River Cottage

Every time before I start writing a new post, I click "View Blog" to well, view my blog. And each time I see the date and think, "Was it that long ago I was on here last?!" Then I look at the calendar to check exactly how long ago that was. This time it's been over two weeks. I am ashamed of myself. Where are the days when I sat thinking up random things to write about here? Oh right, I left those days behind in Switzerland. We have a very busy social life here, not to mention business life now too! Oh and how can I forget the couch-and-TV life. It takes up so much time!

I'm not complaining. Not at all.

Just trying to make excuses for my lack of regular blogging. Sorry.

But I'm here now and will hopefully finish this post in one go.

Andre and I have been following Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's River Cottage cooking shows for a long time now. Andre has some of the DVD's so I've been watching it in SA already. Last week we were watching one of the shows again and saw them at the River Cottage Deli & Canteen. Well we saw it written on the building Hugh was sitting outside of. We were able to rewind the program to find out where this is. With a little extra help from google we found that it's 2 1/2 hours drive from us in a town called Axminster.

So on Sunday Andre and I drove there to go try Hugh Fernley Whittingstalls food. I suppose not really his food, but his restaurant. It's a very casual, homely restaurant with plain tables and chairs and not much decor besides all his books displayed on shelves along the wall.

The deli counter had so many delicious things. Lots of organic and local produce. Cheese, oils, truffles, milk, yoghurt, flour and many many more as you can see from the picture.

The menu changes daily depending on what comes in fresh from the farmers and fishermen. I had fish and mussels. I can't remember when last I had seafood. Andre had roast pork.

On the way to Axminster town centre, we took a wrong turn and (accidentally!) found River Cottage HQ and took some pictures at the entrance to the farm. Maybe one day we'll go to an event there too. You can have dinner there when they have certain events in the evenings but which will be quite a bit more expensive than eating at the canteen we went to on Sunday.