Windermere Chef To Take On Europe. (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Windermere Chef To Take On Europe.

12:00am Saturday 1st January 2000

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LEE Jeynes is a glutton for punishment.

The 30-year-old head chef at Windermere's Wray Castle telecommunications training centre has been quietly developing culinary flare on the competition circuit. But on Sunday he sets out on his toughest challenge, the second Regional Flavours of Europe Cup in Montpellier, France.

Most regions will have a full complement of four chefs to each prepare a starter, fish, meat and sweet course. But Lee will be battling it out alone. He had hoped to join his fellow Welshmen but just missed the application deadline. So Lee will be the sole representative for the North West competing against 200 other chefs from 16 countries.

Lee has elected the 'main course' option, the brief being to prepare a dish which truly reflects the region. And as Lee has lived and worked in Cumbria for several years, where better than home ground for his ingredients.

Having found a sponsor in North West Fine Foods, which represents many of the Cumbrian food producers Lee is using for his dish, he spent a month researching the menu and came up with a mouth-watering saddle of Herdwick lamb with woodland mushrooms and Wabberthwaite ham, with a port and damson sauce, smoked Cumberland cheese delight and Lakeland tattie pot.

It was when Lee worked at the Low Wood Hotel, Windermere, that he first started competing. A gold and a silver medal in Manchester three years ago are his greatest triumphs so far.

Rooting for him back home will be wife Clair, a buyer for J.R. Taylor in Kendal. Two days after her husband returns from France, she will have to bid him farewell once more. Lee has now been accepted on the Welsh team and has a date at Earl's Court for the 'Five Nations Challenge' - the culinary variety.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.

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