Gill Draycott calls herself a cook, but those who know her and have tasted her food insist she's a chef. After all, the difference between a chef and a cook is not simply a matter of one being a professional and the other not though that's what most dictionaries suggest. The term chef is also defined by the way a person cooking food uses ingredients at their command to create succulent mouthwatering flavours, just as artists blend the colours on their palettes to create works of art.

A cook will taste the soup bubbling away on the stove and suggests it needs a little more salt before it's ready to serve, whereas a chef will declare that it could be transformed with a spoonful of marmalade, or perhaps a soupon of pesto sauce.

If knowing how to blend flavours this way, and yet have the courage to allow certain natural flavours to stand alone unadorned, qualifies a person to be a chef then Gill is definitely a chef.

And if the term 'chef' can be applied to a person who knows exactly which moment a hundred portions of lamb noisettes should be removed from the oven so that they can be served succulent and pink, she is definitely a chef.

Gill is the proprietor of the award-winning Wells Cheese Store, once based in the centre of Abingdon and now in the centre of Peachcroft Farm, Twelve Acre Drive, near Radley. At this time of the year, her shop is surrounded by acres of succulent summer fruits and vegetables, grown so that people can pick their own, though they are also sold ready picked at the shop. In the winter, the gaggling sounds of free-range turkeys and geese reverberate round the farm, making Peachcroft the perfect site for a shop such as hers.

What better mix can there be than British cheese, local produce and fresh farm produce, particularly as Gill also runs an extremely popular little restaurant that operates within the shop during weekdays and a highly successful outside catering business which specialises in weddings and small parties.

Most Saturdays, Gill will be cooking for a wedding party, using the seasonal fruits and vegetables from the farm to create a fresh, imaginative menu that celebrates not just the happy couple's big day but local produce too.

Because many of the functions Gill caters for take place in village halls within a ten mile radius of Abingdon, Gill's other qualification is versatility. Over the years, she has learned how to juggle things in a kitchen fitted with just one small oven so that everything is served on time and tastes as delicious as if it had been cooked using state-of-the-art equipment.

So what's her secret?

Actually, its all very simple Gill uses tried and tested family recipes but gives them a modern twist which takes into account the seasons of the year. She is convinced that if you get the ingredients right, everything else sorts itself out.

This hard-working woman flatly refuses to serve asparagus in December and frowns on strawberries which have not been picked on Peachcroft Farm the very day they are to be served. As far as possible, all her ingredients are sourced locally. Only the free-range eggs, which come from Wales, travel further than a few miles to get to her.

She says that sourcing the eggs from outside Oxfordshire began when she first took over the shop more than 15 years ago.

"There would be a revolution if I used anything but the free-range eggs I get from Martin Pitt, in Monmouth. My customers love them, and so do I. The yolks are so yellow my sponge cakes often take on an orange tinge," said Gill, who is always finding double yolks when she breaks these eggs into the mixing bowl.

The flour she uses comes from Wessex Mill, Wantage, which is owned by the Munsey family who have been milling flour for four generations. As their flour is milled from crops grown close to the mill, and the name of the farm it came from is always listed on every pack, Gill believes this is about as local as it gets.

Her cream and the delicious golden butter she uses comes from the Upper Norton Jersey Cream Company, in Church Hanborough and is made from the cream of Jersey cows. Mustards and salad dressings are the result of the alchemy of the prize-winning mustard maker Bruce Young, of Shaken Oak Farm, Hailey.

She sources the bacon, ham and other pork productsfrom the award-winning Dews Meadow Farm Shop, East Hanney. which is reputed to make some of the tastiest sausages in Oxfordshire. Recently she has begun using a quince cheese, produced by Quince Products, at Aston Rowant, to flavour some of her dishes. The highly concentrated flavour of this traditional preserve offers such an easy way to flavour dishes and add a hint of fruit to a sauce or gravy, thyat she wonders why she never used it before.

Naturally, all her fruit and vegetables are grown by Bill Homewood, of Peachcroft Farm, who prides himself on following the seasons through, so that even in the winter there's something that can be placed on Gill's menu. She says that these ingredients speak for themselves.

"I don't use a recipe book. I simply adapt basic recipes that I know will enhance the products I have at hand."

Gill's aim is quite a simple one. Regardless of whether she is cooking for the shop or a function, at the end of each day she wants to feel she's done a good job, and as a consequence made everybody happy.

By using local produce imaginatively, rather than turning to commercial food mixes full of food additives, she is confident she's keeping her customers healthy too. Each season, Gill manages to find another way of adding a modern twist to her menus without resorting to ready-mixed products which must be another reason why those who know this enterprising woman consider her a chef.