{"id":2248,"date":"2018-06-11T15:23:39","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T15:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/stamford\/?p=223"},"modified":"2018-06-11T15:23:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T15:23:39","slug":"simon-spooner-the-stamford-masterchef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/highlights\/simon-spooner-the-stamford-masterchef\/06-2018","title":{"rendered":"Simon Spooner: The Stamford Masterchef"},"content":{"rendered":"
Proverbially too many cooks spoil the broth, but for local man Simon Spooner, a taste of fame on TV\u2019s Masterchef whetted his appetite for a career in food. This month we find out what happened when the cameras stopped rolling…<\/h5>\n
How did this all begin, what was the moment where you thought, hang on, I can cook!<\/h5>\n

I\u2019ve been cooking since I was 18 months old, my mum and gran are really good cooks. They\u2019d always have me in the kitchen with them helping. They started me off making pastry, bread and biscuits, \u2018easy stuff\u2019 really and I moved on from there. I\u2019ve always loved food, and loved cooking. I\u2019m fortunate that my wife loves food and cooking as well; our house is full of cook books! We love going out for dinner as much as we love cooking at home. It\u2019s only the last few years where cooking has become my real passion. I\u2019ve had quite a corporate life until now, working in recruitment straight out of University. I did four years of it in London, then moved to Sydney for six years, one year back in London when we lived in Wimbledon. Then we moved to Ketton and I continued to commute but I was just never around.<\/p>\n

So it was a work\/life balance issue?<\/h5>\n

Well, my wife has a really successful HR consultancy and in that instance where you think \u2018something\u2019s got to give.\u2019 I decided to do the stay at home dad thing while helping out in the back office, with the accounts. Then, in July 2017 our eldest, Bella, was about to go to school in Stamford, Freddie was off to nursery and suddenly I had this pocket of time. I thought, what am I going to do? I really wanted to do something with food and I was still getting offers to go back into recruitment but I didn\u2019t just want to repeat what I\u2019d already done. We\u2019d always talked about Masterchef but more as a running joke. I was finally in a position where I had no work, the kids were in the right place, I had no excuses so I decided to apply… and the rest is history!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about Masterchef then, what was it like? Best moment, worst moment, scariest moment, fire away!<\/h5>\n

It\u2019s not as hot in the kitchen as you might think, there\u2019s a lot of down time so you do get to know the other contestants really well. For example, half an hour of edited TV takes a whole day. There\u2019s lots of waiting around, chatting, sharing tips and we were all staying in the same hotel too. It\u2019s also a common experience, you\u2019ve got to be quite secretive until broadcast so the whole thing becomes a bubble because that\u2019s the only place you can talk about it! Everyone was really friendly, there was definitely no rivalry, everyone just wants everyone else to do well. The first time I went into the kitchen it was really nerve wracking, you walk through the door, they don\u2019t show you how anything works, it\u2019s really real, you just have to go for it.<\/p>\n

There was a lot of pressure on that first day and I scraped through that round. After that I decided, look you\u2019re just cooking, have fun! I definitely learnt stuff from other people, we were all sharing ideas, everyone has different techniques which is really interesting. We actually still have a WhatsApp group where we get in touch if we need someone else\u2019s opinion, say I was cooking Indian food I might see what they think about certain flavours.<\/p>\n

As for the two main men, I have to say Greg is a really nice guy, he supports Wasps as well which was a bonus! He\u2019s not quite as loud as he is on TV but always has a perfectly times dad joke for when you\u2019re feeling a bit nervous. John has an unbelievable amount of knowledge, he doesn\u2019t help you, just plants a seed in your head. John knows every cuisine, he\u2019s so well prepared, he\u2019s heard of every combination and knows what works from all over the world.<\/p>\n

\"Simon
Simon Spooner in his kitchen at home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
What\u2019s in the future, it\u2019s all gone a bit mad hasn\u2019t it?<\/h5>\n

The long term goal is to have my own place ideally in Stamford. I want something that\u2019s the right size and I\u2019d like it to be at the higher end of things, going to take some time. I just want to get more people eating my food, and eating unusual food! We\u2019re trying out a pop-up restaurant at The Olive Branch at The Barn there, the first event we\u2019ve organised sold out straight away!<\/p>\n

So we organised another and that\u2019s sold out too, it\u2019s mad. There will be 20 people in each one who will sit down to five courses and matched with my own wine selections. Hopefully if they go well, we will do more in Stamford and elsewhere. I think in Stamford there are people that have moved here from the city like me and a new generation and they want really interesting food. The pop-up restaurants should build a hype for when I eventually open my own place. It\u2019s important to me that it\u2019s really accessible, as far from elitist as possible and really good value.<\/p>\n

So talk to me about the wine pairings\u2026<\/h5>\n

I actually almost went down the wine route when we were in Australia because it\u2019s just so accessible. You can go into any vineyard and they\u2019ll just pop open \u00a3250 bottles of wine to let you try them. We went to one vineyard where they\u2019d run out so he let us try his private collection even though we couldn\u2019t buy any of it. There\u2019s a company called Heathcote, who make the best shiraz in the world, in my opinion. He was the first person to plant shiraz grapes out there. I love food and wine matching, it\u2019s a massive passion of mine. All the wines at The Olive Branch are going to be from Australia, there\u2019s a Sparkling Wine from Tazmania, Viognier from Orange, Grenache from Maclaren Vale – my retirement option – and a Dessert Wine from New South Wales. I thought it was best to stick to Australia as I can showcase some history, and my experience. All of the wines are going to be supplied by ABS wines from Stamford \u2013 they import from Australia and South Africa it\u2019s nice to work with a local business.<\/p>\n

When we think of chefs, most people think of the Gordon Ramseys, Jamie Olivers and Delia\u2019s of the world, do you look up to any of these famous chefs?<\/h5>\n

I\u2019m a fan of John Duffin and his Mount Sorrell restaurant. He grew up on a farm then went to London to train and has just come back to the farm. It\u2019s got a Michelin Star and it\u2019s really good value as well. Then there\u2019s Sat Bains, over in Nottingham, the food there is absolutely unreal. Finally, Native in Covent Garden, over in Neal\u2019s Yard. It\u2019s run by a couple; she\u2019s from near Corby, and her dad used to work at the former cement works! It\u2019s really seasonal food, they only do 20 or 30 covers and it\u2019s exceptional value. Favourite place to travel for food? Bali, love Bali, the food is amazing. Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Cape Town and Seville. Dim Sum in Hong Kong is just awesome, then there\u2019s amazing chilli crab steamed buns, just phenomenal. Anything that involves peking duck.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Proverbially too many cooks spoil the broth, but for local man Simon Spooner, a taste of fame on TV\u2019s Masterchef…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}