A cookery school in a sheep shed!

 I'm thrilled to announce that in association with Outwell tents and Studfold Farm Campsite, the Guyrope Gourmet cookery school is open for business on the following dates: 21st July, 25th July, 31st July, 22nd August, 25th August.

 
All events will take place at Studfold Farm campsite, situated at the top of Nidderdale in North Yorkshire. Each session will last around and hour and a half, depending on what we cook. All equipment and ingredients will be provided. Ingredients will be sourced where possible from local providers, keeping food miles to a minimum. Come and build a paella using Yorkshire Chorizo, or stir up a risotto. Wrestle with a ragout or tackle a tagine, hone the inner guyrope gourmet and have fun while learning to broaden your camping cuisine.

 Why not come along and use fresh local Yorkshire ingredients, the company of others and a spot of Guyrope Gourmet know how to try something a little different. You don't have to be camping on site to join the fun, but if you are all the merrier.



Dates: 21st July, 25th July, 31st July, 22nd August, 25th August.

Duration: 1 - 2 hours (commence 11:00 am)

Location: Studfold Farm Campsite, Lofthouse, Nidderdale, North Yorkshire, HG3 5SG

Tarrif: £35 per person (includes all ingredients and equipment use). Bookings via the shop on the Guyrope Gourmet website (Paypal).

A Supperclub in a tent

Following the success of previous events, I'm delighted to announce some more dates for the infamous Guyrope Gourmet supper club in a tent.  Taking place on 'Champ's Field' at Home Farm in Colton (near Tadcaster), I will always endeavour to use ingredients bought from the on site 'Food from the Farm' shop.  Farmers Angela & Andrew Kay take great pride in their herd of Hereford cattle, supplying beef to Waitrose supermarkets as well as local butchers and selling in their own 'Food from the Farm' shop .  They also have a nearby market garden and grow an amazing range of vegetables.  The Guyrope Gourmet supper club is a true zero food miles dining experience.

It's an informal affair, with room at the table for ten guests.  It all takes place in my tent.  I cook on site in 'Nan the Van' which is always parked alongside the tent.  You'll be served with a three course meal from a fixed menu.  Unfortunately I'm unable to cater for allergies/intollerances owing to the ridiculously basic equipment I'm cooking on (you wouldn't get away with that at the Ivy!)

Guests are invited to contribute a set fee of £20 per head.  To compensate for previous experience of 'no showers', I am asking that you secure your reservation with a £10 deposit which is payable in the 'Shop' on the Guyrope Gourmet home page (tab in top right corner).  Please feel free to bring your own wine.  There is of course no fee for corkage!


The dates for Summer 2012 are: 


Tuesday 1st May - Dinner at 7:00pm. Please note that BBC's Look North team will be onsite throughout the evening as the event is being televised. There is a strong likelihood that guests may appear on regional TV!  And here's the film that went out over most of the North of England.  Largely thanks to this, the July date is now fully booked!


http://youtu.be/4u9Fbf0I_t4


Saturday 14th July - Dinner 7:00pm  (Fully booked)


The menus will be announced on the Guyrope Gourmet website/facebook  & Twitter sites ahead of the events.  Menus usually contain meat or fish and are rarely fully vegetarian.

2012 off to a good start

2012 is shaping up to be a busy year for the Guyrope Gourmet.  I'm now a member of the Guild of Food Writers and have a regular slot in Camping Magazine as well as Great Food Magazine.  Both tomes, excellent in their field, with the former being very excellent in a field!  I continue to ply offerings to Fire & Knives and the Foodie Bugle, while also temping editors of the national press to take my epistles (with a degree of recent success I might add!)


Had a splendid night at Bettakultcha in February, where I waxed lyrical about the origins of the Guyrope Gourmet in front of a willing crowd. Hoping to be invited back soon.


I've booked a 'world tour' of cookery demonstrations, which will be laced with tales of derring-do, delicious food for you to sample, and the odd tune on my trusty ukulele. 

Confirmations for the following prestigious foodie and outdoor events: 


20th May - Malton food festival
28th & 29th July - The Really Wild Festival, St David's
25th August - Studfold Farm campsite, Nidderdale, Yorkshire
28th August - Kilnsey Show, North Yorkshire (with #supperclubinatent planned for the evening)
15th & 16th September - Abergavenny Food Festival


The first of the 2012 Guyrope Gourmet #supperclubinatent nights will be in April (date TBC), with more to follow over the summer and into the autumn.

A new venture, the Guyrope Gourmet Cookery School, is set to get under way at Studfold Farm campsite.  This is being made possible with the help of the very excellent tent and camping equipment manufacturer Outwell, who have supplied cooking stoves and other equipment for the school.  These will be small, informal classes in which you can pick up a few tips and learn to be a guy rope gourmet yourself.  Full details, including dates and costs will follow in the Spring.


Throughout 2012 I will be working hard on the Guyrope Gourmet cookery book, which I am hoping will be published in the Spring of 2013.  I'm dying to let this cat out of the bag, but fear it might escape, so you'll just have to bear with me for details soonish.

Big Thanks

2011 has been a superb year for the Guyrope Gourmet. Many thanks to all those who helped .


In random order: Jamie Coulson,Melissa Corkhill,Mick Hickling,Iain Duff,Tim Hayward,Mark Sutcliffe,Annie Stirk,Rebecca Roberts,Tony Parker,Heather Holden Brown,Joan Ransley,Kevin Gopal,Matt Wright,Andrew Webb,Silvana De Soissons,Nick Smith,Alpkit,Clive Garrett,Elly James,Amanda Wragg,Jill Turton,Phil Putnam-Spencer,Paul Greenan,Anne-Marie Davies,Alec Carmichael,Outwell,Anne Dolamore,Barry Cox,Andy Bulmer,Angela & Andrew Kay,All my Twitter followers & Facebook likers.

The rise of the Succour Club

We all need a little comfort and reassurance from time to time, especially those that place their work in the public domain, artists, writers, chefs, even politicians! I've been plying my wares as a freelance writer for some time now and i've found that adding strings to the proverbial bow brings in new opportunities and with it new challenges. Along with demonstrations and cookery 'classes' at food festivals, the Guyrope Gourmet has found a new way to show off, the Supper club in a TENT. It has to be a foodie first.

Seeking succour through my supper club, I first mooted the idea on Twitter, and with a few wise words of encouragement from experienced  veterans, @jteramsden and @sabrinaghayour I released the bats so to speak.  The first Guyrope Gourmet supper club took place on Champs' Field campsite near Tadcaster. I'd chosen the site as Champs' Field is on a working farm and owners Angela & Andrew Kay are passionate about food. They raise Hereford beef and supply Waitrose supermarkets and have a small market garden growing a range of vegetables for their veg box scheme. Their Food from the Farm shop is packed with locals and passers-by. The shop is across the track from Champs' Field, so the Guyrope Gourmet supper club can claim to be a zero food miles event with 100% local produce on the menu (ok the chocolate in the dessert may have travelled a little).

With capacity of 8 covers and 50% of those turning up, the first event was a superb evening with two guests travelling up from Sheffield. I'd arrived on site in the afternoon to set up the restaurant and build a fire for my bread making. I'd brought rugs, fairy lights and candles as well as a handy 8 piece total dinner service I found in a charity shop for a fiver. The tent was transformed and with the use of a plug-in electric radiator, made for a cosy environment for a meal with strangers. I've cooked for numbers from my tent before, but I'd never tried to provide a three course meal to paying guests. With the basic equipment of a camping stove and no warm storage area, getting the timings right was paramount. I'd put together a simple menu using ingredients from the Food from the Farm shop. My whole philosophy about cooking is keep it simple and let the ingredients speak for themselves and there was no way I was going to divert from that philosophy for this new venture. I'd mulled over the running order in my head; light fire bake bread, make soup, make dessert and prepare veg.

Electing to hold my first supper club in November was a bit of a gamble, but I was blessed with a glorious day, with the sun shining down as I pitched the tent and kneaded my dough. Guests arrived at 7:30 and were greeted with a glass of prosecco and uttered coos of delight as they entered the tent. I was bowled over by the sheer enthusiasm they had for my little idea. From the off it was a success, with my four guests chatting and laughing as I heated the soup through and joked about my slightly burned fire-baked bread.

With a 'bivouac' of pan seared beef loin, braised fennel with parmesan and a sautéed potato & chard stack as a main course, the diners were amazed as I brought fine food to the table. I must admit, I was feeling rather pleased with myself. Sadly I was concentrating so hard on getting things right, I failed to get any good quality shots of my dishes. That's something I will have to rectify for next time.  By the time the mains were on the table I was able to relax a little and going my guests for a glass or two. Dessert was a chocolate mousse with fennel seed chocolate crust. 

The washing up was piled in a huge bucket, ready for the dishwasher back home and we retired outside to sit by the roaring fire. Knackered, elated, more than a little pleased with myself and slightly drunk I fell asleep by the fire dreaming of the next Guyrope Gourmet Supper Club in the Spring - anyone fancy it?

The Big Shakeout

Not only is it great to get a booking on your birthday weekend so that one may let down one's hair down once the gig's over, but getting booked by Alpkit to perform at their annual 'Big Shakeout' adventure weekend in the Peak District is like the icing on the proverbial cake.  I've been a fan of Alpkit gear for some years now. It works and it works well. So the Guyrope Gourmet was booked to cook on the Saturday afternoon.  After pondering possible menus, I opted for a Morrocish lamb stew and a vegetable Biriani. The lamb stew is an old favourite in the Guyrope Gourmet kitchen, tried and tested. It's 'Morrocish' because it is kind of based on a dish I've eaten in Shefchauen in the Rif mountains.  The Biriani however was a different affair. Now it may seem a little unwise to some, and the thought did occur to me too, but to try an un-cooked before dish in front of a live audience must surely be an act of only the foolhardy. I placed my trust in Shehzad Husain and walked through a biriani from start to finish.

The Guyrope Gourmet show is usually about an hour long, as long as it takes to cook the food really. I reduce the tedium factor by doing all the food prep ahead of the show. Nobody wants to watch a bloke peel onions, even if he did grow them in his own allotment. 

Even with the ingredients already chopped, grated, crushed and marinated the interest factor of a relatively unknown bloke cooking food is somewhat limited. Here's where a few tales of derring-do and stories of travels with my Trangia come in to play.

A Guyrope Gourmet audience will always be regaled with stories of dishes cooked up under duress, a spatchcocked chicken having just given the Syrian army the slip, or an amorous lamb stew on an island. Much to my surprise, one of the things that folks seemed to enjoy was the covers of punk rock classics on my Ukulele! 


So while the rice is par-cooking, or the lamb is browning in the pan, I whip out the Uke and play a little tune. It seems to work, I'm bloody terrible, but audiences are polite - either that or just plain stunned! Either way

I get to show off and people get to try my food. It all went in about ten minutes, with people coming back for seconds. You don't get much more of a credit than that in the catering world as far as i'm concerned.


With the exception of the two 'inside shots', all photography and video on this post courtesy of Alpkit 2011 (thanks guys!).

Rock 'n' Rollmop

"Whatever happened to Alex James? he quit the pop world for cheesy fame,
What ever happened to Fearnley Whittingstall? began a fish fight now he's hooked us all,


What ever happened to the food heroes? x2


Whatever happened to Valentine Warner? he's cooking up a storm around the corner
Whatever happened to Richard Corrigan? he blew his oven up and got another one


What ever happened to the food heroes? x2


All the food heroes, they're all here
The Harvest food heroes, here and there


Whatever happened to Guyrope Gourmet? I never heard of him, who is that bloke anyway?"


To the tune of The Stranglers No More Heroes - accompanied on my ukulele

So went the introduction to the Guyrope Gourmet's cooking demonstration this weekend at Alex James presents Harvest.  I was a little nervous before I started, but enthusiasm and the opportunity to show off to a crowd of people soon put paid to any trepidation on my behalf.  It was 1:30 on the Saturday afternoon, the sun was poking through the low clouds over an Oxfordshire farm and a crowd had gathered around the Guyrope Gourmet stage.  With a menu of Smoked salmon blinis, bruchetta, mussels in beer & coriander and Paella up for grabs, I'd done the vast majority of my food prep beforehand.  The fact that I was pitched next to The Little Green Coffee Machine meant that I was well supplied with caffeine from the Coffee Pirates who were offering the best coffee in the whole site!   As the crowd settled down on what was left of the straw bales the site crew had dropped off earlier that morning (festival children taking great delight in destroying the seating!), I grabbed my trusty  

Uke and turned on the show.  


My audience were terrific, enthusiastic, interested, beautiful and very obliging as I proceeded to destroy a perfectly good Stranglers song in two minutes flat!  The Guyrope Gourmet is all about having fun while cooking good food on a camping stove and I certainly did that!  Assisted by my long suffering wife, Anne-Marie, we kicked off with a few smoked salmon & cream cheese blinis while i was cooking up the bruchetta.  Chopped mushrooms with quartered cherry tomatoes cooked in olive oil with some chopped garlic, a sprig of thyme from my garden and a whizz in the pan for ten minutes or so and served on toasted baguette.  That seemed to go down pretty well so I moved on to the paella. 


I'd shunned the use of technology and declined the offer of a microphone, opting to bellow my commentary as the good folks at the back had agreed to shout LOUDER if my voice tapered off.  The thing about good food is that there is always a story behind every dish.  Peppered with outlandish tales of the origins of my many dishes, the show was going down well.  Though I wasn't using it, I'd brought along my trusty Trangia stove as a prop and a cue card for embellished tales of culinary derring-do on a campsite.


Once the paella was simmering nicely and doing its thing, I made a start on the mussels in beer & coriander.  I used a bottle of Mac's Golden all malt lager, which attracted the attention of a few Kiwis in the crowd, sorry guys non left for sale (they do it in Waitrose!).    

The best bit about the whole show was the audience.  They cheered, laughed and shook their heads in all the right places.  I managed to pick up a couple of new recipes and one woman explained in detail how she managed to cook a whole roast dinner on her camping stove.  I forget the details (don't I always?), but chicken livers and bacon with creme fraiche and pasta sounds well worth exploring.  I learned you can sweat chopped onions in a little water instead of oil, that way they never burn at the edges - genius!  The paella was ready as the mussels began to open.  I scattered chopped coriander over the mussels and dressed the paella with flat leaf parsley and lemon wedges.  Then came the stampede of hungry campers.

I honestly struggle to describe the pleasure it gave me to cook for such a wonderful crowd of people.  All I can say is a massive thanks for you support and sheer enthusiasm.  I hope that I'm lucky enough to be asked to do it again next year.  I'll be there in a flash!


I did it all again on the Sunday too with equal enthusiasm from a willing audience.

Funnily enough, no-one stayed around for the washing-up demonstration which followed!


A big thanks to Clare, Georgie and Briony at Big Wheel who looked after me like true professionals - see you next year XX