Claire’s cold comfort for gingers

Should maverick chef Heston Blumenthal ever meet Claire Kelsey the pair would have so much to discuss they’d burn the snail slime soufflé.

For Claire - a chef-turned food stylist-turned ice cream van saleswoman – is as innovative as the culinary scientist is enticingly bonkers. It would be a match made in heaven, apart from the fact that Heston’s not ginger and Claire only likes ginger, beardy blokes.

Anyone for a massage?

So much so, that she’s called her latest foodie venture Ginger’s Comfort Emporium and proper carrot tops get a  free Shiatsu massage from a special chair in her ice cream van. Which all sounds a bit kinky, but is all in the best possible taste.

And taste is where Claire, 33, from Whalley Range, takes the biscuit, so to speak. For the ice creams she sells in her beautiful, painted van – with its real gold leaf etchings – set the tastebuds a tinglin’ with unusual flavours – marmalade on toast, rhubarb crumble, lemon curd between peanut cookies and proper mint terrine, complete with humbugs, imperials, extra strong and After Eight mints. Yummy.

When we spoke, Claire was fighting with a chocolate roulette wheel, which was misbehaving, for a casino-themed 40th birthday party. And when her friends Selina and Graham married and went on the Mongolian Car Rally for their honeymoon in a clapped-out motor, she created an edible support pack – with a full-sized chocolate wheel cake (she made the silicon mould using an old tyre), nuts and bolts, red liquorice rope and an edible map made from rice paper. They loved it.

Says Claire: “I started as a chef in Manchester at La Mont in Urbis. A film crew visited us and asked if I wanted to prepare the food close-ups for camera. It wasn’t easy, but the results were good and I decided to give up my job to become a food stylist, which was a pretty drastic thing to do, but I was only 24.

“It’s a niche area and you have to be good at lateral thinking. No one teaches you how to do it. You have to learn as you go along.”

Tasty wheels: Claire's amazing chocolate tyre

Best-seller: Gingerbread honey ice cream cake

Claire styles packaging for Asda and Morrisons and recently worked on a new  drama series called South Riding. She styled the food on last year’s Hovis ad, which featured a young boy running through the ages.

“For the Coronation period I made jellies, trifles and for a split second in the ad you see my Coronation cake. I love the work, but it got to the point that I wanted to cook something that would be eaten and enjoyed.”

So she bought a 10-year-old ice cream van, commissioned an artist friend and expert gilder to beautify it, added some funky mirrors and the Shiatsu massage chair and stocked it with her delicious ice creams. The van’s ancient Italian Mr Whippy maker churns out Claire’s liquorice flavour confection.

Home delivery: Ice cream dessert boxes, £12

Ginger’s Comfort Emporium has pitched up at the Kendal Calling and Todstock festivals and will be in Albert Square for the Food and Drink Festival on the weekends of October 1 and 7.

So gingers be on the lookout for a freebie massage and ice cream. Says Claire: “We’re striking a blow for gingers everywhere. At the festivals my friend was going around with boxes of ice cream asking if people were real gingers. If they said, ‘Sorry, I’m honey blonde,’ they lost out.”

And that includes Claire’s partner Sarge who she says is a ginger bearded person, but he claims to be ash blonde.

Claire is also part of the Experimental Food Society for which she has designed two new ice creams, Durian (a Chinese fruit which has been banned from public transport in Singapore for its pungent smell when overripe) and Bitter Chocolate and Grappa and Blueberry. Heston would be proud.

She also caters for private events and will home deliver her eight for £12 dessert boxes – even if the customer is blonde, brunette or grey.
www.gingerscomfortemporium.com

Tags: asda, claire kelsey, food styling, gingers comfort emporium, icecream, morrisons