“Rising from the side of a busy road just beyond Inch beach, is the wonderland that is Lorna Tyther’s baby. Pull in and park your car and you’ll soon forget about everything in the outside world.”
That's the sort of instant effect Lorna and Billy Tyther's vegetarian guesthouse and restaurant, The Phoenix, tends to have on people. You've just had a lovely day at Inch strand surfing, then you pitch up here and the world vanishes. In its place arises The Phoenix, a quixotic demi-monde of inspired vegetarian cooking, belly-dancing and hippy-dippy hard work from the proprietors that ensures you will have a wonderful time, and won't want to leave.
Somehow, in between looking after her kids and her business and cooking wonderful vegetarian food to sell at local markets, Lorna Tyther found time to write a book of the food she cooks at The Phoenix. Published in late 2011, the book has already sold 2,000 copies, an astonishing success for a self-published book (it's not uncommon in these islands, for books that receive lengthy coverage in the colour pages at the weekend, to go on to sell 200 or 300 copies) So, 2000! That's epic.
Lorna has revised and re-edited the book for the new edition, and it's a disarmingly delightful production – quirky; brave; unabashed; vigorous; curious, and charming. It's Haight-Ashbury meets Castlemaine in the most inspiring culinary embrace.
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