Our third Breakfast Clubber to join the conversation this month is Sophie Farrah whom we have been lucky enough to get to know along with her husband Tom as they holiday in Cornwall a few times a year with our friends along the lanes at Hideaway Huts. Sophie and Tom are regulars at the Botelet Breakfast Club table and were already booked in for a couple of dates this year before lockdown commenced.
Sophie and Tom are the perfect Breakfast Club guests - charming, interesting and interested, the kind of people that create a sparkle round the table and you know will be engrossed in conversation wherever they are seated. As a food writer, Sophie’s visits to Cornwall are punctuated with sampling the best local produce the county has on offer, and each time we are lucky enough to welcome Sophie to Botelet I am delighted to receive the low-down on the best new places to eat.
Thank you Sophie for taking the time to contribute to this month’s Breakfast Club blog, and we very much hope it won’t be too long before we can welcome you both back to the table.
Where do you call home?
Home for me is Barnes – a lovely, leafy ‘village’ in South West London. I grew up here and it has a real sense of community – I know lots of people who live locally, including my mum, so it very much feels like home. I feel very lucky to live here, and to have that sense of home.
Having said that, I also love to spend as much time as possible down in Cornwall! It’s definitely my happy place. The coast, the abundant nature, the amazing food and all the lovely friends we’ve made down there. We love it and I pine for it regularly!
What’s your occupation?
I am a writer / journalist by trade – I predominately write about food and drink, but also travel, lifestyle and the arts.
I write regular features, interviews and reviews for a variety of publications for both print and online. I love meeting and writing about people. People are just totally fascinating. We are all so different. And people who are passionate about things are just brilliant to talk to. I am constantly learning, which I love, and I love to hear people’s enthusiasm for a particular subject or project - it can be contagious. Especially when it’s about food and/or drink, which are probably my greatest passions! It’s also nice to be able to help to support and promote small businesses and individuals.
In 2017, I co-founded a creative design consultancy called Farrah & Pearce – we specialise in product design, branding, graphics and more, and there’s quite a lot of crossover with my work in the food and drink industry; we’ve designed restaurant branding and menus, kitchenware, websites and more.
And I am also a part time potter – not so much an occupation but definitely a passion, and a few people have been kind enough to buy my wonky pots in the past!
What do you love to eat for breakfast?
My day always starts with tea in the biggest mug I can get my mitts on. Pint-sized is ideal! English Breakfast with oat milk and a teaspoon of agave. That hot cup of comfort honestly brings me such much joy every day! In terms of food - midweek I eat a small breakfast - I am usually rushing! So it’s fruit, maybe a spoonful of yoghurt and a sprinkling of nuts, muesli or granola. I also make a very simple rhubarb compote when it’s in season.
Then at the weekend my husband Tom and I sometimes love to indulge in what we call a ‘hotel breakfast’ – a long, lazy spread of tea, coffee, juice, fruit, pastries, cereal and lots of toast, followed by organic scrambled eggs, roasted tomatoes, veggie sausages and a dollop of the South Devon Chilli Farm’s chilli jam, which I am addicted to! If it’s a special occasion Tom will make his famous brioche French toast – which he studs with blueberries before frying and tops with raspberries and maple syrup! It’s the best.
What do you love most about spring?
Oh goodness – everything! The colours, the smells, the sounds, the sunshine! It’s such an uplifting, optimistic and beautiful time of year. There is a real energy about it – all the new life pushing its way up through the ground and all the birds busily tending to their nests. Not to mention all the blossom! I just love it. Also, the lighter evenings are a treat, as is that first glass of rosé in the spring sunshine. And of course, wild garlic (pesto), asparagus (grilled with garlic and parsley) and rhubarb (compote) are all completely delicious.
What positives are you hoping to take from the current global health situation?
On a personal level, this experience has forced the great majority of us to stop and I hope that going forward I can continue to maintain and embrace a slightly slower pace of life. There’s so much pressure to always being doing something, and I want to try and get better at doing nothing from time to time.
I also hope that the situation continues to unite us more as a society, and that the mutual support and kindness that we’ve seen continues, as we hopefully help each other to rebuild. Due to Coronavirus, ministers promised to find all rough sleepers in England a roof over their head within two weeks; it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for this to have happened, but now that it has, I hope that positive changes like this will remain permanent.
Also, the natural world has been given a much-needed chance to recover and thrive throughout this terrible period, and I deeply hope that this will continue too. Nature experts in Lebanon have noticed significantly cleaner and clearer air filled with migratory birds, the canals in Venice are running clear and dolphins have been spotted in Italy’s waterways, and dozens of countries are experiencing temporary falls in carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide of as much as 40%. This year will almost certainly see a much lower toll for roadkill by cars and trucks, and many councils have delayed cutting the grass on roadside verges, which means that wildflowers will thrive this summer and provide more pollen for bees. I read that with less human movement, the planet has literally calmed: seismologists have reported lower vibrations from ‘cultural noise’ than before the pandemic! We’ve been given an opportunity to reframe the way the world works, and I hope that we seize it and create new norms that benefit and protect the planet, rather than reverting back to our environmentally damaging old ways.
Do you have any top seasonal tips to share with the Botelet community, as we all spend a lot more time at home?
I know we’ve all heard it many times before, but sitting outside listening to the birdsong, feeling the sun on your face, and looking - actually looking – at all the emerging flora and fauna is just so special, especially at this time of year. I find it has a really calming and joyful effect.
In terms of seasonal eating - we live in such a time of convenience that the supermarkets are still filled with imported goods that definitely aren’t seasonal (even during lockdown!) – so it can actually be quite tricky to know what is actually in season and what’s not. I have a beautiful book called The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2020 by Lia Leendertz. I keep it by my bed, and it’s divided into 12 months, so at the start of each month I read about what lies ahead. It’s filled with so much wonderful information and inspiration, from tide times, sea temperatures and moon phases, to what’s in season in terms of flowers and food, as well seasonal recipes. There are also features on each month's unique goings-on, like beehive behaviour, meteor showers, folklore, songs and stories, as well my favourite section about what’s happening in the hedgerow! It makes me feel much more connected to the natural world and I find that very comforting.
I also love to make a few plans for the summer ahead – new things I want to learn, things I want to cook and eat, places I want to visit, people I want to see. I know that’s a bit tricky to do at the moment, as who knows what the future holds, but I like to plan for the best, and it’s nice to have a few things to look forward to.
