More Than A Cookery Book.

When all the ladies started giving us their recipes, it became apparent that most had chosen ‘Sharpe’ names for their recipes. We discussed this on our board and came to the decision that Bernard Cornwell should be contacted to make sure that he was happy with us using his characters. Though it had been agreed that I was to fill the PR role for the book,  all of the ‘chefs’ were free to suggest people related to the Sharpe series for me to contact. This way everyone’s ideas were taken into account, but there was one continuous point of contact which would keep it all together. Because of this agreement, one of our ‘chefs’ e-mailed his PA through his website and after the initial contact, graciously handed the correspondence over to me, explaining to them that I was fulfilling the PR role and would be contacting them in the future. He thought the idea of the book and the theme was a great one and gave us permission to use the names from his books.

THE MAKING

of

One Chosen Man in particular, Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) has tirelessly helped us from the beginning. He embraced the project with as much passion as he does his acting and offered to give us any photographs of his to use in the book. We had already wanted photographs of the actors to go with their recipes! But Jason was not satisfied with just a few photos to go with their own recipes. He also gave us many photos from the whole series of films, to use throughout the book. Perfect… a book full of Sharpe photographs for Sharpe fans!

Then came a huge surprise…. he also offered us some recipes from ‘Richard Sharpe’ and duly sent them to me. They hold pride of place in the book! The book was beginning to take shape. We had our recipes, but we didn’t want it to be just another cook book. We wanted people to really want to buy it, so we had to come up with something more…

Bernard’s PA, a very lovely lady, gave me the name of someone who could help us get the actors from the series involved. So began our association with Chris Clarke from the Sharpe Appreciation Society.

Through her, I was able to invite Sergeant Harper and the Chosen Men to contribute recipes, which they all did to a man.

There were also some photographs from Picture Palace’s own website, which we were very eager to use in the book. Our designer had seen them and so started the process of getting the permission from the company to use some in the book. Not only did Malcolm Craddock say yes, his company sent good quality photos direct to our publisher, so that he had the best start to work with. Also eager to help us were Muir Sutherland and Tom Clegg. All three sent us recipes to be included. There were also some photographs that were owned by Rex Features and after many phone calls, they kindly gave us leave to use them, sending the publisher the ones he requested, free of charge.

So we had the recipes and the photographs. What else, to make would our book different?

We decided to add some historical trivia, a clinical piece from the charity itself and some short health tips along with a couple of essays relating to the era of Sharpe and some stand alone narratives to accompany the chapters and some recipes, skilfully written by some  of the ‘chefs’. The latter I ran past Bernard so that we were sure he was happy with us ‘playing’ with his creations. Thankfully, he loved them.

The only thing we had not decided upon was a name for the book! We ran a thread for the ‘chefs’ to come up with a title that we would then all vote on. It only took a couple of suggestions and then one clever lady came up with the name we were to use, not only for the book, but to use for our own group as well.  Sharpe Chefs.

So many actors came along with us. Daragh O’Malley, Jason Salkey, Lyndon Davies, Michael Mears, Paul (and Penny) Trussell, John (and Sally) Tams. - The Sergeant and the Chosen Men.

Picture courtesy of Lyndon Davies

Adele James is the founder of Sharpe Chefs and the forthcoming sequel, Sharpe Chefs II NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER and due out November 10th.

You can order your copy of Sharpe Chefs I & II here.

...Stay tuned to read what came next for Adele and her crew