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 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…
Leith’s Culinary Diploma: week 7
A geographically diverse week: we began in Ethiopia, took a brief sojourn to Morocco, and ended in Goa. And that’s without taking into account the canter through the wine regions of the globe as part of our Level 1 WSET wine certificate. Another fun and stretching week learning yet more new skills (hello mackerel gutting)…
Christmas mincemeat for mince pies
The run up to Christmas (and arguably a week or two after) is the only time you can acceptably eat pastry every day. Or at least that’s what my mum thought and anyone who knew her knows it wasn’t worth disagreeing. And why would you? The pastry in question is short and crisp, encasing brandy-laced…
Leith’s culinary diploma: week 6
Week 6 was short and carb-heavy. Two days off for half-term (yippee!) and then pasta, cacio e pepe, mashed potato, risotto Milanese and white bread….freezer now re-stocked for a few weeks 🙂 We returned from a restorative four day weekend to a morning of slow cooking. Carbonnade of beef, lamb tagine and an Ethiopian mince…
Leith’s Culinary Diploma: week 5
Having settled into something of a rhythm, I was struck by a deep sense of gratitude this week. How changed my life is now from my Bank of England days. At lunchtime on Wednesday, having cooked and eaten a delicious sirloin steak with parsley butter, I went for a walk in the sunshine. The contrast…
Leith’s Culinary Diploma: Week 4
As I come to the end of week four, I feel like I might just be getting into my Leith’s groove 🙂 Of course, I could fall flat on my face in next week’s formal assessment but for now let’s take the positive vibes! Brilliant start to the week, and what you’ve no doubt all…
Leith’s Culinary Diploma: Week 3
Chicken, chicken and more chicken. I even dreamt about jointing a chicken! Indeed, my brain is so busy trying to make sense and organise all the culinary knowledge and learning that I am dreaming about my days at Leith’s every night. It’s been a physically exhausting week but I end it feeling elated and fizzing…
Leith’s Culinary diploma: Week 2
The increasing pace and breadth of the curriculum certainly kept us busy through week two. Between teaching demonstrations and hands-on kitchen sessions, we covered various sauces and batters, hummus and crudités, basic bread dough, veg prep and cooking, jointing and cooking chicken, and making our own white meat stock using chicken carcasses and veal bones.…
Leith’s Culinary Diploma: Week 1
After six months of waiting and anticipating, I finally walked into Leith’s School of Food & Wine on Tuesday to begin my Culinary Diploma adventure. Joining our crisp new uniforms in our lockers were three Leith’s aprons and a box of delights…! After a considerable information download on the term ahead from Head of School,…
Cheese scones
You should be able to make scones in the time it takes to boil a kettle. This edict, oft cited by my mother, presumably originated from a time of whistling kettles on gas hobs. Still, it is certainly one of the joys of eating a scone that you can desire it, smell it, and have…
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