It’s probably just as well Ted didn’t give a FULL rundown of what he did in the holidays.
It’s bad enough his first homework was to write a food diary in which the first entry was “sushi from M&S simply food on the motorway”.
Goodness knows what the new teacher would have thought if he’d announced he’d been cooking with Raymond Blanc.
In that long last week before going back to school we were invited to a kids’ cookery class at Brasserie Blanc Covent Garden with Mnsr Blanc himself.
The event was in honour of new kids’ cookery app Henri Le Worm created by Raymond’s son Oli Blanc.
But it wasn’t all playing with iPads and eating croissant. No. Kids each had work stations with proper cooking equipment.
The first job was whisking egg whites for chocolate mousse – without an electric hand mixer.
Well. I haven’t done that for years. Why would you?
So I did feel a bit pathetic when Raymond urged “put some elbow into it Mami”!
Despite our best joint efforts (indeed I could Tell was putting some welly into it as I held his hand on the whisk) we sneakily enlisted one of the sous chefs to finish the task at hand!
Leaving Ted to enjoy decorating his mousse. He was so proud of it he wouldn’t eat it. At first. (He soon came around).
Secondly we created these egg mayonnaise mice which Raymond says he started serving to kids in his restaurant in the 1970s.
They’re foamy mayo over two halves of hard boiled egg decorated with flaked almonds, bits of black olive and a chive.
And they’re very good to eat indeed!
Using the Henri Le Worm app
With cute animated characters voiced by Simon Pegg, the Henri le Worm app features 10 recipes by Raymond Blanc. It’s beautifully animated and features an interactive story called “The lost cookery book”.
I can well imagine Henri Le Worm becoming a popular kids’ TV series and it seems a gap in the market to have an animated kids show with a food theme. Simon Pegg’s narration is wonderfully natural evoking memories of “Bod” and “Willo the Wisp”. It’s all very whimsical and your kids may even pick up a few French phrases along the way.
The animation is excellent quality, the illustrations are a similar style to “Ben and Holly”. 10 recipes isn’t very many for £2.99 but I suspect it’s enough to keep kids busy for their attention span and I get the impression more recipes may follow in future updates.
Will we get an Henri Le Worm tv show? Watch this space!