The Couple Cook-Off

Posted by Ellie Omahoney at 21:41 on 5 Mar 2010

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This last weekend, Sam and I went to the Ashburton Cookery School (ashburtoncookeryschool.co.uk, 01364 652784), an a.m.a.z.i.n.g place in Devon that nearly ended our relationship. I joke. Kind of. I had bought Sam a place on the Express Dinner Parties course, which lasts a weekend. He's good at cooking, but then, in our relationship, he has had to be or we'd have starved to death years ago. With this in mind, I decided I needed a kick up the culinary backside, and joined him.
 
The day started well: the building is a beautiful haven that looks more like a spa than a series of kitchens. It's all light woods, artfully-spotlit seating areas and Molton Brown-style hand washes; a peaceful backdrop to a peaceful couples mini-break, yar? Nah.
 
Everyone else on the course - there were 14 of us, worked together blissfully in their pairs, creating wondrous things on big white plates using quails eggs and capers. Sam, however, decided against working with me and instead appointed me his sous chef for the weekend. Lovely Sarah, who had come with her Dad and was working opposite us, laughed as she watched us try to co-operate. 'I could never do this with my partner, I would end up skewering him!' I smiled, tightly, eyeing a nearby serrated spoon.
 
We divided our tasks between us. Or rather Sam divided our tasks between us. 'Eggs!' he would screech, as he set to making his hollandaise sauce. 'Wooden spoon!' he would holler at me, like a cantakerous surgeon at work on a flatlining body.
 
I quickly got tired of taking instructions and broke off on my own, a renegade cook. 'What are you making?' Sam would ask, peering over my pan. 'Nothing that you need to see,' I'd snap, blocking his view of my salmon en croute.
 
Our tutor, the brilliant Rob Burton, a former Rick Stein protege, became the focus for our competing attentions. 'Look at this, Rob,' I would coo, pushing my tuile biscuits in his face, like a gap-toothed five-year-old during Show and Tell. Unable to stop himself pushing past me, Sam would proffer his pan of Baba Ganoush as if it were his first born. 'Lovely, very good, both of you,' the poor man would reply, leaving Sam and I scowling at each other over our boiling Bain Maries.
 
It could have got ugly but we were reunited during the chocolate piping session. Sam magnanimously spelt out my name with the piping bag, leaving me feeling guilty that my competitive nature had overtaken me.
 
'Right, let's take a look at them,' Rob announced to the group. 'Fantastic, Sam and Ellie, I'd give you both jobs in my kitchen.' Ah, the heady glow of approval!
 
Dizzy with the thrill of having learnt something new for the first time in 10 years, (lots of things, in fact: how to cook steak correctly using your hand as a guide, how to squeeze lemons without dropping pips into your mixture, how to cut onions without crying, oh, I could go on), Sam and I chatted happily all the way home where we found Tony, Sam's flatmate.
 
'How did you get on?' he wanted to know.
 
'Fab, Ellie really helped,' Sam announced, 'Tuile biscuit?'
 

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