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Grace 'n' Flavour

Here is an article which was in the Glasgow Herald Newspaper

Weekend Living section dated November 8 2003

Author : Laura Davidson

In reality, I never get the timing right, something always bums and, without exception, I find myself rushing about red-faced and unshowered as my guests arrive. Tonight will be different. Four friends are coming for food, yet I haven't planned a menu. I haven't been shopping. I haven't even set the table. There's an angel in my kitchen who has done it all for me.

Chef Grace Drummond provides dinner parties to order for busy professionals who want to entertain at home, but don't have the time or the inclination to prepare their own culinary masterpieces. Not a new idea, you may think, with the many food shops that offer freshly made oven-ready gourmet treats for instant dinner party convenience. What takes this approach a step further is home cooking.

The chef brings her essential tools, along with all the raw ingredients, and makes the food from scratch in the home where dinner will be served. She does all the shopping, preparation and even the washing up as part of a service that transforms the home into a bespoke restaurant.

Having popped round to my Glasgow flat the day before to familiarise herself, Grace arrives to begin cooking and exudes a quiet confidence as she whizzes from hob to fridge to larder. I watch in awe as a pan of pea and mint soup simmers while she stirs with a wooden spoon. Nearby, stacks of uniformly chopped tomatoes and mange tout sit on a smart stainless steel platter, patiently awaiting attention. She is in control.

"When people eat at home, the focus is firmly on the food and I love that," she says. "It's not like in a restaurant where the success of the evening is dependent on so many things, such as the decor or the waiting service. At home, people already feel comfortable and they want the food to be the star attraction. That's really important." Grace, a former chartered accountant, quit her job as a business manager in January to cultivate her career capitalising on her love of food.

After a six-month course in cordon bleu cookery at the Edinburgh School of Food and Wine, she launched Grace 'n' Flavour in June and already has a strong client base throughout Scotland. "I'd had enough of working with numbers," she says. "I've always been passionate about food and I've travelled extensively in India, Malaysia and Australia, picking up different influences over the years. While some travellers head for the tourist sites, I go out hunting for the local fish markets and fresh produce stalls - they never fail to waken the senses.

"Food is treated with the highest respect in so many of the places I've visited - like aliving, breathing thing and that's the way it should be. Cooking, to me, is one of the most exciting things in the world and I want that to come across in my food."

On her rare days off, Grace can be found at home in her own kitchen in Pollokshields, Glasgow, experimenting with recipes. I had been worried that it might feel odd having someone else cooking in my kitchen, concerned, even, that I may be uncomfortable at the idea of having "hired help", but I needn't have fretted. We chat and laugh as Grace gets on with the job in hand, politely declining offers of help.

Grace is straightforward about her work. "I get familiar with the surroundings pretty quickly when I come into a house and I carry all my essentials with me. As long as I have my toolbox, I'm fine," she says. I leave the cooking in her capable hands and get ready in time for the arrival of my friends, Karen, Caroline, Gail and Kate. I had already whet their appetites earlier in the week by e-mailing a copy of the menu devised by Grace.

From the living room, we enjoy a glass of wine and are treated to a round of three different canapes - tomato cups filled with home-made pesto, Mexican bites (a tortilla chip topped with retried beans and salsa) and miniature pastry shells filled with an avocado cream. Karen declares the avocado nibbles a big hit. "It's so zingy it's almost fizzy on your tongue," she says.

We take our seats in the dining room where an amuse bouche of that gorgeous pea and mint soup is waiting, served in elegant espresso cups. Its seasonal sweetness is the perfect prelude to the starter of griddled haloumi cheese, served with a warm salad of spinach, tomatoes and olives.

Presentation is key to any good meal and the main event doesn't fail to impress. Round cross-sections of tender chicken breast (quorn fillet in vegetarian Kate's case), stuffed with a red pepper mousse-line, are arranged in a crescent shape on the side of the plate, on a bed of crunchy, finely-sliced mange tout. A divine, smoky-tasting roasted red pepper sauce is drizzled around, plus stacks of creamy dauphinoise potatoes. Thankfully, dessert is a light affair - citrus tart with lemon curd ice cream - followed by home-made tablet and coffee.

The bill for our sumptuous feast is £30 per person, a modest fee when the same quality of food in a restaurant would be more than £50. We had decided to choose and supply our own wine, but Grace can also turn sommelier.

Half an hour later, Grace is packed and ready to leave. Her cooking quarters are spotless, but the heavenly aroma of the evening's offerings still lingers.

I begin to think that my first impression of the chef was spot on. I have indeed had an angel in my kitchen.
Grace 'n' Flavour, tel: 07866 459 791 or e-mail: grace@grace-n-flavour.co.uk

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