Tim, Jennifer, Jan and I all love to cook. We love to eat, to talk about food and laugh around the table together. Early on in our stay here in Salcombe, we developed a wonderful companionship around the making of meals. Someone would usually announce, at some point in the morning, “I’ll make lunch today.” “Great,” someone else would say, “I’ll make dinner.”
And so we managed to rotate the cooking and planning. It all seemed to be based on our own private work schedule. Writing might be going really well, and you might not want to break your rhythm. Magically, someone else is cooking. Or perhaps you find you need a break, need distraction, need time to think while chopping vegetables. Everyone else is happy to give you space and time in the kitchen.
Salcombe fulfills our grocery needs incredibly well. There is only one little grocer, Cranch’s, run by two lovely sisters. It is filled with local produce. Gorgeous fresh vegetables, different varieties of apples, fresh herbs. There are packaged local condiments from the Devon chili farm. There is local hand picked crab. The store also caters to exotic tastes. We are able to get Nam Pla and coconut milk, arborio rice and polenta. But Cranch’s is, at heart, a wonderful neighbourhood store. There is a wall of dried spices behind the counter and one day I asked if they had any bay leaves. The owner looked up and said, “Yes, but there’s a huge bay tree around the corner. You can just go pick what you need there. I’ve got lots in my back yard too, but the tree around the corner is closer.”
Aside from the grocer’s, there is one butcher in Salcombe. It is a beautiful store, filled with local Devon pork, lamb, chicken and beef. The meat is exquisite, and the butcher is knowledgeable and helpful, supplying great cooking ideas. He also carries some of the finest Devon cheeses I have ever tasted.
Down the road is a beautiful bakery. The breads and buns are lovely and fluffy and fresh. The bakery also makes perfect little squares called Flap Jacks that we sometime indulge in for our afternoon tea. And next store to the bakery is a wine and liquor merchant where we can find wines from all over the world, in various price brackets.
All of these wonders are on the main street, two blocks from our cottage. We look for excuses to go down to the shops.
Entertaining company is a great excuse for shopping and cooking. And this week, we’ve had some very entertaining company to cook for.
Jan has a couple of friends in Canada who, on hearing she was going to be in Salcombe said “Oh, you must meet Denise Coffey.” Denise is a former actor and director, who spent time working in Canada. She is quite a legend in the UK, having acted in such classic films as “Waltz of the Toreadors” and “Georgie Girl”. In fact she discovered Salcombe when she was in Devon filming “Far From the Madding Crowd”. She has lived here for over 30 years and now spends most of her time painting and rescuing damaged seagulls and cats.
Denise, who now goes by the name of Moll, is a vegetarian and we’ve wanted to have her over for dinner. We had gone to see the new movie “The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel” and that put us in mind of Indian cooking. “Indian Ratatouille” requires a good supply of spices and patience to chop lots of veggies. But it is worth finding the ingredients. It’s a fabulous recipe.
We’ve learned from previous experience to bring spices with us when we travel. Otherwise we are buying new boxes and jars in every place we stay. Also, you can’t always expect to find Panch Phoran in your neighbourhood store, no matter how wonderful it is. You can’t always count on a neighbourhood Bay Laurel. So we came prepared, travelling with some of the more exotic spices.
Thank goodness we had packed our Panch Phoran. Moll was, I think, very impressed.
The other visitors that we had this week were Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham, the wonderful writer friends who we met last fall in Exmouth. It was really exciting to see them again and to take them on one of our favourite local walks to Snapes Point, through gently wooded areas and fields of gamboling lambs. The point overlooks one of the arms of the Salcombe Estuary and the millionaire’s cottages across the harbour. The church bells can still be heard chiming in the distance.
Jan, Jennifer, Tim and I all had a hand in putting together the dinner for Mal and Elspeth. The new tastes for us were Jan and Jennifer’s contributions. Jan made her fabulous Umeboshi salad. Umeboshi is a dried, pickled plum from Japan. Ume vinegar is salty and sour and Jan uses it in a Kale salad that we are all crazy for.
Jennifer made a delicious Pear and Ginger Crumble and served it with Salcombe Dairy ice cream. It was a fabulous night of eating, drinking, and sitting by the fire to talk about books, art and, of all things, the Canadian constitution.
We have been thrilled to discover the tastes and sounds, smells and sights of Devon, as well as to share some of our own favourite recipes with new friends.
Stepping off the Treadmill 
You aren’t fooling any of us one little bit — we know that all these quaint scenes are lifted from BBC sound stage photos!
Damn. You caught me. Must have been the sheep.
love the photo of the lambs and gamboling Tim!
Isn’t he just the cutest little gamboler?