Your Excellency

It must be to do with advancing years, but I’ve been made an ambassador - three times over.

In order of ‘appointment’, my first was Dartmouth Food Festival. This is hands-down my favourite food festival ever, overlooking the Dart Estuary and with stalls and tents wrapped around the cute harbour (it’s a miracle no one ever falls in). This year’s dates are Friday 24^th to Sunday 27^th October, and I’ll be there on the 25th.

In the days of the Good Food Show at Birmingham NEC, when I was editing BBC Good Food, I would think nothing of demonstrating soufflés and roulades in front of 3000 punters. Thankfully, I have now officially hung up my demo apron – with the crowning exception of Dartmouth, where you will find me strutting my stuff in the Chef’s Tent on the Saturday afternoon. I’m not quite sure what I’ll be making but Dartmouth audiences always ensure it will be hilarious fun.

In the morning, in the Food Matters tent, I’m interviewing Felicity Cloake about her new book, Peach Street to Lobster Lane. This fascinating travelogue of American food is my current bedtime read, and I can unreservedly recommend it.

Keep an eye on the festival here: https://www.dartmouthfoodfestival.com.

Picture by Sharon Goble

Rather different, I’m an ambassador for Westbank Community Health and Care, a wonderful, warm-hearted organisation based in Exminster, overlooking the Exe Estuary. My particular interest is the Community Cookery School, which helps people gain knowledge, skills and confidence in cooking through a programme of hands-on workshops. During the summer the school has been offering Family Baking Sessions, and I’ll shortly be dropping in on a Cook and Lunch Session. A highlight of last year, which I wrote about at the time, was a Baby Weaning Workshop, in which seven young mums and babies converged to learn the art of making nutritious baby-friendly meals.

Most recently, I was asked by Word Kitchen to become an ambassador for the Exeter Novel Prize. Word Kitchen is a bright and buzzy local writers’ group, providing workshops, networking and open mic occasions for writers of all levels. (It was at one of these that I did my first ever reading from Knife Skills for Beginners.) My fellow ambassador is Fiona Williams, author of House of Broken Bricks, who herself vaulted to stardom by winning the Bridport Novel Prize in 2021. We can be seen in the picture cutting a cake to celebrate the launch – entries close 1 January 2026.