The very first blog. Sixs weeks into term, and i have discovered a new life focused around food, food production, and eating. every moment is filled with thoughts about food, or simply eating.
Evenings have spent plucking Partridges and Pheasants with a few glasses of wine. Cider has been made in the cobbled courtyard of the school. Wild mushrooms have been foraged from the estate; basketfuls of Cepes, Parasols, Shaggy inkcaps and Deseivers. I've made sloe infused gin and rosehip syrup, churned butter, seperated cream, turned 120 lites of fresh, unpasteurised milk into Cheddar and Coulommiers, and then eaten masses of cheese and debated food politics late into the night. 

The coffee roasters at Monmouth Coffee, based under the railway arches in Southwark, had the pleasure of our company as we smelt, tasted and roasted our way through every coffee producing country in the world.   

The autumn colours lit in thin, watery sunshine have been glorious, but frost and wind this week have changed the landscape to a much colder scene of blues and greys, with a mist hanging over the lake I pass early each morning. I have been eating light salads with a few bitter leaves, salty goats cheese, toasted nuts and a few slices of pear, but this week I plan to cook something richer and more warming; braised venison maybe. or a creamy chicken pie.