Stray Kitchen is our column all about food written by renowned local produce expert, food writer and chef, Stephanie Moon. Stephanie is a champion of food produced in the UK and particularly in Yorkshire and the Harrogate district.
As the Hotel & Restaurant industry and catering outlets dust off their aprons, I keep hearing fellow chefs saying “It is great to get back to normal”.
I am not sure many chefs I know are normal! I mean that as the utmost compliment – but myself and my comrades are anything but…
These past few months have been the toughest, and I’ve been hearing that many hospitality people have become disillusioned with the career and perhaps gone to do something completely different – but as a town that thrives on being hospitable, Harrogate and the food it produces needs its chefs.
Where have they gone? Some may now be drivers, carers, and shop workers or just loving having Saturday nights with their family.
Chefs are an unusual breed, as I said before. Anyone who wants to put themselves under pressure like that and thrives on it perhaps needs their head testing- but we love it.
As the final for Great British Menu gets underway this week and the chefs are in a boiling pot of creativity and competing – it makes me think, chefs will always want to create and compete and push themselves. Perhaps the chefs of tomorrow are creating in their home kitchens and making tea for their family’s tonight. Good luck to them and know that a challenging, yet promising and rewarding career is still out there. If you are a Chef that has wondered if it’s time for a change, I say wait: remember the creative side, the passion and the fun that the kitchen can bring.
Our normal IS coming back!
Being a chef is in your blood, and there’s no denying we love it.
Happy Cooking
Steph x
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Stray Kitchen with Stephanie Moon: How a chef tries to get thin
Stray Kitchen is our column all about food written by renowned local produce expert, food writer and chef, Stephanie Moon. Stephanie is a champion of food produced in the UK and particularly in Yorkshire and the Harrogate district.
Never has it been more important to wish someone a Healthy and Happy New Year than at the start of 2021.
A new year and a fresh start and most of us are glad that 2020 has long gone and have an opportunity to make some great plans for the New Year. After a Christmas of too-many-good tidings and lots of socially distanced good cheer, now is the time many of us focus on being happy and healthy in the months to come.
Can you still fit into those pre-lockdown jeans? Or is it that we are all thinking it is time to go on that diet? As a Chef I am surrounded by food and I love food, so it is a constant battle. For me, the key is to get a balance right and not beat yourself up if you fancy eating something you perhaps should not!
How can we get fit? The old adage “never trust a skinny chef” just does not cut it these days; we are watching our weight and being sensible with our fitness – I know some chefs obsessed with fitness and a pastry chef who is now a personal trainer, thinking more about being body-beautiful than he does about his Choux Buns.
I am a far cry from that! But for me, it has always been a balance of dog walking and eating a plate laden with vegetables. Don’t get me wrong, I do fall off the wagon many times.
January is also Veganuary. As a young schoolgirl I once remember saying to my Dad (now retired, but then a busy farmer) that I wanted to became a vegetarian as one of my friends had just done. His curt reply was “over my dead body!”. The truth is I now love vegetarian and vegan food and relish the challenge of cooking this, but I personally enjoy meat too. It is about buying good quality local meat but less of it. Quality and less quantity are, in my opinion, the way forward.
So, I shall stop drinking alcohol this month, eat more vegetarian meals and eat smaller portions of locally sourced meats and fish. Importantly keep exercising and just do what I think most of us did last year too – try our best to get through it!
Happy New Year, much love for 2021 and happy cooking!
Steph x
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Stray Kitchen with Stephanie Moon: It’s Apple Time
Stray Kitchen is our monthly column all about food written by renowned local produce expert, food writer and chef, Stephanie Moon. Stephanie studied at Craven College, Skipton. She then did a work placement at London’s five-star hotel/restaurant, The Dorchester. Stephanie was offered a full-time job, where she worked for world-famous chef, Anton Mosimann.
In the spirit of Autumn and Halloween, Stephanie’s first column will be talking about the delicious ways of using apples in various dishes.
I love this time of year. Our region has a real history with the Great British Apple. Did you know the Ribston Pippin was grown back in 1708 from apple pips which were sent to Henry Goodricke of Ribston Hall? This was the runner up of the Cox’s Orange Pippin.
In Little Ribston, there is still a Ribston Pippin tree growing in the grounds. Nick Smith, the Director of the Harrogate Flower Show, took me along to cook the apples under the tree years ago. This was filmed for Look North. I created my version of an 18th Century recipe ‘A Fraze of Pippins’ (basically a batter-like pancake, heavy on the spices with lots of apples). It was great fun.
Do you have an Apple glut?
My advice is to invest in an ‘apfelschaler’; a plastic contraption (you can get metal ones too) that peels an apple in seconds whilst you wind the handle. When you literally have kilos to peel it really helps.
The apfelschaler peeling an apple.
My Dad gets given boxes of apples and I help him to cook through an apple mountain (not even an exaggeration). We peel, cook the apples and place them in take away pots, lots of apple sauce, and freeze them. I now have a whole shelf of apple sauce in my freezer that is not mine.
Chutney made with apples is mind-blowingly good and great for Christmas gifts. If you make batches it becomes easy (just watch out for apple volcanos), then you cook the chutney as a hit with some boiling hot apple chutney will smart.
But perhaps you have no apples?
If you are lucky enough to look around villages surrounding Harrogate, they give them away for free by the side of the road. Local farm shops and fruit and vegetable shops have fruit racks that are groaning under the strain with every variety – much better than the supermarket fruits that can sometimes be months old.
Stephanie cooking.
There is always the plan to let someone else do the work. Nothing beats an Elite Meat pork and apple burger, a Taylor’s apple cinnamon tea or a Rosebud Preserves wild crab apple jelly.
Can you Adam and Eve it?
Till next time!
For more information on Stephanie Moon’s career in food click here.
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Rise in demand for cooking lessons in Harrogate post lockdown
A Harrogate chef says she has seen an increase in demand for cooking lessons after lockdown.
For over 3 months during lockdown, restaurants were either closed or offering limited services, so people spent more time cooking at home.
For some, it was a total disaster, yet for others, it was the start of new love affair with cooking.
Michaela Hanna, a freelance private chef from Harrogate has told the Stray Ferret that she has seen a rise in people wanting to improve their culinary skills, after feeling they were just eating the ‘same few dishes each week.’
‘ My go-to solution in lockdown was a meal delivery service, I created ‘meal of the day doorstep drop-offs.’ People often don’t know of the different foods out there and how easy it can be to tweak a dish to make it from a different country or slightly healthier etc. Now I am able to go out to people’s houses, there has been a lot of people who tried my drop off meals in lockdown and now want to learn how to do it themselves.’
Michaela Hanna, Fit Chef Harrogate.
The Stray Ferret went along to follow one of her cooking lessons.
James Tapster, who lives in Knaresborough connected with Michaela during lockdown trying many of her home delivery meals, and has since started having some lessons.
‘I have always had an interest in cooking but Michaela has really broadened my knowledge. We lead a busy life so it’s great to master some healthy, quick and tasty dishes that I can make and then use for a couple of days.’