Welbeck- ssssshhhhhh still sleeping.

 

Pitch Pine Lodge. Next to the Magic Red Phone Booth.

My pied-a-terre in the Sherwood Forest. My personal Narnia.

If you’ve missed the official Press Release, the woot-woot celebrations of NEW & Exciting Butchery & Charcuterie opportunities, and the general Anglo/American/French ribbing taking place on Twitter- then let me catch you up…but briefly. There are planes to catch and courses to plan and big French dogs waiting at home.

Welcome to Camont’s parallel universe- the School of Artisan Food  at the Welbeck Estate in the North Midlands, the Sherwood Forest (yes, THAT Sherwood Forest), and a new way of learning, both in France at Camont and on the Charcuterie farm Chez Chapolard and in the special setting of an intimate school designed to preserve and teach the Food Arts of Baking, Cheesemaking and Butchery & Charcuterie.

As Head of Butchery & Charcuterie for the School of Artisan Food, I have joined a team of dedicated food professionals focused on producing a much needed dedicated Butchery & Charcuterie program with the support of an academic organization ( with food science, small business, health and safety & sensory training programs) and a practical staff of master butchers, teachers, health officers, farmers, gamekeepers, charcutiers and chefs. All this savoir-faire organized by a team of smiling faces under one well built stone and slate roof!

There are still spaces available for the complete 10-month Diploma Studies Course in Artisan Butchery & Charcuterie that begins in late septmeber. This is the first year of a NEW program designed to integrate each step of the Field to Fork philosophy, one we all share,  into a practical training program backed with academic and professional resources. With 3 dedicated teachers, visiting guest tutors and professionals, and 6 weeks of work study program with the best British and Continental butchers, charcutiers and chefs, our new program stands unique. Interested?

We’ll talk more. But it’s too early for meetings on a glorious late summer day. First bird song and tractor hum are my companions, the only evidence of life as I prowl along the ‘campus’  on the Welbeck Estate watching the stone warm to the sun. Here are a few of my first images.

As very 18th-C French as Camont is, Welbeck is über 18th-C English. And I enjoy the visual and gustatory contrasts discovered on every visit. Walk with me this early morning to hear the many pheasants calling from bush and hedgerow. And then I’ll tell you more later about the Magic Red Phone Booth…