The Editor's Hospitality Blog

Last Friday I witnessed the unlikely spectacle of Marco Pierre White and Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill comparing leg hair, and saw a member of the aristocracy dressed as a tramp - all courtesy of Hospitality Action.

White and Gill were joined by food columnist and son of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Tom Parker Bowles at the shooting of the latest Hospitality Action awareness adverts. This ongoing series of adverts depicts top chefs suffering the sort of life-altering set-backs often experienced by beneficiaries of HA funding. Previous ads have portrayed Raymond Blanc being led by a guide dog, Heston Blumenthal living rough and Anton Edelmann languishing in a hospital bed.

Gill arrived on set first, sporting a stained and raggedy jacket and trouser combo that looked as if he had lost one of his review-lunches down the front of it. "I borrowed one of your suits, Marco", he claimed, when the Hell's Kitchen supremo appeared. Marco exemplified Oxford Street doorway-chic, his Robinson Crusoe-style trousers exposing his ankles and calves. After a few moments spent gauging who had the fuzziest legs, they slumped onto a park bench, vodka bottles in hand, singing "underneath the arches" and laughing like drains.

Only last week, Gill wrote in the Sunday Times: "I always book under a false name, but I never wear a disguise. Getting into a wig and a costume and talking in a funny voice to eat dinner is weird and way too self-obsessed – it’s the sort of thing they do in America." According to HA chief exec Penny Moore, he broke that rule last Friday, when he and Marco left the shoot to review a nearby restaurant in full down-and -out garb. Considering that he had sportingly given up a day of his life to support HA, I think we can forgive him ...

Tom Parker Bowles took longer to emerge from make-up than his fellow tramps. "It's hard to make an aristo look rough", quipped Marco.

Look out for the resulting adverts in future issues of Caterer and Hotelkeeper.

In a recent blog I reported on how Marco Pierre White, AA Gill and Tom Parker Bowles had linked up for a photoshoot in support of industry charity, Hospitality Action. this week's Mail on Sunday published the fruits of their labour.

The three agreed to pose together for the latest HA awareness advert. This ongoing series of adverts depicts top chefs suffering the sort of life-altering set-backs often experienced by beneficiaries of HA funding. Previous ads have portrayed Raymond Blanc being led by a guide dog, Heston Blumenthal living rough and Anton Edelmann languishing in a hospital bed.

Once they had finished the shoot, AA Gill and Marco went out to lunch at a restaurant Gill was reviewing for his Sunday Times column, still in full tramps' outift. In the column - which is well worth a read for a first-hand account of the day - Gill describes being "dressed up in a vomitous suit by Detritus and Garbage and a stinking, slimy shirt and dead man’s shoes. My face was distressed and my ankles blackened, and snot was rubbed into my hair."

There's a lot of talk about how the industry and academia need to work together better to produce the skilled chefs we need to drive the UK hospitality industry forward. In the past year, high profile industry figures of the likes of Marco Pierre White and Oliver Peyt on have grumbled about how colleges are failing to produce chefs with the requisite skills. Having just got home from the Dorchester Hotel where I attended this evening's graduation ceremony for the 16 chefs of Bournemouth and Poole College's Specialised Chefs' course, 2008, I can testify to the fact that operators and educators are quite able to work in harmony to train up outstanding chefs.

The course began in 1989 as a partnership between the college and the Academy of Culinary Arts, whose members sponsor students and offer them prolonged placements at their restaurants and hotels. The stated aim of the course is to "inspire the rising generation to train with the elite of their chosen profession".

So, well done to this year's graduates and their sponsors:

• Adam Blanchard (Claridge's)
• Adam Bowden (The Ritz)
• Christopher Castle (Royal Automobile Club)
• Peter Dickinson (Restaurant Associates)
• Jake Finn (The Ritz)
• David Gillott (1 Lombard and the Sloane Club)
• Matthew Hiscoe (Wilton's)
• Daniel Jeffries (Claridge's)
• Francesca Kay (Royal Automobile Club)
• David Leggett (Boodle's)
• Lewis Linley (Restaurant Associates)
• Emma Mann (Grand Hotel, Eastbourne)
• Paul Matthews (Roux Fine Dining)
• Nicolo Rasile (The Wolseley and St Alban)
• Richard Spence (Tylney Hall Hotel)
• Sheree Stafford (Lucknam Park and Directors Table BAT).

By chance, I was turning through a book called Letters to a Young Chef by Daniel Boulud on the train up to London to attend the event. I've not finished it yet, but already it looks a real winner, packed with advice for young chefs looking to forge a career in the kitchen. Here are Boulud's ten commandments of a chef:

1. Keep your knives sharp
2. Work with the best people
3. Keep your station orderly
4. Purchase wisely
5. Season with precision
6. Master the heat
7. Learn the world of food
8. Know the classics
9. Accept criticism
10. Keep a journal of your recipes.
    

Three-Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal has joined forces with a team of scientists at Reading University to develop hospital food recipes.

According to the BBC, the host of Channel 4's Heston's Feasts series and owner of the Fat Duck in Bray is contributing to a project to improve nutrition on elderly care wards.

The Reading University team has been experimenting with introducing umami into British staples such as shepherd's pie to enhance the taste. The long-term aim of the project is to develop a series of recipes that revive older diners' palates. The project is also hoping to work towards combating malnutrition among the elderly. 

Dr Lisa Methven, lead researcher, told the BBC that older people suffering from a deterioration in taste don't get an extra taste bud, while they can be fitted with a hearing aid or a pair of glasses. "Our hope is that we can develop foods that older people can get more pleasure out of and enhance their nutritional status," she said.