Taunton and South Somerset Living Aug - Sep 2021

the kitchen garden
ADVERTISING FEATURE
You cannot learn to be a good cook without
learning how -and how not- to eat and
without an abundance of greed and curiosity.
It’s not just about eating the best chefs’ food
or cooking with the finest ingredients. You
need to eat bad food to know what good
food is, and to burn and ruin a lot of your
own food and learn from your mistakes. And
learn from the chefs who follow food fashion
and scatter micro-herbs over everything,
even sticky toffee pudding, who paint and
glaze, drizzle and dribble, fiddle and faddle
with tweezers and puddles on plates rather
than make the ingredients taste simply and
intensely of themselves.
I was lucky enough to discover French
and Italian food at an early age. My mother
would drive crazy distances in search of a
good restaurant when we were children. We
would roam the back streets until we found
ourselves in a fish market where they were
hosing down and closing and she would
demand the best bouillabaisse in town. We
ate L’Aioli and Soupe au Pistou in a tiny
village restaurant in Murs in the Luberon. We
picnicked in cherry orchards on ripe cheeses
and rabbit pates bought in a deli in Apt,
on rillettes and brandade from Carpentras,
melons from Cavaillon.
When my mother wrote The Art of the Tart
I was her sous chef helping cook for the
photographs for the book.
‘But I’ve never made a tarte au citron
before,’ I wailed.
‘Nor will the readers of the book have,’
she replied, ‘if you can’t understand my
instructions I’ll re-write them.’
I was twelve at the time!
recommended Paul Merry at Panary. I went
on Paul’s wood-fired course first and was
instantly hooked. Next came, German,
French, Italian and sourdough courses. I
moved on to Paul’s professional course,
baffled by the hydration maths and ratio
of flour to water to yeast yet determined to
understand it.
When I had my first baby, Alba, I left her
on a Thursday to become the sorcerer’s
apprentice, even though, to begin with, Paul
only let me grease the bread tins. Finally he
allowed me to make croissants, christening
me ‘the croisssie girl.’
They were tough, cheesy, and a little yeasty
to my taste buds, something wasn’t right,
wasn’t French. I snuck in a little more sugar,
then a little more, and they turned out
buttery, golden, flaky.
Paul upgraded me to ‘oven girl,’ to weigh,
fold and knead the dough and by the time I
left Panary I was a fully fledged baker.
When we set up the pub restaurant our
pizzas were, I like to think, the best between
Taunton and Yeovil, in fact if I dare, the best
between Taunton and Bath. But the highoctane
life of a pub kitchen is not a place for
the mother of two small children, so when
I had Rory in 2018 I quit the seventy hour
weeks and cooked for my family. The daily
round of purees, packed lunches, teas and
supper. Until a year later I went back to help
Paul.
But what did I really want? A bakery? A
restaurant? A cafe?
Photo
© Tom Waller Food Envy Photography
sourdough loaves after seven years of
baking. And I started a business with Carol,
my former chef at the pub. We called it The
Kitchen Garden.
It wasn’t long before we were catering
private dining and had opened a cookery
school. In the let-up from lockdown we
catered holiday lets through Sleeps 12. We
eat breathe and bake dough and rise to
every challenge. Baking is a labour of love.
There are no short-cuts, and dough is as
temperamental as two small children. You
never know quite what it is going to do next.
We’ve driven loaves across Somerset
sometimes for a single figure profit. It is
only sustainable with our private dining and
cookery school, now booked up until the
autumn.
I do not regret the long, hard slog for a
minute. I’ve met some amazing people and
cooked for people who really appreciate
good food. And the joy is, we don’t operate
behind closed doors like chefs, we can see
people enjoying what we’ve produced and
almost taste their pleasure.
My passion for bread baking took longer to
mature. At home as a child we were always
fed dense, branny, organic wholemeal
bread. Baguettes on holiday were a treat.
So were our nanny Gladys’ ‘scooby snacks’
made with crusty cobs when Mama was
away filming. That sense of wickedness:
giant sandwiches piled with ham and
cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise,
coleslaw; we could hardly get our mouths
round them.
When I was asked to set up a new kitchen
in a pub in Somerset I decided it was high
time I learned to bake and my mother
I started doing cookery demonstrations at
my husband’s wood-burning stove shop. I
baked my way through Dan Lepard’s ‘Short
and Sweet.’ Customers stopped by, tasted,
asked for lessons. I set up an Artisan Bread
Baking Airbnb Experience. Pretty soon I had
5 star reviews and a full order book. I taught
Wonderful Walkers Picnics. And then...
You all know what happened in March 2020.
Stuck at home with the children I refined
my skills. The kitchen was stacked with
flour sacks. I mastered the perfect bagels,
baguettes, brown, white and finally
“We eat breathe and bake dough and rise to
every challenge. Baking is a labour of love.
There are no short-cuts, and dough is as
temperamental as two small children.”
Miranda Shearer
Perfect Neapolitan Pizza and Fresh Pasta
Class Sandpits, Curry Rivel, Somerset
Wednesday 8th and 15th September are
limited to 4 spaces. 10am-3pm lunch
included £150pp.
Artisan Bread Baking Sandpits, Curry
Rivel, Somerset Thursday 9th, Friday
10th and Thursday 16th September at
Sandpits in Curry Rivel, Somerset Classes
are limited to 4 spaces. 10am-3pm lunch
included £150pp.
The Art of the Tart - perfecting pastry
Wednesday 22 September 10am to 4pm.
Cost £175 pp lunch included Venue to be
confirmed.
To book please visit
www.thekitchengardensomerset.com
Miranda: 07899 665635
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