The greatest providores

The Secret Garden and the Flavour Shed..........

...........or Petersham Nurseries Restaurant and Tea room.

I meandered through the bustling and busy streets of Richmond upon Thames. The chill and wet of the last of the winter stimulated the need for a hot coffee to awaken my sleepy eyes.

I approach Petersham road. It feels like it will never end until I turn left into a little park area with benches on one side and mysterious entrance to a tunnel on the other.. The Thames river slowly flowing beside me. I walk along slightly confused and feeling just a little lost. I push through a turn style like little gate and a big flat and long plain grassy field captures my horizon. A small dirt track divides it and leads to another gate.

Good things come to those who wait and work hard for it. Yet, I wonder how long it takes to get to my destination on foot. As I get through the second gate, I curiously ask a passer by, "Is this the way to the nurseries? She smiles, and directs me to the end of the lane and into the right. I anxiously dip my head and crawl through the small gate, cut out of the large wooden gates to the inside of the nurseries.

I am greeted by too large and long greenhouses and at the end are two sheds. The restaurant kitchen or flavour shed and the quint tea room. I finally arrive at Petersham and with butterflies of excitement in my stomach eagerly await the start of my week with Skye and her family of cooks in the kitchen.

I'm greeted by Lughan, on my first day, and swiftly shown around and given something to do via the kitchen prep list. The atmosphere in the kitchen each day, is like a good stock pot. Well arranged with a slight simmer, as the flavours are produced and gently flow through. Everyone is hard at work and casually chat as the morning goes by, throwing in the odd, joke about the Master chef presenters. You can tell straight away that there is no room for egos in this kitchen and each chef is passionate to Skye's food philosophy. I always remember Tito. The gentle Italian. Possibly the kindest, well natured, and gently spoken chef i have met. He shows a keen eye for adjustment of each finished dish, under the watchful eye of Skye. As I cook pappardelle with cavolo nero sauce, I'm instructed to add just a little more olive oil and lemon juice. To balance out the flavours.

There was also clams with bruschetta, roast quail with sweet potato and lentils, sardines with tomato, baked ricotta, custard tart with champagne rhubarb on the menu, throughout the week. They hold a more extended menu on a Saturday and Sunday with a choice of three or four starters, three or four mains and three desserts with a simplistic cheese plate.

Each dish contains a protein, fish or seasonal vegetable with just a few garnishes. Cooked with local, seasonal produce with doesn't need much working with. The flavours speak for themselves.

It is this philosophy with i have grown to love. A passion for simplistic flavour and seasonally motivated cooking with small Italian or Australian influences.

Skye Quotes in her book, "My Favourite Ingredients"

Food fascinates, seduces and entrances me. Produce in its purest form, in peak condition - tasting as it should - can lift and dazzle me with the excitement of its possibilities.

I love this quote. It represents all that i love about petersham Nurseries restaurant and what she has made it. Produce and flavour driven with no un necessary fancy strings attached.

She has a passion for food which i feel is hard to find in many young chefs today.

Michelin and plate art or food texture is too common now and often flavour is compromised.

Restaurant food, cooked by many of these chefs almost feels, fake or airbrushed. They cook for chefs and not the customers.

Throughout my week at Petersham, i have enjoyed every minute of it and am constantly keen to get more permanent work there. I have enjoyed the place so much, i want to go back soon and to stay there and work. Cook the food i was meant to cook and absorb the philisophy that every chef needs to learn.

"PEACH"

My first memories of this humble fruit were not particularly good. As a child i has forced to eat slices of ice cold peaches, taken from a tin, and drowned in thick glue like hot birds eye custard. You know, the powdered kind, whisked into milk and left on the stove to thicken, lumps optional.

I always thought this was what a peach tasted like. Little did i know that years later, as i gradually teased and trained my curious and initiative palate, that i would truly discover the real hedonistic mesmerising and highly perfumed fruit.

NO other flavour can really best describe the unique and individualistic flavour of a peach. Even the word itself, conjures up fond memories of the sensation of biting into their first ripe peach ( minus the tin, off course).

There are many recipes that exist for peaches. chilled soups, purees, ice creams, sorbets, Bellini's, the list is endless.

Yet, there is nothing more enjoyable that just leaving its flavour and texture be. Letting it speak for itself, grilled, simply poached or just sliced into a salad with some prosciutto and almonds.

I once sat up almost all night, unable to sleep because I kept thinking up different things to serve or eat with them.