One of the many peculiar paradoxes of this course is that the cooking is not the tiring part. Three (sometimes four) hours of non-stop kitchen action doesn’t actually tire us out. We are busy. Our minds are focussed. We concentrate intently, are constantly planning and thinking ahead. We are armed to the teeth with knives, heavy pans, hot trays and boiling water. There are twenty or so of us in each confined space, all of us buzzing around in our own space, but all of us (correction, most of us) acutely aware of the people around us, and what they are doing. The first question you ask anyone in the morning: what are you making today?
So the mornings disappear in the time it takes to set light to a tea towel. Cooking for three hours first thing in the morning has to be the most effective way to shake off your bed that I have ever come across. By the time lunch hurtles into view, we are alert, awake and alive. Afternoon demo can change all that. The room can get very warm. I’ve already moaned about the chairs, but we are also packed in pretty tight, making the whole thing pretty stifling. We are typically sat there for around two hours before a break. We have glasses that hold about two mouthfuls of water, so you have to take on gallons of fluid at lunchtime, meaning most of the afternoon is spent busting for a piss but unable to discreetly reach the door because there are ten people and no space between you and it.
It is very easy to tire in this environment. The energy and alertness we have generated in the morning soon evaporates, unless it is a really good demo. We have a few different people giving afternoon demos. They have either one or two sous chefs who prepare all their ingredients and help guide them through the long list of dishes. Some are better than others, and some work better with different people. A poor demo will feel disjointed and is easy to lose your focus in. The dishes will generally turn out poorly, defeating the object, which is, after all, to demonstrate how to cook. We always taste afterwards, to get an idea of what we are aiming for the next day. If the food tastes poor, we lose that guide. Or for some of us, it helps steer our thinking and methods, like in the gratin of cod recipe that was overburdened with cheddar.
Today was always going to be a long one. We had a massive morning demo, fitting in dishes that wouldn’t necessarily slip in easily elsewhere. This was to be followed after lunch by a Coeliac demonstration given by an ex-student. So a lot of sitting down and feeling listless then, especially on the back of three hard weeks. To make matters worse, most of us had a few drinks last night, and failed to spot that we were starting at 9.30 and not 9am as usual, wasting a potential extra half hour in bed. At least I could squeeze an extra coffee in.
Morning demo is, mercifully, given by our favourite instructor. Here is a list of the dishes he cooks between 9.30am and 1pm:
Traditional Roast Rib of Beef
Brown Beef Stock
Braised Short Ribs
Cassoulet (proper cassoulet)
Braised Lamb Shanks with Garlic, Rosemary and Flageolet Beans
Horseradish Sauce
Yorkshire Pudding
Pan Roasted Parsnips
Curried Oven Parsnips
Roast Potatoes
Basic Frittata and variations
Wild Mushroom Frittata
Crudités with Aioli
Tapenade/Tapenade Oil
Hummus bi Tahini
Anchoiade
Dukkah
Orange, Lemon and Grapefruit Marmalade
Not only is he cooking these dishes, he is demonstrating how to cook them. He is showing us in intricate detail what he is doing. He is explaining things and embellishing our recipes with tips, hints and suggestions for accompaniments and combinations. You can learn a lot from this guy. (Assuming you want to that is - tragically, some people choose to sit through the whole morning and don’t even have the recipes in front of them). Most of us agree that this was the best demonstration to date.
Even better, we are starving, and get to tuck in to roast beef, cassoulet and braised lamb shanks, amongst other things, for lunch. I have inexplicably pulled supervisor duty again, so set about making myself look busy while other people do all the work. I find time to get stuck in to lunch though. The cassoulet is magnificent, but the star of the show has to be the braised lamb shanks. That is one recipe I will be making again and again.
So after that lovely light lunch, we haul ourselves into the demo room, knuckles scraping on the carpet, huge black bags forming under our eyes, desperate for the week to end. We are in for a nasty surprise. Coeliac Disease is a genetic disease that is primarily due to a permanent intolerance to gluten. That wipes out a lot of food for a lot of people. Many of them have paid to come and watch the afternoon demonstration alongside us. Unfortunately for the 60 or so 12-weekers in the room, the demonstration is aimed at them and not us. So the recipes we are shown are all gluten-free, but the techniques are the same as regular cooking. I say cooking, but I should say baking since the dishes are all tarts, biscuits, cakes and bread. All of which we have been making in abundance for the last three weeks.
Having spent the whole morning in the demo room we now have to endure this basic repetition. It is an unfortunate scheduling mistake really, and we would have benefitted a lot more from a lecture and not a demo, and maybe a discussion of interchangeable ingredients and correct kitchen practice. Some people are rude enough to leave at the break while the rest of us politely stick it out to the end.
The end, when it comes, shortly after five, is a wonderful feeling. A day without cooking is hard to endure in this place. We need to cook, desperately need to, to keep our minds occupied and our eyes open. Now the weekend is upon us. The forecast is good and I finally get to relax. Except I don’t. Tomorrow I have volunteered to go back in the hotel kitchen, so while the rest of the world enjoys their hard-earned rest, I will be grudgingly getting on with what I came here for.
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