Day 65

You'll probably be expecting me to tell you stories about the exam now. Well I can't. Because really annoyingly I was very very very sick on Thursday/Friday morning. More sick than I'd ever been before in fact. Now it was definitely food poisoning, but from where I've no idea (I didn't actually eat any of the food that I'd cooked).

So anyway, I didn't make it in for the exam. There was a final dinner too for all the students. And with my delicate tummy, i didn't fancy going for a rich meal. BUt I did manage to meet my fellow students in the pub later that evening, just to say goodbye (mineral water all the way). That was nice.

I have to go back n a few weeks and do the exam then, so I'm not getting away with anything.

I don't know what to say now, except I've just had the best 12 weeks of my life. Not once was I bored and thinking this wasn't for me. I won't be able to look at food in the same way ever again. For those of you that I'll be meeting up with over the next few weeks, I apologise in advance for boring you with my food stories.

I hope that I've inspired people to come and do something similar, I've been in London for about 10 years and this was just the break I needed and has totally re-ignited the passion inside of me.

But most importantly of all I have to thank Therese for putting up with me for the past 3 months. She's a legend and they'll be singing songs about her in years to come.
Thanks Tiny. x x x

Day 63

So it came. You could feel the tension in the air. Actually i wasn't like that at all. It was quite a laugh. It was good to actually do the final meal and put all we'd learned in to practice.

I shan't boe you with all the details, but it could have gone a little bit better, the prok that they gave me wasn't really the best cut at all, it was very very fatty. But hey that's not my fault. Blame the pig.

I thought of making a surprise edition to the meal though, an Irish Coffee. I'd never actually made one of these before. But I'd seen Therese making them hundreds of times before so I thought I'd give it a go. I spoke the Rachel at the end after the 3 judges had tasted my food, she said my scallops were delicious, and thanks for the coffee :)

So off it was to go home and revise for the exam on Friday.

See you in 2 days.

Day 61

Penultimate day. And today really was a doss. I was making a Tagine of Chicken. And I have to be honest and say it was disgusting. Not because of the my cooking mind. It was just a really disgusting recipe. The colour of the thing can only be described as a watery green. The chicken, because it's hardly browned initially, looked aneamic. Not nice.

Here's some more pictures.



In my mind, I looked like James Bond, but with a Pollock instead of a PPK. I was obvously very wrong.



Me and Gillian my last partner, she's lovely.


An action shot

Day 60 - Week 12

That's it. The last week. Only 2 days of cooking (not including the practical). And the sun really is shining. It's making it so hard to want to leave this place. When I think back to January 8th when I started, getting in to the car when it was still pitch black outside. Now the sun is pouring through. And being in the country next to the beach just makes it all the much better.

Basically I'm cooking on Monday/Tuesday. I have my practical exam on Wednesday (8:30am) and then Thursday off, while the other students do their practical. And then 4 hours of exams on Friday, followed by a leaving dinner at the restaurant on friday.

In preperation of the exam though, because sometimes I do prepare, I made my meal for Therese parents and a friend of theirs. And I have to say it was delicious. It couldn't have gone better. Things were looking good.

Day 54 - 55

We got the exam results back today. I got a respectable 75%. It should have been better, but then if you only do 10 minutes revising. What do you expect? There's a lesson in there somewhere that I'm sure I'll learn one day.

Like I mentioned before, the pressure has been right off us now, and we're all just enjoying ourselves a lot more. So i'll let this week run out with some more pictures.


This is Yoko, she's cool.



Two of the teacher, Rose and Emma.

Day 53

Okay obviously I'm writing all this in the future from this date, i've actually finished the course now and it's 3:05pm on 31st March, but i'm interupting this to say that Bobby Zamora has just scored for the Hammers. Can we stay up???? I hope so.

So the exam came and went, it wasn't too bad actually, started of being ridiculously easy. Got harder, then got easier. It was a multiple choice out of 100. The only real question that I had specific trouble on was "Peter Dontknowsurname said in his talk on french wine......." This was the lecture that I left and went to sleep in the car on. So I was pretty annoyed with that. It was a nice sleep though.

The rest of the day was filled with a lecture on cake decorating and something I really can't remember now. I do remember it was really interesting though.

Day 52

Back to Skool. All though there's less than two weeks left, we've only got 4 days cooking left. The rest is made up of exams and lectures. So there's really an air of "we've finished the course now". And to all intents and purposes we have. There's not a great deal left that they can teach us. It's just all practising what we've learnt from here on.

The work in the kitchens is far more relaaxed now, loads of banter going on, people making scones when they feel like it. It's a shame really, it's starting to really hit home that it's actually ending. What at first seemed would never end. Really is.

It's our first exam tomorrow. A 1 hour multiple choice on wine. So you'd think the obvious thihng to do would be to revise all night. And I really wanted o. I sat down with all my notes and books ready to read through them. But just couldn't get into it. So i had a quick blast on Dr Kawashima's Brain training to kick the old fizz-ogg in to gear. Bad move. Turns out I know have a brain age of 60. I used to be 28. Not the boost i wanted.

And then I turned on the telly, and there was a really good documentary on the Pacific Archipelago. It went on for near 3 hours. It was fascininating and I learnt a lot. So realising that perhaps I'd not used my time to the best of my advantage, i quickly crammed in the noble grapes and what regions they come from and a certain fact like what sulpher dioxide is used for in wines etc etc.

Then I slept.