Joint effort to boost cooking in Marlborough (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Joint effort to boost cooking in Marlborough

10:00am Saturday 4th February 2012 in News By Nigel Kerton

Andy Eylis, who has taken over the High Street butchers shop in Marlborough, is joining forces with cook Androulla Derbyshire to run classes on how different cuts of meat should be prepared.

Mr Eylis and his partner Andy Sears opened their third shop in the former Jesse Smiths three months ago. They plan to use part of its large basement as a cookery classroom.

The partners opened their first butchers shop in Highworth 18 years ago and also run a shop at Drury’s abattoir at Tockenham.

Mr Eylis who started as a butchers’ boy when he was 14, has worked in every aspect of the trade and said all the meat sold in Andrews’ shops comes from known sources and is delivered on the bone and jointed in the shop.

Already, he said, the shop was becoming known for its two best selling sausages, the Marlborough and Bloody Lovely, and that over Christmas staff had to produce three tons of them to meet demand.

He said he was always amazed at how little some of his customers knew about meat, what parts of the animal joints came from and the best way of cooking the different cuts.

A large and unused room in the basement gave him the idea of turning it into a butchery and cooking classroom.

Mr Eylis, whose wife Karen cooks all the pies and cooked meats in the shop, said: “It’s to help customers understand what we do, where the different cuts come and the best way to prepare them.”

Mr Eylis said: “One thing we will be doing is trying to educate customers how to prepare quick meals.”

Details of the classes will be advertised in the shop soon.

Local caterer and mother-of-two Androulla Derbyshire, from George Lane, was trained in the hotel trade and is about to launch her own cookery school in Marlborough which she will be calling Culinary Capers.