River Cottage ‘characters’ at the school gates!

The event was held to see how East Devon businesses can collaborate to showcase this incredible area that we live in. It was a brilliant reminder of how fantastic it is down here and how many innovative and talented people live here. Not only is there the beautiful Jurassic Coast and gorgeous idyllic rolling hills, the ‘terroir’ (I don’t think there is an English translation for this word) is something else! The diversity of food that is produced and even the wines are spectacular. Tastings are included at these networking events so we had a tiny tipple of a few Barbuoys cocktails at 11am and I was a winner at their Cocktail Bingo - a definite perk of this job!

Below are a few photos that Sara took.

Cheers! Sush (I work in the background at High Grange) x x