A simple wooden house south of Montreal is home to an anonymous chef who has chosen to go back-to-the-land using the latest technologies to make it happen.

The one-and-a-half-storey, made from eastern white pine posts and beams held together with pegs rather than nails, sits near the bank of a marshy river near the Chateauguay Valley, surrounded by stands of oak, elm and maple and handmade shelters for a winter’s supply of logs.

These are examples of old-fashioned skills, joined to the 21st century in the form of a massive solar panel near the front door, and a windmill that can pump 400 watts of power into the house.

That, together with the wattage from the solar panels, comprise the 1,600 watts held in the eight batteries in the home, enough to light the interior for more than three weeks, says the homeowner. He uses this energy for lighting and to power the pump that brings water from a nearby well.

This homeowner, of Mohawk lineage, is one of a handful of Quebecers who are experimenting with living off the grid: no gas or hydroelectric lines.

He still has a way to go, he admits, using a gas barbecue to cook and powering his stove and fridge with propane. And he will fire up the generator to power the washer and dryer, or when his 11-year-old twin sons visit, so they can watch TV.

But he prefers to be self-sufficient, collecting white ash from his property and chopping logs that are then air-dried in his open-sided woodshed and finally moved to the closed winter shed near the house.

“I need to get this wood very dry to use in the Pyromass stove in the house,” he says.

The house was built nearly four years ago by Hamlet Heavy Timberwork (www.heavytimberwork.com) in Rigaud, Que., a company that specializes in timber frame houses.

“We used different native hardwoods for the knee braces, which are naturally curved and will stabilize the frame,” says Hamlet Heavy co-owner Daniel Addey-Jibb. “We used cherry, ash and oak in this construction, and the base is white pine.”

Hamlet installed the pegged timber frame with mortise and tenon joints, as well as the walls and roof and the outside siding, which is vertical boards and batten. They insulated the house with cellulose, which is recycled newsprint treated with a natural preservative that keeps rodents out and is a fire retardant, and also installed Quebec-made cherrywood windows and doors for the homeowner.

“It’s very well-insulated,” says Addey-Jibb, “an R-28—and an R-40 roof—compared to the standard R-16 to 20.”

“I was tired of being in debt with all these monthly bills,” says the homeowner. “I wanted, for my own health, to move every day.”

So he spends a lot of time keeping himself and his house running, following the sunlight by turning his solar panels, chopping wood, feeding his stove, and putting the finishing touches on the home’s interior.

With its peaked roof and cathedral ceiling rising from the main floor to the bedroom loft spaces on either end of the house, the house is an open plan with a central fireplace and chimney, designed to keep the heat moving throughout.

“Flooring is solid wood, as is timber framing and interior walls,” says Addey-Jibb. “He wanted non-toxic materials, to be super insulated and to live as simply as possible.”

Inside, the focal point is a wood-burning masonry heater made by artisan Marcus Flynn of Pyromasse in Montreal. Crafted of recycled clay brick (the bricks from a 19th-century city building) in the Finnish style, known as a contra-flow heater with upper chamber oven, it burns hot and quickly and will absorb and radiate heat for eight to 12 hours, the homeowner says.

“The thermal charge will be slowly dissipated up to three days,” Flynn says.

From one fire per day using about 14 kilograms of wood, he says, the heater will be hot 24 hours a day, even without flame or active fire in the system. The sunken hearth surrounding the fireplace is surrounded by slate tiles, which also form the floor of the cosy hearth.

The homeowner has paid for this connection to the natural world. But, even though he has given up his hectic life of a chef for a more deliberate, home-based activity of an artisan, and despite the $50,000 for the frame of the house and $20,000 for state-of-the-art windows, he is now debt-free.

Is she a re-incarnation ?

After all,. could we possibly conceive of a goddess who wasn’t a media star, internationally recognized and prepared to travel across the Atlantic for a Roast Chicken and Tuscan Bread Salad ?

Isn’t it pure goddess that the apparition known as Nigella is supposed (yes,in reality) to be actually THIN – while also being THE ‘curvy’ inspiration to all larger women/cooks who adore her unashamedly fattening recipes, along with her divinely provocative licking of the chocolatey finger ?

a goddess residing on amazon.co.uk

How else does she keep the feminists at bay (by not ‘objectifying the woman as a passive vehicle within male ideology’ etc) but also inspire women and families across the board as a throwback to old-fashioned housewifery ? Didn’t the late Lord Lichfield take her photograph ? Isn’t she also a brand synonymous with earthy and sensual kitchen–ware, the tilted oval bowl of oysters and fresh seafood for example ?

Finally, who but a goddess could be appearing simultaneously, in the Autumn,
in her own series on the Food Network in the USA and on BBC 4 in one of her earlier incarnations ? We refer, of course, to the BBC’s ‘Secret Life of Mrs Beeton’, a lifelong devotee of mutton dressed as mutton. How Mrs B has moved on and improved !

Mission M25: on TV soon

The actual block being King’s Cross and his starting point being head chef of Moro in Exmouth Market, it is Oliver Rowe, also owner of Café Konstam in the King’s Cross Road, who is about to take a small step within WC1, a large one for food-loving kind – but a perfectly routine one for the block-gurus of restaurant PR, Source.

Back from faraway Hammersmith, where he discovered what happens to over-cooked ideas (a vague Franco-Spanish menu), this 32 yr old press-friendly great grandson of a German-Jewish immigrant called Konstam is about to take an original concept into Konstam at the Prince Albert – all of 100 yards away : it’s project M25 .

And yes, it is the motorway. Because everything on Menu M25 is going to be sourced from within its circumference. From the bass caught in the Thames to potatoes grown on Rowe’s allotment in Barnet, it is all going to be from London. He’s even managed to track down a sparkling white wine made from grapes grown in Cobham.

Authentic London recipes available from Amazon

Thanks to some very pro-active PR, more of a dimension than a campaign, Rowe’s enterprise is to be the subject of a multi-part BBC 2 series. Needless to say, it is the brand rather than the menu which is making the 100 yard leap from post-modern cafe to the conversion of an Albert – only the mushrooms grown in polytunnels beneath the North Circular in East Ham will be common to both establishments.

As one bag of London’s mushrooms adorns a great English cooked breakfast (two spoonfuls of bubble included), its metropolytunnelled cousins will be venturing to stardom along with the chickens (Sarratt), flour (Ponders End), herbs and vegetables (Denham) ,honey (Tower Hill) ,lamb and pork (Amersham) ,fish (Canvey Island) ,beer (Wandsworth) and again, the wine – that’s dry white and rose from the Painshill Park Trust . And olive oil is there too – as rapeseed. Salt is from Essex. The only exceptions will be Tea ,coffee and pepper and spices.

Additional to the indivisibility of gimmick, marketing, BBC and organic , Konstam the Concept also taps into the increasing concern over food miles. This year the average Christmas dinner travelled an exhausting 43,000 miles – with the cranberries from the USA or the carrots (predominantly from Morocco) being the long haulers. Here,at Kings Cross, epicentre of commuters and Eurotravel, is the allure of that rare touch of the native and the homegrown.

So, while the Cafe has been beautifully designed and deserves its fascinating mix of loyal locals – from the girls at the next door massage parlour , the British Library or Gagosian gallery, it is a very small and well mirrored space in desperate need of expansion or concept redeployment. Konstam at the Prince Albert will serve that function very soon.

Furthermore,on the subject of blocks, Oliver Rowe’s enterprise is well timed to capitalize on the new Eurostar terminal and the emergence of a very large development. The gentry of King Cross will soon be able to enjoy the good honest fare of their Victorian forefathers – not with the help of loyal staff this time around – and with the potatoes grown by the chef himself.

The mighty Heston

In the restaurant sector things were looking up— independent restaurateur of the year went to Alan Yau, the wonderful man behind Wagamama. The judges cited his pioneering and entrepreneurial spirit and praised his “restless curiosity” in opening up Far Eastern food to the rest of the world. The guest-list included the wondrous Heston Blumenthal, who feels he has to go as they gave him a prize last year.

The chef award went to David Nicholls, executive chef at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park. He was lauded by the judges for retaining the property’s Michelin star and keeping a hotel at the forefront of fine dining. Nicholls followed in the footsteps of Blumenthal in 2004 and Marcus Wareing in 2003.

The 2005 Cateys also saw the first public sector caterer of the year award. The winner was Ron McKenzie, head of catering at County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS trust. He was commended for treating patients as guests and using local ingredients.

Newcomer of the year was Simon Rogan, chef patron at L’Enclume restaurant in Cumbria, who won the judges over with his Midas touch in the kitchen and experimental cuisine.

Bohemia in St Helier, Jersey, took the Menu of the Year Catey, which was praised for its contemporary vision of French-influenced fine dining.

At the ceremony, attended by 890 luminaries from the hospitality industry, Kaye was rewarded for his “immense influence” on the sector, which began in the 1960s with the Golden Egg restaurant group.

He went on to corner the mid-market sector with Garfunkel’s, Ask and Zizzi.

Previous winners of the Special Award include Jamie Oliver (2003) and Compass Group chairman Francis Mackay (2001).

It was a double whammy for the Cotswold House hotel in Gloucestershire, which made Catey history by bagging two gongs on the same night.

Firstly it scooped the best independent hotel of the year award and then later landed the independent marketing campaign prize. The judges praised the hands-on approach of owners Ian and Christa Taylor for the 22-bedroom hotel’s innovation, excellent customer service and quirky bedrooms.

Food service caterer of the year went to Peter Aldrich, chief executive of Compass Group’s executive dining division Restaurant Associates, who was commended for his quiet but effective leadership.

• Read the gossip from the Cateys on the Kitchen Rat weblog

Catey 2005 Award Winners were:

Special Award winner: Phillip Kaye

Independent Restaurateur of the Year: Alan Yau

Chef Award winner: David Nicholls, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park

Independent Hotel of the Year: Ian and Christa Taylor, Cotswold House hotel

Best Independent Marketing Campaign: Ian and Christa Taylor, Cotswold House hotel

Newcomer of the Year: Simon Rogan, L’Enclume restaurant

Menu of the Year winner: Bohemia, St Helier, Jersey

Food Service Caterer of the Year: Peter Aldrich, Compass Group

Group Hotel of the Year winner: City Inn Westminster

Pub and Bar Industry award winner: Tim Bacon, Living Ventures

Group Restaurateur of the Year: Mark Derry, Loch Fyne restaurants

Public Sector caterer of the Year: Ron McKenzie, County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS trust

Manager of the Year: Stephen Carter, St Andrews Golf Resort and Spa

Pub and Bar Operators of the Year: Craig Bancroft and Nigel Haworth, Three Fishes

Education and Training Award winner: Cyrus Todiwala

Tourism award winner: Bob Downie, Royal Yacht Britannia

Best Group Marketing Campaign winner: Wagamama