Cooking Day Two

It's quite hard work, this teaching people to cook business. At the end of our second session this afternoon, my shoulders were aching and my head was a bit dulled from the concentration. It's much more intensive covering a whole host of things over a four hour period, explaining and cooking as you go along, than casually doing a bit of cooking for enjoyment.

So much so that I have had an early supper and couldn't really face cooking myself anything and have already put myself to bed - we have an all day session tomorrow.

We covered a lot of ground today. Second stage of a sourdough loaf (from starter to sponge), chicken liver pate, asparagus and bearnaise sauce (and principles behind hollandaise and mayonnaise too), sautéed artichoke hearts including how to peel and prepare the tricky little monsters, a classic lemon sponge cake (not very French but still essential cooking), creme caramel (and the principles behind all cooked cream desserts - creme brulée, crema catalana, panna cotta and zabaglioni), simple and easy crumble and fruit compote.

I don't want to think about how much butter, cream, eggs and sugar we have used today and I was cutting down on the proportions to avoid wastage. I shall be the size of a bus by the end of the week.

The creme caramel turned out delicious though.