Dean Bailey heads into rural Northumberland to talk food with lorry driver, yurt builder and MasterChef semi-finalist Faye Dodwell
Yes, you did read that bit above correctly – it says lorry driver, yurt builder and MasterChef semi-finalist. And we can add private chef to our description of Faye Dodwell, who I find prepping her next dinner party in the kitchen of her home in rural Hexhamshire.
Things have changed a lot in the year since she reached the semi-finals of MasterChef, having been persuaded into it by daughters Scarlett, Robyn and Lucy, who downloaded the application form and filled it in themselves before putting it in front of their mother to sign.
“I forgot about it and got the call to the audition months later when I was at a summer festival in Oxfordshire,” says Faye, remembering a day a world away from today’s view of snow-topped hills from her floor-to-ceiling kitchen windows.
“I had to dash straight up to the audition in Manchester. My husband Nick drove down to meet me there with most of the contents of my kitchen, and I prepared my audition dish in a little apartment where Nick had to fix the oven.”
Her egg-shaped chocolate shell filled with white chocolate mousse and a lemon curd ‘yolk’, served with chocolate-dipped shortbread soldiers, won her a place in the show. That, and “babbling away like a lunatic” during the audition, she says.
“The experience was amazing,” she says, busily prepping at the kitchen counter as ginger kitten Odin rolls around on the floor at her feet. “The Masterchef crew are brilliant; they make it so normal and it doesn’t feel like a big TV show at all.
“I got to do some incredible things like working in the kitchen with Shaun Rankin at Ormer in Mayfair and cooking for Tom Kitchin. I also have amazing memories of cooking for John Torode and Gregg Wallace in the studio.
“It was hard to keep the result quiet for so long, and it took me ages to get over feeling like a failure at going out in the semi-final, but it’s definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
Back home in Hexhamshire, where she grew up on a dairy farm and where she and Nick converted an old barn into a family home, Faye started working as a private chef, popping up at events at places like The Lord Crewe Arms, Blanchland almost straight after the show ended.
“I love the events,” she says. “I have the perfect mix of cooking and being able to have a break from the kitchen. I don’t think I’d enjoy it if I was working 50-hour weeks in a restaurant.”
There is, however, much in this home kitchen which leans towards the professional, including the prepped ingredients neatly laid out for every course and an enviable collection of plates and serving dishes from the likes of RE in Corbridge. But the roots of Faye’s cooking lie very much in the home.
“I first learned at home with my mum, cooking traditional food my dad liked, but I really learned about food after we got married,” she says. “We had no money and a baby so I had to learn to make something out of nothing. I used what I could get late in the day from the market and the reduced food in the supermarket. Nick isn’t a picky eater, which always helped, so he tested everything. I still know if something hasn’t worked because he’ll say, ‘maybe not that one again’.
“I learned so much from working with what I had, having to add flavour to cheaper cuts of meat and coming up with my own dishes for the family. It’s really satisfying to start with something which isn’t a super ingredient and turn it into something which tastes really good.
“Cooking is a hell of a lot easier than most people think. I try to stick to five main ingredients per dish – quite often chorizo, which is the best ingredients ever – and from your main ingredients you can just add little bits to add some frills to it. I’m as far from the school of using flowers and microherbs on everything as possible. That’s definitely not for me.”
On top of events and private parties, she spends her summers driving a 7.5 tonne lorry with the yurt-building crew from CloudHouses, which is based in Haydon Bridge, near Hexham, and hanging out at the world’s best festivals, where the yurts house festival-going glampers.
“I went to my first festival, Glastonbury, at 42. I’ve been to loads of festivals now and I love it. We’re one big dysfunctional family. I’ll often cook for the crew and I’ve got a catering job at a festival glamping field coming up this year.”
Looking ahead, Faye’s thinking about a cookery school. “I’d love to have my own place. I’m 45 and I don’t want to lose the love of cooking by working in a restaurant. A school would be perfect for me.”
For now, there’s a 10-course tasting menu to prep and no plan for tonight’s tea – not that that’s likely to present a problem.
