This year, we’re excited to host more fun and inspiring workshops in our studio, including an expanded series of culinary classes led by the dynamic private chef, teacher and forager Susan Ellicott. Susan kicked off the series last month with her Preserved Lemon Workshop and continues her hands-on culinary experiences centered around fresh, seasonal, and thoughtfully sourced natural ingredients with a Wild Cordials and Seasonal Shrubs Workshop later this month.
We love how these workshops not only celebrate creativity, but also bring people together—creating opportunities to learn, share, and connect over food. While Susan was recently in England celebrating the holidays, I had the chance to pick her brain and find out what keeps her inspired.
Susan, you are originally from England, how long have you made California your home?
I first visited California in 1988 and it was love at first sight. I was born and grew up in a small village in rural Cornwall, SW England, next to a farm and close to the sea. California has always felt like a second home. I moved to Los Angeles in the 1990s as a reporter for The London Times, and used to come to Santa Barbara at weekends to go hiking with friends who lived here.
What do you love best about this time of year with regard to what is available to use for making recipes?
The range of fresh, colorful and delicious produce in winter in the Santa Barbara area blows my mind! In winter, I go especially crazy for local citrus, not only oranges, lemons and tangerines but also the more exotic varieties, including fragrant finger limes, Buddha’s hands and kumquats. At Christmas, when I flew to London to see my family, I checked an extra bag onto the plane filled with my favorite fruit from the farmers market — Meyer lemons, pomegranates, persimmons, Pixies from Ojai and finger limes from a friend’s trees in Goleta — and created all of our holiday menus with it. I made my Mum a persimmon chocolate cake she loved, citrus preserves, syrups for mocktails, and a roasted ham with tangerines. Don’t worry! I didn’t break any laws. The UK allows raw fruit and vegetables into the country. But you can’t bring any into the US.
What do you carry with you from your English culture and what do you appreciate about California in a culinary sense?
My grandmother showed me how to cook in a very English, frugal way. She wasted nothing. That’s how people cooked who’d lived through rationing from the 1930s into the 1950s. I’ve inherited her zero waste approach — I make vinegars from my fruit peelings and candied peel from my orange rinds — but California has made me more creative than my Granny could ever be, thanks to the abundance of fresh produce, and a world class food culture influenced by Central America, Asia and so many countries. I’m always learning here, finding and tasting new ingredients and dishes.
My other big influences were my Mum and Dad. I grew up baking with my mother from the age of four, and my father took the family out on foraging expeditions, so I grew up appreciating wild foods. We made all our own jams — blackberries from the hedgerows, apples and plums from neighbours’ gardens — and elderflower cordial and champagne in summer.
Favorite breakfast?
Confession time! Chocolate cake with a coffee. Not healthy, I know! But so good on a cold weekend morning after a late night. The rest of the time, I’ll go for plain yoghurt, muesli and fruit.
What do you miss when you’re in England?
People! My friends in California are the best. There’s something special about having friends you’ve known for decades, and I miss their energy, spirit and positivity when I’m not here.
What from there do you miss in California?
I am lucky to have grown up in a beautiful place with a close-knit community, so there’s always a little ache inside me when I’m not there. I look at an app when I wake up every day to see what the weather is doing in my mum’s village. Sometimes, I miss the rain!
Best tip for staying inspired when making food and exploring with new ways to use the same ingredients or venturing out and trying new ingredients?
I love cookbooks as inspiration. I’ll read them not to follow a recipe but to get ideas. One I’m reading at the moment is Rambutan, by Cynthia Shanmugalingam, a British-Sri Lankan chef with a restaurant in London. She’s brilliant at creating flavor bombs and texture using vegetables and spices. I also like asking farmers for their suggestions on how to cook their produce. You’ll be surprised how many great food tips I get just by talking to anyone and everyone. At Thanksgiving, I got a great recipe for collard greens with ham, shallots and chilli from a rental car agent. 🍋