Flora, Education Festival and Bread with Richard Bertinet.
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.