I Am A Feeder

The Beginning of the End: Leiths Diploma, Term 3, Week 1

2013-04-22T17:42:33Z

Lamb noisettes, ratatouille & dauphinoise potatoes.

And so here we are: the final term at Leiths. I keep trying to get it to soak in that after 6 (hard, hard) months we’re into the home stretch now, that in 3 months time I will be a trained chef, that I won’t have somebody hanging over my shoulder, telling me what to do, reassuring me that my baked custard is set enough, that it’s time to look for a job and get some references together.

Sometimes when I look at my food I’m not sure if I’ve gotten any better since week 1 of the foundation term – I’m so involved in this world, this bubble, that I feel I’m a little too close to it all to be able to really take stock. But then somebody asks me a question or ponders over the science of a dish they’re eating & the answers come to me like second nature, proving that it has actually become ingrained in me, that I do know what I’m doing. A tiny kernel of pride is sitting deep inside my heart, pride that I’ve made it to this final term & worked my ass off to get here, hope that I am now a better cook – maybe even a chef? – but, also, pure relief that it was the right decision.

Duck breast salad with star anise dressing.

Since I started Leiths and because I do keep blogging about it, plenty of you have emailed me asking me if I would recommend it – I would say that roughly every couple of months I receive at least 1 email from a budding cook. They tell me that food is their passion, that nothing but cooking ever made sense to them, that they’ve loved reading about my experiences; then they ask me if they should do the course.

Honestly? I cannot tell you whether or not you should go to Leiths. There are things about the course that I have loved – the teachers, the learning, the sheer joy of training in something I love – but there is also plenty that I have hated. There were days when I was so sad and disheartened that I would get home and just weep, there was a whole month last term when I was so depressed about food that I didn’t cook anything outside of school and the food I cooked at school was mediocre at best. At that point it felt like the entire thing was a waste of time and money, that I had thrown myself into something that I just found no more joy in: it wasn’t fun any more and surely that was the whole reason I’d done it?

Luckily, the good does outweigh the bad and I have some amazing friends, family & a wonderful boyfriend who have all listened to me rant, cry and despair, then come back the next day and celebrated a small success with me without ever complaining. Putting yourself through school again is not something I would ever recommend doing without a solid support network away from that atmosphere, the last part of that sentence being the key.

So should you go? If you can afford it, love to learn & have a vague idea of what you want to do afterwards & want a more general overview of food and cooking, then sure, definitely think about it, but I can’t tell you definitively yes or no: you need to make that decision for yourself. I know people who have hated every moment of it, who have found it a waste of time and money and been utterly miserable; but I also know people who would be there forever if they could, who never want it to end. If I could go back and do it all again I probably would, purely because I have learnt so much & enjoyed the learning more than anything I’ve ever done in my life… but I am ready for it to be over, now. 9 months is a long time.

Walter the whole dressed trout (retrotastic!)

I remember when I first started Leiths a friend asked me why I was paying so much money to learn how to be a chef, when I could just start working in a restaurant, earn about the same amount in a year and probably learn more about practically being in a restaurant. My answer then was that I didn’t want to work in restaurants and that I enjoyed the theory and understanding behind the cooking. 6 months later I stand behind that statement because even though I’ve now worked in a couple of restaurants and thoroughly enjoyed it, I still do not want to be in restaurants and I still love learning the science behind the dish, understanding why certain things work (or, indeed, do not).

Part of my problem is that I’m a huge perfectionist and have been ever since I was a little girl, which means that nothing is ever perfect for me and even the smallest mistakes get me down, but I’ve started to learn that my idea of perfect is so unattainable that sometimes you just have to relax your criteria a little (but never stop trying, just sometimes accept that it’s as good as it’s going to get). Maybe that’s why I love pastry and making desserts – the OCD part of me gets to work on something quietly until it’s perfect, no rushing, no drama, just making something taste amazing and look beautiful.

Tarte tatin with rich vanilla ice-cream.

Week 1 down, into week 2 & 8 weeks to go, then it’s time to hit the big bad world and find myself a job, finally doing something I really want to do, finally able to put all the learning into practice… anybody want to hire me as a pastry chef?

Until next time, peace and love,

Jax x

]]>

The End (Part II) & The Beginning?: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Weeks 9 & 10

2013-04-12T00:53:10Z

It’s been hard for me to write this post. I’ve sat staring at my screen for a couple of days now, the page just waiting for me to start typing. I could say it’s because I’ve been busy – I have, after all. We’re on Easter break now and I’ve filled my time with working like a mad woman, from a charity dinner for 50 I organised and executed with 3 friends for my mother’s homeless shelter, to turning out 200 scones every day for 3 days for the pastry section at Hix Mayfair in Brown’s Hotel. But no, that’s just an excuse. The truth is that I’ve really been taking a break from writing to contemplate my future and to spend a little more time in the present.

Blogging does not come without its traps. On the plus side, it’s an outlet, a way for me to document what I make, photograph (though being full time in school does not make for much time for that any more, sadly, hence all the Instagram photos) and eat, a way to chart my progress through culinary school, and it’s a fantastic way to connect with people and I have met some really fabulous people over the past – nearly 3! – years. It’s also a way for people who know me to catch up with what’s going on in my life, the trials and tribulations, the joy and the successes.

However, on the down side, when you have a public outlet, you also have public scrutiny. I’ve heard the whispers, the not so nice things that are said – sometimes not even behind closed doors – and more than anything it just saddened me to the point where I didn’t want to keep writing, didn’t want to put myself out there for those critics to nitpick at. I never started this blog because I wanted to show off or pretend to be anything more than I am, I started it for the pure joy of writing and cooking, I started it for distraction from my final year of university and amazingly my tiny piece of the web became something more, it made me a part of a community. When I started at Leiths back in October this blog became my way of reminding myself what it was I was doing, of trying to figure out where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do – something that became very difficult a few weeks into the middle of the second term – but it was very much about me because, well, that’s what this blog has always been about: me. It may sound very self-involved but I have never pretended that this was anything more than it is.

The point is that when you put yourself out there and you try to be honest and faithful to who you are, it is very likely that you will receive criticism. Fact. The difference, I suppose, is how you choose to deal with it. And so this is how I’m dealing with it: I will not change who I am, what I write or how I write; I will stay true to myself, to my voice and to my style because there will always be critics, there will always be nasty things said and comments made but, as a good friend once told me, “haters gonna hate but haters never hate on losers”. And so, with that said, let’s get on with it because I have some exciting news!

The final weeks of term seemed to fly by. In all honesty I can’t even fully remember what we did – those last two weeks always seem to just creep up on you. The second term was not one I really enjoyed too much, it felt like we weren’t learning as much as the first term, it was just building on skills and trying not to mess up too much (something which didn’t happen for me for most of the term).

For the last couple of weeks there was a lot of buzz about the upcoming exam – we did a practice run-through in class (went fairly well but souffle was a bit underdone & potatoes were a tad scorched, though my teacher liked my attempt at mini pommes anna, which I had handcut and never made before, go team), then there was a week of not very much (lucky that was the week I gave myself mild food poisoning, doh), concluding with a sit-down Thai meal which we cooked together, and then there was just under a week of practising like crazy at home for the actual exam.

Happily, I passed the second term – a massive relief, especially as in the 2 weeks it took for results to arrive in the post I had convinced myself that I had failed entirely – and now we’ll be back into the advanced term from Monday. But that’s not really the exciting stuff I promised you.

If you read regularly you’ll know that I started having an existential crisis a few weeks into the 2nd term. I had gone from being the girl who knew exactly what she wanted to being the girl who just didn’t have a clue and was starting to wonder why I had spent all that money to not be very happy and extremely confused. Did I want to do catering? Did I want to go into a restaurant? Did I want to keep writing? Nothing but a big blank and it’s not like nobody asked me – everybody asked me constantly what direction I wanted to go in once I finished at Leiths, family, friends, strangers I’d met for the first time that day, seriously. I’d fob people off with a, “oh, I’m not too sure, I’ve got some time to figure it out, though…” and then change the subject swiftly, but I could see that look in their eyes, the ‘she has no freaking clue’ look, mingled with a touch of pity. Here I was, mid-20s, good family, good university and I was wasting it all.

Photo courtesy of Reiss.

When Easter break came I threw myself into work experience, desperately trying to find something that made sense, somewhere where I fit in. My 1st days were 2 double shifts at Racine, where I spent a lot of time trying not to get in the way, whilst also getting to do some prep and minimal plating up (on my 1st day I accidentally split the aioli I’d been tasked to make during the busy lunch service, panicking about not having it made fast enough, then spent the next half hour desperately fixing it, all whilst chef was yelling for his aioli: terrifying experience, I wanted to kick myself – I did, however, fix it). I was asked to make my churros the following afternoon for the kitchen team and, amazingly, they may now end up on the menu! So that was a bonus and I learned loads about working efficiently in a small kitchen, plus the importance of prep and how to make friends with the pot washers (who were all just the nicest guys ever).

The following week I headed over to the Street Kitchen, one of the original street food vans in the UK, co-owned by Jun Tanaka & Mark Jankel. Mark & I had become friends when I had covered the Street Kitchen in a feature for one of the magazines I wrote for and then brought him a dessert I’d invented a few days later. I asked quite early on if I could go work with him in the prep kitchen and in the airstream and, of course, he’d agreed without hesitation.

I spent a couple of days helping to prep and serve from the Hatch in Battersea and finish off boxes in the airstream and it was invigorating. In the prep kitchen I really got to get my hands dirty (literally, my fingernails were disgusting at the end of the day), then in the airstream I helped turn out around 200 boxes in the space of 3 hours – it was a little insane. It was a great experience though, highly enjoyable and I learned loads about teamwork.

The following day I was up bright and early to get to a photoshoot with my good friend Mowie Kay. Mowie is a fantastic food photographer and stylist who had agreed to let me shadow him and assist with a shoot for his new book on donuts. We spent a brilliant day together where I got to watch him work and also model for the new book! So providing the shots make the cut, I’ll be in print! It’s always great fun to work with Mowie and, as you can see from the above photo, we may have gotten a little silly as the day went on…

Image courtesy of Hix Mayfair.

The final week I went into Hix Mayfair’s pastry department for 3 days. I spent my days covered in flour, sugar and smelling of chocolate. I hauled massive industrial mixer bowls around, struggling to get the damn thing to sit right and paddle attachment in, so short that I had to climb up onto the mixer to be able to crank the bowl up; I got lost in the labyrinth that is Brown’s Hotel continuously; burned myself only once; baked 600 scones; almost lost an entire tray of birthday cake which I had placed on the industrial roller whilst I tried to find space in the rammed freezer, and which another of the chefs had then started to use on his pizza dough (almost died when I heard the rollers start up and turned around to see the tray of birthday cake narrowly avoid crashing to the floor); made friends with the potwash guys; learned to write with chocolate and was allowed to decorate the slice of chocolate cake that was needed that day (talk about brain-freeze, I had a total panic when I was given actual responsibility and couldn’t think of a way to decorate the cake for the life of me. I also learned that a good pastry chef knows how to cover up their mistakes). In short, I worked my ass off. I did everything and anything I could get my hands on, from the most mundane tasks to the most exciting and I loved every single minute of it. Even when it was time to go home and I was so tired from standing all morning, my back aching, my head throbbing, smelling from head to toe of chocolate and covered in a fine dusting of flour, I loved it. It was hard, bloody work but it was exactly the kind of work I wanted to do.

And that’s when I realised that I want to be a pastry chef.

The vague thought that maybe I wanted to bake had become something real, something tangible, something I could work towards. With 3 months left of the diploma I now know for sure where I want to be and that is not a bad place to be at all. Watch this space.

Until next time, peace and love,

Jax x

]]>

Three Nightmare Weeks: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Weeks 6, 7 & 8

2013-03-05T17:52:11Z

Jamaican lamb curry I made at home with leftover boned leg.

You may have been wondering where I’ve been and why I haven’t been posting for the last three weeks. In all honesty: I’d lost my enthusiasm for food.

Now to somebody like me who absolutely loves food this was something of a tragedy. I’ve actually been feeling kind of depressed because it seemed that everything I was doing was turning out terrible – even simple things were letting me down, like forgetting to put salt into my beer bread so that it looked great and had the right texture but tasted of nothing. I was out of the zone and as a result the weeks had been fairly disastrous, the cherry on top being our cooking for 50 task experience. I started to dread going into the kitchen, terrified that my bad luck would follow me in again and on Friday I found myself wiping away tears of frustration over brandy snaps; that was basically when I realised that I needed a break. But we all have to go through the bad to get to the good, right? So this post is all about the bad – we’ll save the good for the next (I have to give you something to look forward to, right?). Enter the three nightmare weeks…

Spaghetti alla Vongole; Veal with Madeira sauce & potato rosti; my creative lamb dish: tunnel-boned and rolled leg of lamb stuffed with onion, red peppers and toasted pine nuts, served with Spanish tortilla, roasted tomatoes with thyme and a red wine jus; tunnel-boned lamb shoulder “en ballon” stuffed with feta and sundried tomatoes; chocolate cake.

As usual, the most fun I had over the past 3 weeks were with the creative dishes – being given a list of ingredients and told to create a dish from them is something I absolutely love and thrive on (and apparently this is a lot of what we’ll be doing next term, so I’m very excited for it). The hardest thing I’ve had to do this term has been tunnel-boning lamb – good God. Why would you even do that?!

I de-boned meat once before, when I did my previous cooking course when I was a young ‘un, and at the time I swore I would never do it again: imagine my joy when I learned that this week we would be tunnel-boning legs and shoulders of lamb. At one point I was literally kneeling on the floor staring up at the lamb shoulder on my work station, practically elbow deep in the joint, cutting for all I was worth. On the plus side, though it was bloody hard work and took me way longer than anybody else, the bone I finally pulled out of that shoulder in one piece was so clean you could practically have eaten off it and I nearly cried tears of joy (I didn’t, though, I do enough crying at this place as it is). The leftover leg of lamb got turned into Jamaican curry at home (in lieu of goat) and the shoulder, prepared “en ballon” and stuffed with feta and sundried tomato, was eaten very happily at home with TS. Plus I finally made a pan gravy which was, if I do say so myself, bloody delicious.

Chelsea Buns; individual fruit tarts with pate sucree; spatchcocked poussin with Sauce Robert; spiced pork belly with caramelised peanut sauce; beer bread; butchery all-day demonstration; red wine braised short ribs at home (2nd photo styled by TS!).

This term we’ve also had our first all-day cooking and demonstration sessions, which meant two days a week when we were either in an all-day demonstration or an all-day cooking session. The individual fruit tarts were mostly good, the shells could’ve done with a bit more baking before filling, and the Chelsea Buns had a bit too much butter because of a tin prep mistake, but actually, the extra butter was delicious (of course!) and my chef friend whom I brought them to at the end of the day told me that they were the best Chelsea buns he’d ever tasted and asked if I could teach him how to make them!

However, these photos are only the things that turned out well – there was plenty that went wrong that week, including the short-order poached egg where my toast was burned and not buttered, my egg not cooked properly and service six minutes late, and the spatchcocked poussin with Sauce Robert was just not very good (though there is a photo of it up there). On the whole, I did not cook well that week – the simple things went wrong and they were things I should’ve done better but for some reason let slip through the cracks.

The all-day demonstrations were delivered by two fascinating ex-butchers who broke down half a pig, half a lamb and the hind-quarter of a cow for us on the first day, then a variety of birds, various offal and the fore-quarter of a cow for us on the second day. They were, in a word, fantastic. I absolutely loved it, just such a shame that the sessions either preceded or were followed by my own horrible cooking. On the plus side, following their demonstrations I took home an entire side of pork belly (which I gifted to a friend for his birthday), some marrow bones, 2 duck legs and beef short ribs, which TS & I braised for several hours in red wine (we finally ate the ribs around 10pm and they were utterly delicious).

Butterflied sardine with warm Greek salad.

Then, the only thing I photographed last week: a butterflied sardine with warm Greek salad. I’m not a huge fan of oily fish but I have a new found respect for sardines – there are about a million bones in those little buggers that you have to remove and, I admit, ten minutes in to pin-boning one I admitted defeat and gave up. I just couldn’t do it any more – there were too many damn tiny bones. I also wasn’t very happy with the presentation but I went with it – as you can see, by this time I was just far too exhausted with and depressed by everything to worry about it any more.

Then the Cooking for 50. Sigh. The Cooking for 50. So here’s the thing about this: we were so organised. The food photos you see above there? Those were from the run-through we did on the Sunday two weekends before the actual task and it went really well but, of course, there wasn’t the pressure of the actual task. There were little things here and there that went wrong, such as the homemade tortillas drying out too much in the warming oven, plating too much salad on the first 40 plates so that the last few didn’t have any at all, and not having quite enough churros plus a communication misunderstanding that meant that half the tables didn’t get their churros as they should’ve and me having to desperately make and fry some more short order; but, in actuality, the thing that let us down wasn’t so much the food we served, it was the fact that though we were (over)prepared for the actual cooking, we totally neglected to think about the actual service of the food, and that was such a rush it threw everything else off.

It was completely and utterly heartbreaking, especially for somebody who is as much of a perfectionist as I am.

I don’t even want to talk about the response to the food because, in many ways, that was worse than the fact that we hadn’t delivered the way we wanted to and there were all sorts of other factors involved that I won’t discuss, but what I will say is this: we knew we hadn’t done a good job, we were all already feeling miserable, so having to sit through twenty minutes of feedback telling us in great (and somewhat unnecessary) detail what we’d done badly was one of the low-points of anything I’ve ever done in my life thus far and something I hope never to have to repeat. I managed to hold it all in until I got home but as soon as I stepped in the door and saw TS I wept for a solid twenty minutes – I was just so very disappointed.

However, there has to be balance and it so happened that that day the Chef Patron of a well-known top restaurant, ex-Leiths student and personal culinary hero, had been guest demonstrating and over lunch had tried my churros: he loved them and wants the recipe from me (I’ve offered it to him and will potentially be doing a stage with him soon, too). So if I have to take anything away from this experience it is that: I make freakin’ good churros, my culinary hero said so.

The other Cooking for 50 groups had far more success than us, with particular mention to the cheesecake dessert which was utterly delicious (even though I couldn’t finish it – bit too rich for me!). We only have a handful left to go now and I genuinely hope that they turn out well – I wouldn’t wish the crushing disappointment I experienced last week on anybody else!

So these weeks were probably the worst I’ve ever cooked in my life… but I promise the next post has some much happier news in it, plus some photos of exciting things I cooked away from Leiths, so do stick with me because I promise: it gets better.

Until next time, peace and love,

Jax x

]]>

They’ll Make a Chef Outta Me Yet: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Week 5

2013-02-11T15:52:36Z

Sole Bonne Femme with puff pastry fleurons.

This was the week where my food started to look like something I would pay good money for.

It’s crazy to think that we’re now over halfway through the course – the pace is so fast that it’s often hard to even take a moment to breathe. So when you start turning out food like the dish above (seriously. Look at it. I made that. SERIOUSLY) it is the most satisfying thing.

Something’s happening here, people – I’m becoming a chef.

This week we’ve also been continuing with our journey into wine – amazingly there are things that are making sense to me about wine, though wine lectures at 10.30am on a Monday morning are not ideal. It’s good to feel like the learning is actually paying off, though.

I think maybe the thing I was most proud of last week was my baking, though (as always). I made more flaky pastry and got to create my own filling (it was bloody delicious so I’ll hold off on sharing until I can actually write a proper recipe up for it but it had blue cheese, apple and walnuts – classic combo with a twist!) and even though I thought my pastry was going to turn out horribly (the fat started breaking through the layers when I was rolling out?!) it actually came out beautifully. I shouldn’t doubt myself when it comes to baking.

My personal mission this week was to improve on my pate sucree and, happily, I did as you can see from my gorgeous tarte au citron. Last time the pastry sides had slumped down a little and I’m convinced it’s because a) the cartouche wasn’t snug enough against the sides and b) I used barley instead of baking beans to support the pastry as it blind baked and I don’t think they were sturdy enough. So this time round I made sure I lined my case really carefully (I know you’re supposed to work fairly quickly, especially with sucree but honestly I’d rather take a little extra time to make sure that it’s lined as best as it possibly can be) and used a mix of baking beans and barley when I blind-baked it. Result? The extra effort totally paid off. My pastry was deliciously snappy and, happily, looked fantastic with only a couple of little creases at the top on one side (next time my personal mission is to improve on these!). I also tend to underseason when it comes to citrus so this time I added the zest of an extra lemon and the citrus was perfect. Very satisfying when you set out to do something and succeed!

The only thing I wasn’t totally happy with was the hazelnut meringue cake but eh, it’s a meringue cake – it’s not supposed to look like a work of art.

Three more Cooking for 50 tasks this week (I forgot to photograph one), generally very well done though a few hiccups here and there (as always). Special mention to the Mexican Street Food meal which was derricious.

So that was the week. This next week we’ve got a slightly shorter week (yay for long weekends!) but we’ve got more exciting creative stuff to do, more souffles and more pasta (made my first savoury souffle and some delicious pasta last week but forgot to photograph it!). Fun times in the kitchen! Let’s hope I continue to make delicious things. Until then, peace and love (and here’s a photo of me making pasta at home last year):

Jax x

]]>

The Inevitable Existential Crisis: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Week 4

2013-02-02T21:27:51Z

Sooner or later it was bound to happen: the existential crisis. This week was mine.

I find myself spending much of my time in a perpetual state of wonder and anxiety. The days go by in a bit of a blur (are we really already heading into week 5 of the 2nd term?!): this is the wonder portion of my life. Whether I’m learning how best to prepare livers, or trying to detect the varying complexities in six different varieties of red wine, it’s wonderful, it’s new, it’s amazing… and it’s hard work, it’s confusing and, yes, at times, dull. But the dull parts are few and far between, usually it’s just my brain trying to absorb as much of it all as possible, eager to learn more, my eyes drinking in every slice, dice and fraiser.

In the kitchen I try to work faster, more efficiently (I often fail at both of these things); I work by the book, doing my best to recall the techniques we were taught that week or in previous sessions; I wash up so much that my hands peel and crack, so much that even rubbing in hand lotion stings and nothing can rid me of these hands that, in only a few months, now resemble the paws of an old crone. In the kitchen nothing else matters – only service. My plates are cleaned and warmed, my food is prepared to the best quality I possibly can, my table wiped down, cutlery at hand; and at the end of the session, all my food marked, all feedback given, I let out a heavy sigh and drag my tired feet down to the changing room. But even though I’m tired and have been on my feet for a good 3 hours, I still mentally pinch myself, asking, “is this really your life, now? You get to do this every day?”

Then I go home and the anxiety portion of the day hits.

Why am I doing this? What do I want? Do I have a viable business plan? Will anybody want to hire me? How can I be so arrogant to think that just because I’m doing a year’s professional course I’m in any way good enough to do this for the rest of my life? Oh God, what about that meal I had in Cambridge? I’ll never be as good as that! Oh GOD, I’ll never be as good as that!

And then I put on my pyjamas, I brush my teeth, I go to bed and the next day… I do it all again.

The further I go in this course the more I’m learning what I’m really passionate about and, strangely, the more my confidence diminishes, rather than grows. I now genuinely feel that instead of becoming a better cook I’m actually getting worse. Why? I have no idea.

When I first started I was convinced I knew what I wanted, what I was good at; now ask me what I want and I’ll tell you, falteringly, what I thought I wanted. What do I want? I’m not sure. All of the things I thought I wanted are still interesting to me but in a slightly detached way and, honestly? The thought of leaving Leiths in 6 short months is slightly terrifying. It’s so overwhelming, so completely and utterly alien and I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not alone here, I have a myriad of people I can talk to, but – and maybe it’s because TS has been away for the past 2 weeks and so I’ve been mostly on my own in the evenings when the anxiety hits – it doesn’t stop me from feeling a little bit lost.

The one thing I do see a marked improvement in is my presentation. It’s not like I didn’t already know these rules – odd numbers on a plate always better than even, centre height is attractive, no more than 3 colours on a plate, keep it simple – but suddenly they make a lot more sense to me than they ever did before.

Today a good friend and I had a catch-up over tea at one of our favourite breakfast spots and when I showed him some of the stuff I’ve been making in class he looked me square in the eye and asked if I’ve thought about food styling as a career. I was genuinely floored – me? Food styling?! I felt the panic and dread set in – I’ve tried my hand at some styling and I’m simply horrible at it! Styling for the camera is totally different to styling for a diner and I found myself pulling all sorts of faces and stuttering out excuses, all whilst my friend raised an eyebrow and looked rather bemused. “You should think about it,” he told me, drinking his tea and still giving me that look, “this stuff looks really good.”

If the comment had come from any old joe I’d probably dismiss it but this particular friend is a professional food photographer. So I shut my mouth, put my phone away and ate my breakfast.

I still think I’d be horrible at food styling but here’s what I know: I love food; I love piping things; I love making things look pretty; I don’t like being rushed; I love finicky, delicate things; I love baking. So where am I going? Not too sure… but I’ve still got another six months.

Until next (and potentially a more stable) time, peace and love.

Jax x

]]>

New News Is Good News

2013-02-02T20:42:51Z

Sometimes, being at culinary school, though it is completely exactly what I want to be doing at this moment in my life, can feel like a total drag. I haven’t had routine in my life for so long that now that I suddenly have this incredibly rigid structure (get to school by 9.30am, leave school by 5pm, do homework, eat some quick dinner, pass out around 10pm) it sometimes feels a little restrictive. Gone are the days when I would go out to dinner with friends willy-nilly, purely to discover new restaurants around town as and when I pleased; gone are the days of dozing in bed until late morning, raising myself to sit in front of my laptop with a mug of hot lemon and honey (still wearing PJs until the late evening by which time what was the point in even changing?) to plonk out a piece about a food event I’d attended the night before, or edit a new batch of photos.

But then when I look back on those days I see what a lack of focus I had, how lazy I was becoming. On the one hand I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted; on the other I was bored, feeling stupider and fatter by the day, and was desperately poor with no idea whether this was what I even wanted any more. These days I’m still poor but my brain feels as if it’s overloading with new and exciting information. My need to experiment has come back in full force – the other week I bought an ox tongue just for the fun of it and I’ve been making enquiries into how to get hold of a whole pig’s head to make headcheese – but the result of this is that I’ve become quieter, less social, more reclusive and a much harder worker. So maybe that’s why I’ve decided to change things up a little.

It’s easy enough to forget the person behind the blog – you see all this food and the public image they present of themselves and you often think, “wow. This person totally has their life together – look at them! They’re following their dreams! How awesome is that?”

I’ve always tried to be very honest about who I am and what I do when I write – I told you all how I nearly sliced off my finger and cry on an (almost) daily basis at school, I talk frankly about my health & my childhood and my post about my late grandfather received more responses than any other, with plenty more emails that came in quietly to share stories about other people’s own losses, and I love that. But there is plenty that I do not share. I don’t write about heartbreak or my family in great detail, I don’t share my boyfriend’s identity or where we live and I don’t tell you about the more intricate details of my school or my friends there. Why? Because there is such a thing, even in this digital age where one can document anything and everything, as oversharing and because much of my life is private and it needs to be that way, to protect myself, to protect my family and those I love.

So believe me when I say that what I’m about to tell you is a pretty big deal: I’ve agreed to be the subject of an episode in a short documentary series.

Do you remember how a while ago I was helping LA-based Good Taste & Gatherings try and get funding for their Kickstarter project, a short docu-series focussing on communities who are brought together through food? Well, unfortunately they didn’t manage to get the funding but, fortunately for them, executive producer Dawn is a go-getter and decided to fund the project herself. They filmed the pilot episode over the Christmas break, featuring Darling Magazine and their launch party and it truly was lovely. You can watch it here:

Dawn had been in touch with me just before Christmas to ask a little about my background, what I was doing at school and how food was part of my life. We had a Skype call and a lovely chat but I didn’t think too much of it until, at the beginning of the year, she touched base again to ask if I would agree to being the subject of the next episode.

So there it is. They’re coming to London in the Spring and they’re going to film me going about my life in and out of school (school have given me the tentative go-ahead for filming), and hanging out with some of my food community friends at my dear friend Uyen‘s wonderful supperclub. It’s exciting and, more importantly, it’ll be fun & will force me to show you who I really am and what I love, and really that’s why I’ve agreed to it. I’m usually the one hiding behind the camera – being in front of it is a little intimidating but at least I’ll be doing it for something I love so very dearly and with a renewed passion: food.

More details to come nearer the time – until then, peace and love.

Jax x

]]>

In Sickness & In Health: Leiths Diploma Term 2, Weeks 2 & 3

2013-01-26T16:56:15Z

As those of you who Follow me on Twitter will know, last Friday TS went off on holiday for 3 weeks and around the same time SNOWMAGGEDON hit London. Simultaneously, I came down with a cold – just a mild cold, I thought, somewhat naively. TS looked after me for a day and a half before he left the country and then, as soon as he was gone, the snow came down in droves and my “mild cold” became swollen glands and a pretty nasty chest infection – so nasty that I had to take a day and a half off school (gone is my perfect attendance! Sob!) – and then, two days ago, I started coughing up blood.

Now, don’t panic. I am not secretly a Parisienne courtesan nor a character in a Victorian novel and I’m not dying; I did however cough so much that I burst a blood vessel. I was given antibiotics (which are now doing a stellar job) and I’m starting to get healthier but that did not stop my friend Jules from shooting panicked glances at me every time I coughed in our French pastry demonstration the other day, as if she were expecting me to keel over at any second. It also didn’t stop my friends and teachers from commenting that I “didn’t look very well” at any and all opportunity (I’m going to hope that wasn’t just because that was the day I chose not to wear any make-up…)

I tell you this as a way of apology because, honestly, I’m a little hazy on the past two weeks of school… so here, look at some pictures of things I made (mostly for the first time) and say things like, “ooh!” and “ahh!” I was particularly proud of the hand-raised pie and the steamed sponge cake (even if I did forget the lemon zest and ginger in the latter; no matter, it was still delicious).

Partridge with lentils and bacon, served with cavolo nero; enriched dough glazed rolls; hand-raised veal and ham pie; monkfish with herby hollandaise; aubergine salad with parmesan & chive crisps; soy braised guinea fowl with bok choi; steamed treacle pudding.

The most exciting demonstrations we’ve had this term, so far, though, have been the offal dem and the French pastry dem, offal and pastry being two of my main fascinations, plus we got to eat sweetbreads and brains in the offal dem (I totally dragged myself in for this one purely because I wanted to learn about offal, even though I’d had the day prior off sick with a fever) and yes, every time one of the teachers said ‘brains’ all I could hear was a zombie moaning, “braaaains…”! We’re also embarking on the next level of the WSET certification (happily I passed the last level with flying colours, which was a great surprise to me), so all-in-all it’s been an exciting term so far… even if my health has been less than perfect.

Deep-fried (partially-eaten) crispy brain nuggets; tarte aux framboise with pate sucree; food & wine matching.

Our journey into the Cooking for 50 tasks has also continued this week (we’re being cooked for approximately 20 times this term – how exciting and delicious!) and the food has been very tasty with only a couple of hiccups. Presentation, on the whole, has been beautiful and some really great cooking has been demonstrated. My group’s task isn’t until the end of February but we’ve put together a menu that we’ll be finalising this week and, honestly, I’m pretty excited for it – a chance to be a little creative with food? Fantastic! This was the week:

Rolled breast of lamb, stuffed with sundried tomato & rosemary, served with polenta and green beans; chocolate torte with cream, raspberry coulis & pomegranate seeds; “The Diner” (burgers & fries); Key Lime Pie with tequila cream; chicken pot pie, green leaf salad and mango; meringue nests, raspberry coulis, cream and fruit.

So that’s it for now. I was actually writing a very long post with some big news but, helpfully, WordPress thinks it’s too long and so won’t let me publish it, so that’s going to have to wait to next time. Hopefully by then I’ll be 100% better but until then, peace and love.

Jax x

]]>

Back In The Game: Leiths Diploma, Term 2 Week 1

2013-01-15T20:50:44Z

Aaaand we’re back in the room! Welcome back and a very happy 2013 to you all! I’m going to keep this post fairly short because there is just SO MUCH going on right now and I want to dedicate a proper post to catching you all up on everything (and there is much to share), so let’s head straight into my brief recap on the past week, shall we?

This term our group cooking assignment is Cooking for 50 in groups of 4 – that means serving up a 2-course sit-down meal for 50 people, which translates into one week of intense work, preparation and a 3-hour morning cooking for a 12.30pm service time and… about 20 occasions of being cooked for! Huzzah! So far we’ve experienced 3 groups, all making very different things, all with their own positives and negatives but, generally, I’ve been very impressed. The themes have been interesting and creative, services on time and food very well cooked. I wish I’d taken a photo of the main course that accompanied the chocolate trio but it was genuinely so tasty I finished the whole thing without even a thought for a photo! So well done to those who’ve completed the assignment thus far and fingers crossed for my eventual assignment at the end of February!

Thus far in cooking sessions, it’s all been pretty chill. We’ve had 5 new students join our group, all of whom are lovely, so I guess it was a pretty quiet week to help them acclimatise and us get back into the swing of things. Honestly, I’m feeling a little rusty, despite having spent much time in the kitchen over the Christmas period, particularly in the timing department. Working to time is remarkably difficult and right now I am working very. Very. Slowly. But I’m not too worried because the learning is exciting and new and mostly things I haven’t done before!

Speaking of…

I made my first ever Creme Caramel and flaky pastry last week! The Creme Caramel was difficult to turn out (as you can see in the above photo) and, even though I thought it was a little too dark, the feedback on it was that it was very tasty and well done (very smooth custard, woohoo!). The bitterness of the caramel combined with the sweetness of the custard worked well together to produce a “cleansing” effect rather than a cloying one, which can happen with too sweet a caramel (tick for learning, yay).

As for the flaky pastry, well. You see that pie up the top there? The teacher who was with us that day actually exclaimed, “WOW!” When she saw it. I’m not very good at receiving praise and I had been having a really terrible day so when she proceeded to praise the flakiness of my pastry and seasoning, I just kind of stared in disbelief the entire time thinking, “wait, this is good?” About 20 minutes later, however, I was on cloud 9. First time making flaky pastry and great success! So naturally I turned the flaky pastry scraps into sausage rolls with some tasty sausage meat I found at the local farmer’s market with TS on Saturday (they were delicious).

The beginning of this week has been quite relaxed, too. I have managed to cut myself already chopping onions (was being a bit careless but it was just a tiny nick) but I’ve also made my first hot water crust pastry (something I’ve been wanting to do forever) and later this week we have our first dem on offal! I cannot wait – this is exactly the stuff I want to learn so it’s right up my alley!

I’ll fill you all in a little more on why I’m so keen for Friday’s dem next time, as well as a few other bits and pieces as to why 2013 is looking to be one of my best, but until then I shall leave you with this rather phallic carrot:

Peace and love,

Jax x

]]>

Christmas in London: Harrods Gentleman’s Hamper

2012-12-21T02:05:38Z

Christmas, for me, has always been a rather special time of year. No, not for any particular religious reasons or for the promise of presents (though the latter is a rather good excuse for, oh, I don’t know, maybe a new hand mixer? Especially considering how mine blew up in my hand the other day) but because of the food. An excuse to eat yourself silly and not be judged for it? Yes please.

So when I was offered a Harrods Gentleman’s hamper, one of the new food and wine hampers, to have a sneak preview of for Christmas of course I said yes. It may be called the Gentleman’s hamper but honestly, I’d be pretty happy to receive this one myself!

So, full disclosure – I’ve not actually tried anything in the hamper yet.

But Jackie, I hear you cry with outrage, how can you review something you’ve not tried?!

I’m actually waiting to dig into this with my gentleman on Christmas Eve. It really is an awful lot of food for one person (or even two) and the thought of having to waste any of it because we couldn’t finish it is such a terrible one that I decided the best thing to do was to wait to Christmas eve and have as much of it for our dinner as we can manage, then bring the leftovers over to share with family on Christmas Day for that ideal little snacking time after Christmas lunch and before you start picking at leftovers. The beauty of this hamper is that everything will keep so very well, even after you’ve broken the seal (as long as you refrigerate it and the crackers, etc. will keep very nicely indeed in an airtight box) so you can pick at it over time. And hello? Harrods hamper? Of course it’s going to be good!

I really liked the little details, like the engraved waiter’s friend that accompanied the bottle of wine. Also, the hamper itself is lovely – sturdy but not too heavy and the lid is entirely removable and leather, which is much more convenient and attractive. Oddly, even though the hamper was delivered packed in styrofoam, there were some scratches and dents in the lid which is a shame but it’s quite a dark leather so not too noticeable unless you’re looking closely. It came complete with a Harrods-green cooler bag which the perishable items were packed in (not pictured) – TS was quite impressed with that! I was a bit too busy digging into the bag to look at the goodies inside…

The smoked meats and cheeses were probably the most exciting part for me – though not usually a fan of smoked meats, the selection seemed very interesting and different; I’m really rather looking forward to tucking into these next week and I’ll be sure to pop in an update and take some proper photos of us enjoying it!

Overall, though it’s marketed at the “gentleman”, this hamper would likely be very happily received by any food lover, for Christmas or any other special occasion… or maybe just for yourself, as a treat? I won’t judge you. Really, that’s my only gripe – that the hampers are so sex-orientated and, well, a little outdated. But then it’s Harrods and I suppose that’s the nature of the beast – Christmas is all about tradition and with Harrods you certainly get tradition. Curious to know what exactly was in my hamper? Have a look at the full contents of the Gentleman’s Hamper.

You can no longer order the hampers online for Christmas delivery but they are still available in-store and by ordering over the telephone so go on, go check ‘em out! Any excuse to go wander around Harrods at Christmas time, right?

Until next time, peace, love and a very merry Christmas,

Jax x

Please note: though the Harrods Gentleman’s Hamper was provided by iProspect & Harrods, no monetary compensation was received and all opinions are my own. Hampers can be ordered through Harrods.

]]>

The End (Part I): Leiths Diploma, Weeks 8 & 9

2012-12-02T19:12:08Z

Thou shalt have a fishy on a little dishy, thou shalt have a fishy when the, er, Eskimo comes in…

And so we’ve reached the end of the 1st term of the Leiths Diploma. Sorry there was no post last week but hey, lucky you, you now get a double whammy! Woohoo! Hearing more about how I broke down and cried at culinary school! Again! Yeah!

Just kidding… sort of… because I don’t think there’s been a single week I haven’t had a little cry about something, now. I can’t help it – I’m an incredibly emotional person and I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think it’s become a running joke at school now but at least I can laugh about it… right before I start crying again. So let’s start with the week before last and then I can get back to my little Eskimo up at the top of the post there which is a much happier ending, no? Yes.

Last week was all about plucking and drawing pheasants, Indian food and buffets. Must be said: plucking and drawing pheasants is not the most pleasant of jobs and for somebody like me who doesn’t particularly like gamey tasting things, the reward is not great, either. In all honesty, the pure smell that was coming from the carcass was enough to put me off pheasant for life. As I stood there, my hand groping around blindly for the innards, leaning back slightly to avoid the rancid smell, I did have a slight outer body moment – I seemed to be floating above myself, looking on in horror and yelling, “you’ve got your hand halfway up a pheasant’s arse, woman!” Maybe that was why I started giggling hysterically, a laugh that was only moments away from insanity. Worse still, my first attempt at drawing only took out part of the intestines which meant that yep, I had to go back into the lucky dip for attempt number two! This time much more fruitful: the gizzard, heart and liver came out with a swift pop, the tiny incision I’d made in the bird now a gaping disaster zone. So guess who doesn’t want children now?

The next few days were full-on and buffet fuelled – first we had our mock exam at school (mine a veritable disaster but there were many other factors that affected it and my teacher said to me that she knew it didn’t reflect my cooking abilities; I, of course, cried), then the other half of our group did their buffet (Christmas themed) and finally we did our buffet (Scottish themed).

The other group’s buffet was, in a word, stunning. They had buckets of food, the presentation was beautiful, they worked really well together as a team and, overall, did a fantastic job. Obviously, as you can see from the above photos, there was a lot to eat but special mention must go to the dried fig and cracked black pepper bread rolls (made by Lizzy), the Scotch Eggs (made by Libby) and the meringues with chestnut cream (made by Christina), all of which were just delicious. Very impressive stuff but then I’d expect no less from them!

I handmade all of the table placards – yes, it took a while…

With the pressure well and truly on now, we dove headfirst into our own buffet assignment the following day and, amazingly, emerged unscathed and successful. A couple of items had a few issues (small budget meant we had to use lower quality meat and fish than we would’ve liked which, obviously, affects the flavour) but the hit of the school proved to be the sticky toffee pudding which Lucy & I had made (seriously, some of the teachers are still talking about it, 1 of whom was chased around the staff room because she refused to share her portion). They loved the different mugs for the Scotch Broth, all of which were tied (lovingly and painstakingly the day before) with different ribbon bows, the deconstructed cranachan which had been my creation (I sort of half referred to a recipe and half made it up) and, overall, thought that the ideas were well thought out and executed (a bit of seasoning trouble here and there but to be expected). So a big fat tick next to the 1st group cooking assignment! Phew. Got there in the end!…but thank God we won’t have to cook in such a big group again – way too much stress!

And so we came to the end of the week where we cooked a big Indian/Sri Lankan meal together then all sat down and ate it! It was the first time we’ve ever done that and it was lovely – really nice to actually get to eat the food you’ve cooked, hot and on plates instead of out of plastic bags (seriously, it’s the most depressing thing in the world to go into the dining room of a culinary school and see 96 students, half of whom are noshing out of plastic bags with flimsy plastic forks and the other half who are nibbling on cheap homemade sandwiches and salads).

Then this week! The last week at Leiths for term 1 and the week that Christmas came to school. It was a very relaxed week in the kitchens but the real excitement was for the Christmas cake decorating competition we were having on the last Friday, followed by a canape party for the 20 or so students leaving. I had spent most of my previous Sunday evening making little fondant and marzipan figures to decorate my cake with, having sketched out my idea about 2 weeks prior to this (yes, I am incredibly organised, what of it?!) and, honestly? I really, really enjoyed it. I am pedantic as anything and making tiny little detailed things is clearly my forte… so if anybody wants a Christmas cake decorated, call me! I would be more than happy to do it if it means I get to make more penguins and snowmen…

I didn’t end up winning anything for my creation but I had lots of people tell me that they thought I should’ve won something, if only for my Eskimo’s little fishy! I knew I wasn’t going to win something for it – there were some far more creative ideas out there than mine – but I was genuinely very pleased with the end result. I’d wanted to put the penguins on the bottom of the cake so that it looked like one was trying to steal the Eskimo’s fish, but I’d made them, er, a little on the chubby side and they wouldn’t fit! So my teacher came up with the adorable idea of having them holding fins in the background (!) so there it was… and can we just take a moment to check out my piping around the bottom of the cake? Oh yeah, baby – my piping brings all the boys to the yard. Honestly, I feel so sorry for my poor boyfriend who has to hear these kinds of terrible cooking-related jokes and innuendo all the time.

A selection of Christmas cakes from my class and others.

So that was the week! And now we crash into exams week at Leiths with our theory exam tomorrow and my practical exam on Thursday; on top of that I’m also baking for The Meringue Girls on Tuesday and helping them sell meringues at their stall at We Feast London on the Friday (buy tickets! Come and see me and buy tasty meringues!), plus I received some more recipe editing work and have a couple of small baking related catering jobs over Christmas before I head out to Malaysia for a wedding and Hong Kong for New Year… not too busy then, eh?

Our group, minus Remi & Bonnie – we say goodbye to Steffi (center in green snowman sweater), Bonnie (absent), Remi (taking photo), Sophie B (blonde, right of Steffi) & Rachael (right of Sophie B with white scarf) this term, sadly, but say hello to five new shiny people!

Wish me luck with exams next week and I shall return in the new year with more tales of how I lost my mind at culinary school. Until next time, peace and love.

Jax x

PS: Are you not all just absolutely loving the actual photography in this post? My poor little dSLR, how I’ve neglected you of late…

]]>

I Am A Feeder

The Beginning of the End: Leiths Diploma, Term 3, Week 1

Related Stories

The End (Part II) & The Beginning?: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Weeks 9 & 10

Related Stories

Three Nightmare Weeks: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Weeks 6, 7 & 8

Related Stories

They’ll Make a Chef Outta Me Yet: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Week 5

Related Stories

The Inevitable Existential Crisis: Leiths Diploma, Term 2, Week 4

Related Stories

New News Is Good News

Related Stories

In Sickness & In Health: Leiths Diploma Term 2, Weeks 2 & 3

Related Stories

Back In The Game: Leiths Diploma, Term 2 Week 1

Related Stories

Christmas in London: Harrods Gentleman’s Hamper

Related Stories

The End (Part I): Leiths Diploma, Weeks 8 & 9

Related Stories