We had our company Christmas do last Friday; being small we usually tag along to one of those corporate event type things in a big tent at Ascot racecourse or Legoland or similar with lots of other small companies (who we don't know), reasonable fun but fairly sterile, lots of chubby accountants doing dances they really shouldn't and inebriated secretaries doing things with their saliva with that they'll probably regret on Monday morning. So, this year we decided to try something different, we all trooped off to an afternoon/evening of cookery school! (cue lots of moaning from the younger male members of staff)
The deal was basically to split into two groups, one cooked (under instruction) while the other did a wine tasting, then we swapped. At the end we all ate what we made and were judged by our helpers, our menu was Thai fish cakes, pork Wellington and crème brulee, not trivial! and the whole thing was against the clock. I'm not sure which was the best group to be in, i.e. the ones cooking before the wine tasting or after, all I can say is there wasn't much spitting going on so everyone was quite merry, quite quickly.
I ended up in the "after-wine" group and I must admit we had the higher instance of food fights, smoky pans and general larking around, but aside from all the Christmas spirit, it was fascinating to see how some people coped with cooking a full meal. Getting the quantities, timings and temperatures right proved tricky for many, particularly the younger (male) ones who had the double distractions of free flowing wine and attractive female helpers. Surprisingly though, in the final analysis the food that emerged was really good, no one had any great disasters and we all ate pretty much everything we made.
All in all a thoroughly successful event, I recommend it!
This is where we went
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