House and Garden March 2023

HELEN EVANS / BAKER Shucking oysters at a local seafood restaurant in Oundle convinced Helen that she wanted a career in catering. After university, she worked in a Paris restaurant as a savoury cook, graduating to pastries and bread, before she decided to move to Australia in 2014. While working at North Fitzroy Bakery in Melbourne, she fell in love with all things sourdough and heritage grains. In 2018, she was approached by Pamela Yung, head chef of Flor, to be baker at the London restaurant. ‘Business really took off during Covid with requests for bread from other restaurants, shops and delis,’ she says. Last year, she was among CODE’s 100 Most Influential Women in Hospitality. ‘It was a proud moment,’ says Helen, who is opening her own bakery this year,…

While I rarely pick up a paint brush or put pencil to paper to sketch, I easily succumb to a rootle around an art shop and have been known to buy paper or other supplies with no real reason in mind other than the joy of the materials themselves. So it is with delight that we feature the work of the Paper Foundation in this March issue (on pages 87-88), a new set-up in the Lake District producing the most beautiful handmade papers in the traditional way. It’s this sort of find that, for me, makes editing this magazine truly rewarding. Despite all the difficulties of our world today, there are people keeping extraordinary and worthwhile skills and crafts alive. These enrich our surroundings and provide a much needed antidote…

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