From the kitchen
Words from the kitchen
Heather Blake doesn't give interviews, so I've collected a few things she's said at the pass over the years and written them down. She's read them and only crossed out two.
The cook
Who is Heather Blake?
Heather grew up in a cheesemaking family not far from here, where the day began with the vat and ended with the washing down. She learned to cook by standing on a crate at her mother's bench, and she learned to taste by being handed something and asked what was wrong with it. The answer was usually salt.
She spent years in restaurant kitchens before I persuaded her to come to Bair Street. I'd like to say it was my charm, but it was the stove. She walked in, lifted the lid on the old range, looked at the empty room and said, quietly, that she could do something with it. She has been doing something with it ever since.
Heather doesn't believe in secrets. Ask her how a sauce is made and she'll tell you, then ask how yours turned out. She likes cooking for people who are hungry, and she says a hungry table is the most honest critic there is. On a quiet Tuesday she'll come out of the kitchen with a tray of something she's testing and ask the nearest table what they think, then write down every word. A clean plate is the only review she reads, and she checks every one that comes back to the pass.
Her rules
What she says at the pass
"Taste it three times." Once when you start, once when it's halfway and once just before it leaves. Heather says the third taste is the only one that counts, because by then the dish has had its say and you can finally hear it. Nobody on her line gets away with serving something they haven't tried, and the youngest cook on the team says it was the best lesson of her first year.
"Let the cheese be cheese." It turns up in a lot of dishes, but never as a disguise. A gratin should taste of potato and cream first and cheddar second, and a cheese board should taste of the person who made the cheese. She writes the maker's name on the slate every Monday.
"Nobody's here to be impressed." The kitchen's job is to feed people well and send them home happy. Anything that gets in the way of that, from fancy plating to too many sauces, goes in the bin. The puddings stay the same all year, because the people who love them would never forgive a change.
- Taste three times
- At the start, halfway and just before it leaves
- Name the maker
- The cheese slate lists who made what
- Keep it honest
- No tricks, no fuss, a clean plate at the end