Glannau Cottage, Lydart, two miles south of Monmouth
The board changes on a Wednesday
We cook in a cottage kitchen with a counter at the front and five tables in the room behind. The counter runs through the day, Tuesday to Saturday. The room behind opens on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, and it is the licensed half of the business. Both are fed by one stove, one oven and one short board.
The board is rewritten every week, on a Wednesday morning, after the Tuesday crates have been opened and counted. It holds seven lines: a soup, a plate from the beds above the lane, one fish, one slow dish, one built for people not eating meat, bread and a pudding. Seven lines is what two of us can cook properly in a day. When an eighth appears, something is sitting in the fridge too long, so we take a line off instead.
The board as it gets written
This is the shape of our board, not this week’s board. This week’s is chalked on the wall by the pass and read out when you sit down; it is only finished on the morning it is cooked. What we can show is how the writing goes: seven slots, and the one that gets struck and written again almost every week.
Seven slots, one of them rewritten
- Soup — whatever came in heaviest, thinned with the stock already on the stove
- The garden plate — three things from the beds above the lane, raw or barely cooked
One fish — hake, Thursday and Friday- One fish — written on Thursday morning, after the van, and not before
- A slow dish — shoulder or shin, started the day before and then left alone
- One without meat — built on whatever there is most of that week
- Bread — one dough all week, baked at seven and again at noon
- Pudding — fruit first, pastry only when the oven is free
The struck line is the whole business. The fish goes up on Thursday morning, once we know what is in the box, and comes off when it has gone. A fish printed a week ahead is a promise about somebody else’s week at sea, and we cannot make one. The same holds for the garden plate in a wet fortnight.
Tuesday crate, Wednesday board
Tuesday is the day things arrive. Crates come down from the market garden at Trellech, apples and plums from an orchard above Penallt, eggs from the smallholding on the Lydart road, and a box of whatever the grower had too much of, which is the part we cannot plan for. It is all weighed at the back door and written on a sheet before it goes near the cold room.
Wednesday morning the board is written at the end of the long table, crates still on the floor where we can see them. Whoever is on the stove that week writes it; the other says which lines cannot be prepped in the hours available, and that argument decides the board. Nothing is ordered in to fill a gap: if a slot cannot be filled from what came in, it comes off and the board runs on six.
The rewrite in full: what arrives, what gets cut, who decides, and the batch sheet
The weeks we have written so far
Each week is kept, because the only honest way to show what this kitchen does is to show what the growing did to it. This week’s is on the wall, not here.
Week one — the first board
beans, chard, a new oven
Came in Runner beans by the sackful, chard, the first cooking apples, four trays of eggs.
Cut The pudding line for two days: the oven was being learned and the bread had first call on it.
Done Beans dressed warm with egg and vinegar; chard stems pickled on the Friday and used all month.
Week two — a wall of courgettes
two slots green, one off
Came in More courgettes than the cold room would take, the first tomatoes, a crate of beetroot.
Cut The slow dish, one week only. No room on the stove once the courgettes were going down.
Done Half grilled and dressed the same day; the rest cooked down into a base that carried the soup for nine days.
Week three — the plums came at once
the pudding slot doubled, briefly
Came in Plums and damsons together, picked ahead of the rain, and the last courgettes.
Cut Nothing, but the fish was written in on Thursday and rubbed out on Saturday morning.
Done Plums roasted for the counter and bottled for later; damsons kept whole in jars for the evening.
Week four — rain, then mushrooms
the garden plate, rewritten twice
Came in Very little from the beds for three days, then field mushrooms and a late crate of beans.
Cut The garden plate, Wednesday and Thursday. It went back on the board on Friday afternoon.
Done Mushrooms on toast at the counter all weekend; the dough left longer to suit the cold mornings.
Week five — first leeks, last tomatoes
shoulder to shin
Came in The first leeks, thin ones, the tomatoes going over fast, a sack of onions.
Cut The raw end of the garden plate. Nothing worth eating raw came in, so the plate went warm.
Done Tomatoes cooked down the day they arrived; the slow dish moved from shoulder to shin.
Two services under one extractor
The counter, through the day
Tuesday to Saturday, half past eight until three. You order at the counter and carry it to a table, or stand at the end and eat while we work. Soup, bread, one hot plate from the board, and whatever came out of the second bake. The counter is not licensed; the licence belongs to the evening room.
The day cafe — hours, how the counter runs, what gets made in the morning
The room behind, in the evening
Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Five tables, four to a table, twenty places laid. One sitting on a Thursday, two on a Friday and Saturday, with the whole board cooked to order off the stove the counter used all day. Bookings come by email and we confirm the sitting.
The licensed dining room — the room, the evening, and what a sitting means
Working out a service in the diary
This is the sum we do in the diary before agreeing to a long booking. It takes the window we are open, the length we hold a table for and the five tables we have, and turns them into places. Change the sitting length and watch the second sitting appear or disappear: that is the whole decision, every Thursday.
The sum in order, so it can be done on paper: service minutes are closing time less opening time; sittings on one table are service minutes divided by sitting length, rounded down, with the leftover minutes named rather than counted; table-sittings are that figure times the tables; places are table-sittings times four to a table; the last line is places less covers expected, spare or short. On the figures above: 180 minutes, one sitting of 105 with 75 over, five table-sittings, twenty places, fourteen short.
A planning guide for the diary. It is not a quotation and not a promise of a table.
The cottage, the lane and the two rooms
Glannau Cottage sits on the Lydart road south of Monmouth, kitchen in the middle, a room either side. The counter is at the front, facing the lane; the dining room is behind, facing the beds. The pass is a hatch between them, so whoever cooks sees both rooms without leaving the stove. That is why the board can be the same in both.
The beds above the lane are small and are not the whole supply; they are the part we can pick at eight in the morning, which is why the garden plate changes faster than anything else. The rest comes down the lane on a Tuesday. The address below is both the registered office and the kitchen, and post arrives at the same door as the crates.