From fin to fork at home

Frank Hederman’s Belvelly smokehouse is also a hard-working, food- producing and tasty family home. Tommy Barker goes to visit

IT’S often a bit of cliche to describe the kitchen as the heart of a home — but Frank Hederman and Caroline Workman’s kitchen is just that, a great big, beating, well-functioning, smokin’ engine of a heart.

And, all going well, it’s all about to get a bit more of a hearty New Year resolution workout.

The food-producing couple, who run the Belvelly smokehouse near Cobh under Frank Hederman’s acclaimed name as an international brand, produce world-class smoked salmon and other artisan foods as naturally as breathing, in a cool-looking smokehouse on Cork’s Great Island near Fota.

Right alongside in this rural estuarine setting is their family home, where — just as effortlessly — good food seems to glide onto tables and plates — hospitality Hederman style; as people turn up, the food turns out.

With a series of food-tasting and other food producing initiatives set to flow this year (see below), food writer and producer Caroline Workman recalls “this time last year we were making a film with Vodafone, which involved a crew of 20; the kitchen became a makeshift office and feeding station by day. We had one supper where everyone got stuck into preparing food....there were two days of fairly intensive filming, so they needed to be well-fuelled.”

Normally, the classic mahogany dining table and area by their workmanlike kitchen can seat as many as 16 in, eh, relative comfort, albeit with some fold-out chairs and a friendly bit of elbow jostling.

“We had a very successful pop-up tasting lunch for a group of tourism and travel journalists visiting the Castlemartyr Resort. I think it makes a tour of the smokehouse so much more meaningful if they can sit down and taste our food the way we like to eat it,” Caroline explains in the very setting, where food literally comes from fin to fork, via their beech-chip smoker.

The couple’s house, now an extended Fota/ Smith-Barry/Villiers estate cottage, has been locally-born Frank’s home for about 30 years, and got a second wind when Caroline and Frank met up. It was extended and upgraded just in time for five-year old daughter Beatrice’s arrival, to a design worked on by Frank and Caroline with Tom Hegarty Architects, (Tom Hegarty also did John and Sally McKenna’s contemporary, private Durrus home, which featured in these pages about a decade ago).

Here near Cobh and Belvelly, an untreated two-storey cedar wing was added on to the back of the original stone and brick cottage, with a full-height, one-metre-wide floor to roof glass pane as an eye-catching, ad-joining feature to the rear. It works on many levels, allowing breathing space between old and new, pours light in, and opens up views to the great outdoors, in this case from reflective pond to trees, sky and clouds on high.

Most of the ground floor of the original dwelling is open-plan, with that most hospitable of hard-working kitchens at one end, linking past further high worktops, to a living space with wood-burning stove. Beyond, by the far gable, is a multi-use room, combining library/ study, Caroline’s workspace, (she writes on food, develops recipes for their Belvelly smokehouse business and looks after much of its current development), and it also doubles as a guest bedroom.

The rear wood extension, with a touch of the prairie house to it, opens up for bathrooms, circulation space and a great feature stairwell, with overhead windows sucking in the light, while the second, higher section of steps past the stair return are Rhino glass treads by Northside Glass, which again allow light to flow unhindered to the house’s core.

Upstairs, the original cottage section now has a raised roof, on a concrete ring beam, with sleepy ‘eye-lid’ window to the front for views west to Cork harbour and a solitary Martello tower from the main bedroom, and a second stove is in evidence here.

If either stove ever smoked in a down-draught, you’d doubt if either Frank or Caroline would even notice — in their circumstances, smoke is an occupational pleasure, not a hazard.

Serious craftsmanship (and/or selection of antique and vintage pieces) is in evidence in so many parts of this under-stated and non-staged house, and not unexpectedly there were a few builders’ rows when finishes didn’t come near to expectations.

The kitchen (with a Belfast sink on one side, and a salvaged copper bowl sourced in London on the other) is bespoke, made by skilled Polish carpenters in solid wood and painted. It has extra-wide worktops, which are handy both for food prep and for visible storage, as Caroline didn’t want bland, off-the-shelf wall units cluttering up the back wall.

Thus, the look can change as simply as moving a piece or artwork, or a plate.

The kitchen’s other long run of work surfaces looks over towards the living area, with a partial second shelf/ tier with glass backing as a bit of a screening divide, allowing dishes and plates to be stacked up for immediate easy access. Underneath the bank of units and facing the living space are books shelves, groaning (as the cliche goes) only as they are so over-stuffed with cookery books, cheek to jowl to spine.

Flooring here at most of the ground level is a slate-like, but slick, matt limestone tile, while most timbers are either oak, or beech for worktops; furniture happily contrasts with a mix of upcycled finds, antiques, and some family pieces in ‘good’ woods like mahogany.

Upstairs, all is restful, with the main bedroom also serving as a private evening /drawing room thanks to another clutch of mix and match furniture, seating, a sewing station and the presence of a second stove. Caroline rightly feels that things you really like and want in your home will tend to fit and work together, naturally.

Craftsman Hand Leptien (now moved from Cork city to West Cork), made the bed, and directly above it are three highly distinctive slatted gable windows, set at an angle for privacy from the road beyond and appropriately termed ‘fish-gill’ windows.

More or less repeating the simple downstairs floor plan, there’s a further bedroom at the house’s far end, and behind in the timbered extension, with its weathering horizontal-hung cedar, is a family bathroom, with free-standing bath, overhead Veluxes and a gable door to a Juliet balcony overlooking the yard and smokehouse.

With Belfast-born Caroline now such a key part of the long-established enterprise, Frank Hederman’s fish-smoking business appears to have a new wind in its sails, as the couple increasingly network with other niche food producers, from butchers to bakers, and cheese and chocolate makers.

Frank’s smoked salmon is a favourite of Richard Corrigan, the Queen of England and her guests dined royally on it for her 80th birthday, and he’s a long-time trader in a ‘gateway’ stall setting by the Oliver Plunkett Street access point to the English Market, where there’s an instant feedback from his regulars on new or familiar products.

Hederman’s food and smoked fish will be among a range of good things being taken in a special food and culture exchange being organised for this year by Cork City Council and Clare Nash: although he generally uses beech chippings for his smoke, Frank has just started testing the use of chips from old Midleton distillery whiskey barrels, and that’s likely to prove a hit with the French.

Galway’s G hotel has just taken on his output, so the organic fish (sourced mostly in Donegal) will be winging its way both east and west during 2013.

“We’ve run a couple of pop up restaurants for friends, and for friends of friends in the past . This year we’d like to extend that and are planning a series of ‘mini gatherings’ for producers, chefs, food writers and so on,” explains Caroline.

“The plan is to exchange ideas, catch up with others on the fringes of our own business and find ways of working together which will boost the fortunes of small, local producers and traders. We’ll run them as pot-luck suppers, so everyone contributes and brings something to the table.”

Coming themes include ‘pure Cork’ speciality food topics, like Shepherds & Shepherdesses, Bacon & Cabbage, or Corned and Spiced Beef and brewers ‘conventions’ “and we’ll be exploring newer trends such as raw food, sushi, and seaweed. It’ll be fun,” says Caroline, “and it will all be in our kitchen.”