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Food & Drink W


ell, as most small businesses, indeed any business, have no doubt said – “We didn’t see that coming...” Planning for our 2020


did not incorporate a worldwide pandemic, complete lockdown, postponement of all cooking classes and the nil income cliff overnight. This must be what freefall fells like – just wondering where you’re going to end up, how many pieces can be put back together and how many to be left where they fell. Literally overnight we went from being a reasonably


well known cooking school with students coming from all over the country to, err, shut. Fortunately the weather was good, actually great, early in lockdown, so our dog Scout was well walked as we both took our hour’s exercise through the woods, round the coast path, along the river watching the primroses come out then the bluebells and the wild garlic. Good for us physically and essential for us mentally. Most of our students have fortunately been happy


to postpone their courses to whenever we would reopen although some wanted definite dates. Just hang on a minute then; I’ll get Dominic Cummings on the line for an answer... As cookery schools are not essential businesses, we’re still waiting on an opening time for our indoor courses but our outdoor courses will be restarting in July. Smaller groups but that’s fine – it will be great to be teaching again. We had


thought in April our much looked-forward- to trip to Canada in June to teach someone on their woodfired oven would still go ahead. But like most things it’s on hold so their big 65th now be their big 66th


So what did we do with our time?? We have been


really busy so we must have been doing something. We restarted our village bread scheme with David


“overnight we


went from being a reasonably well known cooking school with students coming from all over the country to, err, shut.”


baking sourdoughs and focaccias every Wednesday for pick up or home delivery for self isolators. This has been a real joy as we get to see so many neighbours and catch up with them as they pick up their loaves, at a distance of course. It’s also been great to practise breadmaking skills and develop a system to bake a huge batch of bread with 2 regular domestic ovens. Getting flour and yeast hasn’t been a problem fortunately – we were stocked up ready for breadmaking classes before lockdown and managed to get sacks of flour delivered from Shipton Mill having pivoted to become a micro-bakery. We then became flour and yeast suppliers to local home bakers having difficulty getting


birthday celebrations will birthday celebrations. Frustrations have been kept to a minimum by all


that dog walking and radio silence where Radio Four used to broadcast all day long in our house. We know some people like to know exactly what’s going on but for us, all that white noise is unnecessary stress. Holly’s mum, at 89, has become the family conduit of news and the latest government broadcasts so we catch up on it that way.


their own flour when the supermarkets were literally stripped bare of all supplies. In a virtual breadmaking theme, a few years


ago we developed our own sourdough and Italian breadmaking apps with a company called Workshop. Overnight these apps were being downloaded by people taking up home breadmaking and we’ve heard from people all over the world as they get to grips with dough. Great to see how they are getting on from Kuwait to Kendal, New Zealand to Newcastle.


Written by David & Holly Jones mannafromdevon.com Tel.01803 752943


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