In the company that I work for, each team is given a per head budget for team building and our team, or more to the point our team manager, makes sure that we use it. Over the last year, we’ve gone bowling, we’ve had a quiz, we’ve ‘sung’ at karoke, all accompanied by a meal and drinking (we’re British it’s what we do!). We are possibly the best built team in the company!

Last Friday, we went to Recipease in Clapham to cook a Thai Green Curry. I don’t really eat Thai Green Curry, I am not keen on coconut in savoury food, coconut belongs in a Bounty Bar or a cake! However, we all had to cook the same thing and we have a couple of team members with food issues (fussy/allergic/vegetarian), so Thai Green Curry it was.

We started with drinks and nibbles, and then donned aprons to start cooking.

First, we were shown what to do and then we went on to do it ourselves. I really enjoyed this, I can cook, I like to cook and it was nice to do something I know I can do but also to learn new things.

Once cooked, then we ate and had a glass of wine. The food we cooked was ok, much better than I expected, the person leading our session was happy to find substitutes for things people didn’t eat, the veggie got beans and mushrooms instead of chicken, I got yoghurt instead of coconut milk and so on.

Recipease is also a shop where you can pop in and buy food to take home, a coffee and piece of cake or some quite expensive Jamie Oliver branded cooking equipment and cookery books, you get a 10% discount if you’ve just done a session with them. At the weekend, it does breakfast too.

They also sell Falcon Enamelware and some of it was on sale, so for the bargain price of £10 I bought myself some! I was disappointed that I didn’t get an additional 10% off because it was ‘already on sale’ but I was still buying it! (I bought two of the 20cm dishes and one of the 26cm ones)

So Recipease, it was fun, it is expensive but would make a lovely gift or girls night out but it is cooking as a leisure activity, it’s not really about real life cooking as I or anyone on a budget would do it. I also think that the kids course it does are great for getting kids interested in food and cooking but it’s a very middle class thing but it was a good day out.