I taught them to cook vidya4 - Flipbook - Page 30
28
Autumn Term
The Governor’s tea
Dawn, the school secretary, pops her head round my cookery
room door.
‘Jenny, can you make the Governor’s tea next week? Oh, and
by the way, the head says he will increase the capitation for your
ingredients but please provide evidence to show how much money
you need for the year.’
This kind woman has nurtured me since I arrived and it’s no
time to complain about extra work.
‘Normally about fifteen to twenty people turn up. Nothing
fancy. We just need a few sandwiches and some scones, biscuits
and homemade cakes. The teacher before you got the girls to do
it. We’ll pay you for the ingredients.’
Well, that’s alright then. The girls can do it. On top of all
the other things they are learning and cooking in my lessons,
somehow me and the girls will find time to prepare a not-toofancy homemade tea for fifteen to twenty people.
I wonder if visitors to my cookery room have any idea of what
it takes to manage my large classes who cook throughout the
day. My door bursts open first thing as students bring baskets of
ingredients for lessons. Then deliveries arrive from the butcher or
greengrocer. I’m emptying the dryer and folding clean tea towels
and dishcloths, hanging up clean aprons and shoving those that
need repair into a drawer.
Next to register my form group, then classes stream in ready
to cook, eat, clear and pack, get homework, find out what to
bring next week or come for help with revision. When the bell
rings at the end of school, I tidy my food storeroom, check the
eight sinks, twelve cookers, cupboards full of mucky baking tins,
saucepans, frying pans, drawers full of cooking tools, and my
precious, locked cupboard holding a few old electrical whisks and
a Kenwood Chef. I wash dishcloths and tea towels again in the
ancient twin tub, spin them just damp and hang them back in
the gas-fired dryers ready for the morning when they must be