Cheese Man Ali

I've never met Cheese Man Ali, but he is rapidly becoming a significant part of my life. All I know about him is he is young, has "Big Hair" (whatever that is, who am I to ask), smokes, is Scottish, and usually wears a white hat. I presume he is moderately handsome, because new flatmate Sophie is lusting after him, and naturally requires the advice of an older and more experienced head on how to progress things.

Photo above: the cookery school, in the grounds of the estate. The kitchens are upstairs, downstairs to the right is the function room, and to the left part of the livery stables which occupies the rest of the block.

As far as I know Cheese Man Ali is at present completely unaware of what is about to hit him.

In the early days of their relationship, i.e. last week, things seemed to be going quite well, with C.M.A telling Sophie about a good club that he goes to. Spookily, this is called the Bongo Club, but as far as I know this is complete coincidence. So Sophie and Kylie (yes really) trundled off there one night, but were refused entry because they didn't have their IDs with them. Undeterred, Sophie then applied for a job in said cheese shop (albeit possibly a separate branch), which she landed. However, the sticking point came when she turned up for her interview for the position, and walked past Cheese Man Ali having a fag outside without recognising him! This was apparently because he had removed his hat to reveal the Big Hair, which obviously sprang into the stratosphere quicker than a hot pan full of rice noodles.

So Frank, did he recognise me? If he did, why didn't he say something? Was he waiting for me to say something? What does he think of me now? How am I going to get out of this awful situation? Frank?

I have provided a bit of fatherly advice. Watch this space.

Photo left: the big house on Newliston estate

Meanwhile my other new flatmate Kylie has also landed a job, at the local Scotmid, as Chief Breadmaker. Scotmid is the name for the local Coop, and there is one on every corner throughout the city, which is a much better way of shopping than having giant Tescos and their car parks plonked everywhere. Today was her first day. The job involves removing the pre-prepared dough from the freezer and sticking it in the oven, and this has to be mastered by the time the current chief breadmaker leaves in 3 days time. I'm sure she'll be fine, although it is a bit of a change from her previous career...

The Culture of Greed in Corporate Finance - a Critical Assessment

Among my wide spectrum of interests ranging from real ale to... oh... traditional pubs, I like to collect what I call "modern day surnames". Historically of course, many surnames came from the person's trade, so Smith, Farmer, Hooper, etc. It occurred to me that there should be modern equivalents, for professions that have only arisen in the last 100 years or so, and I've made it my business to spot them. I have a small but I feel key collection, which I have pledged to the British Museum in my will. It includes surnames such as Engineer, Contractor, and my personal favourite the journalist Nina Nannar, whose father, I'm certain, must have been an ambulance driver.

The other day I received a letter from HSBC, advising me of my entitlement under the rights issue. The letter was signed by none other than 'Nicholas Cashmore'. Now how good is that? The guy is clearly in his dream job. Chalk it up Frank.

A Big Week

Two major events at the school this week. On Monday we had an assessment, which had a slightly different format to previous ones, which have either been of the "here's a bunch of ingredients now make it into something" or "you've got an hour to ruin a poached egg and mess up a hollandaise sauce" variety.

Photo above: nice eggs from the Farmer's Market

This time the scenario was: "The head chef's called in sick, he's already had the menu printed, so you've got to make the dishes to fit the menu, using your own interpretations and ideas" which was much more my cup of tea. Not that that's what I cooked you understand. We had 3 hours to do mini salmon quiche starters, stuffed loin of pork, and a lemon layer pudding (which I'd never heard of, but came out very tasty). I decided not to resort to panicking from the word go, and this paid off, as I stuck to my timing plan all the way through, and finished with very acceptable results with 5 minutes to spare. Hervé scored me 4, 4 and 3.5 (out of 5) for each of the 3 courses. Result! (apparently he never gives a 5)

The rest of the week we have been preparing for Ian's birthday dinner. I've lost count of the number of times I've cooked barley bleedin risotto, but it all paid off last night, when we served what was nominally a 4 course (actually 7 course) meal for 44 guests. It all went perfectly to plan, no cock ups, and we even managed to cater for the obligatory lastminute.veggie - why do these people think chefs are psychic?? At the end of the evening we were bundled in to receive our standing ovation, then sang happy birthday to Ian as the cake was brought in, before disappearing again to clean down the kitchen. Finally left at 1145! A great night though.

The night's story in pictures:

Click and Livvie helping me prep the main course (see below)















The Bell Tower Room all set out
















Plating up the starter - salmon and prawn open ravioli















Plating up the main course: quote from two punters "the best venison I've ever tasted"














The fabulous desserts: a trio of rhubarb and ginger thingies with sugary twirly wotsits














The obligatory, and equally fabulous, birthday cake. The bows are made of chocolate!














VENISON MEDALLIONS WITH PEARL BARLEY RISOTTO AND A MUSHROOM AND WHISKY SAUCE

My own recipe ahem (with a little help).

For the risotto:

Cook the barley as per normal risotto, using white wine, then chicken or vegetable stock (takes around 1 hour).
Saute the leeks until browning and startking to caramelise.
Mix the leeks, parmesan, butter and chopped parsley into the risotto.

For the sauce:

Separately fry chopped mushrooms (on high), and chopped onions (on low) in oil and butter. Mix together and stir in chopped tarragon. Mix in a little cream and flambéed whisky (that's the fun bit!).

Curly kale:

Chop kale into bite size pieces, cook in hot wok for 2-3 minutes until bright green. Mix a little reduced balsamic vinegar in to finish.

For the venison:

Cut venison fillet into 100-120 gram steaks. Season with a little salt and pepper. Fry for 1 minutes each side, then finish in a low oven for 15 minutes. Leave to rest for 10-20 minutes before carving into medallions.

Serve with risotto on base, topped with sauce, place kale either end, top with venison and a bunch of glazed redcurrants. Done!

By the way, my full recipe and time plan runs to 4 pages of A4!

The Pint Pot Mystery Unfolds

I've recently discovered that Ian Rankin (author of the Rebus detective novels) lives just up the road, and frequents the Costa at Holy Corner, which is the crossroads surrounded by three churches very near to where we pick up Livvie every morning. J K Rowling also lives nearby, but she is not fit to wipe my mate Ian's kitchen surfaces imho.

A mystery is developing worthy of Mr. Rebus' attention:

Dramatis Personnae

Detective Inspector John Rebus, a world-weary, battle hardened, slightly overweight policeman
Neil Davidson, a senior physician in his late sixties with a strong resemblance to Richard Briars
Jill Davidson, wife of Neil, and former cookery school owner
Frank Boddy, a promising young chef
Mrs Stirrup-Sturrit-Syrup, a ginger-haired housekeeper
Fat Bloke, with mate, delivering and assembling yet another garden shed off the back of a truck
Clarissa, luscious but dimwitted daughter of the High Sheriff of Yorkshire

Scene 1, the basement flat of a large house in Marchmont, Edinburgh

Boddy (stretching) Ah tis a beautiful morning in Bonnie Scotland, but how I yearn for the green hills of South Yorkshire.
Davidson Ah, Frank. About those missing pint pots. I'm going to ask Jill to have a word with Mrs Stirrup, (aside) because basically I'm too afraid to go near her.
Fat Bloke Where d'you want this shed putting up guvnor?
Davidson Oh, just assemble it in the bottom corner of the garden next to all the other ones my good man
Fat bloke Right you are, guv
Boddy Well, I'm jiggered if I know where they've gone to Neil. I did ask Clarissa but she swears she's not seen them. Nor the teaspoons, neither. Not.
Davidson (unconvincingly) Don't worry old chap we'll clear this up. I've asked my old friend Inspector Rebus from up the road to pop round to help out.
Rebus Mornin' tae ye all. Half a Deuchars and a single malt please. Oh reet, that's nae the back room of the Oxford bar, its a newly assembled shed. Mae mishtake.
Fat Bloke (with hammer) bang, bang, bang.
Boddy Well I'm not accusing anyone, but the way I see it Mrs Stirrup-Sturrit-Syrup must have moved them because I've already asked Clarissa, as I might have mentioned already, but wanted to re-enforce it from the audience's perspective.
Rebus I'm going to have tae ask youse tae accompany me to the station
Boddy (like a shot) Why, which train are you getting?
Rebus Stitch that buddy
Boddy Arrrgggh. And its Boddy not buddy.
Jill (breezing down the stairs in a fluffy dressing gown). Morning, morning morning children. Now then, my suspicion would be (looks round furtively) that the glasses are in that room (she points accusingly towards Clarissa's boudoir)
Mrs Stirrup-Sturrit-Syrup (holding up a pair of shoes) Och, would ye look at those high heels. How on earth can ye walk in thooos?
Boddy I can assure you they are not mine Mrs Stirrup-Sturrit-Syrup. Perhaps they belong to Clarissa?
Fat Bloke Shed's up, love. I'm orf.
Jill Never mind that children. Frank, have you looked for the glasses in Clarissa's room?
Boddy Not bloomin likely!
Jill Mrs S., once the coast is clear, pray search the room for aforementioned pint pots.
Mrs S (muttering) Aye, I suppooose sooo...

Scene 2, later that day. The basement flat. Boddy returns from a gruelling day at cookery school

Boddy My goodness gracious, the drawer is once again full of appropriate glassware! Hmm, this reminds me of a previous episode where I suspected Clarissa might be telling less than the truth...

Scene 3, a flashback to couple of weeks ago. Boddy is in Sheffield

Ring, ring
Boddy Ah, that would be my phone!
Davidson Frank, sorry to bother you old chap, but I'm looking for the spare set of keys so I can give them to your new flatmates, Sophie and Kylie (yes really)
Boddy Sorry Neil, no idea where they might have got to (puts phone down)
Boddy (aside) Hmm, I wonder if Clarissa ever put back the set of keys she borrowed when she lost hers. I'll ring her to check... (there is no reply)

Scene 4, the basement flat, Boddy returns from a glorious weekend in Sheffield.

Boddy Hi Clarissa, did you get my voicemail
Clarissa Oh, yeah, like whatever.
Boddy So did you still have the keys you borrowed the other week?
Clarissa Like, nooooooo! I put them back straight away, like yeah?
Boddy Hmm, still a mystery then, what?
Rebus A pint of heavy and a bridie, love.
Davidson Any luck with those keys Frank?
Clarissa (walking over to key tin) Oh look, they're like here. They must have been like here all the time! Sooooo cool.
Boddy and Davidson (in unison) Hmmmm!

The curtain falls.

Tradesmen

I've already mentioned the wraith from the Scotch mist, aka Mrs Stirrup/Stirrit/Spirit, who appears every couple of weeks to clean the house, and remove random items of essential equipment from our flat. Her latest move was to remove all the pint glasses from the kitchen. I've no idea what her excuse was for this, but given I don't drink beer in the house (yes, you heard right), so they've never even been removed from the drinks drawer, it would have to be something quite novel.

But there are other "below stairs" occupants as well...

Lets start with the plumber, Stuart. Stuart spends a lot of time in the house, not just because of my leaking radiator (I put it down to advancing years), but also because a new bathroom is being fitted upstairs (so I'm told, I've not actually seen it for myself). When Stuart is in the house there is a complex logistical arrangement required in terms of car/van parking, on which we consult at length, given there is only a single space available this side of the big wooden gates. The result is always the same: he has to park on the road (and pay a parking fee) in the morning, and I have to park on the road (and pay a parking fee) when we get back in the afternoon . Did I mention the draconian parking regulations in Edinburgh? And the draconian wardens? Our conversations on this topic are so regular that I'm now classified as his official Best Mate, to the extent that one day he cheerily beeped and waved to me as I was walking up the road and he was driving past.

Next comes the gardener. I've only seen him at a distance, and don't claim to be on anything like such intimate terms as with the plumber. Unlike Stuart, the gardener arrives unannounced (at least, unannounced to me), so I arrive home and open the gates to park the car only to find a big green van occupying my space. More parking fees required.

And today there was a quite bizarre sight. I wandered past the living room at about 5pm, and gazed in to see the scene captured on the right. Click, sitting there (bottom left of the photo), watching some god-awful programme* on our tiny telly, through the legs of the decorator's ladder! Just who found this most bizarre me, Click, or the decorator, we shall never know. Probably not Click though, thinking about it.

Or possibly the end of the England / France rugby match, to be fair

It almost feels like Spring is here up in Bonnie Scotland. The daffodils are blooming, and when I drove up into the hills today there was some genuinely warm sunshine flooding the grass and heather. It took me an hour or so to drive up past Stirling and Dunblane towards Crieff, and I spent an bit of time blowing the cobwebs away in what the locals probably call a "stiff breeze", or "gale force wind" as the rest of us know it.

There is a big event at the school next week. Ian, the owner, has (rather optimistically in my opinion) decided to hold his 50th birthday dinner in the reception room (the Bell Tower Room), and let us students cook for him and 35 guests. It takes place next Friday, so this week we were putting forward suggestions for the menu (which is to be a 4 course meal, plus canapés, petit four and of course the obligatory "surprise" birthday cake). We also get to suggest the matching wines (now that I am, a-hem, WSET foundation level qualified). On Tuesday we put forward our list, and Ian chose a number of possibilities, then on Wednesday we cooked them. I wasn't feeling particularly well on Wednesday (naturally, being a man, I don't like to make a fuss about these things), but I was determined to go through with my idea, which was for a Scottish themed main course of venison fillet, barley risotto and whisky sauce. I did two different sauces, a mushroom and cream, and a red wine and juniper reduction. Having slapped my two plates on the table and invited Ian to try them, I then sloped off home for a few hours sleep (and before you ask, no, I had nothing whatsoever to drink the night before). The next morning Click told me that my main course (the mushroom sauce version) was the one selected by Ian. Yes!!!

Meanwhile, back in the flat, Sophie and Kylie are settling in, and I must say, things are a bit more sociable with them around. They actually eat proper food, unlike Click who exists on a diet of crisps, chocolate and dips, and so are keen for me to cook stuff for them, and even reciprocate (Thursday night:- meatballs, pasta and my foccacia). They both hail from London, were schoolmates, and are about 20 (I now know). I refuse to disclose Kylie's previous career on this blog on the grounds I might start getting a whole new audience once Google gets wind of it.

On Thursday we had the cameras in again, this time from BBC Scotland, interviewing Ian about the "credit crunch". I had no idea I was going to feature so prominently but there again these journalists are clearly trained to spot talent.

Anyway, here is the piece which appeared on the BBC Scotland news on Friday night.

And just so you know, the piece Sky News did a couple of months ago which I emailed some of you excitedly about did go out, although not on the date promised. We are about to have a DVD sent through, I'm told. I am available for personal appearences, first nights and Christmas light ceremonies at reasonable prices.

Lomb Shonk and Other Anatomical Details

Having just recovered from a week of pork, we move onto lamb, or "leetle lomby" as Hervé calls it. Butcher Graham's Dad provided the produce, which came attractively presented in a black bin liner. Fortunately the not-so-little lomby had already been beheaded and skinned, but apart from that it was the full Monty, complete with heart, lungs, liver and kidneys (which are left inside with the fat on to keep them moist). We debated whether it was a Baaaa-bara or a Maaaa-rtin then set about butchering it.

Photo above: Hervé poses for the cameras

Hervé and Graham chopped the thing in half and dissected one half, leaving the rest of us to hack away at the other half to retrieve whatever we needed for our dishes.

Photo below: Butcher Graham gets to work. Left to right: Sam,
Graham, Janice (she's older than me!!), Alex, Boston Kate, Hervé

On Monday we cooked the faster cooked items such as chops and fillet, leaving the slow-cooked leg and shoulder meat until Tuesday. I've always been more of a fan of lamb than pork, and sure enough our efforts were much more palatable. My Moroccan meatballs came in for special praise from Hervé (straight out of Allegra McEvery but no matter).

Now you may think me heartless for this, but it was for the best: Click is not exactly a morning person. She usually rises about 2 minutes before we are due to set off, sometimes only because I've knocked on her door. She always emerges crumpled from head to foot, as if she hasn't quite been properly inflated. The week before last she was late out every morning, until I threatened her that I would just leave without her, when things improved a bit for a few days. Last Friday I had to knock her up again, so on Tuesday when she hadn't appeared by 9.05 I left without her. We pick Livvie up at 9 anyway, so its not fair to keep her waiting. I kept my phone out expecting a call, but the text didn't appear until we got to the school about half an hour later: Hi Frank, I'm getting the bus. Please tell Lizzie I'll be a bit late.

Photo below: fillet of lamb with coriander and herb crust, on a bed of mushroom
and leek, with cracked roast potatoes and rhubarb chutney

To give her due credit when she eventually arrived she didn't make a fuss at all, and was fine about it. Hopefully that's the end of it. You heartless sod Frank, how could you - I know what you're all thinking...

Livvie, who we pick up on the way in, is about the same age as Click and fresh out of what must have been a very posh school. She has lived in Hong Kong most of her life, moving to Edinburgh for the last couple of years. Her parents are still out there, and I'm guessing are very rich indeed. She is petite, dark haired and dark eyed, very well spoken, poised and elegant, quiet, and drifts around the place with a constant half smile. I think her main motivation for coming to the school is to stay with her mates in Edinburgh, and she is definitely one of the "chalet maid" set, in other words her parents aren't sure what to do with her! You can see her on the far right of the top photo, looking slightly bored (how could that be?).

Pork pie update... pork pie update... pork pie update...

I was hoping to bring you exciting news of just how good my pork pie was. Unfortunately, due to a combination of the strict hygiene regulations, and my memory, it was not to happen. I forgot about the pie on Friday, and when I went to retrieve it on Monday it had disappeared, binned because it was over the 3 day deadline. A tragically early end for such a promising pie, which never had the chance to realise its full potential. I promise you, there will be more. It will not have died in vain.

Seriously Outnumbered

I arrived back tonight (Sunday) from a brief weekend sojourn in Sheffield, incorporating a very nice meal out at the Robin Hood in Stannington (you should try it - excellent quality), and a horrible realisation at Sheffield station this afternoon that the reason there was no 1609 from Sheffield as anticipated was because the 1609 goes from Doncaster and I had misread my ticket. Bugger.

Neil had warned me that there would be new flatmates arriving this weekend. Details were sketchy, but one of them had previously spent some time at the cookery school. When I opened the door Click emerged with a big grin on her face, ushering out our new companions, Sophie and Kylie (yes, really). I feel myself completely outnumbered, and fearing the worst:

• they have already made their culinery intentions clear by "cooking" chocolate cornflakes and nachos (and saving some for me which I felt obliged to force down)
• the bathroom will have to be booked 3 days in advance, even just for a pee
• if I do ever get in, the plughole will be permanently full of hair
• there will be copies of Hello and OK spread around the living room floor in a treacherous fashion
• there will be a constant diet of chick flicks on the TV (tonight's offering was called "She's The Man", a version of Twelfth Night for people with one brain cell or less)
• there will be constant high-pitched shrieking in the house
• I won't be able to wander around so freely in my underwear (I should add that Click never emerges from her room until 8.54am so this has been perfectly safe up until now [we set off at 8.55am])

I'm sure I could list a whole string of other disadvantages if I put my mind to it. Its not like me to be negative though. Get a grip Frank. They might be wonderful conversationalists who are particularly keen on real ale, narrow boating and growing vegetables. I must treat it as another of life's unique experiences.

Now Thats What I Call Cooking!

At last today I got the chance to make something I could only have dreamed of making a few months ago. Proper food. Not this arty farty nonsense. Something you can get your teeth into - pork pie! Yes, pork again I'm afraid, but this time used for what it was born for.

Making a pork pie is however not a simple exercise, I have discovered. There were a couple of sticky moments along the way. Those of you from Sheffield (and maybe elsewhere) will be familiar with the phrase "hand-raised pork pie". For years I thought this meant that the little baby pies were allowed to run around the living room of the butcher feeding on tidbits until they were big enough to be eaten. But I was wrong. The phrase refers to the raising of the pastry around the body of the pie, which to make a proper pie rather than a supermarket one, needs to be done by hand. I'm not sure whether my pies were intended to qualify as "hand-raised", but that's the way things turned out.

First I made the hot water pastry dough, which basically involves pouring a panful of lard melted in water into a bowl full of flour. Once it has cooled a little, the pastry is flattened, and wrapped round a greased bowl, or jam jar, then allowed to cool, the idea being it hardens into the required shape. The jar is then removed, leaving the casing intact, and the filling is inserted. Well that's the theory anyway. In my case, when I came to remove the jar from inside the pastry, it wouldn't budge an millimetre. After several failed attempts, I had to completely unwrap the pastry from the jar, until it looked like Morph on a bad day. I then rebuilt the pastry as best I could, popped the filling in, fashioned a top and pinched it all together.

The next tricky bit was tying greaseproof paper around the pie to hold it together while it cooked (this was supposed to be done when it was still on the jar, but alas all my good work had to be undone to get the damn thing out). I was working with American Kate today, and it was a two man job to get the paper and strong in place and tied up, before the pies went in the oven for an interminable 2 1/2 hours. They didn't come out until 4, too late for lunch. Tomorrow I have to pour in the jelly, and that was issue number 2: the damned gelatine wouldn't set. Lizzie was mystified. "Are you sure you put gelatine in it?" she asked, staring into a measuring jug containing a very fluid looking stock. "What did you DO?" Well Lizzie, I did what it says in the book, and I have to say, along with everyone else on the course, I HATE GELATINE. It's now sitting in the fridge. Lets hope it falls asleep overnight, like an injured goldfish.

So, we won't know until tomorrow how successful the pies are, but they certainly look good so far as you can see.

Here's another thing about Edinburgh which is rather cute. The buses all have tartan seat covers. Nothing surprising about that. I'm not sure which tartan it is, but its predominently blue with red and white stripes. At the front of the upstairs of the double deckers there is a TV monitor, which displays pictures from each of the cctv cameras on board in turn. This is either to keep us mildly entertained, or more likely, to warn us we are being watched. Thing is, the TV monitor has a lovely little tartan surround to it, made out of the same material as the seat covers. Its like a little warm TV kilt.

The Juggling Unicyclist

I am heartily sick of pork. We cooked 7 different pork dishes today, each one with its own flavours, but there's only so much you can do to hide the taste of pork. Not that I dislike it, but enough is enough, or as Hervé would say, an oeuf is an oeuf.

So for tea, to balance out the protein intensive lunch, I cooked veggie leftovers, and because I know I've let you all down on the recipe front recently, I reproduce it below.

Photo right: various pork products presented in poor disguises. The disgusting looking brown round thing in the centre is a stuffed peach.

Photo below: at least the rhubarb and leek gratin looked great - before it was cooked.

Before tea came shopping, and before shopping was my final visit to the chiropractor, at least for a few weeks. The treatment has just been tweaking a few muscles and bones that are sorting themselves out from my body change from a very sedentary daily routine to a more active, vertically based one. A bit like David Banner's regular transformations from placid scientist to raging green monster I feel my muscles bursting through my ever tightening tee shirt. Strangely though, they seem to be bursting through round my waist. I digress. In the chiro's waiting room are several pictures, arranged in regimental rows. Most of them are scenes of Edinburgh, windswept beaches, or similar, intended to calm the waiting patient. One of them however stands out like Fred Goodwin's pension pot and that is a photograph of a juggling unicyclist, and I was wondering what the explanation was for this. Perhaps it was my new found friend Alan (the chiropractor)'s previous occupation. Or maybe an ex-patient, or some sort of chiropractic voodoo ritual to drum up a bit of extra trade. It shall no doubt remain a mystery.

FUSILLI RIMANENTE

Having had my fill of pork for lunch I decided to use up what I could from the fridge back at the house, and ended up with what a top restaurant would call Asian-Latin fusion but I would call a kind of pasta stir fry.

1/4 onion, finely chopped
5 sprouts, shredded
handful of mange tout, shredded
handful of baby spinach
fusilli pasta
1 tsp pesto
drop of chilli sauce
1/2 glass white wine

1. Boil the pasta in plenty of salted water for 10 minutes
2. Meanwhile, stir fry the onion, sprouts and mange tout in butter in a frying pan. Stir in spinach for 2 minutes until wilted
3. Drain the pasta, stir in the pesto
4. Pour the wine into the vegetable pan, add chilli sauce, heat through and mix everything in with the pasta
5. Thank the Lord there is no pork in it

In case you're wondering, according to Google, Riminenti is the Italian for leftovers.

Flower Power

Now I wouldn't want you to think I'm turning into a big wuss but we spent the last two days of last week learning "floral artistry" (flower arranging to you) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Apparently it's often the case that the male of the species is more artistic in this section of the course than the female, and if you want my opinion, this was again the case. The two days were taken by the rather severe lady for whom I removed my trousers on first meeting her a few weeks ago. In turns out she's called Jackie. She is the most un-Jackie like person I've ever met, although to be fair she is quite nice and not nearly as domineering as I'm portraying her. She also has an inner calm, presumably gained from many happy years spent sticking the odd flower into a sponge every few minutes, and this osmotically transmitted itself to the class. Its definitely the quietest and most contemplative two days we've had so far.

I proudly transported my creations home to Sheffield on Friday night, and they were met with a mixture of greater than expected enthusiasm (from Margaret) and a slight sneer (from Simon). Poppy the kitten gave her vote by leaping on top of the best display (which was sitting on top of the piano) and completely demolishing it onto the floor. Her excuse that she is currently wearing a big plastic ear trumpet thingy having just had her little op was in no way acceptable - you just can't come between a man and his bouquet like that.

Earlier in the week we'd done some rather unauthentic Indian food, which was a bit of a waste of time, although with very tasty results. We do have some proper Indian cookery later in the course, taught by Indians, which I am looking forward to. As it was, I was able to put Lizzie straight on a couple of points, which isn't really why I'm here.

We also covered dessert canapes (apparently these are used to subtly tell your guests its time to bugger off home) and mini puddings in general. The fruity things are basically a pastry case filled with custard (or créme Anglais as I now have to call it) and a couple of bits of fruit. The lovely shiny glaze is simply a bit of jam melted down and brushed over - ah, the tricks of the trade!