When Dylan spanked Gordon Ramsay.......

Now who owns a car like this?

Well wasn't that an unexpected event. Today we had a full day of theory classes culminating in an exam, upon successful completion of which will give us a Level 2 Award in Food Safety. The class was taken by the husband of the lady who presented the healthy eating class I wrote about in the last post.

This was however quite a different kettle of fish, meaning it was two things, both interesting and informative.... as well as being a prerequisite to work in a catering establishment. We learnt all about bacteria and viruses that can be spread by food, cross contamination, how to chill food fast and get it through the “danger zone” within the allotted 2hr time frame before bacteria start to multiply... and much more.

Some of the more interesting parts where the lecturers little tangents about work he had done as an expert witness in court cases, his work on tv shows such as Panorama and the “Britain's Worst.....” series where he was involved in finding the worst restaurant from a hygiene point of view. All much better than being told we could make pastry with low fat margarine!

Anyway... it was whilst we were learning the differences between detergent, disinfectant and sanitiser that we were rudely interrupted by the school principle Andrew Maxwell, a co-owner of the school and joint founder of Absolute Taste, Lyndy Redding and a geezer who likes to cook a bit and apparently does a not too bad job at it.It was a brief visit, he wished us luck with our exam that was following shortly and informed us that food hygiene courses are...


“like that ugly French teacher you had at school, they seem pointless and boring but when you get to France and see all the women you wish you had paid more attention”

Inspired.

The food safety guy then had a light hearted pop at one of his restaurants only getting 3 out of 5 stars in a cleanliness inspection... but it has to be said that 3 stars equates to a “good” rating, 2 stars being “satisfactory” and one star being “poor”... not all bad then!

We then had to get on with our learning while students looked at each puzzled and wondered if that actually just happened. It did. I have photos priced at £10 to prove it.

A covert picture taken by myself of Gordon Ramsay interupting our class, I tell you some people have no manners these days.

The test was dully administered and we had a full 60 minutes to complete it... we started at 16:00 and 25 multiple choice questions later I was out of the door by 16:10. Fate it would seem was smiling on me. As I exited with fellow classmate Lewis, we turned around to see Gordon Ramsay (if you hadn't guess it was him yet) leaving for his brand new Ferrari as a couple of the students on the year long course stood around star struck... not I though, oh no. I scampered... yes I said scampered, over to him thrust my hand out and asked in a tone which left little room for any other answer than yes, for a photo. We posed while Lewis tried to work the camera and I instructed to Gordon to “smile.... I'll make you famous” to which he had no response other than the awkward grin, but that could equally have been caused by me slapping his arse. Oh yes I did.

Gordon... meet the competition... look at the fear in his eyes...

he is trying to hide it, but its not working!

I am sure he was thinking... “who the fuck is this guy and why the fuck do I have my arm around him?” A question which he will soon know the answer to the first part at least. You see, unbeknownst to Gordon at the start of the year wheels were put in motion that could quite literally change the landscape of the British restaurant industry, and with his investment in Tante Marie he was playing a part in the rise of the next great culinary master (that's me if you were wondering) which will inevitably eclipse his own great accomplishments......

OK OK maybe not.... but you never know, maybe.... does one no good to ever count me out! ;-)

And that's that. My meeting with probably one of my only 'idols'... a word I would have been hesitant to use until actually meeting him after all the years of watching him do something I love on telly.  Today was a good day.

Dylan


p.s.  Its a Ferrari California if you like those sort of things...plate reads "8 GJR"  Gordon James Ramsay!