FOOD + DRINK
Sex & Drugs & Sausage Rolls
INTERVIEW WITH KENT CHEF GRAHAM GARRETT
INTERVIEW BY LISAMARIE LAMB
Graham Garrett has led a varied life … to say the least . Before he became a chef ( who now has a Michelin star and three AA rosettes to his name ) and bought The West House in Biddenden , he was a rock drummer with groups such as Dumb Blondes , Panache and YaYa .
Graham ’ s fascinating life , his love of food , his recipes and his thoughts are all put together in a beautifully artistic book that should be on any food lover ’ s bookshelf – Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls is a new type of cookbook from a new type of chef .
Graham Garrett © Adrian Franklin
How would you describe your food ? That ’ s a tricky one . I ' ve always tried to cook seasonally because it makes perfect sense to me , and it helps write my menus for me – it kind of dictates what I do . Because of that I concentrate on ingredients ; I think , ‘ Oh great , asparagus is coming soon , what are we going to do with it ?’ Or I find a great grower or farmer – a great piece of meat , a different cut , or produce that I get really excited by – and start thinking about what we can do with it that we haven ’ t done before .
Cooking seasonally helps me be more creative without trying to be wacky . We try to keep things as simple as possible , even though a lot of work goes into getting to the finished product . At the end of the day , you want the main ingredient to shine , you want it to be honest and you don ’ t want to mask it with loads of other things . And everything
The West House © Adrian Franklin you put on a plate should enhance it – everything on the plate should be there for a reason . I always say to people it ’ s just good , honest grub .
What inspires you ? Mostly it ’ s the ingredients , but there are other chefs out there who do amazing things , and that gives me inspiration . Or I might go eat somewhere that ’ s really good and helps me think of new things to try .
You rack your brains to think differently , which is extremely hard because you know within a couple of months everybody is going to be doing it – so you have to constantly keep changing , and searching for inspiration .
If you ’ re a chef , you can make something pretty good or pretty acceptable out of most things , but you can ’ t make something great unless you ’ ve got great ingredients , so I think that ’ s the main thing .
What gave you the idea to write your book Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls ?
It almost seems quite funny now , thinking back , because I said to everybody I would never do a cookbook . I look at books constantly ; I buy them all the time . I found at one point I was buying all of these books and I was flicking through them , only to put them on the shelf . They all seemed the same , almost formulaic , and was always searching for something ‘ different ’.
I had an amazing photographer , and didn ’ t want to approach a publisher only to be told , ‘ Yeah , we ’ re interested , but you have to use our writer , or our photographer .’ I thought that would be tragic .
I had a conversation with Cat Black who ended up co-writing with me , and was introduced to Anthony at Face Publications – we chatted about ideas and different things , and it turned out we were thinking the same thing he mentioned he ’ d be really interested to work with me . I took that as such a compliment that he would consider working with me and thought , ‘ Actually , it would be a bit rude not to .’ So my whole not ever doing a book kind of theory went out of the window .
I had the photographer I wanted to use , I had Cat Black involved , and Anthony was the missing piece , putting the whole project together .
I think you ’ ve achieved the ‘ different ’ goal in your book – it ’ s not just recipes , it ’ s about you and your life , and the photos are beautiful . Apart from a publisher , Anthony is a designer and a brand man at the end of the day – he ’ s got a real eye for design . Both he and Cat were on board the whole time to grow ideas , design and write .
It ’ s been pretty well received , and all the reviews have been great . I was very sure I didn ’ t want to make a chef-y cookbook , which limits the market a bit , but strangely enough it ’ s been really well received by chefs and the industry as well as the general public .
Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls is available from www . facepublications . com
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