Debby Mason's Blog

Newsletter Dec 2012 – Sea Portraits, Diving & Dodo’s

Debby — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 11:15:23 +0000

The Sea Portraits Exhibition

Out of the blue I received a letter from Plymouth University and The Blue Project about the launch of the inaugural Marine City Festival – A celebration of Plymouth's intimate connection with the sea, through history, culture, business, education and science. I had been shortlisted for 'Sea Portraits' a series of interviews with people from Plymouth who have strong connections to the marine environment, and their own story to tell. Read More Here

A 'Great Escape' in Dartmouth…

While at the Dartmouth Regatta in August – this year thankfully dry! I met Monty Halls and his team. Monty recently presented 'The Fisherman's Apprentice' on BBC television and has written some adventurous books about his travels and diving expeditions.

You can see a selection of my work at his newly opened shop 'Great Escapes' by the old market in Dartmouth, 'An ideal base camp from which all manner of adventures are born.' I am very much looking forward to collaborating with Great Escapes!

Pictured here in Monty's new shop with marine biologist and expert guide Rachel Cole. See the 'Great Escapes' website here

Christmas Fayre!

I will be at the Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre on the 8th and 9th of December 2012. Do come and see me if you are about, they have loads of festive events, stalls & cookery demonstrations.

More Christmas Fayre details and a short video here

See my designs…

A selection of the designs from my original artwork are available in various different forms, from 100% cotton Aprons & Tea Towels to Fine Bone China Mugs. Some items are currently sold out but you can see all my designs here

Last Dive of the Year!

In September we did our last dive of the year in Plymouth Sound, the weather hasn't been too good since. Will certainly get my neck seal sorted out for next season!
The picture in the top header was taken after a rare but succesful potting trip. I'd like to thank all my customers and friends for their support and encouragement.
With all good wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
Debby x
PS. I have just had the latest tea towel design delivered…a Penguin! You can see it here
Please make sure that you use my newer email address debby@debbymason.com

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On Crutches!

Unfortunately I had to have an operation on my left foot and have been on crutches for six weeks and off work for eight! It's been difficult to get to my workshop so output of my work this year has suffered some what. If you are thinking of placing any orders for Christmas please do let me know as soon as possible.

The Edge of Existence!

I am continuing to support Project Seahorse. With some of my new work the Aardvark, Dodo, Armadillo and Platypus I am very happy to be able to donate to EDGE. The Zoological Society of London's 'Edge of Existence Programme' focusing on the conservation of Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered Species. See some of my new work and the EDGE article here

New Dodo Print

I've just finished a small hand coloured etching of
a dodo.

A few facts…
The Dodo bird (Raphus Cucullatus) was driven to extinction by humans in 1681, 175 years after their discovery, the last dodo was dead.

Dodos were only found on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

Dodo birds are related to pigeons

It is believed that the loss of the dodo directly caused the near extinction of the tambalacocque, or dodo tree. The dodo tree's seeds would only germinate after passing through the digestive system of the dodo. To help with this trees survival, botanists now pass the seeds through the digestive track of turkeys.

View the DODO Print

A few places where you can see my work…

On my website!

The Devon Guild of Craftsmen at Bovey Tracey

The Metropole Hotel in Padstow

The Alverton Gallery in Penzance

Forge 2 in Culworth, Oxfordshire

Monty Halls in Dartmouth

Sound Bites in Plymouth
for my mugs & tea-towels

New Greetings Cards

45Southside will be stocking some of my work and publishing a selection of my images as greetings cards in the Spring '13.
www.45southside.co.uk

In my workshop for ‘Sea Portraits’…

Debby — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:21:50 +0000

Out of the blue I received a letter from Plymouth University & The Blue Project about the launch of the inaugural Marine City Festival – A celebration of Plymouth’s intimate connection with the sea, through history, culture, business, education and science. I had been shortlisted for ‘Sea Portraits’ a series of interviews with people from Plymouth who have strong connections to the marine environment, and their own story to tell. This would form part of an Exhibition and possibly a book. The Blue Project, driven by Conrad Humphreys is an initiative aimed at inspiring individuals and corporations to care about the health of the planet by implementing the lifestyle changes needed to slow down and reverse the effects of global climate change. I was interviewed by Andy Merrington the senior press officer of Plymouth University and had a photo session at home with Lloyd Russell the university photographer.

Sea Portraits Article & Exhibition Piece
“There is something magical about creating art with metal,” says Debby Mason as she carefully unwraps the copper plate from its paper covering, revealing a stunning coelacanth seemingly fossilised beneath its facade. “It is at once so beautiful and permanent.”

The texture on those ancient scales is remarkable to behold – the result of weeks of painstaking ‘roughing’ with a chisel-like rocker and then ‘burnishing’ the detail, a technique that produces a beautifully ‘velvety’ quality when transferred onto paper. “I like the blackness and the texture you get from mezzotints,” Debby says. “It is somehow more atmospheric; like with the coelacanth here – there is this sense of a prehistoric creature emerging from the deep.”

: Debby Mason in her workshop the picture used for ‘Sea Portraits’,

Emerging from the deep: like the Nautilus of Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo that stoked the fires of Debby’s imagination as a child; like Jacques Cousteau and his film crew on The Silent World, who provided a window into another world, one that she has gone back to time and again on dive trips of her own across the globe; like the process of memory itself, from which Debby has drawn forth the inspiration for so much of her artwork – the family holidays in North Cornwall, the close encounters with cuttlefish in Plymouth Sound, the hours spent sketching animals and fish in aquaria and museums. The South West itself is an undeniable source of inspiration for Debby, who first began to explore printing at Plymouth College – and she was quick to return to the city once she’d completed a degree in Surrey. She now lives in Oreston, on the banks of Hooe Lake, upon whose tidal waters legend says that Drake and Raleigh once sailed. Certainly you do not have to look hard for signs of history: the skeletal ribs of the hulk Arthur is visible barely 30 metres from Debby’s garden, jutting skywards with seagulls now her only crew. Buoys and an old beam, flotsam washed up on her shore, decorate one leafy corner, next to a wooden smokehouse. And, perhaps most touchingly, in the converted garage that serves as her workshop, her printing press is in fact a converted Victorian mangle that belonged to her grandmother, and was used to wring the clothes of the wartime evacuees that lived upon their Somerset farm.

Three times selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Debby’s prints have found their way into cookbooks and educational posters, private commissions and public exhibitions at some of the great aquaria of the world. “I never know what I’m going to do next,” she says. “But something exciting always seems to come up!” Article by Andy Merrington

See the full details of the Sea Portraits Exhibition here

For more info visit www.theblueproject.org and www.conradhumphreys.com

The Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre 2012

Debby — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:26:39 +0000

I will be at the Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre on the 8th and 9th of December 2012, from 10am to 5pm (4pm on Sunday). Back for its ninth year, the Christmas Fayre will be better than ever! Do come and see me if you are about, they have loads of festivive events, stalls & cookery demonstrations.

Inspirational cookery demonstrations from leading Westcountry chefs
Local produce will be available for your culinary delight
If you’re looking for that special Christmas gift, there will be a wide variety of crafts and gifts
Beautiful floral decorations (all for sale) by the students at Duchy College
Face painting, kids kitchen (Saturday) and creative corner
In the House there will be fantastic singing from Millbrook and Fourlanesend School Choir, Reflection Choir, Torpoint Ladies Choir and the Kessenyan Singers
Also performances by the Italia Conti School in the Stables Courtyard and Flash Jack singers both afternoons in the Stables Courtyard
Plus! There will be a visit form Santa on his magical sleigh at 3pm both days at the House.
Download the Christmas Fayre Events Program here

Here’s a little taster from last year at Mount Edgcumbe This year they have special ferries running from the Barbican directly to Mount Edgcumbe. In addition to the schedule Cremyll Ferry which runs every half hour from Admirals Hard in Stonehouse directly to Mount Edgcumbe (8 mins) Plymouth Boat Trips will be running trips from the Barbican at 10.45am, 12.15pm, 1.45pm and 3.15pm with return trips at 11.15am, 12.45pm, 2.15pm and 3.45pm. It’s never been easier to get to Mount Edgcumbe or find those special Christmas gifts! There’s also lots of free parking on the estate (follow the directions of parking staff) with a mini bus (operated by the Friends of Mount Edgcumbe) shuttling around the park to drop off at the House, parking areas and ferries.

On my stand at the Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre 2011

Irreplaceable creatures on the ‘EDGE’ of existence

Debby — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 15:56:55 +0000

“Elephants, rhinos and tigers may be the poster boys of the animal kingdom, but many of the world’s most extraordinary animals are slipping towards extinction unnoticed.

Baby Aardvark Mezzotint from the 'Edge Project' series

The long-beaked echidna (one of only two types of egg-laying mammal), and Chinese giant salamander (a newt that has reached human sized proportions) have few close relatives on the Tree of Life and are extremely distinct in the way they look, live and behave. If they disappear there will be nothing like them left on the planet. What does Evolutionary Distinct mean? The evolutionary distinctiveness or “uniqueness” of a species is measured by looking at how long it has been evolving independently from its closest relatives. Species with few or no close relatives (e.g. the aardvark or duck-billed platypus) are more evolutionarily distinct than those with many close relatives (e.g. the brown rat). The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has developed an index for identifying the world’s most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species. Evolutionarily Distinct species are important to conserve since they may play a unique role in their ecosystem, or contain genetic material not found in other species. They are quite simply irreplaceable.

Pangolin Mezzotint from the 'Edge Project' series

High ranking EDGE species range from the familiar (e.g. Asian elephant or giant panda) to the virtually unknown (e.g. Sagalla caecilian). They are nature’s most precious assets yet an alarming proportion are being completely overlooked by the conservation movement. The EDGE of Existence programme (www.edgeofexistence.org) focuses on poorly-known EDGE mammals, amphibians and corals, such as the Sunda pangolin (a “scaly anteater” from Southeast Asia) or the mushroom coral from Indonesia. Through raising awareness, investing in a new generation of conservation leaders and initiating targeted conservation action, EDGE aims to secure the future of 100 EDGE species over the next 5 years”. The Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) is number 313 on the endangered species list. The name aardvark comes from the Africaan/Dutch meaning “earth pig” The Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) is number 91 on the endangered species list. They belong to an ancient clade of egg-laying mammals Download the Edge brochure here http://www.edgeofexistence.org/downloads/edge_information_low.pdf

Learn more about globally endangered species at the ZSL EDGE 'Edge of Existence' website

The top 100 list of Endangered Species 1. Yangtze River dolphin 2. Long-beaked echidna 3. Riverine rabbit 4. Cuban solenodon 5. Hispaniolan solenodon 6. Sumatran rhinoceros 7. Black rhinoceros 8. Bactrian camel 9. Northern hairy-nosed wombat 10. Sumatran rabbit 11. Javan rhinoceros 12. Asian elephant 13. African wild ass 14. Onager 15. Vietnam leaf-nosed bat 16. Aye-aye 17. Japanese dormouse 18. Giant panda 19. Red panda 20. Wroughton’s free-tailed bat 21. Pygmy hippopotamus 22. Slender loris 23. Golden bamboo lemur 24. Greater bamboo lemur 25. Seychelles sheath-tailed bat 26. Anderson’s mouse opossum 27. Mediterranean monk seal 28. Mountain pygmy possum 29. Golden-crowned sifaka 30. Northern marsupial mole 31. Southern marsupial mole 32. Puerto Rican hutia 33. Bulmer’s fruit bat 34. Baird’s tapir 35. Gracile mouse opossum 36. Indri 37. Hirola 38. Greater big-footed mouse 39. New-Guinea big-eared bat 40. Persian mole 41. Volcano rabbit 42. Monito del monte 43. Fossa 44. Amami rabbit 45. Hainan gymnure 46. Golden-rumped elephant shrew 47. Dinagat moonrat 48. Mindanao gymnure 49. Bumblebee bat 50. Hairy-eared dwarf lemur 51. Muennink’s spiny rat 52. Small-toothed mole 53. Dugong 54. Leadbeater’s possum 55. Nimba otter-shrew 56. New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat 57. Short-tailed chinchilla 58. Malayan water shrew 59. Sumatran water shrew 60. Desert dormouse 61. Salenski’s shrew 62. Saiga antelope 63. Maned three-toed sloth 64. Iranian jerboa 65. Ganges River dolphin 66. Indus River dolphin 67. Chacoan peccary 68. Senkaku mole 69. Handley’s slender mouse opossum 70. Long-footed potoroo 71. Philippine flying lemur 72. Inquisitive shrew-mole 73. Chinese shrew-mole 74. Indian rhinoceros 75. Armenian birch mouse 76. Chapa pygmy dormouse 77. African elephant 78. Vaquita 79. Yellow-tailed woolly monkey 80. Mountain tapir 81. Long-eared jerboa 82. Grevy’s zebra 82. Mountain zebra 84. Amazonian manatee 85. Peter’s tube-nosed bat 86. Chinese dormouse 87. Blunt-eared bat 88. Blue whale 88. Fin whale 90. Falanouc 91. The Chinese Pangolin 92. Bushy-tailed opossum 93. Gallagher’s free-tailed bat 94. Old World sucker-footed bat 95. Malagasy giant jumping rat 96. Imaizumi’s horseshoe bat 97. Orangutan 98. Chiapan climbing-rat 99. Tumbala climbing-rat 100. Setzer’s mouse-tailed dormouse

Printfest 2012 – Art Exhibition / Festival, Ulverston, Cumbria

Debby — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:50:44 +0000

PrintFest 5th & 6th May 2012

Printfest is the UK’s only artist led printmaking festival which takes place over the early May Bank Holiday weekend.

It is based in the friendly market town of Ulverston, Cumbria, on the edge of the Lake District, where the Coronation Hall which provides a beautiful and relaxed setting for the display of artwork from throughout the UK and further afield. It celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2011 and is dedicated to the exhibition and sale of contemporary prints. It offers the opportunity to view and purchase art works, meet the artists and find out more about printmaking.

Printfest 2012 takes place on Saturday 5 May and Sunday 6 May 2012 from 10 am to 5 pm. I will be exhibiting my recent Mezzotint Prints & Etchings along with 40 other national and international artists.

Forms Most Beautiful at Plymouth Museum

Debby — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:14:24 +0000

Crab Larvae

Five of my Plankton Etchings will be on display at the Exhibition. Plymouth’s coastline is full of amazing creatures – many of which are smaller than a pin-head and almost invisible to the eye. The Forms Most Beautiful Exhibition at Plymouth Museum will help you discover them in all their beauty and find out more about the people who have studied and collected them since the 1800s. Exhibition from: Saturday 21 January – Saturday 21 April 2012 See large-scale images of microscopic marine life as well as specimens from our natural history collections, in this new exhibition developed by the Collections Team at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, in partnership with Plymouth University. Many of the city’s marine science organisations will also be involved, including:-

Sir Alistair Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science
Plymouth Marine Laboratory
The Marine Biological Association
National Marine Aquarium

More details can be found on the Plymouth Museum website

The Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre 2011

Debby — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:14:06 +0000

Me on my stand at the Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre It was held on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 December 2011 from 10am to 5pm (4pm on Sunday) Back for its eighth year, the Christmas Fayre was better than ever! I had a good show and my work was well received.

Mount Egdecumbe Christmas Fayre 2011

Inspirational cookery demonstrations from leading Westcountry chefs
Local produce will be available for your culinary delight
If you’re looking for that special Christmas gift, there will be a wide variety of crafts and gifts
Admission: Adults £3 each, children £1 each

View the Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre 2011 Events Programme Here

SAHFOS and the Importance of Plankton

Debby — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:02:03 +0000

Here’s a really interesting video animation describing the importance of plankton and the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey. It was premiered at the recent Plankton 2011 Symposium where I had a small exhibition. Through SAHFOS the opportunity to study & draw Plankton arose, and my interest, excitement and passion increased as the microscope opened up a whole new world of marine creatures that I had never thought of drawing before. You can view the prints that came from this discovery here Further details about SAHFOS can be found at www.sahfos.ac.uk

Norman Tebbit Cookbook – Excerpt from the Mail

Debby — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:17:15 +0000

The Game Cook with illustrations by Debby Mason

An Excerpt from the Mail article by Norman Tebbit regarding ‘The Game Cook’ It all started in my local butcher’s shop, the New Street Butchers in Horsham, West Sussex. I often took in to him pheasants, partridges and ducks from my days out shooting. I was looking at the pheasants priced between £4 and £5 and said: ‘Why do people pay more for a rubber-boned supermarket chicken than they would for a pheasant?’ ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I think mostly it’s because they don’t know how to cook them – and they think it would be very difficult.’ Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret prepare a meal at their home Kitchen cabinet: Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret prepare a meal at their home That, I thought, is probably correct, but something should be done to put it right. So I wrote down a couple of my favourite pheasant recipes, printed a few dozen copies and put them on his counter (probably a breach of Hygiene and Food Handling Directive Two Million and One from Brussels). To my delight, the recipe sheets disappeared – and so did the pheasants. From then, I was on the hook and bit by bit I gathered together recipes we used at home, put them all together and created The Game Cook. A lot of my friends were somewhat surprised that I should have written a cookery book rather than one about how they are all cooking the books at Westminster, but I was interested in food even before politics. In fact, I cannot remember a time when I was not interested in food. I grew up in an ordinary North London family in the Thirties when times were still hard in the wake of the Great Depression. We did not have much money to spend, and then through the war and post-war years, we queued for our rations and any luxuries such as oranges and bananas. My mother was the daughter of a butcher (alas, he had retired before the war or we might have done better), so she knew a thing or two about meat and certainly how to make much out of little. From her I learned some basic cooking skills and, just as importantly, how to buy food, especially meat. Without convenience food – unless you count baked beans – and without refrigerators, my mother’s generation had to think ahead and work hard in the kitchen. Of course we grew what we could and particularly during the war we kept rabbits and chickens in our tiny garden. They were mostly laying hens (though if they went off lay they went into the pot), but there was always a cockerel for Christmas. The vegetable production increased when a row of houses opposite us was bombed and we annexed one of the gardens. This was no time to be sentimental. Whether it was one of our own rabbits or chickens or one acquired through some miracle of back-door or saloon-bar dealing, it came in fur or feather. It was my mother who dealt with such things and it was from her that I learned how to skin and clean rabbits and hares, and to pluck and clean a chicken. Indeed, I remember when someone brought her a live goose, which was understandably in a pretty sour mood, she demonstrated how a rather small lady could quell such a large bird and wring its neck in the kitchen. I must confess that these days I have become rather idle, relying on my butcher to prepare my birds, but when I shoot pigeons I usually take off the breast myself and leave the rest for my local fox in thanks for his help in keeping down the rabbit population. Enlarge Pheasant with apples and cream During my childhood, boys were not really expected to cook. They were conscripted to wash up, peel potatoes and prepare sprouts but not to prepare a proper meal. Breakfast was different, however, and my mother taught me not just to fry bacon and eggs but also to poach eggs in a saucepan. I suppose if any teacher was bold enough to try to teach such skills today, she would be stopped by some ‘Elf ‘n Safety fathead declaring that children might scald themselves with hot water. Fortunately, there were no such creatures around then (can one imagine their advice on what to do during an air raid?) The post-war Labour Government was reluctant to give up the wartime controls. The idea that ‘fairness’ requires ‘equality’, which these days is poisoning our education system, made rationing attractive to them, and it persisted here long after it had been abolished by our former enemies. It was eventually ended as much by the public, who simply opted out of rationing into an ever-widening black market, as by Churchill’s ‘bonfire of controls’ in the Fifties. Food in Britain in the late Forties was still scarce and lacked variety until after Labour’s defeat in 1951. By then I had completed my National Service and begun to travel, first by motorcycle to France, and then, after training to become a pilot, with my Royal Auxiliary Air Force Reserve Squadron to Malta and Germany. In 1953 I joined the British Overseas Airways Corporation and began to travel more widely, discovering the delights and disasters of eating around the world in grand hotels, at pavement stalls, restaurants, pizzerias and drugstores on all five continents. I can still remember the delights of kippers and Carlsberg for breakfast in the BOAC Rest House at Kano in northern Nigeria after what was in those days a long night flight across the Sahara from Tripoli or Rome, and the hot and spicy ‘bearers’ curry’ in the Karachi Rest House. Further afield in Singapore, I tried the unequalled sweet and sour garoupa at the famous Fatty’s restaurant in Boogie Street. Yes, the food was cooked on the street. Customers selected their fish from the kerbside stall and waited indoors for it to be carried in triumph to the table. A whole magnificent fish, enough for six people at least, would appear. Alas, urban development and Singapore’s own ‘Elf ‘n Safety has long overwhelmed Fatty. We lived quite well in those days and with no emails, mobile phones, fax machines or even landlines out to the Far East, we had a healthy detachment from home base at Heathrow. The flight from Singapore to Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) always left a little early on Sundays and with fuel economy cast to the wind and the plane’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engines at the maximum continuous-power settings, we could just make the glorious Sunday fish curry lunch at the Mount Lavinia Hotel. It was even better flying ageing York cargo planes. With no passengers to consider, I recollect Captain Kryzanowski (a man of huge stature, masterful individualism and impenetrable accent) telling me as his navigator that we would ‘press on to Barcelona – the food is better there than Tripoli’. I learned a lot about food in those days when all too often at home one was offered Brown Windsor soup and grey tasteless slices of reheated roast meat immersed in tasteless gravy. As a young bachelor I hardly ever cooked for myself, apart from late-night fry-ups of sausages over the fire in my room in the officers’ mess at RAF North Weald, or at the Surrey pub where I rented a room to stay between trips overseas. All that changed in 1956 when I married a Westminster Hospital nurse, the daughter of a small farmer from the rich fenlands of Cambridgeshire. Living the strange life of an airline pilot who was often away for three weeks, then at home for two, it seemed natural to share the kitchen as well as the bed with my wife when I was at home. Margaret was already a good cook having been taught by her mother. She had then taken a food and catering course and risen to manage the staff canteen of a Cambridgeshire department store before starting her nursing career. She often reminds me that one of the first presents I bought her was a cookery book called Curries Of India, which we still use almost 60 years later. Another book, Plats Du Jour, published in 1957 and rebound in leather long ago, sits on a kitchen shelf alongside Robert Carrier, Delia Smith, the Grigsons, the Two Fat Ladies and Elizabeth David. Cooking changed a little as our three children arrived and they grew up from milk, rusks and strained vegetables to roast joints, casseroles and curries. We all learned more about food together, not least by taking holidays across France, Michelin guide in hand, and on a memorable posting in 1960 to Hawaii. Nearly 50 years on, I can still bring back to mind the wonderful aroma when a whole pig wrapped in banana leaves and cooked under hot coals on an earth oven was unwrapped on a warm, sandy beach at Waikiki. That all changed completely with my abrupt transition in 1970 from airline pilot to Member of Parliament, but despite the odd hours (in those days the House of Commons sat longer and later, and Members did not expect the taxpayers to buy second homes for them, their extended families or their ducks), Margaret and I still worked together in the kitchen. By then the children were cooking, too. ‘If you eat, then you cook’ was the dictum, and I am proud to say we have raised three good cooks. Enlarge Partridge Hotpot My wife was a far better teacher than I was. Far more able to let them make a mess and make mistakes, which is the best way (I really know) for any child to learn. I suppose that my experience of flying and politics leads me to try to stop people making mistakes – though without much success these days. When Margaret Thatcher won the General Election in 1979 she invited me to go to the Department of Trade as the Minister for Aviation and Shipping. I accepted the post with mixed feelings as, having already taken a hefty pay cut to become an MP (and we were not able to claim for expenses for mortgages, meals or grocery bills in those days), I had just begun to build up some outside business interests, which, as a Minister, I had to relinquish. So I had to tell my wife that the good news was promotion and the bad news was another pay cut. Department of Trade lunches were not epics of culinary note, but in Brussels the European Commissioners and my colleagues in the Council of Ministers did themselves rather well, and the time spent in restaurants was some compensation for that spent in meetings. There was a good deal of travel within the EEC (as it then was) and other governments seemed anxious to impress Ministers with the scale and style of their hospitality. At the other end of the spectrum, a three-day trip on a mackerel fishing boat off the west coast of Scotland put me off mackerel for months. Ministerial office led naturally enough to meals eaten at No10 and although the grand dinners for visiting Presidents, Prime Ministers and the like were always full of extremely good British food, I regret to say that I rather doubt if the Prime Minister really noticed. I think Mrs Thatcher regarded eating as most of us regard putting petrol into the car, and the smaller lunches for colleagues were not meals to be remembered for the food (highly likely to be coronation chicken or the like) even if the discussions were sometimes quite hot and peppery. Had I ever become Prime Minister I think coronation chicken would have had about as much chance of getting on to the menu as Arthur Scargill would have had of getting through the front door of Downing Street. The next abrupt change in our life came with the Sinn Fein/IRA terrorist attack on the Grand Hotel Brighton 1984, which almost cost my wife and me our lives and left her cruelly disabled for life. Since then Margaret has been a spectator in the kitchen while I, with the help of a succession of carers from all over the world (literally Abyssinia to Zululand) have been the head cook. However hard we may try, no one who has not had to face the consequences of either the long, slow decline of a debilitating illness, or the dreadful shock of sudden incurable injury, can understand the enduring hurt of being left near helpless and unable to perform even the simplest of the tasks we once took easily in our stride. My wife was a very good cook. I still do not attempt the various sweet and savoury soufflés she used to make and I sometimes marvel at her patience when she has to sit and watch me bumbling around the kitchen to do things she used to do so well. Those wartime rabbits and hares apart, my interest in cooking game is comparatively recent. It dates back to the early Eighties, not long before we were injured, when I took up shooting. Strangely enough, a good many shooting men – many far better shots than I am – are quite useless in the kitchen, having little idea of how to prepare or cook the game they have shot, and some seem not to really notice how it is cooked and served. What also surprised me is how little these TV cooks I call the ‘titans of the kitchen’ have to say about game, and I think that was at the back of my mind when I decided to write The Game Cook. I began to put together my own and my wife’s favourite recipes and borrowed some from Game To Eat, which campaigns to promote game, and some from the illustrator of my book, Debby Mason. I think it is a pity that some of the campaigners against the intensive rearing of chickens, and the dreadful conditions in the sheds in which chickens live for only a few weeks before being slaughtered, are prejudiced against shooting. They forget that despite a lot of artificial rearing of pheasant chicks in particular, game birds have felt the air under their wings and the sun on their backs. They have lived and loved, flown and roosted in the trees, eaten real food and the smart ones may live into their second year to defy the foxes and guns alike. So who would not rather be a partridge, pheasant or duck, let alone a grouse or woodcock, than even a so-called ‘free-range’ chicken – that is free to range only a few yards for a few weeks. It is that element of natural life which, in the same way that Highland pastures give something extra to prime Scottish beef, provides game with its flavour and makes it a healthy, low-fat food. As we become a more urbanised society, hunting our pre-packed food only in the freezers and coolers of the supermarket, I think it important that we should know something about (and, indeed, respect) the creatures we eat. If we lost touch with our past as predators, I think we lose something of our human identity. That is why in The Game Cook I have included something about each of the animals, birds or sea creatures I regard as game. Some of the facts are quite prosaic – others such as the social habits of mallard or just why March hares have boxing matches may help readers to set (or even triumphantly win) their local pub quizzes. Debby has added wonderful mezzotints of all these creatures – something quite different from any other cookery book on the market. All that apart, it is the recipes that make the book. Of them all, I think my favourites are rabbit with cream and two mustards, and pheasant with apples, Calvados and cream. I have had high cholesterol levels all my life but only the harmless, rather than the nasty sort of cholesterol. However, if you have had a talking to from your doctor or have to take those awful statin tablets, game really is good for you, and there are plenty of low-fat casseroles, grills, and roasts included in the book. You could try the partridge hotpot, which is terrific, or the salmon in pastry which is simply the best possible way to eat salmon. In selecting recipes for the book I have thought quite a lot about costs and, of course, top-grade venison or grouse make an expensive meal. On the other hand, my butcher sells wild rabbits ready to cook for as little as £2.50, and these days shoulder of venison – or the shanks – are reasonably priced. When I decided to write my cook book I certainly did not set out to rival the celebrity chefs. For a start I do not think I swear enough and I am certainly too slow to be in Ready, Steady Cook. My thought was both to help the Game To Cook campaign to make better use of the game produced in Britain, a lot of which is exported to France these days, and to introduce more people here to the delights of pheasants, rabbits and venison. I have tried very hard to make the recipes easy to read and easy to follow. There is no Holy Writ about using exactly half a teaspoon of thyme or sugar, and I hope that readers will develop their own versions of most of the dishes in this book. Some, like the pheasant with apples and cream, are just my versions of classic recipes. Others such as the risottos are ones that I have developed myself, often with the advice and criticism of my wife, friends and carers too. There really is no reason why you should not do the same. There is room at the end of most recipes for your own notes whether it reads ‘never again’, ‘needs more cream’, or ‘gave this to the Smiths when they came to dinner’. Some of these recipes, such as the easiest-ever curried pheasant, take no time at all. Others do take a bit of time and effort. Some even suggest you marinade the meat for 24 hours, but it is an easy book to find your way around – and one, I hope, that will become a friend in many kitchens just as Curries Of India and Plats Du Jour have been friends in mine for more than 50 years. Old age protects us from the pleasures, and dangers, of some of those things we did in earlier years, but we can still enjoy food, drink and fellowship. I certainly count food – and indeed thinking about it and preparing it – as part of the pleasure of eating it. The sharing of food is an important social ritual and it is a sadness to me that in so many homes the dining room has become a computer-game centre, and families seem never to sit down to enjoy meals together. Good food is such an enriching thing that I am sure proper eating will be restored by the coming revolution. ‘Foodies, fly the flag for fine food’ will be our war cry. See the full Norman Tebbit – The Game Cook article from the mail on-line here

Launch Date for Norman Tebbits Cookbook – The Game Cook

Debby — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:35:50 +0000

The Game Cook by Norman Tebbit with illustrations by Debby Mason will be launched at the The CLA Game Fair at BELVOIR CASTLE. GRANTHAM. LEICESTERSHIRE. FRIDAY 24th – SUNDAY 26th July 2009. Norman Tebbit and myself will be officially launching the book on the Saturday afternoon (2:30pm. onwards) and we will be available for book signings at this time. It is unclear at this moment as to what extent we will be available at the rest of the show. The Game Fair is the world’s biggest and greatest country sport and countryside show. Visit the CLA Game fair website for more information on the fair