Gorgeous Food: Glorious Kitchens

The Leighton Park School’s very first Food Tech GCSE group were fortunate enough to try out cooking in some very swish facilities thanks to Exact Kitchens on Wednesday 3^rd April.

Alex, Nicola and Alex, accompanied by their teachers Tim Green, Head of Food Technology, and Anastasia Carolan, Food Technology Assistant, visited the Barkham showroom where they were wowed by some impressive kitchen technology designed to ensure domestic duties are a delight.

Many of the appliances employ wireless technology and others, whilst more conventionally functional, create a beautiful aesthetic environment in which to work. The kitchens were “advanced, cool and sophisticated” places according to Nicola who was cooking a roast chicken breast with parmesan, basil and breadcrumb topping, rosemary roasted potatoes and steamed tenderstem broccoli

The group were undertaking an essential aspect of their GCSE course, paired cooking, where each member of a couple cooks a course and the complete meal has to offer complementary flavours, textures and attractive presentation as well as take nutritional value into account. To accompany Nicola’s chicken, Alex prepared a delicious chocolate fondant with triple raspberry surprise.

All the students on the Food Tech course, which began last September, are delighted by the opportunity to get stuck into practical cookery. Alex selected Food Tech as a GCSE option because he felt it would be a useful life skill whereas Nicola, who is a keen sportswoman, is hoping to combine her nutritional knowledge with her love of sport and develop a career in the popular area of fitness and wellbeing.

They thoroughly enjoyed their visit to Exact Kitchens where they met the owner, Jason Ivil, whom they describe as “nice and polite”, “helpful” and “imaginative and funny” and would unanimously recommend a return visit to the smart showroom for future GCSE Food Tech students.

Reflecting on the experience of hosting the young chefs, Jason commented, “We were so pleased that the students from Leighton Park School came into the showroom to use our working displays and appliances. The fact that they seemed so at ease from the offset was the icing on the cake. We show clients around our displays every day but to see them being used in groups and seeing the quality of the end results was a really nice experience for us.”