HOT: Knife Skills, Leiths School of Food and Wine, 16-20 Wendell Road W12 9RT

With London suffering from a spate of senseless knife crime at the moment, it seemed sensible for Gourmet Chick and myself to enrol in Leiths' Knife Skills course. Just kidding - Saturday morning had us sharpening knives in preparation for nothing more dangerous than a serious amount of slicing, dicing, julienning, peeling and segmenting for 3 hours. Each workstation in the commercial kitchen had space for eight people and our teacher was very informative and helpful - I now know which knives to use for what purposes, how to do a rolling chop, how to cross chop and how differently chopped vegetables, herbs and fruit have an impact on the dish you're making. Now, if only I could send my sous chef Tim on this useful course! 80 pounds.