Afternoon tea for two High Sheriffs

On 18th April I had the honour of providing afternoon tea following the Declaration Ceremony for the new High Sheriff of Kent, Martin Lukehurst.  The ceremony took place in Rochester Cathedral and the reception afterwards was held in the hall of neighbouring Kings School. I had heard of this role but didn’t know a great deal about it prior to being asked to provide the afternoon tea.  I now know a bit more about it from reading the order of service and have included a photo of the role description below:

I believe there were 170 invitees, so I was asked to cater for 180 people to be on the safe side.  David Faries, the Commercial Business Director at the school, is used to running such events and estimated that 150 people turned up which felt about right to me.  Among them were the then current High Sheriff, Jonathan Neame and of course the then High Sheriff elect, Martin Lukehurst, hence the title of this post.

For the afternoon tea Martin and I agreed on a classic menu of mixed sandwiches, sausage rolls, cakes and scones, with provision of vegan and gluten-free items in case there were guests with special dietary requirements.  I sourced my bread from Wilmshurst Bakery in Wingham because they do an excellent sandwich loaf.  I got some malted granary (my favourite), white and wholemeal and I worked out afterwards that I buttered 310 slices (plus some gf bread).  To carry on the stats, I made 278 sausage rolls and 84 veggie rolls (these are sweet potato, coconut and chickpea with a light curry spice); I baked 11 cakes which I cut into 187 pieces; and I made 176 plain and fruit scones!  I also provided tea and coffee, whilst all other drinks were provided by the team from The Dog in Wingham.

All went pretty well, except for one detail.  I always own up to my mistakes and somehow I managed to order coffee cups instead of tea cups, and they weren’t even large coffee cups, more like espresso cups!  In addition I had ordered 2 large teapots, so my poor team were faced with the challenge of pouring tea from the huge pots into the tiny cups – not easy!  Luckily it was a very hot day so I think people were more tempted by the fizz and other cold drinks on offer, but I felt rather foolish.  I’m hoping it’s one of those things that’s amusing to look back on…

I made all the food by myself but on the day I had a lot of help from my fabulous team: Jenny, Harry, Ella and Sam.  My son was supposed to be a helper, but gave himself a nasty cut on his right hand when washing up a can the evening before.  We decided on the morning of the event that he couldn’t work and my friend Jenny stepped in at the eleventh hour and did an amazing job, so a special shout out to her.

It’s definitely in the top 5 of events I’ve done in terms of size (I don’t get too many really big events as it’s just me in the kitchen) so all in all I was very pleased with how everything went.   Except those blooming cups…