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The great thing about Glasgow (apart from the shopping) is that you're never far from stunning scenery. About half an hour after leaving my hotel near Sauchiehall Street, I was skirting a lake, with a castle, a sizeable mountain range serving as a backdrop - my destination, Nick Nairn's Cook School.
Nairn is a celebrity chef. He's a regular on BBC2's Ready, Steady, Cook and will appear in a new show airing in the spring called The Great British Menu (BBC2). He opened his cookery school five years ago and has just welcomed his 14,000th guest. "My main focus is the school. I want it to be the best in Europe - if not the best in the world," he declares with a smile.
So I was guest number 14,001 then, and there for the day to master one of 60 courses to choose from, including Modern Scottish Cooking and a Masterclass in Stocks, Soups and Sauces.
Making my own stock seemed far too refined for my unappreciative mates back home so I opted for the Informal Dinner party course, hoping to glean some tips and return with a few more recipes under my belt.
The school can cater for up to 20 students at one time, working in pairs at individual work stations in Nairn's seriously slick, purpose-built kitchen, in a surprisingly remote spot on the edge of the Trossachs.
It also has a smoke house, an organic garden and an Italian- style wood-burning stove, with the shores of the Lake of Menteith lapping virtually at its door (Nairn now owns the hotel down the road and is offering residential packages for those that are really keen).
"It was a fairly bold step to invest in a facility like this here - a lot of people thought I was off my trolley. But it's such...