In stark contrast, the restaurant’s suppliers would arrive each morning looking ‘tan [and] bright-eyed’, laden with tomatoes or artichokes. As a registered member you get 10 free posts from our archive (posts more than a year old) every 30 days.

This week, Gilly's with the king of Tik Tok, the idol of Insta and star of channel 5’s A Taste of the Country, Julius Roberts. You can increase this to 10 posts by joining as a free Member, or read unlimited posts with no ads by becoming a paid Subscriber.

Starting at a local restaurant squeezing blue cheese dressing from bottles, Julius was poached by his manager to join the illustrious team at Noble Rot, now an award-winning restaurant, but at the time in its industrious infancy. Some of them will be melting, others will still have bite, and then you go and squeeze a lemon and add either a handful of mint or basil, and that can go in an omelette, or you can toss it through pasta, or have it on on toast, or with burrata, mozzarella, on flatbread.

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Wet, cold and rosy cheeked after a day of sheep husbandry in the elements, is there a better feeling than coming back to the warmth of a fire with a brothy stew gently simmering on the stove and wafting through the house. Rich in flavour with a melt-in-the-mouth texture and crunchy crackling, it is a truly exceptional roast. Julius is a firm believer in the importance of seasonality and he showcases how to make the most of each season’s produce with simple, unfussy recipes that allow these hero ingredients to take centre stage. There was never a lonely point in the early days on the smallholding, I really was on my own out there.