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You are here: Home Leisure Dining & Cuisine A grate job!

12/05/2004A grate job!

Renee Cordes attends a Brussels cooking school where she learns how to make cheese souffle but fails at mushroom sculpting.

It's 7.30pm on a Thursday night and I'm signed up for the first cooking class of my thirtysomething years.

grater

Cooking up a storm

My spouse and I walk through the doors of Mmmmh!, a cooking school that opened its doors on the trendy Chaussée de Charleroi near Brussels' Place Stéphanie in February. (Previously the school, founded about a year ago, had been run out of a private loft in Uccle). We take off our coats and see a buzz of activity down below.

After confirming our registration, we slip on the requisite red aprons and are offered a glass of wine. It's not immediately clear who among the more than a dozen people scurrying around is the teacher, and there are no formal introductions, but we walk around glasses in hand and inspect the premises. A charming woman comes round with a tray offering bone marrow on toast, and although I politely decline the first time the next time the tray comes my way I feel pressured to try one. It's not that bad, if you don't think about what you're eating.

Our teacher turns out to be Virginie, an effervescent and enthusiastic devotee of French and Belgian cuisine. Though she doesn't work as a professional chef, preferring not to sacrifice time with her family, there's no doubt about her passion for and expertise in cooking. After we all wash our hands like doctors before surgery, we're ready for action.

There are four dishes on tonight's menu, which differs slightly from the one we signed up for: boeuf à la ficelle, blanquette de veau, cheese soufflé and the very poetic-sounding oeufs à la neige - all to be made within the next two hours (which easily expand into three)! This is no ''Ready Steady Cook'', the BBC TV show where chefs get only 20 minutes to whip up a feast from a few simple ingredients.

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