Afternoon:
8°c
The DIY lunch break
Valentine Low, Evening Standard8 Jul 2008
I am frying up the aubergines and peppers, trying to judge when they are cooked and wondering how much seasoning to put in, and all the time thinking: a sandwich at my desk is never going to feel quite the same again.
With me is Alexandre, who is on garlic duty, and Claire, who has proved a dab hand at chopping up the spring onions. Until a quarter of an hour ago we had never met, but right now we are cooking lunch together and, when we have finished, we are going to eat it together.
This is the latest idea to hit the office lunchbreak: a cookery school where you are taught a dish, make it and eat it within the hour. Not so much "let's do lunch" as "let's do-it-yourself lunch", it's called Cook, Eat And Run, and opened in London this week.
The £18 special is run by L'atelier des Chefs, which started in Paris four years ago and has proved so successful it has nine branches in France and a new one in Wigmore Street in the West End. But will it work here? Will office workers part with £18 (before wine, or pudding, or coffee) and their break? I was, I admit, sceptical. I do not need a professional to teach me how to chop up an aubergine.
Or at least that's what I thought, but the first thing Dutch chef Baldwin Stoel tells us is how to chop vegetables the chefs' way, without slicing off your fingertips. He also shows us a neat technique for finely dicing spring onions and shredding basil, which I might try showing off at home.
We are cooking veal sautéed with aubergines, olives and capers, and it is all going swimmingly until Claire realises we've lost our capers. We decide the only way to avert a crisis is for her to nick some from one of the other groups: it is a dog-eat-dog world in the professional kitchen.
After a final consultation between us over seasoning (more salt? more chilli powder?) we settle down at a long table to eat. Guess what: it's pretty good. "Very tasty," said Alexandre. "I am very bad at cooking," said Claire, "but this recipe is quite easy for beginners. It was a good experience." Perhaps in half an hour you are not going to learn much.
A total beginner might find it all a bit confusing, while an experienced cook could get just as much from reading a recipe (which, incidentally, you get emailed to you afterwards).
But that is to miss the point. It is a sight more fun than eating a sandwich at your desk, and if you are lucky you might even get to meet someone nice. It could turn into a hot trend for singles - speed dating with cookery and lunch thrown in. Just go easy on the garlic.
