Notes from Patricia Delicia's Kitchen

We have been using your wonderful salad dressing and regaling the hoards - so delicious!
- Laura Calder, chef and bestselling author of French Taste: Elegant, Everyday, Eating

Patricia Delicia is none other than Patricia Hawkes, a distinguished Brit who has, with her husband Philip, made the Château de Missery (pronounced "Miss-ree") their heavenly, authentic home of 40 years. By his calculation, that's 700 X 40 = 28,000 meals (excluding breakfast, that doesn't count), most of which have been prepared or overseen by Madame. Add around 100-200 (staying) guests a year, and many more for lunch and dinner, and you'll find that's quite an experience she has notched up!

But it's not just her - it's the château's longest running and ininimitable cook, Madame B, and the many amateur friends that pop up from all over the world - all adding their tastes and influences, to create, as one past guest summarised it : 'one damn meal after another!' Those may have passed, but worry not, 'Phil-up' estimates he has another 20,000 to look forward to; how many does that leave you with? Who knows?

The key is that they be fresh, local and exotic, inventive, delicious, beautiful and convivial. So please read on, get some inspiration from Patricia Delicia's Kitchen and her visiting friends, please also send us some! Above all, take the time to enjoy every single one of your lunches and dinners amongst friends and family : "For the more we (eat and) drink together, the merrier we shall be!"