This year the Festival kicks off on 14th May with Oscar Wilde's immortal comedy of Victorian manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, with,( Oh frabjous joy), that droll veteran of the British comedy TV series Keeping Up Appearances Patricia Routledge playing the formidable Lady Bracknell.
Our next tour stop after and enjoyable stay near Chichester was the picturesque Wiltshire village of Teffont Evias, an easy 85 miles drive westward into "Wessex",, the ancient Kingdom of Saxon King Alfred The Great, who held back the Danish Viking hordes, and just 9 miles from Salisbury, the medieval Cathedral city.
Our goal was the privately owned Howard's House Country Hotel and Restaurant, a jewel of a find, and a perfect base from which to explore such delights as Salisbury and its cathedral, Longleat, (the Palladian gem of a house nearby), and Stonehenge. Wiltshire has the highest concentration of prehistoric sites in Europe, with Stonehenge, 4000 year old megalithic Wonder of the World, the greatest sacred monument of them all.
Howard's House first rose to fame as an award winning gourmet restaurant. Later extensive work on the old house created nine deluxe bedrooms each with en-suite bathrooms stocked with bathrobes and hairdryer, (this latter a small but crucial facility to my Lady, who discovered to her chagrin that her own American hairdryer would not work in Britain). Our room, boasted a four-poster bed and overlooked a typical English country garden, with trailing roses, shady conemplative borders, and pond fed by a gentle fountain to sit by.
Dinner here is a memorable event at the hands of Chef Paul Firmin, and not to be rushed. As an entree to her meal my Lady chose wild mushrooms and chicken livers with garlic butter encased in a vol-au-vent, which she pronounced to be "delicious". I can never understand why most English eschew the culinary delights of woodland and field funghi in favor of the anaemic cultivated field mushroom. Delicious also was was my starter of a tartar of scallop and plum tomato with pesto sauce. For the main course, she settled for Chef's roasted rack of tender local English Lamb with a kidney and taragon tartlet andMadeira jus. I liked the thought of Grilled red Bream served with a warm tomato and onion salad and lavender oil, (very Elizabethan, that touch), as I am fond of this Atlantic fish and the delicate sweetness of its flesh. However I finally decided on the more robust Pheasant breast with foie gras. From the interesting pudding list she took a Mango creme brulee, while I enjoyed a creamy Stilton cheese with the last of the bottle of Claret we had ordered with the roast, a luscious velvety Medoc, with a vibrant ruby color.
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