I would go to Andalucia, to Finca Buen Vino, a lovely little B&B run by Jeannie and Sam Chesterton. It’s kind of a cross between a Scottish country home (they are from the Highlands) and a Spanish farmhouse in the middle of open chestnut forest, full of eclectic antiques and objets d’art. You sink into the sofa and immediately feel at peace with the world. I even start to speak more slowly when I get there.
They have sheep and pata negra pigs on their land, so I would start the feast with hand-cut shavings of pata negra de bellota with a beautiful glass of fino. We’d then have Jeannie’s ajo blanco – garlic and almond soup with grapes.
We would feast on a platter of Irish shellfish, which is at its best around Christmas time – oysters, razor clams, sea urchins, cockles, mussels, prawns or shrimps and some spider crab just with a bowl of beautiful homemade mayonnaise and lots of brown soda bread.
This would be followed by a little salad of organic and foraged leaves – green watercress, chickweed, wintercress and pennywort …
And for dessert, the hazelnut and apple tart from Spring restaurant at Somerset House. We’d be drinking Ronchi di Cialla, and we’d finish the meal with a Vacherin Mont d’Or.
It would be quite a party, with Leonard Cohen playing in the background, for old time’s sake. I’d be with my husband, my four children and their spouses and my grandchildren – all 10 of them. They would be up to all sorts of mischief, and keep me amused, they would take my mind off what was happening … Imagine by John Lennon would send me off.
