On 23rd September 2025, I will being a Culinary Diploma at Leith’s School of Food & Wine. I will chart my progress, experiences, stories of success and failure on these pages.
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 9
I woke up at 4am on Monday morning. My brain immediately kicked into gear and I started testing myself on grape growing regions and facts. Chardonnay – Burgundy; Sauvignon Blanc – Loire Valley; Pinot Noir – thin skinned and difficult to grow. Yes, the wine exam loomed large for later that day. Thankfully I had…
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 8
Week 8 was a total crowd-pleaser: doughnuts, creme diplomat, jam, puff pastry and sausage rolls. We also had our last three wine lessons before our level 2 exam. The week began with our third formal assessment of the term. This time we had to fillet a whole sea bream, ensuring the skin wasn’t damaged, to…
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 7
We are now more than half way through the intermediate term and also the diploma as a whole. The pace and breadth of learning sees each week race by before we’re prepping for the following week’s challenges. I want it all to slow down so the end feels further away! Without doubt, this will go…
Leith’s intermediate term – week 6
Week 6 was short and sweet (and crisp). Just two days in school and three off for half term break. The sweet element came from the delectable pastry wheel, the Paris-Brest. We started on Thursday by making the crème pat base for the mousseline filling and the craquelin to top the choux pastry for a…
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 5
Each week I continue to be impressed by the breadth of the curriculum and the high standard of teaching at Leith’s. This week we got to grips with whole pig butchery, learnt about pickles, fermentation and plant-based cooking, came face-to-face with an octopus (which we then ate), and were given an insight of a charity…
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 4
Two firsts for intermediate term this week: our first formal assessment and our first all day cook. But before that a welcome change of pace with a home study day. A chance to catch up with admin, do coursework for the Certificate in Hospitality and Tourism, and prepare time plans for the week. For me…
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 3
Another week and another looooong list of skills practiced and dishes executed: pate sucree, soufflé by creme pat method, slow egg cooking, fish stock making, liver prep and cook and round fish gutting, filleting and de-boning. Plus a delicious soporific bread dem, offal and fish dems and two afternoon wine sessions covering white, sweet and…
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 2
Inspiring, daunting, intense yet light. Week two had lots of different things going on eliciting a range of feelings. A highlight of the week was a careers day organised for us by Leith’s List Connect careers service. All of us felt nervous about the ‘room of opportunities’; fearing voicing our ill-formed plans of what we…
Leith’s Intermediate Term – Week 1
Back to school and I couldn’t be happier. After a very long break, the anticipation had been building as we received the recipe pack and draft curriculum for the term. Frightening and exciting in equal measure. Straight back into the kitchens on Tuesday morning. And there was a subtle yet definite shift in expectation from…
Leith’s culinary diploma: week 10/11
The final week of the foundation term. And it didn’t disappoint. Skills practice, a Christmas lunch to beat all that came before, and the final flourish: a four layer white chocolate and lime celebration cake with lemon and lime needle shreds. Before all that: the much anticipated theory assessment. The preceding weekend had been spent…
Leith’s Culinary Diploma: Week 9
After the emotion and adrenalin of week 8, the start of week 9 felt flat. I was absolutely exhausted. Not helped by the fact I had cooked for 12 hours on Sunday preparing mince meat, mince pies, biscotti and rocky road for a Christmas shopping evening on Wednesday. We were cooking lamb rump with salsa…
Leith’s culinary diploma: week 8
Week 8 can only be described as epic. Wine exam plus two formal practical assessments. And added to that the emotion of the first anniversary of my mum’s death. Definitely a hard week but looking back I’m beginning to see the culmination of everything we have learned over the foundation term. The wine exam kicked…
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