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Books Cotswolds

The Cotswold Report: from old favorites to new finds, the region’s best eating, drinking & shopping

Posted on January 11, 2014

I’ve just arrived back in Los Angeles after a month in the Cotswolds, where I was struck by the pleasingly consistent, almost defiant answer locals give when asked what’s new: NOTHING. While this may be true of some things—the wet weather and the stunning landscapes come to mind—I found the Wolds were awash with new and worthy finds: some just opened, some that have been around but were new to me. During our visit I also tried all our old standards, and I’m delighted to report they generally remain in good form. Still, with very few exceptions, the service in Cotswold restaurants remains too slow. Even if a kitchen is busy, much could be done to soothe tempers by providing prompt delivery of water, wine and bread, in that order. Sadly, even this seems to be too much to expect of many eateries whose prices demand that they should know better.

And now on to the good stuff. Starting in the north and working our way south, here’s my list of the best of the Cotswolds:

 

Moreton-in-Marsh
  • Greek Deli – Recently opened by hospitality veteran Ilias Karalivanos, this is a great spot for coffee and a light lunch of Greek classics. Don’t leave without some Greek wine and tasty tidbits from the deli case.
  • Christmas Birds & Books – In the same arcade as the Greek Deli, Richard Kemp recently opened Moreton’s only bookshop with the worthy sentiment: “Towns deserve bookshops. They are part of the community.” Amen.
Stow-on-the-Wold and nearby
  • The Porch House – This recently renovated pub/hotel is decorated with oversize bell jars housing antiquarian books, an interior design trick I’m planning to employ when I buy my Cotswold dream house. Snack on honeyed chili nuts and a pint of something local in
    the low-ceilinged pub, purportedly the oldest inn in England.
  • The Old Butchers – One of my old favorites for Sunday lunch has been reinvented as a charming wine and charcuterie bar. Coincidentally, we found its former manager at the delightful Royal Oak in Gretton, just outside of Winchombe, where we enjoyed a generous Sunday roast.
  •  Vintage and Paint – Just opposite The Old Butchers, this curiosity shop has everything from old Johnny Strong dolls to vintage movie lights. A refreshing take on the typical Cotswold antique shop.
  • The Borzoi Bookshop – On a tiny lane just off the market square sits a gem of an independent bookstore. Well stocked with regionally relevant books, it’s the perfect spot to pick up my favorite kind of souvenir.
  • The Coffee House – A couple doors down from the bookshop, their leather sofas are my favorite place to catch up on the papers.
  • Daylesford Organic (about 4 miles east of Stow) – We had our first Daylesford lunch in their Notting Hill branch, but the site just outside of Stow is the real deal. It’s easy to feel like a target market here (and hate yourself a little bit for it), but there’s no getting around the fact that the food is fantastic. The proprietress recently opened The Wild Rabbit in nearby Kingham, which is on my list for my next trip to England.
Beetroot soup at Daylesford
Cheltenham
  • No 131 – A welcome, terribly stylish hotel/restaurant/bar addition to the Promenade, and not just because the bartender knows how to make a stonking Old Fashioned.
Burford
  • Mad Hatter Bookshop – a bookstore and a hat shop, because, why not? Think of the English penchant for hats and its literary heritage, and it all starts to make more sense.
  • New Dragon Inn – When I need a break from the standard Cotswold menu of pies, sausage and mash, and fish cakes, I head for the New Dragon Inn. Served in the incongruous surroundings of a Grade I listed building (koi tank aside), I’m a fan of the crispy duck and Singapore noodles.
 
Northleach
  • The Black Cat – A new café in the old wool house. If this was Portland, it’d be loaded with hipsters and their Mac Books, but this is the Cotswolds which means you won’t struggle with getting a table or an overloaded wifi signal. Great breakfast baps, but the kitchen seem to struggle if an order includes more than two items.
  • The Wheatsheaf – Every time we return, the prices have nudged gently upward, but that’s done nothing to dampen business. Excellent fish dishes and the sirloin with peppercorn sauce always delivers. Service remains consistently inconsistent.
  • The Ox House Wine Company – My old favorite now serves tasty lunches. Menu changes on a weekly basis but may include anything from a lamb curry to fishcakes. There’s Viennoiserie in the mornings, plus standout bacon sandwiches. Of course the real attraction here is the wine, all hand selected from small producers. A delight whether you’re drinking in or taking a bottle or two away.
Relaxing in front of the fire at the Ox House

 

Barnsley
  • Barnsley House cinema nights are a favorite way to spend an evening in the Cotswolds. Relax with a glass of wine in the pink-loveseat splendor of it all. You don’t have to be a hotel guest to attend, although it’s a great place to stay if you’re in need of a bed.
  • The Village Pub – A firm old favorite. One of those rare places I would be happy ordering everything on the menu.
 
Tetbury
  • The Royal Oak – Recently refurbished, this pub with rooms is worth a visit and a good excuse to take in a scenic stretch of Tetbury that’s off the main drag.
  • Moloh – If you’re after some real royal memorabilia, skip Prince Charles’ Highgrove shop and head to Moloh, an upscale British women’s clothier favored by Kate Middleton. 
  • The Ormond – A pub and hotel that’s warm, friendly, and offers my personal favorite form of royal memorabilia: coronation chicken.
The Snooty Fox, Tetbury
Cotswolds

Fancy Dress

Posted on January 1, 2014

The British have quite a thing for fancy dress, or costumes in Ameri-speak, which manifested in two ways this past week. First, we went to a traditional Christmas panto, Aladdin, at the Everyman Theater in Cheltenham. If you’ve never been to a panto, it’s more or less a fairy tale livened up by pop music (a Freddie Mercury medley in this case) and both men and women in drag. The male and female romantic leads are played by women, while the role of Widow Twankey—a character that always appears, regardless of the fairytale—goes to a man that is purposely at no risk of being mistaken for a woman.

For reasons still unknown to me, this version of Aladdin was set in “Old Peking”

Our second encounter with fancy dress was at last evening’s New Year’s Eve party. (Unlike Americans, the British see no reason to limit costume parties to Halloween.) Husband and I went, respectively, as Mr. Toad from The Wind in the Willows and the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. I even managed to bag first prize, a bottle of champagne we put to good use to ring in the new year.

Our efforts at bringing two classic children’s books to life

Happy New Year to you and yours! May 2014 bring you health, wealth, and a plethora of opportunities for fancy dress.

Cotswolds

A Day Out in Tetbury

Posted on December 31, 2013

Yesterday we had a day out in Tetbury, a lovely Cotswold market town that, among other things, is home to Prince Charles’ Highgrove Estate. We didn’t run into any royals—other than the postcard of Prince George that I bought for my six-year old niece, a royal enthusiast—but we did catch the Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt right before it set out. We also tried two new-to-us places, both of which I recommend: The Royal Oak Tetbury, where we stopped for coffee, and The Ormond for lunch. There was also time to drop off a copy of Americashire at the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, whose charming motto comes courtesy of Van Gogh: “Bookshops aren’t hares, and there’s no hurry.”

 

Christmas Letters England

Letter from the Lake District: Christmas 2013

Posted on December 22, 2013
The Christmas lights on Regent Street in London

I’m writing this year’s Christmas letter in front of a crackling fire in the resident’s lounge of possibly the best pub in Britain, the Britannia Inn in Elterwater, Cumbria. Our trip to England has so far been an embarrassment of rural idyll riches, having started in the Cotswolds where, for the first two weeks, we requisitioned the flat of our dear friends (a.k.a., Rupert and Ralph) and finished out the remaining work weeks of the year. We’ve now embarked on the northern leg of our journey to spend Christmas and Boxing Day with husband’s family, starting with an interlude in the Lake District.

The Britannia Inn, Elterwater, where we nearly divorced while arguing over the answer to Maggie Smith’s Oscar winning film during the pub quiz

Between all the bucolic bliss, we managed to spend 2 nights at the Portobello Hotel in Notting Hill, which I highly recommend if you want to feel like you’re in a Richard Curtis film. The room featured a freestanding bath tub with a view of a private garden (yes, just like the one Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant broke into in that film). Breakfast in the sitting room consisted of the most beautiful heap of scrambled eggs sitting atop a piece of toast with the crusts trimmed off. It arrived, of course, beneath a silver dome. All this pampering didn’t come without its price, but seeing as we were celebrating husband’s 39th birthday for the tenth time, it seemed apropos.

Favorite breakfast ever. Certain it was made by Mary Poppins.

We also managed to indulge in a little shopping, spurred on by the discovery of the charming shop, Stumper & Fielding on the Portobello Road. On a stretch of London that’s been blighted by tat, Stumper & Fielding is a bastion of English sartorial standards, from Tootal scarves to Loakes brogues. Husband got so carried away he purchased a pair of booties of the latter make in a size too big, a fact he failed to notice until he had marched the length of Kengsington Gardens, Hyde Park and Mayfair to deposit ourselves at the Duke of York’s theater for an evening of Jeeves & Wooster (splendid, go see it if you’re in London). Blistered and bruised, he hobbled into Stumper & Fielding in the morning to find that, amazingly, for only a pittance to cover the re-soling, they were willing to exchange the shoes. What could I do but buy myself a velvet-collared Harris Tweed blazer to express my gratitude at their professionalism?

Husband, crippled by his new shoes, leans on his favorite shop

Here I will pause for a moment to acknowledge my self-consciousness at the outpouring of wonderful life-ness I have just directed you to read. I fear you may be finding this year’s Christmas letter devoid of the gleeful Schadenfreude you had hoped for, and I wish to provide comfort. You see, this is a Christmas round-up letter, which means I am practically legally obligated to only write about pleasant events. Rest assured that I, in fact, pay very good money to a very nice lady each week to divulge my life’s tribulations. I think we can all agree that’s the appropriate place for such strife.

I did toy briefly with the idea of telling you about my challenges earlier this year of finding an MS medication that didn’t involve a needle and feeling like I had the flu on a weekly basis. But then I was reminded of the dreaded part of my weekly telephone conversation with my mother in which she debriefs me on the maladies of people I last saw thirty years ago. Terribly dull stuff, so, suffice it to say, I have settled on a twice-daily pill that also happens to be used industrially to make foods taste sour. Its worst side effect is to occasionally give me ruddy cheeks. If it makes you feel better, you can also use the MS narrative to justify the indulgence described above—you know, ‘life’s short, live it while you have your health’ kind of stuff. But, let’s face it, we both know I was a skilled indulger before the arrival of that dratted disease.

You may also take some comfort in the fact that my first book, Americashire, failed to, ahem, crack any bestseller lists. Somehow, despite this, it was the highlight of my year: a fantastic education marked by some terrific moments. These include meeting my fellow inaugural She Writes Press authors at our joint event in Berkeley in May and collecting the Indie Reader Discovery Award for Travel Writing at Book Expo America in New York in June. Husband was a supportive presence at both, and a big hit with the literary ladies. I also have a debt of gratitude to all of you who so patiently put up with endless self-promoting tweets and Facebook posts. Some of you were even so kind as to buy the thing and write nice stuff on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you. You can’t imagine how much your actions mean.

Me at Book Expo America, prouder than I have any right to be

Back in California there were highlights, too, including our BYO Zen sitting group, seeing husband’s two idols, Shatner and McCartney, on stage together in a benefit for the Los Angeles Shakespeare Center, and our discovery of Ojai, or, as we like to call it, the Cotswolds of California (which I wrote about here). And so, friends, I think this place of gratitude for the year is a good one from which to take my leave. A pint and a packet of Scampi Fries await me in the pub. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Cotswolds

Return to Americashire

Posted on December 8, 2013

Our month-long return to the Cotswolds is off to a fine start. We took the long way here from Los Angeles, stopping for a night and day in Boston before continuing on to Heathrow last night. Our goal was to break the journey into two, five-ish hour flights instead of one epic flight, but the stop in Boston also served as a cultural transition. New England, with her crisp air and preppy-fied populace, prepared us well for Ye Olde England.

Despite the air traffic control tumult of yesterday, our flight touched down on-time and before long we were whizzing along the M4 in our festive rental car, a red Fiat Cinquecento. It’s merry but I’m not sure how she’ll handle ice or snow, so just as well it’s still relatively mild out. We took advantage of the weather to walk the four miles to the pub for a Sunday roast. The service was predictably uneven, but, on the first day back in town, this still seems endearing. (My guess is I’ll be ranting about English customer service well before the end of the month.) Roast pork and potatoes with a Yorkshire pudding also helped dispel any budding disgruntlement.

The only remaining goal of the day is to make it to 8pm before the jet lag wins. Next up is a quick jaunt to Berlin this week before returning to the Cotswolds. London and the Lake District also feature later on the agenda. For now, I’m so happy to be back and looking forward to sharing the rest of the adventure here.

Books California

Books Signing at Bank of Books, Ventura, CA

Posted on November 30, 2013

It’ small business Saturday, and I’ll be doing my part by signing copies of Americashire at a lovely indie book store, Bank of Books between 1-3PM. As an added  bonus, it’s on an honest-to-goodness main street chock full of other kinds of lovely indie stores. Come join me if you’re in the area!

Bank of Books
748 E. Main St.
Ventura, CA 93001
Books

She Writes Press Holiday Sale: Nov 29 – Dec 6

Posted on November 29, 2013

Buy Americashire for Kindle | Nook | Kobo for 99¢

My fab publisher, She Writes Press, is having a 99¢ ebook holiday sale from Friday, November 29 through Friday, December 6, 2013. Pick up my award-winning Cotswold travel memoir based on this blog, Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage, or gift a copy to a friend for a virtual stocking stuffer. Anyone with an iPad, mobile phone or computer can read a Kindle book with the free Kindle app.

While you’re at it, pick up some books from the other fabulous women that are also part of the She Writes Press 99¢ sale, including:

  • Tasting Home, a fabulous food memoir and recipient of a Publisher’s Weekly starred review, among other honors, by Judith Newton
  • Fire & Water, a novel with a gazillion five-star reviews by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder
  • Our Love Could Light the World, a collection of short stories by Anne Leigh Parrish, who has been compared to this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for literature, Alice Munro
  • Shanghai Love, Layne Wong’s WWII novel set in Shanghai and recipient of a Publisher’s Weekly starred review
  • Duck Pond Epiphany a coming-of-middle-age novel by Tracey Barnes Priestly

And for the writers in your life:

  • What’s Your Book, everything you ever needed to know about writing a book from writing coach and She Writes Press publisher, Brooke Warner
  • Journey of a Memoir, Linda Joy Myer’s how-to for memoir writers
Cotswolds

Ode to the Pheasant: It’s turkey time, but I’ve got pheasant on the mind

Posted on November 27, 2013
This blog first appeared on Anglophiles United
 

My move to the Cotswolds started in 2007 with a rented cottage for weekends away from London. It only took six months until my husband and I were seduced by the countryside into buying our own place, where we, along with legions of other Londoners, continued the weekend ritual of self-imposed exile for the next year. Then, finally, in 2009, I took a job within commuting distance of our weekend village and left the city behind for good.

It was not, however, my status as a full-time resident that made me finally feel like a local. This, instead, was marked by the evolution of my attitude towards a bird, a feathered creature that dominates the English rural landscape by virtue of both its abundance and airheadedness. I write, of course, of the pheasant.

My early encounters with the creature were marked by fawning. While out on a bike ride I would stop to admire the miniature beasts as they foraged the fields: the male with his crimson masquerade mask over a hood of teal, the female cloaked in a humbler but still handsome pattern of nutty browns. (I couldn’t help admiring mother nature for the role reversal from humans in giving the male the responsibility for seducing a mate with his sartorial flair.) But soon my fawning and photographing morphed into annoyance. Too often when caught off guard—which was, apparently, always—the pheasant would panic and scurry toward our bikes rather than away. On the steep downhills of the wolds, the pheasant became responsible for one too many near misses of going head over handlebars. The same was true for driving; these birds are drawn to rather than repelled by headlights. I suppose it was inevitable, but the time finally came when such an encounter ended badly for both bird and car. It happened too fast to be sure, but there, on the steep downhill-side of the Fossebridge dip in the moments before impact, I’m sure I spotted this death-wish-with-a-plume flying straight for the car grill.

Not long after, I had my second encounter with a dead pheasant, this time in a farmhouse kitchen where my husband and I had been invited for Sunday lunch. This weekly gathering is a fixture of English life, and a ritual I had admired since we first moved from Los Angeles to London. Now we had been invited to our first Sunday lunch since becoming residents of the Cotswolds, and we were titillated at the prospect. We joined our hosts and two other guests around a weathered pine table, where the pheasant pie was served in a puff pastry-topped casserole dish, much the same as an American chicken pot pie. When I remarked with enthusiasm to the hostess that it was the first time I had ever eaten pheasant, she dismissed the dish as an excuse to rid her freezer of them. (Hers is a sentiment I imagine is shared by hundreds of other spouses of game shooters all around the English countryside.) Despite this, I enjoyed the meal, relieved to learn there was a savory use for this majestic if dopey bird. The afternoon continued to deliver on all my expectations of a proper English Sunday lunch. By the time snowflakes started dancing outside the kitchen window, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson had walked through the door and joined us for the cheese course.

My transition from London expat to Cotswold local had been gradual, marked by subtle milestones—the first time I wore tweed without irony, for instance. But it wasn’t until I asked for a second helping of pheasant pie in that farmhouse kitchen that I felt like a real Cotswoldian for the very first time. Should you ever be in the position to make use of a pheasant that has met with an unfortunate end, here’s that recipe for pheasant pot pie:

Ingredients
3.5 tbsp (about half a stick) butter
1/2 lb. pancetta
4 leeks, cut into large chunks
3 celery sticks, sliced
3 carrots, halved lengthwise and sliced
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp plain flour
1 and 1/4 cups cider
2 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp double cream
6 pheasant breasts, skinned and cut into large chunks
3 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 package of puff pastry
plain flour, for dusting
egg beaten with a little milk, to glaze

Directions
Heat the butter in a casserole dish and cook the pancetta for 1 minute until it changes color. Add the leeks, celery, carrots and bay leaves, and cook until they start to soften. Stir the flour into the vegetables until it goes a sandy color, then add the cider and reduce. Pour in the chicken stock, stir, then add the cream. Season, then bring everything to a simmer. Add the pheasant and gently simmer for 20 minutes until the meat and vegetables are tender. Stir through the mustard and vinegar, then turn off the heat and cool.

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Pour the mixture into a large rectangular dish. Roll the pastry out on a floured surface, place over the dish and trim round the edges, leaving an overhang. Brush the pastry with egg, then decorate with any leftover pastry, if you like. Sprinkle with a little sea salt. The pie can now be frozen for up to 1 month; defrost completely before baking. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

England

Best of the British Isles: A Gift Giving Guide for Anglophiles

Posted on November 6, 2013

It’s November, which means (hurrah!) it’s socially acceptable to start talking about holiday shopping. If you’re in need of a gift for the Anglophile in your life—even if that’s you—look no further than my list of favorite things hailing from or inspired by the British Isles.

Riley’s Gastronomic Guide to the British Isles

For the Foodie

Riley’s Gastronomic Guide is a charming illustrated map of all things edible in the British Isles. How else is a self-respecting Anglophile supposed to know where to find Star Gazy Pie?

It may not have made Riley’s Gastronomic Guide, but Grasmere Gingerbread in the heart of the Lake District deserves a mention. The village is best known for Dove Cottage, William Wordsworth’s former home, but the gingerbread that’s been produced there since the mid-nineteenth century is equally poetic. Luckily they deliver overseas.

You’re going to need some tea to wash down all that gingerbread and, short of moving to the Cotswolds, a piece of china from Emma Bridgewater is the easiest way to invoke that feeling of English cottage cozy. Plus, this line of English pottery has managed to do the seemingly impossible in creating tasteful tat to commemorate royal events. Prince George mug, anyone?

For the Dandy

When we first moved to the Cotswolds, the Cirencester-based gentlemen’s clothier, Pakeman, Catto & Carter, was the destination of choice for my husband to suit up in the local garb (think corduroy, tweed, and the occasional velvet collar). Their selection of accessories includes pheasant cuff links, mother of pearl collar stays, and a flat cap made from their specially commissioned 150th anniversary tweed. I also love their selection of women’s pajamas.

Clothes and accessories in Liberty art fabric prints are another classic option. Shop a curated selection of Liberty clothes and accessories at J.Crew and avoid overseas shipping costs to the U.S.

For the Bibliophile

Just in time for Christmas are three new offerings from classic British franchises. Sebastian Faulks brings us the first new Jeeves and Wooster novel in forty years, which makes a perfect pairing with Liberty’s Jeeve’s Bowler Hat table lamp. William Boyd has penned a new installment of James Bond, Solo, set in 1969 in West Africa, and Helen Fielding gives us the next phase in the life and times of Bridget Jones, now 51 (!), in Mad About the Boy. And, if you’re looking to try something new, I humbly suggest my own Cotswoldian memoir, Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage.