Charlotte's October Newsletter

Hello again.

It is a pleasure to welcome you all to my monthly newsletter and I’d like to thank you sincerely for subscribing. It’s fantastic to have a number of new members join this month.

September was a month to remember, for many reasons. Most significantly for me personally was receiving my M.B.E. for services to food writing and food education last week. Many of you have kindly written to me, and I’ve received quite a few questions about the experience, so please do read on to find more about the day below.

Otherwise, it’s been an action-packed month that really has felt like back to work after the summer holidays. Highlights included visiting the Speciality food show to discover a range of great new products (some are listed below), a delicious meal cooked by my Egyptian friend Soha Darwish (do click on the link to find her recipes and more), an Italian cookery class at Eataly in London with Ursula Ferrigno, and a fun trip to visit the brilliant KellyBronze turkey farm in Essex (more on that soon).

It’s also been really exciting to announce my new book, Quick Prep Slow Cook which will be published on 7th November and again, thank you so much for all your very nice messages and pre-orders, which will delight my publishers.

I’ve been working away behind the scenes on more new recipes and working with new consultancy clients to improve their products and services, which is consistently interesting, rewarding and enjoyable.

October is shaping up to be another great month. I will be returning to Dartmouth Food Festival on Saturday 27th October, where I will demonstrating on the main stage from 3-4 pm. Excitingly, it’ll be my first demonstration from the new book, plus I will demonstrate the recipe I contributed to the Dartmouth Food Festival 20th anniversary cookbook, which is also released this month. It’s always a lovely festival (and it’s free to attend) so I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Before that, I am off to Modena on a gastronomic tour, which I am very much looking forward to. I am grateful every day to be able to spend my days in such interesting and enriching ways.

I hope you will all have a positive and delicious month ahead.

With my very best wishes,

Charlotte

My investiture ceremony took place last Wednesday at Windsor Castle. I was able to take three guests with me and we all had a pretty early start to get ready and drive to Windsor before 10am. I can’t find the words to describe just how exquisite the Castle is inside, with its priceless treasures on display, each one representing a significant moment in history, and the string quartet playing added to the feeling of magic.

Every member of staff and security were just charming and offered their congratulations. We couldn’t have felt more warmly welcomed.

HRH The Princess Royal was ‘on duty’ and we were called up with our guests to receive our honours one at a time which offered each group a special moment together. My photographs are currently in the post and I cannot wait to see them.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the length of conversation I had with HRH The Princess Royal who was extremely interested and engaged on the subject of food.

Afterwards, we emerged from the castle into the sunshine and headed to Bray for lunch with a wider family group who had gathered to celebrate with me, including family who had flown down from Scotland to be there. I had spent a considerable time planning a lunch for us and I was thrilled with how it all worked out. My restaurant of choice was Caldesi in Campagna in Bray, owned by Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi. We couldn’t have had a lovelier time with such warm, polished and attentive service and excellent food and wine. Given our late start and large-ish group, I pre-ordered the food and wines and asked for everything to be served to share, which worked brilliantly to suit dietary preferences and to give everyone a taste of different dishes. I really recommend this approach if you happen to find yourself planning a similar event as everyone loved it and it saved a lot of time and bother looking through menus and making decisions.

I have also received a lot of questions about my outfit, so here are the details what I wore for those who would like to know. My dress is by Needle & Thread, purchased from Harvey Nichols, my jacket is made by Linton, my shoes are L.K. Bennett (the style is Tess and they are so comfy I have them in three colours) and my bag was the Georgiana by Anya Hindmarch.

Charlotte Loves

This month, I thought I’d share a couple of food-themed recommendations that I have really enjoyed:

• I’ve had a considerable number of new cookbooks arriving over the last couple of weeks, which has been very exciting, and I’ll be posting my latest roundup next week. I would however like to offer my hearty congratulations to wonderful Jane Lovett though, as her latest brilliant book “The Get-Ahead Christmas Cook’ was published yesterday. And no, I don’t think it’s too early to mention the C word when it comes to getting organised! My Mum and I adore Jane’s books and we cook from them so often. They are totally brilliant for straightforward and delicious recipes for everyday meals and stylish entertaining. Her recipes never fail to delight and Mum loves that she can get hold of all the ingredients with ease at our small, local Waitrose.

• The latest series of Paula McIntyre’s Hamely Kitchen is really worth a watch. I don’t watch much in the way of food television, but I find Paula’s cookery programmes refreshingly different: they are really informative and interesting and delivered with Paula’s genuine expertise and good humour. Paula explores her Ulster Scots heritage through some really interesting and enticing recipes and stories. This time, she’s in the U.S. and even goes to visit Rachel Parton (Dolly’s sister). Rachel and Dolly have just published a joint cookbook too, which I must say considerably exceeded my expectations - they really know how to cook and have a great appreciation of family food.

• Crowdfarming.com continues to delight and is an outstanding source of exotic fruit, vegetables, oils and nuts. I love this way of buying direct from the farmer who employ sustainable farming techniques. This month, I am really liking the organic mango, avocado and lemon box from Spain. I’m very tempted to adopt some trees, too. A fun idea for a present.

Some brilliant new product discoveries

Here are a some wonderful new food and drink products I’ve recently discovered, that you might like to try, too:

• Kaltbach cheeses have won the World Cheese Awards, and helpfully, they are for sale in Waitrose and M&S. Try their Alpine Creamy and Le Gruyère AOP.

• I’m not usually a fan of flavoured drinks, but I really like this Blackcurrant ACV drink from Willy’s. I try and drink a little ACV every day, and I think theirs is the best.

• Smokin’ Brothers smoked salmon, produced at Daylesford is really, really good.

• Two Farmers, based in Ross-on-Wye produce delicious crisps in compostable bags. I favour the Lightly Salted, which uses local Droitwich salt. Their cider is just as good and is made using fruit grown in orchards near Ledbury.

• The Estate Dairy products are extremely good and their new Greek Yoghurt is really wonderful. They sell through Whole Foods, Ocado and some M&S Food branches at present, as well as a number of independent retailers, so if you spot any of their products for sale, do give them a go.