For Maxine’s first Level 2 lesson, the plan was to instill a crucial lesson: the power of planning. As always, Maxine received the lesson plan a week ahead, and so, in theory, she knew this week’s challenge was not just to learn a new skill and cook a new dish in the kitchen, but to create a time plan using my template before starting our session together. This would force her to map out the session’s flow and anticipate each step ahead of time, a crucial skill for any professional chef and a far cry from the reactive approach of a novice cook.
While she excelled in last week’s Level Up Challenge, Level 2 is about more than just cooking well; it’s about owning the entire process. “With great power comes great responsibility,” I told myself, knowing she needed to understand the consequences of disorganization: unhappy customers, chaotic kitchens, and wasted resources. To drive this point home, I meticulously prepare my kitchen before each lesson. Everything has its place, from the bin to the paper towels to the mise-en-place. My goal is to subliminally train Maxine to crave that same sense of order and spaciousness.
The Power of Planning
Maxine really likes my bathroom. “It’s so neat,” she told me a few weeks back. “Well, mine is neat too, but yours is so spacious and neat,” she elaborated. The plan was to tell her today: “You like my bathroom? And you like my pantry? And how everything is always “neat”, “spacious”, “well-stocked with the best snacks”? My house is like that, precisely because I was a Chef. I wasn’t a tidy cook before training at Leith’s; I wasn’t a methodical cook before Leith’s.”
I didn’t realise how quickly chef’s training had changed me, until I cooked a fancy meal for my parents at my brother’s house in Amsterdam. My brother had gone out to buy something and 45 minutes later, when returning, commented “you haven’t started yet”? Confused, I showed him the focaccia I had baked, the Bouillabaisse that was prepared, the lemon tarts in the fridge, the Pommes Boulangère in the oven. Equally confused, my brother looked around the kitchen to say: “wow, the kitchen looks untouched, the same as when I left before you started.”
The things is, in a professional kitchen, you don’t have time to look for things – it’s the difference between a disaster and a success in the kitchen. My dad was the same – scolding anyone for putting things away in the wrong place. Is it a bit OCD? Is it annoying for people not used to the same? Possibly, but it is also efficient and practical. It speeds you up, it makes your timings more accurate. You can reach out blind and find what you are looking for. It frees up processing power and brain space – it declutters your thinking so you can focus on the important parts, the fun parts.
My friend Chris, knowing how my house is stocked up like a small convenience store, has accused me of being a prepper. Yes, I am a prepper. But not because I fear any pending doom or the scary geopolitical landscape. It’s because I am a busy executive, running a small, young company, and I prefer to eat homecooked food. (Preparing food from raw ingredients, has been proven to be the single healthiest diet change you can make, though they don’t really know why.)
When I come home from a hard day at work, I don’t want to go to the shops, I don’t want to run out of ingredients, everything needs to be easy. If I ever get a lazy day on the sofa, I want to have that bag of crisps at my fingertips, I want that cookie with my coffee. I don’t want to get out of my PJs to pick up a delivery, I don’t want to pop out to the convenience store.
I run my home pantry and fridge like the Buyer at Leith’s College – everything has a place, and it is always the same place; fridge shelves and drawers have designated purposes; I keep backups of ingredients, and the more often I use an ingredient, the higher the minimum stock level I keep; I keep a running tab in my head of the stock I have available, and roughly the expiry dates, because throwing away food is one of the biggest sins in my book.
All of these lessons I was going to teach Maxine in 1 smooth fell, or so I thought.
I should’ve known that – particularly when working with children and animals 😉 – life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.
Maxine’s Makeover
As I arrive at the school gates to pick up Maxine, an energetic, fiery, young redhead comes bouncing down the stairs towards me, saying, “You arrived at exactly the same time as the bell sounded!” I look behind me to see who this girl might be talking to, when I do a double take.
Of course, I recognised Maxine’s voice, but the transformation is so extreme that I need to look twice, before my brain accepts that this is my protege. Perhaps inspired by the success of her Level 1 finale challenge, as she steps into Level 2, Maxine has decided on a bold new hairstyle that reflects her vibrant passion for cooking and growing confidence in the kitchen. Or, more likely, she’s a 10½ year old ready to step into her own identity. Either way, if it weren’t for her signature flamingo stance while chopping and cleaning, I wouldn’t expect anyone to believe that this is the same girl!
Maxine, focused and determined as she completes Level 1.
She is bouncing with energy all the way home, talking without stopping for breath about the reactions she has received; how her BFFs didn’t recognise her; how the boy across the road is a natural ginge; how at her next school, people won’t know her as anything else but a ginge, so maybe they will think she is a natural ginge too (I daren’t explain the problem with roots growing, she’ll find out herself in due course).
However, in all the excitement of showcasing her striking new look, Maxine has skipped a vital step: preparation. She’s forgotten her chef’s whites, hasn’t reviewed the lesson or recipes, hasn’t watched the Béchamel demo, and hasn’t even begun to create a time plan for the day’s menu. So excited was she to show off her bold new style, everything else was forgotten.
Instead of giving her a drilling on the power of preparation, I give her a little grilling for being unprepared. I explain how service at Le Manoir used to be, with set timings in between each course, and what would happen if anyone in the chain failed to deliver on time. Maxine listens with rapt attention, and doesn’t show any of her usual defensiveness at being told off for something. She explains that she reviewed the lesson plan as soon as I sent it the week before, but had completely forgotten about it since. We agree that in future, I won’t send the lesson plan out so early, and I later agree with Maxine’s mother that Sundays are the best days for Maxine to prepare for the lesson ahead. This way, it won’t interfere with any homework she has from school, but it is also not so far ahead that she forgets.
For today though, we will have to watch the demo video and plan out the order of work together.
The Mother Sauces
Sauces are the backbone of many culinary traditions, elevating simple dishes to new heights. In classical French cuisine, the mother sauces are the foundations upon which countless other sauces are built. Today, Maxine would be introduced to one of the most essential mother sauces: Béchamel.
Like a culinary “mother” who nurtures a diverse family, the humble Béchamel serves as the foundation for an array of derivative sauces. These variations are created by adding different ingredients to the Béchamel base, resulting in unique flavour profiles and culinary applications. From cheesy comfort to elegant seafood pairings, the versatility of Béchamel shines through its many “children.” Here are some of the most common and beloved variations:
| Sauce | Addition | Use |
| Mornay 🧀 | Grated cheese (typically Gruyère, Parmesan, or Cheddar) | Macaroni and cheese, gratins, croque monsieur |
| Nantua 🦐 | Crayfish butter or crayfish stock | Seafood dishes, especially those featuring crayfish |
| Soubise 🧅 | Sweated and pureed onions | Accompanying meats, poultry, and certain vegetable dishes |
| Mustard 🌿 | Dijon or whole grain mustard | Served with pork, fish or grilled meats |
| Cheddar 🧀 | Sharp cheddar cheese (sometimes with Worcestershire sauce) | Classic topping for vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower, nachos |
| Velouté Hybrid 🍗 | A blend of Béchamel and Velouté (a stock-based sauce) | Lighter creamy sauces for poultry and fish |
| Cream 🥛 | Heavy cream | Enhancing pasta dishes, seafood, or refined white meat dishes |
| Chivry🌿 | White wine and fresh herbs (tarragon, chervil, parsley) | Ideal for fish or chicken |
A Wooden Spoon, Not A Whisk
Béchamel is essentially a simple mixture of butter, flour, and milk. Simple, yes, but also incredibly easy to mess up. Stir too little and you get lumps. Rush the process and you taste raw flour. Overheat the milk and risk breaking the sauce. To give her a visual understanding of what she is about to attempt, I had spent close to 2 hours on YouTube, to find a video that shows how to make a Béchamel, exactly in the same way we were taught at Leith’s (well, near enough, anyway).
The key to making a good Béchamel lies in patience and precision. It’s a simple sauce, yes, but each step demands attention. First, a golden roux must be created, the butter and flour mingling in the pan until they release a nutty aroma. Then, warm milk is introduced gradually, stirred with a wooden spoon – not a whisk – to ensure every bit of roux is incorporated, preventing lumps and scorching. The heat must be gentle, the stirring constant, until the sauce thickens to a velvety smooth consistency.
The choice of a wooden spoon over a whisk might seem insignificant, but it’s rooted in the need for control and precision. A wooden spoon’s flat edge allows you to scrape every bit of roux (the butter and flour mixture) from the bottom and sides of the pan, preventing it from sticking and burning. As the sauce starts to thicken, you can sense the change of the velvety texture through the wooden spoon, which would be impossible with a whisk. And lastly, to test that the sauce is ready, you dip the wooden spoon in the sauce and drag a line through the center. If the line holds, the sauce is ready. Again, the whisk is not useful here. The only reason for using a whisk in a Béchamel, is when you need to fix a lumpy sauce, and getting caught doing this is an immediate deduction of points on Exam Day at Leith’s.
After hours of searching, and finding everyone, including some of the top chefs, using balloon whisks instead of wooden spoons, I finally stumbled upon this fine Indian gentleman:
Trial By Fire (and Smoke)
Maxine watches the video while munching on the bright orange Cheeto puffs that I had bought especially for today – as a tribute to the cheesy kitchen session we have ahead of us, not because they are a solid match for Maxine’s new hairdo, as it turns out. Still hyper with excitement, she jumps off the sofa as soon as Chef Vah signs off on the video, measures out the milk, weighs out the butter and flour, and prepares the onion.
Before I get a chance to provide some direction, Maxine makes it clear that she’s got this: “I know what to do already!” I turn my back for just a second, giving her the space to get on with it, when the room fills with smoke and a strong burning smell. “I think I have ruined it already,” Maxine says quietly, while staring at the blackened pan in astonishment. “There’s no saving that,” I say, as I hold the pan under the tap, with Maxine staring wide-eyed and in disbelief that I am not even attempting to save it. “Remember when we tasted a spoonful of the déglaçage before adding the pan-juices to the sauce when we made my dad’s Ragu recipe,” I state, more than ask, “we had to check that the pan juices didn’t have a burnt taste, because that is the one flavour we cannot correct in a dish.” I point at the thick crust of burned flour and butter and repeat, “There’s no coming back from this, Chef, you’ll have to refire the dish!”
Unbeatable with her new warrior hairstyle, Maxine skips back over to the workstation to restart her measuring and weighing while I scrub clean the sauce pan. “All this tidying and washing up I am doing for you, Chef, you know that’s going to stop in Level 3, right?” I say, taking the opportunity to at least address some of my power-of-planning agenda. Building in enough time to clean up in between steps is a key part of a well thought out time plan. I don’t expect a response, but give Maxine a wide smile when, before returning to the stove for her second attempt, she first picks up the scales and returns them to their rightful spot. She responds with a sarcastic smirk, but we both know that she’s silently accepted the evolving Terms & Conditions of each level of Junior Chef’s College.
If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try Again
Maxine’s second attempt fares much better. She is cautious with the heat, mindful of cooking out the raw flour taste of the roux for a couple of minutes, before adding the milk gradually. I never really thought of stirring as something that should be done mindfully, but Maxine’s stirring of the roux and Béchamel is as mindless as her anything-but-careful folding of ingredients on Brownie Day. Of course, she is having a hyper-energy day, and today is not the best day to talk about this, but I will need to get to the bottom of her impatience with stirring, folding and whisking at some point. I wonder how next week’s bread kneading will feel for Maxine, will she be equally impatient with this?
Before she adds too much milk, I hand her a small sauce whisk and direct her to whisk the lumps out while the sauce is still in its paste-like early stage. At this stage, it is still easy to achieve, and I know it will get harder the more liquid is added. Mission accomplished, Maxine takes back the wooden spoon and adds more milk. “Can you feel how the sauce is changing, through your wooden spoon?” I ask. “The bottom of the pan feels different,” she responds, “it’s all soft and smooth.” “That means your sauce is starting to thicken,” I explain, “but it also means that you need to be careful that the bottom doesn’t start scorching, so keep stirring and scraping the sides of the pan with your spoon.”
A few minutes after adding the last of the milk, Maxine ask, “How do I know when it is done?” I turn around to look at her. “Don’t you remember what the Indian Chef in the video did?” I ask, “You use your wooden spoon.” I dip the spoon in the sauce and can already tell from the nappe consistency – a French term describing a sauce that coats the back of a spoon – that the sauce is ready. “It’s too hot to touch!” Maxine protests, as I draw a line across the back of the spoon. “You’re ready, that’s a perfect Béchamel, Chef,” I respond while I turn off the heat and Maxine re-dips the spoon to try for herself, encouraged by the praise and no longer afraid to burn her finger.
What’s Next
“What’s next?” Maxine pipes up, still boundless in her excitement. I point at the papers spread out on the sofa and grab the opportunity to reiterate, “If you’d come prepared, you would know what is next and you’d be cooking as independently as you did last week.” Not wanting to be told off again for the same issue we have already gone over, she exclaims: “Mac & Cheese! I know what we are making!” I continue to point at the papers. “That’s right, Chef,” I calmly say, “Which means what?”
Maxine skips over to the sofa and, jumping into a star jump, shouts, “Cheese! It means cheese!” Her cheerful happiness is utterly contagious and I star jump in turn, “What cheese? What cheese does it mean?” We giggle as she skips back to the kitchen and opens the fridge to grab the Bega Cheddar and pre-grated Emmental, the mix of cheeses I had chosen for today.
“I’ll stir your Béchamel while you grate the Cheddar, Chef, you forgot to cover it and it will grow a skin if we leave it out like this,” I tell Maxine as she once again grabs the scales to measure out the exact weight of each of the cheeses. Weighing done, she returns the scales to the spot she got them from, this time without any smirk or stare demanding that her actions be acknowledged. Today might not be the lesson in planning that I had in mind, but I am pleased nonetheless. Maxine is accepting that a being good chef is not just being a good cook – being organized and methodical is what will set her apart from your average home cook.
The Undefeatable Ginger Go-Getter
Maxine adds the grated cheese mix and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard to the base sauce and returns it to the stove. “Heat it gently, until the cheese is melted, but make sure it doesn’t boil at any point,” I warn, “the fat from the cheese will separate out into an unappetizing curdle and the protein will become weirdly stringy.” Between Maxine’s forceful stirring style and the still warm base sauce, it takes mere moments for the cheese to melt in. “That’s it, you can turn off the heat,” I say. “You will need to cover the sauce with clingfilm, right on top of the sauce, so we don’t end up with a thick skin on top while we boil the pasta. I use clingfilm, but you could also use the same scrunched up piece of paper I showed you when you were making the mirepoix for the ragu. Do you remember what that is called?” I ask. “Car. Car. Cart….Cartouche!” she grins broadly. There’s no stopping this kid today.
As the water for the pasta comes to a boil, Maxine uses a generous amount of salt as she learned to do, then proceeds to add an even more generous amount of penne, straight from the box. “How many portions are you making?” I ask, “More importantly, do you have enough sauce for the amount of pasta you’re making?” Maxine sheepishly looks up to me, “I don’t know, how much do we need for a portion?” I point once again to the papers on the sofa and Maxine trudges over, shoulders dropped, for the first time losing her bounciness as she is caught out by her lack of preparation for the third time today. I’m glad that the message is hitting home – there is no better way to learn something than feeling the consequences – but I also don’t want the lightheartedness of our session to end. “You can just keep about 1/3 of the pasta aside before you mix it with the Mornay sauce – that’s easier than making more sauce,” I suggest. “I’ll use that plain pasta to make an April Fool’s Mac & Cheese for my dad!” Maxine excitedly responds. This fabulous, feisty, fiery Ginger Go-Getter is undefeatable – I love it.
While the pasta boils, I nudge Maxine to get the breadcrumb topping for the Mac & Cheese and the vinaigrette for the side salad she is serving ready. She has fully accepted that being told what to do is a consequence of arriving unprepared, and she is happy to take instructions for once. As part of her ongoing knife skills training, Maxine preps the ingredients for a simple salad — chopping crisp cucumbers and halving cherry tomatoes with more confidence than ever before, seemingly also having found a way to compensate for the uneven slices her flamingo chopping stance caused in our first lesson together.
“Don’t dress the salad with the vinaigrette until just before you’re ready to serve, otherwise the leaves will go all soggy,” I stop her as she is about to pour the vinaigrette over the bowl with salad ingredients. “Leave the vinaigrette where it is while we get the Mac & Cheese in the oven.”
Mac & Cheese ASMR
We check that the penne is cooked and Maxine drains the pasta into a sieve. “Small into big,” I instruct her to make sure she doesn’t attempt to mix the pasta and sauce together in the much too small sauce pan. Still moving in big, confident sweeps, Maxine pours the full quantity of pasta back into the pan and adds all the sauce before I can remind her to keep a third apart. Too late to do anything about it, I let her get on with it – she’ll figure it out when we get to tasting. As Maxine stirs the cheesy Mornay sauce and penne on the low heat, she leans her ear into the pan and starts to beam with delight. “Oooooooo, so satisfying,” she whispers.
“OMG, she’s and ASMR-er!” I think as I too lean my ear into the pan to listen. I have previously written an article about the importance of using all senses while cooking, but Maxine clearly does not need to be taught this lesson. “Isn’t it satisfying?” she asks as she continues to stir and quietly squeal with delight. “Very,” I agree, “but shall we get this into the oven?”
“Oh just a little bit longer,” she begs, grinning from ear to ear.
The subjective experience, sensation, and perceptual phenomenon of ASMR is described by some of those susceptible to it as “akin to a mild electrical current … or the carbonated bubbles in a glass of champagne”.
Ahuja, Nitin K. (2013). “‘It feels good to be measured’: clinical role-play, Walker Percy, and the tingles”.
Direct Experience, The Best Teacher
I already delayed Maxine’s dad by half an hour earlier in our session, explaining that we would need a little extra time to allow for Maxine to watch the video and read the recipes. The unexpected ASMR experience delays us a little further and I decide to delay Maxine’s dad by a further 15 minutes. This is too good to rush.
As Maxine portions out the Mac & Cheese into the two bowls that I laid out for her, the realization dawns on her that she didn’t set aside the third of plain pasta for the April Fool’s prank she was going to play on her dad. “We’ll just have to make a third portion of regular Mac & Cheese for your pa,” I say as I grab a third earthenware bowl. For now, her disappointment is centered around not being able to pull the prank she wanted, she still hasn’t clicked that our three portions will be less saucy as a result too.
Patience, Barbara, no need to spell it out, bide your time – she’s figured out every other learning you had lined up for her through direct experience rather than the lecture you had prepared, give her a chance to learn this lesson through direct experience too.
Maxine entertains herself with the piano while the Mac & Cheese gratinates in the air fryer and I clean up the dishes, workstation, and kitchen, ready for service – still intent on continuing my subliminal training in neatness and order. I step out onto the balcony when I am done, expecting Maxine to respond when the air fryer pings. Maybe she has figured out the sauce faux-pas by now, because when I come back into the house, the oven is off and Maxine is still playing piano, seemingly uninterested in tasting the food she has just prepared.
“Come on, get ready for service. The salad needs dressing and serving in a nice side dish, and the Mac & Cheese is ready to come out of the oven. Your dad has been waiting for half an hour already because we’re disorganized today.” I spur her along. Dragging her feet somewhat, she readies the salad while I take out the pasta and get us cutlery.
“Hmmmm, cheesy!” she delights when she takes her first bite, while also staring at me with that squint that she gives you when she’s expecting to be tricked. She knows. She knows, and she knows that I know too. “Could be a bit saucier, maybe?” I carefully venture. “Yeah, would have been better if I’d taken out some pasta before adding the cheese sauce. Would’ve been saucier. But. Yum.” she says as she takes a second bite.
My word. She has cut her struggles with accepting failure out of her life when she cut off her long, brunette locks.
Go, go, go, my Ginger Go-Getter. You are my superhero.