Now that ‘hospitality’ is reawakening, we’ve shown leadership by holding our first face-to-face social event - a small lunch at Watermen’s Hall for 24, which seemed to be enjoyed by everyone, and we have Livery Lunches planned for Monday 21 and Wednesday 30 June.
I eat pretty much anything, within the realms of British culinary norms of course, which bodes well for the feasts we are fortunate to consume as members of the Cooks. However, there is one food my taste buds cannot abide, and that, is custard.
Two members of the Company, Morwena Carrington and Wendy Hardiman-Evans, relate their experiences of life during the pandemic.
It is not all marmalade sandwiches here although there is more cooking than ever during these Covid times.
A year ago Chloe Dunnett won the Cooks award for best dissertation after abandoning life as a senior civil servant and retraining with the aim of farming on unloved spaces in the inner cities. Now she is up and digging.
The winds of change are blowing through the committees that steer the Cooks with a clutch of new chairmen and women. The first breeze has ruffled the committee that handles the funds generated over centuries.
More than two million tonnes of the food that goes to waste each year is still edible. All that at a time when it is estimated that 8.4 million people in our country are struggling to afford to eat.
One of the surprise film hits of last year was called The Dig, a dramatisation of the discovery just before the Second World War of a Saxon burial ship in Sutton Hoo.
Chefs working in care homes require a wider than usual set of skills and knowledge in order to do their jobs effectively. An ability to get to grips with a wide range of diets and eating disorders, all from the same kitchen at the same time, is not the least of their challenges.
The usual round of catering competitions sponsored by the Cooks Company has still gone ahead – albeit remotely - and the two Company members most closely connected have given their accounts.
Military operations can take place anywhere in the world and in any season. We must therefore ensure that the military ration packs contain components that can last for a long time in a temperate climate may and for short periods in extremes of temperature and humidity.
Two serving Royal Navy officers, two bikes, no support team, 35 days - 5000 km across the USA. Now that's a challenging expedition!
For many years the Cooks have linked with the Mercers, Masons, and Broderers for shared events and shared charity. This year it is the Broderers turn to pick a recipient but there is a vicarious benefit for the Cooks as the charity of choice is the Museum of London, hard by the block on the site of the Cooks Hall.
The effects of the pandemic have had both a positive and negative effect on the delivery of the apprenticeships, the apprentices and employers themselves and the industry as a whole.
One fact widely known about salmon is that they swim against the stream. Forman & Field, a century old salmon smoker in the east end of London, claims to have done the same over the past year.
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