Town mouse anticipates a hot auction
A food critic cooking supper for four strangers might attract some interest from the capital's restauranteurs, suggests Clive


The great Fay Maschler is already getting nervous about May 7. That night, Action Against Hunger is holding an auction at Shoreditch House, an agonisingly fashionable private members' club, and she has given herself, cooking dinner for four people, as one of the prizes. Many readers of Miss Maschler's restaurant column in the London Evening Standard will be agog to discover what sort of figure she cuts behind the stove, particularly, perhaps, those restaurateurs who have fallen short of her demanding standards. Only the fact that her son Ben is organising the auction could have persuaded her to take part. Other lots include time in the kitchen with Alain Roux and the chance to stalk deer with The Ledbury's Brett Graham and to go fishing in Ireland with Mark Hix.
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I met Miss Maschler on Lake Iseo, the smallest of the four lakes in Lombardy, Italy, in the area known to wine lovers as Franciacorta, home to the Bellavista winery. It makes, by the methode champenoise, a sparkling wine of the gods. La Scala in Milan serves nothing else. I notice that the ring of the wire cage over the mushroom cork is left outside the foil, to make it easier to open the bottle-useful in an emergency. I hope Miss Maschler has some at hand on May 7.
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Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by His Majesty The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
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