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What, no semolina?

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NB: This is much nicer than anything I ever got served at school...

When I was a smaller version of myself, school dinners were an exciting opportunity to play a great game with my friends – ‘Guess what this is?’

The problem was, we usually couldn’t figure it out – sometimes even if we’d been told, it was still hard to identify what it was you were eating.

This wasn’t helped by your dinner and pudding being served on one of those all-in-one plastic plates, providing a simple method of getting half of one over the ridge into the other. Not that it made a lot of difference to the taste.

Times have changed though, and school lunchtime food is now a delicious, nutritious and healthy delight, prepared by chefs keen to prove the school dinners of old are an (unidentifiable) thing to be forgotten.

Good luck to Carlisle’s Kerry Weir, who is up for the title of LCA North West Chef of the Year, for her high quality efforts at the Newlaiths School. Her menu for the Manchester final on the 30th will be popcorn chicken curry with tangy tomato salsa, sweet potato wedges and green salad, followed by banana and chocolate pudding. In 90 minutes. On a budget of £1.30.

Table for two, please. What wine would you recommend?

This post first appeared as the second piece in my column/page in The Mail and the News & Star, on the 26th of January 2018.
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