Add a dash of White Pepper (From Dorset Echo)

Add a dash of White Pepper

11:08am Monday 28th February 2011 in Taste By Ruth Meech

A DORSET cookery school is teaching the county’s residents how to get the most out of local, seasonal produce.

Luke Stuart, a former pupil of Michel Roux, runs the White Pepper Cookery School near Bere Regis.

He is passionate about getting people into the kitchen and creating wholesome yet interesting grub.

“I think that as a nation we are getting more into cooking and want to know more about what is in our food,” said Luke. “People are often short of ideas or don’t know how to cook simply and how to feed themselves healthy foods.”

As well as running courses, White pepper can also provide dinner party food directly to your home, taking the strain out of home entertaining.

The most popular courses involve seasonal cooking.

“They are comprehensive and people cook everything. At the moment we are doing a fish course because the timing’s great. We try and do something for everybody, from four to six-week courses where people can build up their skills to maybe offering half-day courses as well.

“We are also excited about doing kids’ cookery courses.

“The emphasis is on making them affordable and letting the youngsters know about fruit and veg and learning basic techniques, because cookery is a life skill and is part of the curriculum.”

Luke has been cooking since his teens, when he joined the Tante Marie School after completing his A levels. The school has been taken over by Gordon Ramsay and Luke thinks he will ‘transform’ the place and take it to the next level.

He then worked on exclusive yachts in the Med and Caribbean for 14 months, cooking for the likes of Ivana Trump before returning to the UK where he worked at La Gavroche for Michel Roux, who he describes as ‘extraordinary’ and ‘quite fiery’ – admitting that his current TV persona is a calmer one than he presented a decade ago.

Luke also worked for Tom Conran in his Notting Hill gastropub, where Lulu, Kate Moss and Stella MacCartney were regulars.

“It gave me a wealth of experience,” he said. “It is a fantastic industry, though not one that’s very well paid, but there is a fantastic variety of things you can do. I fell into teaching about seven years ago and it is incredibly rewarding to be self employed.

“It is early days with White Pepper, but it’s so exciting.”

For further details, call Luke on 07775 742 900