BBQ Spring 2017 | Page 55

Who are your food heroes?

HJ – Well I love reading Anthony Bourdain, his food and travel writing are fantastically nononsense. Mitch Tonks is a friend from Dartmouth and I love his cooking at the Seahorse, both fish and meat, and the atmosphere he’s created – inclusive and welcoming whoever you are. Sally Clarke in London – her food is great and the fact that she is a woman running a long-standing restaurant and commercial enterprise without getting a lot of noisy pr about it. Rodney Scott in South Carolina was fantastic – we met him and chatted to him in his smoke shack and he was happy to tell us about his set up and history; whenever we mentioned that we had met Rodney, whoever we were talking would go silent for a moment and then say - “Rodney – he’s just a legend!” That’s what I like – people who are motivated by cooking great food for people and not the idea of celebrity.

DJ - My dad was a huge inspiration for me – he grew all our vegetables for our family of 6 all year round and cooked delicious, simple food. Also what Delia and Jamie have done to get people in the kitchen is great for everyone – cooking is something to participate in, it’s not a spectator sport, and anyone who can get people having a go rather than watching a cooking programme is alright by me!

What next for MFD?

HJ – we are really focussing on our core subjects for courses – breadmaking, fish cooking and wood fired cooking. That and writing more wood fired cook books and filming a series of how-to videos for people who can’t get to us at the school. There is a temptation when you are self employed to say yes to everything but it’s kind of liberating to be able to say no! Please tell us about your new book and the series? DJ –As we mentioned, we have 2 books out now. Our first one – The Wood Fired Oven Cook Book – came out in 2012 and is consistently a #1 best seller on Amazon. We decided to self-publish our second one – Wood Fired Flatbreads and Pancakes – as we had learnt so much more, wanted to tell people about it and our original publisher unfortunately wasn’t interested in doing another book.

We worked with local photographer Nick Hook and designer Simon Blogg and we’re delighted with how it’s come out. Just 100 pages but full of great recipes and information, beautiful photographs and fab design. Now we just have to sell it(!) but it’s steadily selling on Amazon, here at the school and at other outlets; if it does half as well as our first one we’ll be delighted. The plan is to have a series covering lots of different types of woodfired cooking – fish & seafood, meat cooking, slow cooking, breadmaking, baking, and get them out 2-3 per year. It was so great when the books came from the printers – we knew we’d done the right thing!

Visit the Manna from Devon website for more details on courses

http://www.mannafromdevon.com/

Their latest wonderful book is available for £9.99 simply click the cover to the left to buy on Amazon.

Follow on Twitter: @MannaFromDevon

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