I’ve watched a lot of cookery shows on TV, over the years I’ve vivid memories as a kid of Madhur Jaffrey and Ken Hom doing their stuff back in the early 80’s.

As my birthday was approaching my partner thought it would be a nice gift for me to go on a course. We’ve followed Ottolenghi’s recipes in the Saturday Guardian for quite a while and Lorna’s been to his Islington restaurant when she’s been in town.

Yotam Ottolenghi is a pretty cool guy none of the arrogance that you sometimes see with so called celebrity chefs on TV. His food’s also really delicious and derives inspiration not only from his middle eastern routes ( he was brought up in Israel) but form cultures from around the world.

In the company of 30 other ‘fans’ and keen home hooks we spent a Saturday morning at Leith’s School of Food and Wine.

Helping Yotam out was his right hand man Ged from Canberra, and Chef at one of Ottolenghi’s four restaurants in London and a retinue of other members of the Leith School of Food and Wine.

We cooked 5 separate dishes during the morning, the pace was relaxed and fun, first up we made a simple Victoria Sponge to be used in our fancy but easy to construct limoncello and mascarpone trifle which was to be our pudding.

Making the Victoria Sponge immediately transported me back to my high school days, (when schools had kitchens). Yotam taught us that if we added a couple of tablespoons of water to the mixture at the end of creaming the butter and eggs then the steam produced would help it rise and become lighter.

If only I’d known that secret when I was 12, I might have impressed my classmate and hottest girl in the school Stephanie Cook enough to go out with me.

During the morning my cooking partner Renato who I met on the day (already a veteran of Leith’s Knife Skills Level 1 and 2), cooked up a storm. The other dishes we turned out were

Okra fritters with a lime, yoghurt and cardamom sauce

Warm waxy potato and mushroom salad with herbs and truffle oil

Purple sprouting broccoli with chilli, garlic, lemon and sesame oil

followed by our

Scrumptious limoncello and mascarpone trifle.

The quality of the ingredients were top notch and quantitites were generous . For the mushrooms we had 3 different types: oyster a variety with which I was familiar with blewit a variety I’d never seen or heard of they have a lovely mother of pearl type tint to them and the clumpy Japanese variety Shimeji.

I picked up a number of ‘crafty cheffy type secrets’ during the course of the day that’ll whipped out to impress my other half over the coming months, one defied the laws of physics, it involved placing cling feel over the top of a grater when zesting a lemon. David Blaine eat your heart out you’ve got nothing on Maxine Clark! I still cant work out how its done without shredding the cling film!

It was almost like being in your own television show as you reached below your bench and whipped out a tray with everything for the next recipe on neatly labelled, measured out and ready to go.

We had 2 young girls who were constantly cleaning down our work benches after us, replacing our knives, removing our peelings and empty pots. It was awesome. I’d never have known they were there until they got a bit too cocky as they tried to balance one tray too many on the washing up mountain and came clattering down

I just thought ‘ Aah this is the life’ it felt better than any ice cold beer or summer evening G and T ever has.

It doesn’t get much better than this’ I mused until…

I asked Ged if I was doing something correctly and he replied

‘Yes Chef’. I was in Foodie Heaven LOL!

As we finished off frying our Okra fritters, I was stunned as I turned my back to see that our workspace had been transformed and laid out as our dining table complete with glass of wine.

Renato and I tucked in feeling very pleased with ourselves.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day out and experience, totally suitable for a complete novice to the most experienced home cook. My only slight criticism would be that the starter and the main course were pretty high on the calorie front, however we were provided with ‘doggy bags’ to take our creations home, after all there’s nothing wrong with the occasional spot of indulgence is there.

Keep up the great work Yotam and Leith’s you’re onto a real winner!

I’ll be back.

Gavin