Just fo' yo' info

I managed to sharpen my knife to such a degree of acuteness I cut myself. FML.

Staying sharp

The art of sharpening a knife is no easy skill to master. In fact, what tends to happen most of the time is an initial period of utterly destroying knives, dulling them, scraping up their sides and generally ruining them before, in one glorious moment, one actually manages to to get something that represents a cutting edge.

As with all things kitchen-related, it's practice. I just chose a okay knife from my collection and decided that it was going to get sharpened whether it liked it or not. And at first it didn't, getting blunter and blunter as I cack-handedly tried to get the action right and get the correct angle. But this, it transpires, is actually part of the process. It's changing the angle of the blade to suit your sharpening which means it gets worse before it gets better.

As time passes and the weeks have ticked by, I'm just about there. Not with the speed - that I'm still working on, but I'm hitting that 30 degree angle every time and ending up with something sharper than when I started. And it's rather rewarding.

On the menu

Quite a good feeling after the previous week's hell-shift to have a fairly straightforward and pleasurable one on Friday. No shouting, no panic, no carnage - just a well-oiled machine running smoothly.

Another little bonus is the addition of one of my creations on the menu - which leaves me rather chuffed. A part of a pud, using one of my absolute fave fruits, the gooseberry. The swollen green buds with their light green go faster stripes and almost-there wirey down are around for such a short time they should be celebrated - tomorrow I'll be making gooseberry turnovers and gooseberry mess (what's the point in going to the gym if you can't ruin it all afterwards?). And now I'm thinking gooseberry donuts. Yum.

For the menu we were looking for part of a pud - so I sweetened some greek yogurt with icing sugar, flavoured it with vanilla seeds and rippled it with the goosegog compote. A fraction away from what a fool should be (the genuine article is, reportedly, made with custard), but far more up my street.

Given complete free reign I'd probably have added a crushed amaretti biscuit for a bit of texture, or even some honeycomb - a bit on the dark side for some adult caramel notes - but that is a plan for another day.

In a gooseberry pickle

Lovely folks over at Coach and Horses have finally let me steal their gooseberry chutney recipe. It's yum. Also their pickled grape recipe which is on it's way. Enjoy!

New post...at last

Just finished a few days break in Valencia during which I may have eaten rather a lot. Read about my experiences tracing the origins of paella here and about me eating my way round here. Gazpacho recipe will be on my Hello column tomorrow and although it veers somewhat from the classic (no sherry vinegar, no bread, eek!) it is a delicious and light version. Perfect for those of us on a healthy eating kick...

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't

The kitchen: walk in mid-service and you would think you had stepped into a mad house. Flames flare, oil sizzles and spits, extractor fans roar, plates and spoons clatter, pans hiss as they are plunged into cold water, the warning cries of 'backs!', 'hot pan' and 'coming through' fill the air as chefs flit about, avoiding each other in what seems like a suicidal ballet performed by men with extremely large knives.

In truth, this is organised chaos - deeply practiced, rehearesed and well-led, the whirring parts all come together in a beautiful fluidity stunted by the occasional yelp as someone burns themselves.

There is method in the preparation too - a rhythm that builds up as the day progresses. This rhythm runs through every part of life in the kitchen and is a most useful friend, particularly when the pressure builds. It filters down to the most menial of tasks, the peeling and chopping of apples for example - all are peeled, then all are cored and finally all are diced. This method allows you to work quickly and more effectively - and is also worth remembering for the homecook.

Finding the rhythm, it seems, is key.

On the line of fire

I've just started work in a professional kitchen at The Victoria pub in Sheen under Paul Merrett. It's frantic, frenetic but most of all - fun. It was actually quite a tough decision to make - that whole thing about over-doing something you love; in truth, though, it hasn't been that way at all.

It's a separate world from the home kitchen, an utterly different experience. Far more, well, clinical I suppose. It's about practice, technique, preparation, organisation with far less of the fluid, relaxed, casual nature of home-cooking. Professional cooking is discplined, with rules.

It's working together towards a single goal without the chest-thumping caveman competition that seemed to take over food tv for a while. A perfect plate of food is a combination of any number of elements that come together in perfect unison.

Coming in at the lower levels of the kitchen you do end up with some of the more menial tasks - the poaching of fifty eggs, or the peeling of great mounds of potatoes - but this is, in essence, no different from fish prep, meat prep or any other station. It might seem a bit less rock'n'roll but essentially it comes down to cogs in a machine - and every chef in the kitchen is one of those cogs.

You have to see the bigger picture, to step back from the task in hand and realise that at some point these recipes, methods and techniques will all become second nature.

I'm learning, and that's why I'm there.