AUTUMN WINTER EVENT FOOD AT BREAD & FLOWERS, WILTSHIRE
I am a massive fan of Autumn and Winter, and all that it offers in terms of food, foraging and festivities.
When I say Winter, I mean December, I’m not a fan of January or February, even though most of my close friends seem to be Capricorns. I get Spring and Summer, they are enticing, optimistic, fresh and youthful, but for me, September 1st is the start of a superb season stretching to December the 31st and packed with magnitude and a momentum that doesn’t stop until New Year’s day.
It's the start of the game season proper for a start, grouse will have been on the menu for a couple of weeks, but the rest of the birds join them on September 1st, so that’s a cracking excuse to celebrate from day one. Then it’s ‘free food’ season across rural England as blackberries, sloes and greengages blossom in the hedgerows. Barrow loads of apples, pears and plums appear at the end of driveways advertised ‘please take me’ by householders burdened with enough fruit to fill a distillery.
We don’t even look up from September to the middle of October whilst we’re trying to cope with catering demands. The holidays are over, and everyone is feeling fully charged for what, to me is the beginning of a new year. Before you blink it’s the open season on hares, Halloween, Bonfire night, my birthday, Christmas Eve, Christmas get togethers and the New year’s Eve finale. All of that followed by a spot of light Wassailing in early January, then the party’s over until the clocks change in March and we get our lives back on track, the light returns to the world.
Strangely, I love the clocks changing at the end of October, the ensuing darkness seems comforting, like a cloak to hide under. We light our fires and invite people over for drinks and a bite to eat, and a natter, to catch up after the long hot summer, confide, comfort, entertain. Summer was a time to go off exploring with family and friends, reaching out into other territories and lands, expeditions across oceans, deserts and forests. Autumn is the time for gathering. Gathering in the harvest, gathering people together, sharing stories, fermenting friendships, forming new ones.
Our wedding season starts in April and used to finish in September, although we’re doing more and more winter weddings in Wiltshire and throughout the South West, so we’re still busy with them, occasionally until Christmas Eve.
Once we get into Autumn though, we like to think about opening the house up for private dining opportunities and pop up dining events. To change the tempo. We have a wonderful space, a venue which we love to share, and is available for you to use, and the food we can offer for these smaller scale dining events is spectacularly good. So if you have something special you would like to celebrate with family and friends, we can offer you an intimate dining experience. It’s just like having friends at home but without the washing up at the end of it. You just jump in a cab for a carefree journey home.