| Chinese New Year Celebrations - No Need To Take Away |
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Dining with Tigers. On Thursday 18th February we were all treated to a very special themed lunch to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The dining hall was spectacularly decorated and there was every attention to detail from Chinese lanterns and patterned paper table cloths to delicate ‘lilies’ floating in glass bowls. It being the Year of the Tiger, the kitchen and dining staff had painted faces for the occasion. The menu for the day was Szechuan beef with 5 a day vegetables (mange tout, broccoli, spring onions, baby corn and bean sprouts) together with jasmine rice. The vegetarian option was vegetable chow mein. Candied sweet potatoes and Chinese fried green beans with garlic and ginger were also available and every table had a bowl of prawn crackers to enjoy. A demonstration of wok cooking was put on for those boys who wished to learn more about this style of cuisine and Chinese newspapers were also made available. Each place setting had chop sticks which the boys used most ably whilst some staff resorted to their forks. The delicious dessert was chop suey cake, a fatless sponge made with pineapple and cinnamon. The meal was followed by Chinese, soft centred sweets and fortune cookies. It was remarkable how many boys left the dining hall believing that they would be rich beyond their wildest dreams. Even more remarkable was the effort made by the kitchen and dining staff who are to be thanked for, not only cooking such a wonderful meal, but for creating such an educational, enjoyable and memorable atmosphere. This special lunch was provided as part of a competition which the school kitchen staff were entering, together with fifteen other schools, as part of an initiative by Palmer & Howells Contract Caterers.  |