Newsham Life - Around the Table with Will & James

We’ve been to the butcher. We’ve cooked outside in the Peckish kitchen garden. There was butter, garlic, plenty of herbs and a particularly good addition of Shepherds Purse Bluemin White.

Which really left just one thing to do.

Eat it.

For the final part of our first Newsham Life story, James sits down with Will to try the finished dish. A straightforward enough task, you might think.

Will, however, had other ideas.

Somewhere between the first mouthful and giving his verdict, a simple lunch in the garden took a slight turn towards Great British Menu. There’s a thoughtful pause. Some fairly serious consideration. A detailed assessment of the cooking. At one point, James looks remarkably like a chef waiting to discover whether he’s made it through to the banquet.

Thankfully, the verdict is a good one.

Joking aside, sitting down together felt like the right place to finish this first story. Because the table is where all the different parts come together.

We started at Frank Family Butchers in Thirsk, talking about the provenance of the beef and why knowing where an ingredient has come from matters. Back at Newsham, James cooked the bavette simply in the garden, finishing it with Bluemin White after a recent visit to Shepherds Purse gave him the idea.

And then, finally, it arrived at the table.

That journey says a lot about the way James and the Peckish team think about food. Start with ingredients worth caring about. Get to know the people producing them. Cook with the seasons and resist the temptation to interfere too much when something is already very good.

It’s an approach that runs through the food we serve at Newsham, most importantly across the weddings we cater for at Thirsk Lodge Barns, but also at the seasonal events that give us the opportunity to play with what’s growing, being reared and made around us at that particular moment.

And it’s also what we want Newsham Life to explore.

Not simply the finished plate, but everything that happens before it reaches the table. The growers, makers, farmers and local businesses we work with. The ideas that begin with a conversation and eventually find their way onto a menu. And the people here at Newsham who bring it all together.

For our first story, that began with a piece of Yorkshire beef and ended with Will doing his very best food critic impression in the garden.

We couldn’t really have planned it better.

Watch Part Three: Around the Table with Will & James.

And if you’d rather form your own opinion, join us for Steak Night, where James and the Peckish team will be doing it all again - although we can’t promise Will will be available to judge your plate.