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Anorak News | Jamie Says

Jamie Says

by | 4th, September 2006

IT’S back to school.

After the thrills of summer, children are returning to the classroom. There they go, showing off their new Prada schoolbags packed with the latest electronic aids to learning.

They’re keen to display their fake bake tans and relive their tales of what they got up to as they holidayed at Heathrow Airport. See them as they skip from mum’s 4×4 to the school gates.

But what will they be learning? The Mail investigates. The paper says that “cookery is back on the school menu”. Children aged between 11 and 16 will be taught “how to plan and prepare affordable meals”.

Surprisingly, this does not involve getting children to ask their parents or guardians for a couple of quid for a takeaway kebab and covering it with just the right amount of curry sauce. This course involves heating up the kebab and warming the pita bread.

And such is the way of education, there will be a certificate. As a spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills tells the paper: “We want to see a resurgence in the art of cookery. When kids have completed the 24 lessons they will get a ‘Licence to Cook’ certificate.”

You can just see the little loves turning to each other. “The name’s Bond…Armani Bond. Licence to cook.” Armani then throws a frozen pizza at her teacher’s head.

It’s encouraging stuff. But the course will not begin until next September. Not that this means children can just eat more kebabs and junk in the meantime.

As the Mirror’s front page announces, 10,000 school cooks are to be trained how to, well, cook. But Education Secretary Alan Johnson, who is masterminding the scheme, cannot do it alone. As a source close to Mr Johnson says: “One of the first things he did when he got the job was to pick up the phone to Jamie to throw some ideas around.”

And that’s not Jamie Redknapp, Jamie Lee Curtis or Jamie Foxx. It’s Jamie Oliver, the celebrity known above all else for his cooking.

And you can follow the cooks’ progress as Jamie gives regular updates on his public information films Jamie’s Return to School Dinners. (It’s like The Charley Says films of the 1970s, only now the eponymous cat Charley is passed off a leaner alternative to bacon.)

Jamie says: “Cooking is fun”. Jamie says: “That seared encrusted carpaccio of venison looks pukka.” Jamie says: “Why are 10,000 cooks looking at me and fingering their frozen turkey twizzlers in a menacing way?’”

Jamie says: “Ouch!”



Posted: 4th, September 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink