Some Reflections on the History of English Cooking 1633 and Today - September 28
Some Reflections on the History of English Cooking, 1633 and Today is a special event from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM today at the Windsor Historical Society featuring Frances Bissell, internationally-acclaimed cook and food writer, often described as "the queen of British cooking". Learn about English foods and cooking traditions brought across the seas to the Americas. Reception follows. $4.00 adults, $3.00 seniors and students, WHS members free. 688-3813 or windsorhistoricalsociety.org
Frances Bissell BIO:
The first woman chef to be elected to the Academy of Culinary Arts in 1997, Frances Bissell has been guest chef in some of the world's leading hotels and restaurants, including the Caf Royal in London, the George V in Paris, The Mark in New York and the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, as well as at British Embassies in Europe and elsewhere. She is much in demand as a lecturer, teacher, judge and consultant. A broadcaster and TV presenter, Frances Bissell is also the author of many books, and has been described as "simply one of (Britain's) best writers on food and cooking". She was the Times' (of London) food writer for many years and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2001. She is a member of the Slow Food jury and a member of the international jury for the Gourmet Voice food media festival.
Internationally-acclaimed cook and award-winning food and cookery writer, Frances Bissell is the author of many books, and was The Times food writer for thirteen years. Her food articles and recipes have appeared in many publications in Britain and abroad, and she has been featured often in the international press, including The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, the Parisian Le Triangle d' Or, Le Figaro, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Bangkok Post, South China Morning Post, Spain's ABC and Diario de Jerez. She has written and presented two television series, Frances Bissell's West Country Kitchen and Frances Bissell's West Country Christmas, accompanied by a best-selling book. In addition she has appeared on TV shows in America, including Cooking Live and Travel Caf and has written for the American press including The Times Picayune, Harpers & Queen, Food Arts and Victoria.
Frances Bissell has been guest chef in some of the world's leading hotels and restaurants, including the Michelin-starred Caf Royal Grill Room in London, the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, the Inter-Continental in London, the George V in Paris, the Dusit Thani in Bangkok, the Hilton in Colombo, the Manila Peninsula, and the Bogota Hilton, and for several years running at The Mark in New York, where she cooked and presented a week of authentic British afternoon tea specialities.
She has also worked closely with the British Foreign Office, resulting in her being guest cook at the British Embassy in Paris, where she cooked a Gala Dinner to celebrate British Design Year. She took part in a British Week in Kuwait, under the auspices of the British Embassy, where she gave a series of cookery demonstrations. She has been guest chef at the British Embassy in Cairo, and made a working visit to the Falkland Islands on a Fellowship from the Shackleton Committee of the Foreign Office.
In addition to her cooking and writing, Frances is in demand as a consultant, teacher, judge and lecturer. She has been a guest speaker on cruise ships since 2000, where she lectures not only on the food, wine and culinary cultures of many parts of the world, but on more general topics such as the role of food in detective fiction, the art of cooking with flowers, the magic of olive oil and many others. She has given seminars at the New England Culinary Institute, and presented an authentic English Afternoon Tea for the Boston chapter of the AIWF, with her good friend, Julia Child, as guest of honour. She has also contributed, with seminars and workshops, to the Boston University Culinary Programme, and lectured at the Chilton Club in Boston. More recently she devised and prepared a fund-raising afternoon tea for a museum in Connecticut. She has judged many cookery competitions, both amateur and professional, sometimes in the company of such luminaries as Paul Bocuse, Michel Gu rard and Roger Verg .
She has consulted, on menu and recipe development, for Food from Britain, British Airways and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as the hospitality industry, including country house hotels, restaurants in Britain and abroad, an opera company, a private members club, cruise ship companies, and major British high street retailers.
In 1994 she won the Glenfiddich Award for Cookery Writer of the Year in Britain, and in May 1995 her book The Book of Food won a James Beard Foundation Award in America. She was the first woman to be made a chef member of the Acad mie Culinaire de France, British chapter, now the Academy of Culinary Arts, whose patron is HRH The Prince of Wales. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2001. Frances is a member of the jury of Slow Food, and is dedicated to the preservation of traditional foodways. Her most recent book, her fifteenth, The Scented Kitchen was published in July 2007.
When not cooking, teaching or writing, Frances travels to seek out unusual ingredients, to visit markets and producers, to taste and test new recipes, and to spend time in other peoples' kitchens, making her probably the most widely travelled chef and food writer of her generation.
Frances Bissell was born in Yorkshire. As well as France, she has lived in South Africa, Nigeria, America and Germany. She speaks fluent French, as well as German, Spanish and Italian. She lives with her wine writer husband, Tom, in north London, with whom she wrote An A to Z of Food and Wine in Plain English. In the current edition of Who's Who, she describes her hobbies as reading and travelling. They do not have a television.
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