Spice up your festive fare

Nov 27 2009 by Katharine Everitt, The Journal

Fret no more over festive entertaining. Help is at hand with a new cookery school which will wave its magic wand and turn you into something of a domestic goddess. Katharine Capocci tries out a taster session.

CHRISTMAS is just around the corner and that means wowing family and friends with festive fare and party nibbles. Or not, as the case may be.

For many, the very thought of Christmas entertaining is enough to get us steamed up and stressed out – and that’s before even setting a big toe inside the kitchen.

Then there’s the expense and hassle involved for those of us who failed our domestic goddess exams.

Negotiating the party food aisles at the supermarket and shelling out a small fortune on pricey readymade nibbles and turkey crowns is enough to send blood pressure soaring.

But fretting over canapés is a thing of the past after my introduction to gourmet cooking at the new Lady G’s Cookery School at Middleton Lodge, Middleton Tyas in North Yorkshire.

Classy Christmas canapés, dinners and show-off puds are now within my grasp after a taster session at the privately-owned Georgian mansion house.

The use of locally-sourced produce is prominent on the menu with lamb from North Yorkshire and pork sausages from butchers and scrummy cheeses from Wensleydale.

Lady G’s is a new addition to the cookery school scene in the North, which includes Bettys at Harrogate, Swinton Park at Masham, and Wooler-based Jane Lovett in Northumberland.

“We like to keep our food simple. Great-tasting local produce makes our lives so much easier,” says chef Caroline Whalley, one half of Lady G’s cookery school.

“We’re so lucky in that there are also two or three butchers in every town here.

“Our ethos is that people should embrace cooking as the most delightful hobby. You don’t have to be a master chef to produce culinary delights, you just have to be confident and motivated. We can teach you all these things.”

The other half of Lady G’s is Lady Georgina Anderson – a titled lady in real life, but down-to-earth and all-round good egg.

Both Caroline and Lady G are Cordon Bleu chefs, but both are completely unstuffy and work wonders instilling confidence in the kitchen. The school’s motto is emblazoned on the back of their chef whites: “Cooking with confidence”!

Lady G, who lives at East Witton in Wensleydale, has owned a catering company for many years while Caroline, from Aldborough St John, Richmond, and husband owned two restaurants.