GROW & COOK

This month: Matthew Rice

Our series featuring recipes from celebrated kitchen gardens. This month: Matthew Rice’s productive plot in Oxfordshire

We’re both very greedy people,” says artist, writer and designer Matthew Rice, explaining why the ceramics that he and his wife Emma Bridgewater produce are so generous in size. “Small and dainty pieces aren’t any good to us.” Plenty of food made with the fresh herbs, fruit and vegetables from their kitchen garden is, for them, an essential ritual in the working week. Based at their partly medieval farmhouse in Bampton, Oxfordshire, they often share a relaxed home-grown lunch with members of staff who work in the on-site office studio. On a warm summer afternoon such as this one, everyone gathers at two tables joined together in The Calf Shed. A simply furnished, open-sided, undercover space, it’s the perfect setting in which to feast on sweetcorn fritters, sliced red and yellow tomatoes with mozzarella and basil, courgette salad and freshly picked rocket, lettuces and mizuna leaves; all put together and presented in a stylish mix of their own patterned tableware designs by Rosa, a cook and the general lynchpin of operations here. Vases brimming with zinnias, dahlias, calendula and salvias add a decorative flourish. Two of the couple’s children, Margaret and Michael, are also home to join the team; their black Labrador Otter lies sprawled out on the cool floor, and the conversation ranges from business to pleasure: “Everything gets discussed: new collections, boyfriends – all sorts,” Matthew

says, as he takes a moment to appreciate the colourful plate of the freshest food in front of him.

THE DESIGNER AT WORK

“I’m very impatient to be outside most of the time,” Matthew says, alluding partly to the appeal of the semi-alfresco lunch venue but also to his lifelong passion for horticulture. When he and Emma bought Ham Court Farm and its 30 acres in 2012, the house was in a terrible state of disrepair but, instead of starting renovations, they began creating the garden from scratch. Emma organised the ground work, drafting in diggers and trailer-loads of topsoil and manure, and they made a series of rectangular rooms with ten beds divided by gravel pathways, in all half an acre. Matthew and his full-time gardener Martin planted hazel and willow to make support structures, and established asparagus and rhubarb to which they plan to add more perennials. Now, the plot is not only productive but also very attractive: there is a tunnel of arches over which courgettes trail, a bespoke 50-foot-long greenhouse with raised beds and a heated end-section, and perfect specimens of vegetables in a kaleidoscope of colours, from pink-red ruby chard to green and white Florence fennel. Elsewhere, an early harvest of pumpkins and squashes cures on the veranda, and onions are on a drying rack in the log shed. Helping Martin keep on top of tending, picking and storing this bounty of produce is part-time gardener Becky.

Also raised on the land are 150 chickens, including Old English Game bantams, as well as a pair of Berkshire pigs, Muscovy ducks, guinea fowl, three Hereford cattle and 12 Jacob and Hebridean sheep. Despite the collection of livestock, however, Matthew is keen not to call his home a smallholding. “We’ve a garden with animals,” he explains. “Each breed is selected for its beauty.”

AN ALFRESCO APPETITE

At this time of year, Matthew makes the most of the daylight: “Soon after sunrise, I get up, head into the garden and cruise around from one job to the next. Emma rings a bell to call me in for breakfast. Sometimes I do a bit of mowing on the blue tractor – I love machines, but other people discourage me from having anything to do with them.” Among his favourite features of the garden is the polytunnel, which he prizes for extending the seasons, and the fruit trees, which give the design vertical lines; this additional structure helps in the leaner months when the kitchen garden isn’t looking its best. When it comes to planning the plot, the couple have a tried-and-tested annual custom. “We walk around, talking and arguing about what to grow. Then Emma decides on varieties and chooses huge quantities of seeds – not that she does much of the sowing and hoeing,” Matthew says, with a smile.

SIMPLE SUMMER DISHES

While Rosa serves up lunch during the week, Matthew enjoys making supper for Emma and himself in the evening. He owes his love of cooking to his mother, textile designer Pat Albeck, who taught him when he was a boy: “It tends to be Italian in spirit – lots of risotto, pasta and meat, but it’s the garden that influences what I do most – at the moment, there are masses of aubergines and peppers, and way too many chillies, which, I find, you can never get through no matter how frequently you use them. The hens are laying well, too, so that means Spanish omelettes and baked eggs with prawns fried in harissa. A garden salad of radishes, baby spinach, peas, young broad beans, tiny lettuce hearts and a mayonnaise made with basil and served with cold chicken is hard to beat.” Soon, he’ll be making masses of tomato sauce with the annual glut, when “the kitchen becomes a factory” and the freezer is packed with the taste of summer to enjoy on cold, dark days. But for now, when he isn’t working on designs and helping Emma run the family business, Matthew is savouring the simple pleasure of eating vegetables freshly picked from the plot. Turn the page for a selection of delicious recipes using seasonal produce from Matthew’s garden.