July 2010 - Posts
Today I met Luke Johnson from Risk Capital Partners who was previously chairman of Channel 4 and current Chairman and part-owner of Superbrands, Giraffe, Patisserie Valerie and Baker & Spice.
One of my Acorn mentors; James Horler, put me in touch with Luke to discuss my business ideas and plans of the future and it was a brilliant insight from someone at the top into what I'm going to be stepping into a few years down the line.
It was great to meet him and I definatley leant a lot and have a lot to think about such as Partners, location, branding...the list goes on...whcih is good!
Today was the professional highlight of my Acorn Scholarship year! Today saw 5 of the top patissiers and chocolatiers sound round a table on the top floor of The Gherkin answering MY questions about business and all things sweet. Joining me were my mentor Jane Sunley who co-chaired the event with myself and Jon Reed, Chairman of the Acorn Scholarship. The panel consisted of William Curley (Best Chocolatier' in the consecutive years 2007,2008 and 2009 by The Academy of Chocolate), Paul A Young (Of Paul A Young Fine Chocolates Ltd and recently been awarded Best Chocolate Book in the World by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards), Eric Lanlard (of Cake Boy and cake-maker for celebrity events, including the weddings of Madonna and Guy Ritchie, Claudia Schiffer and Elizabeth Hurley), Chantel Coady (founder of Rococo Chocolates,
Kings Road (1983) and Marylebone High St) and Claire Clark MCA (who was the executive pastry chef at Thomas Keller’s three-Michelin-star The French Laundry restaurant in California up until last year).
Over afternoon tea, we discussed everything from starting out and what inspired people to set their own buisnesses up to packaging, PR and giving the customers what they want. All the panel were so open and very keen to share their experiences with me and I was completly bowled over by their generosity and support for what I want to do. The debate will be featured in Caterer & Hotelkeeper in the next month or so! I'd like to take this oppurtunity to thank Acorn, Caterer and all the panelists for their help, guidence, understanding and just being so brilliant! Photos coming soon
Yet again, another busy week, and haven;t had time to write a post for each so here it all is in one!
Last Monday I travelled down to Bristol on behalf of Flora and the "Cooking with Schools" programme. One of the pupil's Mum from Chandig Junior School entered a competition to win lots of equipment for the school plus a mystery chef for the day and that mystery chef was .... Me! Twenty two 8 year olds with no accidents, injuries or shouting is definatley an achievement and both myself and the kids were really pleased with the day . I cooked a tomato pasta, banana bread and some very basic salad to see how much knowledge kids have of vegetables etc. They were all really enthusiastic and really got the message about healty eating and believing in themselves which was excellent. A very rewarding day and also quite inspiring too! Pictures to follow
On Sunday I took part in a chat-show style debate on behalf of UKSkills at The Sunday Times' Festical of Eductaion at Wellington College near Reading, Berks. The slot entitiled "Vocational Education leads to Success" featured myself, David Harbourne from Edge, Lord Kenneth Baker and Charlotte Burford who won the Bronze Medal at WorldSkills Calgary 2009 for the UK, plus questions and interaction from the audience. We discussed the importance of vocational education to a lot of young people and also how much of a divide there is between vocational and academic education and particulary how the media, government and other bodies seem to 'look down' on vocational education and not in the same voice as Oxbridge degrees and so on. It was argued about whether young people particulary before beginning diplomas or apprenticiships have been to visit FE or HE colleges/universites to discover what vocations are out there. My argument almost immediately was that we have a fantastic oppurtunity next October - a year before the Olympic Games here in London, to get all the kids in London and beyond to visit one of the four days of competiton at WorldSkills London 2011 which is happening at ExCel. This was met by great applause and pleasing to know that the message about WorldSkills and the importance of vocational education is getting across!
And finally...today I took part in a bread course with Richard Bertinet at London's Cucina Caldesi. Richard has a school in Bath and very unusal way of making the dough which was SO inspiring and very exciting to create along side him. Some wonderful bread products were made and certainly gave me food for thought for my future patisserie plans. Again photos to follow shortly.