Family Reservations: A Novel by Palmer Liza

Author:Palmer, Liza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Banquet Conference was started quite by accident in the winter of 1982, when four of the United Kingdom’s top chefs came together for what turned out to be a drunken weekend at Jocasta Pryce’s sixteenth-century manor house nestled in the rolling hills of Oxfordshire.

At the time, Pryce was leading the charge on sustainable, fresh ingredients; seasonality; and nose-to-tail dining at her two-Michelin-Starred restaurant, the Glass House. Located next to the manor house’s expansive gardens, the Glass House revolutionized the way diners interacted with the very source of where their food was coming from, even going so far as to take a gold at the Chelsea Flower Show for its container-grown salad and vegetables. Infamous for pulling patrons right out of their chairs to urge them to pick their own greens, Pryce earned a reputation as being a tad eccentric in her commitment to freshness. It seems that the idea of getting one’s hands dirty during a meal that cost a month’s rent was seen by some as a bridge too far.

Nevertheless, Pryce became a culinary legend—soon expanding the Glass House’s ethos beyond the restaurant and its elite on-site cooking and gardening school. Chronically annoyed by just the few receiving accolades for the work of many, she launched the Banquet Foundation and Awards Ceremony in 1983. The Banquet’s mission statement was celebrating each phase of a dish’s journey equally, highlighting the aspects—and people—of the culinary world who’d long been ignored. Pryce provided scholarships, awards, and education to superstar chefs as well as to community gardens, food scientists, and grassroots organizers alike. Her tireless pursuit made her a dame, after she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2012.

More than eighty years old, Dame Jocasta has turned the reins of her empire over to her two nieces, after having made the choice long ago not to have any children of her own. Preferring to go narrow boating with her beloved husband of fifty-two years, Pryce will still venture into the Glass House’s dining room every now and again, tugging ecstatic diners out into the gardens for what she calls “a little bit of dirt therapy.”

A longtime colleague of Maren Winter’s, Dame Jocasta held off on presenting her old friend with the Banquet Conference’s much sought-after lifetime achievement award until she felt doing so would be undeniable and not just playing favorites. But in Jocasta’s eyes, this honor is long overdue.

The manor house is abuzz preparing for the arrival of the thirty-two VIP guests who’ll be staying in the manor house itself, as well as the three hundred and fifty guests who have registered for the conference and gala. For such a well-known institution, the Banquet is a conference everyone knows about, but very few get to actually attend. Those in attendance at this year’s conference are a blend of chefs, gardeners, local growers, journalists, and writers, as well as environmentalists, food scientists, and even a few politicians. What all these people have in common is

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