Independence-Freedom-Happiness – Maxine’s Junior Chef’s College, Lesson 4

Pop Quiz and Ready Steady Cook Day! I’m feeling about as nervous as I used to feel on Exam Day in the Leith’s Kitchen – how will she do? will she do ok at the quiz? will she be upset if she doesn’t? what if she doesn’t like any of the ingredients? what if she has no idea what to do with them? what are you going to do with these ingredients, Barbara, if Maxine doesn’t know what to do next?

The nervousness slides into anxiety, and, just before real panic sets is, I take a moment. Breathe, Barbara. One more breath, that’s it. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feel your belly expanding on the in-breath, then let it all out on the out-breath. That’s it, you’ve found your center balance. Turn around, look again, now chill the F out. You can think of a thousand things to cook with these Mystery Bag ingredients, and so will Maxine.

Gosh, I really hope Maxine is more composed about today than I am.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot it was Quiz Day,” Maxine casually remarks as she drops herself onto the sofa, totally unphased by the prospect of a quiz and cooking challenge ahead of her.

She’s got a lot going on this week, and it’s clear that we need a moment of just being together, before we dive into cooking day. Having learned from last week, I made sure that this week I had plenty of time to transition from one role to the other and, having averted the anxiety attack, I feel ready to go, but Maxine looks like she needs a moment to do the same. “Coke Zero?” I offer, “It’s not very cold yet,” as Maxine stares at the wall. “It’s OK,” she responds, sounding somehow defeatist, as if warm Coke is just another one of life’s disappointments that must be borne with stoicism.

Sliding Into The Lesson

I hand Maxine her drink and decide it is best to simply sit down and be quiet. In Spanish, the way to share your condolences with someone is by saying “Te acompaño en tus sentimientos”. Mostly translated as “You have my sympathy”, I prefer to interpret it more literally, as in: I will keep you company, be by your side, as you go through your feelings.

And so I sit down on the sofa, quietly. The test and challenge can wait a little.

It doesn’t take long for Maxine to start talking – just short sentences, more like statements of fact than anything else. Mostly, my responses are limited to the occasional “Oh”, “Hm”, “Ah” as she gets these statements off her chest. No drama to it, juts a Stoic recounting the struggles of daily life. “How do you feel about all of that,” I carefully venture after a few minutes silence, during which we both just stare at the papers laid out on the table.

Shrug, is the only response I get, as Maxine slides off the sofa onto the floor and grabs the paper and pen. She’s ready. Let the lesson begin.

The Pop Quiz: Remembering What We’ve Learned

“Good luck, Chef,” I tell her, “Remember, this is not about passing or failing, this is just for us to review what you have learned so far, and for me to understand what has stuck and what we maybe need to go over again.” Maxine doesn’t even acknowledge me, as she concentrates on the questions, mindlessly nibbling on truffle crisps.

So far, letting Maxine get on with things at her own pace is working for us. I reckon she will find my hovering over her during the quiz as annoying as she finds my babbling through her chopping, and, not wanting to get in the way of the progress we are making – in switching gears from Stoic suffering to joyful cooking – I retreat to the balcony.

After some 10 minutes or so, I catch Maxine staring at me. I make eye contact and slightly tilt my head, encouraging her to speak her mind. “True or False? Scrambled eggs should be cooked quickly on high heat,” she asks. I know for a fact that Maxine has cooked scrambled eggs for her parents multiple times since we had our Egg Lesson à la Delia Smith two weeks ago, and they keep telling me how wonderful the scramble is. A little baffled that she doesn’t know the answer to this question, I say, “That’s for you to answer, not me.” “Well, it depends on how you like them,” she sassily retorts. “I can’t argue with that,” I acknowledge, meanwhile wondering why anybody would prefer a rubbery scramble over the unctuous, creamy delight that her mother now frequently requests.

Maxine does well enough on the test, getting 8 out of 14 questions spot on. Curiously enough, she does well at the open questions, but fails at 3 out of 4 of the True or False questions, including “It’s okay to run in the kitchen as long as you’re careful”. I let her review her own answers, to reinforce that this is not a passing or failing kind of test, just a self-knowledge test, and true to form, she won’t let me see her responses when she’s done. It’s only later, after she has gone home, that I get a chance to review her quiz. I casually gathered up all the papers off the coffee table, just before Maxine was ready to serve, piling her quiz answers on top of the rest of the papers, hoping she would forget that they were there.

Luckily for me, she did, or I would have missed out on gems like “Al dente means teeth” (not far off, Max!) and the confirmation that Maxine loves gooey, slightly undercooked brownies 🙂

Ready, Steady, Cook Challenge: Thinking on Your Feet

Quiz completed, it is time for the real challenge of today. This is Maxine’s chance to finally regain her independence as a cook, after her mandoline mishap on Audition Day: a ‘mystery bag’ of ingredients, for her to turn into any dish she wants. Of course, this type of challenge features in pretty much every cooking competition these days, and we had plenty of them when I was a student at Leith’s, but for me, it’s about the BBC TV Show from the mid-90s, when Fern Britton was presenting it.

I had been living in Amsterdam for a few years and was a passionate amateur cook when I met Wilma – still my dearest friend to this day. Ten years older, nearly to the day, I could not believe that Wilma, having lived independently for over decade, would still have dinner at her mother’s house every evening. On her behalf and unrequested, I decided that it was time for this to stop. “Everyone can cook,” I managed to convince her, “if you like to eat, you can learn to cook.” For the next 3 years or so, we would Ready, Steady, Cook two or three times a week in each other’s houses – the guest bringing the mystery ingredients, the host tasked with cooking them. Today, Wilma is the “Head Chef” of our group of friends, serving them food multiple times per week, as they drop by to say hi.

Clearly, the Ready, Steady, Cook challenge is about using intuition, creativity, and knowledge to create something delicious out of limited resources – including the ability to think ahead and avoid getting stuck without a vital ingredient or piece of equipment. Today, it is Maxine’s turn to show what she’s made of.

It’s only when I tell her it’s time for the Mystery Bag, that she clicks that this must be the red bag that has been standing on the mise-en-place bar / kitchen pass from the time she came in. She was much too preoccupied to notice when she first arrived. Maxine jumps up, crosses the room in an instant, and – rather forcefully – swings the bag off the bar and onto the sofa. “Careful! There are eggs at the top of the bag!” I shriek. “Don’t tell me!” Maxine angrily replies, “I want it to be a surprise.” “I know, Chef,” I respond, “But I don’t want scrambled eggs in my bag, so let’s compromise and stay practical, ok?”

The day before my session with Maxine, I had consulted my team at Shutta about the ingredients that I should add to the bag. We agreed that the ingredients shouldn’t be too unfamiliar, that it would be good to include ingredients Maxine has previously cooked with in order to assess her progress as a student, but that it should also be diverse enough, for Maxine to show her own creativity and style. With this in mind, we settled on a Sweet & Savory Combo Bag containing:

• 1 Chicken thigh
• Eggs
• 1 Potato
• 1 Tomato
• Baby bell peppers
• Lady Fingers
• 30gr. 70% Dark Chocolate with Phu Quoc Black Pepper
• 100% Pure Cacao
• Parmesan

Maxine’s task? Plan and cook as many dishes as she wants – just a single serving – using these ingredients within 45 minutes.

“You get 15 minutes to think about what you want to cook,” I explain the rules. “You are allowed to use anything in the larder, as well as butter from the fridge, and you can use the internet to search for recipes in the next 15 minutes”. “No!” she exclaims, “no looking on the internet, that’s cheating. It needs to come from my head.” I leave her at her workstation, intently pondering her options, her earlier troubles completely forgotten, as she fully engages with the challenge.

“I know what I wanna make, but I don’t know the recipe,” Maxine pipes up after a few minutes. “Wanna use that internet then?” I suggest, “You brought your iPad, I saw.” She stares at me intently for 5 seconds, internally debating whether using the internet is a sign of failure – in my eyes or her own, I’m not sure – before deciding that, as the use of the internet was mentioned before she requested it, going online for a recipe doesn’t mean defeat, it’s just leveraging everything at her disposal. I retreat back to the balcony once again, leaving Maxine to do her research.

Our First Mini Field Trip

When she sits up and starts looking back and forth between the workstation and me, I join her at the table, curious to hear what she has decided on. Explaining what she is going to cook is supposed to be part of the challenge, but I am not surprised at all when Maxine insists that she wants it to be a surprise. I don’t push back this time – there will be plenty of time in our future sessions together, I hope, for us to get over Maxine’s dislike of being asked to reveal her intentions or watched while she works.

“I know what I want to make, but you don’t have everything I need for the recipe,” Maxine says, as she gets up to rummage through the fridge. “What is it you think I don’t have?” I ask. “If you tell me what you want to cook, maybe I can suggest a replacement ingredient,” I venture one last time. “I need heavy cream and cream cheese,” Maxine responds, deciding that I probably won’t be able to guess what dish she has in mind, just from those two ingredients. “I have cream,” I attempt. “You don’t have enough,” she cuts me off. “Ok, how much cream and cream cheese do you need?”

Maxine returns to the table, flips over the quiz papers and grabs her iPad to start calculating. “2 cups of cream and 16 ounces of cream cheese,” she says, as she looks up to me. “You need half a liter of cream and nearly half a kilo of cream cheese?” I ask her, “that’s enough to make food for a small orphanage. You only need to prepare a single serving of whatever you are making, can you half the recipe?” Once again, Maxine reviews the ingredients, concentrates hard on the maths, to ultimately decide, that she can make do with half the quantity indeed. This is only her first cooking challenge, and she is only 10½, I remind myself – there’s nothing to gain from enforcing the rule that she is only allowed to use what is in the bag or the pantry. “Let’s walk over to the convenience store to get your missing ingredients then.”

Queuing up for the till at the Family Mart, I double check with Maxine. “Have you got everything you need to complete the challenge now? And will you be able to finish what you want to prepare in 45 minutes?” As she begins to tell me that her dish only takes 15 minutes, the realization dawns on her that she can attempt to do another dish with the remaining ingredients. “Brainstorming, brainstorming, brainstorming,” she keeps repeating, while staring up at the ceiling and jiggling from one leg to the other. “Nope, I’m fine, I have everything I need.”

Independence-Freedom-Happiness

Over the course of the next 75 minutes, Maxine comes fully alive. Focused on the challenge, delighted with her newly acquired independence and freedom in the kitchen. She moves around with purpose, preparing the mise-en-place for her dessert, occasionally stopping to think about her next moves. As much as possible, I try to keep myself out of her eyesight, snapping pictures of her progress.

I’m impressed when she sets aside the dessert mise-en-place and moves on to chopping vegetables and preparing the chicken thigh – she has created a clear roadmap in her mind for the order in which to prepare steps, moving between dishes, with efficiency. I can feel that Maxine is about to get irritated with being watched and, just in time, as she whips around to say, “I know how to chop!”, I have moved to the speaker, busying myself with finding some background music. “What’s that?” I say, feigning ignorance. “Nothing,” is all Maxine responds, as Maroon 5, her favourite band of the moment, starts playing.

As she finishes up chopping, and the potato and thyme & paprika chicken, stuffed with parmesan, go into the oven, Maxine asks me to go out to the balcony. “You already know what we are having as a main course, I want dessert to be a surprise,” she says. “Have you finished with knives for today?” I double check. She scans her workstation, the mise-en-place bar and the stove area, then picks up her knife, cleans it and stows it away in her knife wallet. “Yes. Now go outside,” I’m ordered.

With the curtain half-drawn to prevent me from watching her as she puts the final touches to her dishes, I kill time with a NY Times crossword, listening to Maxine move around the kitchen, singing along to This Summer – her favourite Maroon 5 song – self-censoring the 🅴 bits, though miming the expletives with a passion when I see her cock strutting to the beat as she crosses the room. When, after 15 minutes, the curtain gets drawn back, I’m impressed to see that Maxine has done a fair bit of tidying up after herself. Her workstation is clean, and the mise-en-place bar has been cleared and turned into the pass, on it a single plate with the parmesan chicken resting.

The Youngest Master Chef

“We just need to wait for the potato,” Maxine says as she joins me out on the balcony. “Sure thing, Chef, we’ll sit here and chill for a bit,” I respond, before asking: “What did you enjoy most about today?”

“Not having to do what you tell me!” Maxine replies, without hesitation. We laugh, and I tell her, “Well, I’m glad you feel that way. Today marks your completion of Level 1, and levelling up means that you will have to show this independence every week. Do you feel ready?” Ambitious and driven as she is, she can’t hide how pleased she, how much accomplishment she feels. Wide-eyed and with a big grin on her face, she asks how many levels there are.

“Funny you should ask that, I was just calculating this the other day. The Advanced Diploma at Leith’s is 3 trimesters, of about 10 weeks each. The level you have just completed equals 1 week at Leith’s, so the full advanced course is 30 Levels.” Sensing, as the words leave my mouth, that this is too big a number and too long a period for Maxine to oversee, I decide to break it down further. “Some students at Leith’s complete only the Beginner’s Diploma, which you get after the first trimester. With this, they can find jobs as a private chef in a ski chalet or on a yacht, for example. You are completing 1 Level per month, so after 10 months, you will have completed the Beginner’s Diploma. The next 10 levels – another 10 months – gets you up to the Intermediate Diploma, now you can find a job in a good restaurant. And when you complete the final 10 months, then you will have completed training to a Michelin star level, and the doors to the most exclusive restaurants open up to you.”

“I could be a Master Chef at 13!” Maxine squeals in excitement. “If you decide enter the Junior Master Chef competition, the judges would be baffled at everything you can do,” I agree. The Stoic from earlier in the afternoon has completely disappeared. In front of me now, is an excitable girl, ready to grab life with both hands, with big dreams and a drive to work hard to accomplish them. I hope she can sense how immensely proud I am of her.

The Grand Reveal

The oven pings, and Maxine gets up to finish plating and reveal what food she has cooked for us. I watch her put the roasted potatoes into a plastic bag with a knob of butter, before smashing it with the potato masher. Neat little trick, I think, I’ll be using that in future, thanks Max! “Sit on the sofa,” Maxine orders. “I’m ready to serve.” It’s not difficult to show my excitement, with the mouthwatering smells that have filled the house. “It smells delicious, Chef!” I let her know, as she brings the chicken, mashed potato and side salad to the table.

Maxine moves back to the kitchen, ready for the grand reveal of the surprise dessert. Of course, when she asked me to brew coffee earlier on, I was certain already that the big surprise would be a Tiramisu, but the “Wow” that comes from my mouth is 100% genuine. Well done, kiddo, you didn’t just rise up to the challenge, you excelled.

Eager to get tasting, we both try a bite of mashed potato first. “A little bit salty,” Maxine states. “Yeah. A bit.” I agree. Next up, the paprika parmesan chicken thigh. Maxine cuts of a couple of pieces for us to try. It’s truly delicious, and like the mashed potato trick, something I will be copying for a weeknight dinner, for sure. “Also a bit salty,” I tell Maxine. “Parmesan is already quite salty, so you can take it a little bit easier with seasoning the meat when you stuff the chicken with parmesan,” I suggest.

Maxine decides that tasting the tiramisu is up next, despite only being a single bite of chicken and potato in. I’m perfectly happy to follow suit – it’s not as if the constant tasting and adjusting of seasoning of different dishes in the professional kitchen follows any rules like “finish your main before you can have dessert”. Of course, there are pointers I could give Maxine about her tiramisu – use a little less coffee for the lady fingers to avoid the liquid pooling at the bottom, don’t whip your cream and cream cheese as early as you did, the tiramisu recipe I’m familiar with uses eggs, not cream. But the flavour and texture she has achieved are divine. Not too sweet. Not too creamy. Utterly delicious.

All-round Praise

She has taken considerably longer to prepare the meal than the allotted 45 minutes of the challenge. She requested ingredients that were not in the mystery bag or my pantry. She refused to talk me through her dishes before starting. She pretty much broke every single one of the rules of the Ready, Steady, Cook challenge. But I don’t care, because today has been our best session together yet, and I feel intense satisfaction over Maxine’s achievements. Judging by the grin on her face, she does too.

I tell her to finish up the main course and wrap up the tiramisu for take-away. Her mum and our friends are waiting for us, and I am hoping they will gush over her in awe and amazement when they see and taste the tiramisu she has made. Being the good friends that they are, they don’t disappoint. Of course, the dessert is genuinely good.

When Chef TiTi arrives – the French Chef who showed Maxine around his professional kitchen, early on in her journey at Chef’s College – the group calls him over to judge Maxine’s efforts. Although she’s feeling shy with all the attention she is receiving, she is also eager to hear the opinion of a professional. The flattery of her mums friends could be just that, flattery. But feedback from a proper Chef, well that’s proper feedback.

TiTi makes a great show of tasting – he looks closely at the spoonful before putting it in his mouth, takes the time to savour the taste and judge the texture, then repeats the process a second time, before turning to Maxine who has been looking up at him from the corner of her eyes, while keep her face slightly averted so as not to seem too keen to know TiTi’s respone. “Nice, strong coffee, without overpowering; beautiful, unctuous and velvety cream, sweet, but not sickly, and just the right amount of cocoa dusting,” TiTi tells her in French. “Franchement, c’est un dessert très réussi!”

In all the years I have known her, I don’t think I have ever seen Maxine beam with pleasure as she is now. “Merci,” she says to TiTi, with a little nod and while maintaining direct eye contact with him. She has finally learned how to accept a genuine compliment, and is graciously receiving this one.

Watching an Idea Come to Life

Continuing to chat, long after Maxine and her mum have gone home for the night, our friend Chris is commenting on what he feels is a shortcoming in the educational system – kids are asked to set aspirational goals, with nobody teaching them how to break this down in to smaller, manageable and achievable steps to create a roadmap for achieving the goal.

It suddenly clicks. Why I loved Chef’s College so much. Why I feel the kitchen taught me more than any textbook or project I have worked on before or since. Why I feel this strong urge to talk and write about the lessons I learned in the kitchen.

It taught me how to set a goal and develop a roadmap for achieving that goal.

There are many, many things I love about Maxine’s Junior Chef’s College, but the synchronicity of Maxine starting out on this journey, just as I am launching From The Frying Pan, is just too good to be true. Every single week, she gives me the opportunity to be a witness, as the same lessons from the kitchen that taught me resilience and so much else, take shape in someone else. Every week, she makes the ideas I write about come to life. Now, how lucky is that?

Test Your Basic Kitchen Knowledge

Want to find out how you measure up against a 10½-year old? Take Maxine’s Level 1 Pop Quiz below. Check back for the answers next week to find out if you too have passed Level 1!

Level 1 Pop Quiz 🎉

Welcome to your Fun Lesson Pop Quiz! 🎈 Before we jump into this week’s exciting cooking session, let’s see how much you remember from the past three lessons. Grab a pen, take your time, and have fun! 🍳✨

Section 1: Kitchen Safety & Etiquette 🏡🔥

1. Multiple Choice: What should you always say when walking behind someone in the kitchen?
   
   a) “Excuse me!”
   
   b) “Hot pan!”
   
   c) “Behind!”
   
   d) “Move!”
   
2. True/False: It’s okay to run in the kitchen as long as you’re careful.
   
3. Fill in the Blank: When handling a hot pan, you should always use __________ to protect your hands.
   
4. Short Answer: What is the safest way to hold food while cutting with a knife?
   

Section 2: Knife Skills & Cooking Techniques 🔪🍳

5. Matching: Match the knife techniques to their correct description:
   
   a) Chiffonade 1️⃣ Cutting vegetables into small, even cubes.
   
   b) Mincing 2️⃣ Slicing leafy herbs or greens into thin ribbons.
   
   c) Dicing 3️⃣ Cutting something into tiny pieces, like garlic.
   
6. True/False: A sharp knife is safer than a dull knife.
   
7. Short Answer: Why do we brown meat before adding it to a sauce?
   
8. Fill in the Blank: A mirepoix is made up of three finely diced vegetables: __________, __________, and __________. 

Section 3: The Power of Eggs 🥚✨

9. Multiple Choice: Which of the following is NOT a function of eggs in cooking?
   
   a) Binding ingredients together
   
   b) Thickening sauces
   
   c) Making food spicier
   
   d) Emulsifying sauces
   
10. True/False: Scrambled eggs should be cooked quickly on high heat.
    
11. Short Answer: What temperature does egg white start to set at?
    
12. Fill in the Blank: When making an omelet, we __________ the eggs first to make them smooth and silky.

Section 4: Building Flavor 🍝

13. Multiple Choice: Why do we deglaze a pan with white wine or stock?
    
    a) To make the dish smell nice
    
    b) To lift flavorful bits from the bottom of the pan
    
    c) To cool down the sauce
    
    d) To make the food sweeter
    
14. True/False: Pasta water should be unsalted to prevent the sauce from getting too salty.
    
15. Short Answer: What does “al dente” mean when cooking pasta?
    

Bonus Fun Question 🎊 (Optional)

16. What has been your favorite dish to cook so far? Why? 🍽️

Great job! 🎉 Hand in your answers and get ready for today’s Fun Lesson! 😃👩‍🍳👨‍🍳