G2 club at home is back

Well known local cook and food writer Lindy Wildsmith ran the G2 club, a monthly demonstration based cookery club in Ross for many years at both the Wilton Court and Orles Barn hotels is back in business in Ross-on-Wye. The new G2 at home will be based on bespoke cooking sessions specialising in one to ones and very small groups of home cooks looking to gain confidence or to build on their already competent skills. Lindy says she can design the content of the cooking days around individual needs. Lindy also offers tuition for teachers and professionals looking to widen their repertoire or wanting to specialise in a particular field.

Lindy has a very busy schedule over and above her new venture; she runs the Chef’s Room fish and cookery school in Blaenavon where she teaches with Franco Taruschio, founder of the legendary Walnut Tree. She also hosts regular residential courses at Denman, the National WI Centre near Abingdon and creates recipes for their magazine. She has recently finished translating a new Italian lifestyle cookery book “Love Italy” into English and is currently writing a book on Italian food to share. Her last book “Cured: salted, spiced, dried, smoked, potted, pickled, raw was short listed in 2011 for both the Andre’ Simon and Guild of Food Writer’s cookery book of the year.

Why then this new venture? Lindy says “the diet of cookery programmes we are being fed on the television is transforming cooking into a spectator pastime. Simple achievable home cooking is being snubbed in favour of sophisticated chef’s fare resulting in the belief that a sophisticated ready meal is more acceptable than everyday home cooking. The importance of eating freshly cooked ingredients cannot be over emphasised. Sitting at a table enjoying home fare with your family and friends, eating home prepared food is one of the greatest pleasures in life.”

Lindy, who has lived in Ross since 1984 has recently given her kitchen a complete make-over with the help of local bespoke kitchen makers, Taylor Made by Stanton of Longhope and J&J builders of Newent. It was specially designed for teaching small hands-on classes as well as use as an experimental and domestic kitchen. She says “Replacing a kitchen is always a huge task as it is the hub of the home as well as my work place but with Tom Taylor, Jeremy Stanton and their team’s help the project was remarkably trouble free. The natural slate, marble and contemporary high gloss finish is sleek and practical and it is a pleasure to work in.”

Recently G2 at home opened its doors to Linda Lord who spent the day with Lindy cooking “Simple recipes for healthy eating.” The dishes for the Simple recipes for healthy eating class were predominantly fish based as Linda was nervous about trying different types of fish. It was a bit of a baptism of fire; the class included griddled swordfish with Mediterranean vegetables and salsa verde, monkfish and scallop skewers with crispy breadcrumbs, homemade tomato sauce with pasta, a chicken, potato and green bean dish and a seasonal salad with brown shrimp.

For more information about G2 cooking at home; from one to one confidence building cooking to lunch party cooking with friends email or to discuss individual needs email g2club@hotmail.com or phone 01989 562353 or for her other activities please visit www.lindywildsmith.co.uk or www.thechefsroom.co.uk

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