A Sweet Rebellion- Part 2

In early September 1992 I found myself standing in a queue at my local college about to enrol on a course known then as City & Guilds 706/1 or by it's title: Cookery For The Catering Industry- Part 1;  at 31 I had decided that I wanted to become a chef.

Given my previous history this might have seemed like an irrational choice. I'd all but stopped attending school,  presenting my form teacher with the same forged note whenever I returned following an absence; no one ever said anything. 
In my final year when I should have been studying for my CSEs/O'Levels I would spend my days either in Hyde Park ( on one occasion joined by my sisters who were not such regular truants) or visiting Soho. Drawn to the excitement and atmosphere in this part of London, the smell of cigars and coffee that wafted out of the Italian cafés, I would use my school dinner money to buy myself a cake from one of the Patisseries and then wander the streets until it was time to go home. On Mondays I would sneak into a neighbour's house a couple of doors along from my own; Anna was a hairdresser and Monday was always her day off. Her father was the head chef at a hotel in Victoria,  he taught her how to make the most fabulous 'Chocolate Eclairs' from Choux Paste,  she in turn taught me.

The years went by,  subsequent careers as a hairdresser and ten years as an invoice typist helped to tame my impetuous ways. I married, bought a flat, had two children and spent five years at home looking after them. Now that my eldest was about to start school it was time to stop procrastinating, it was time to get out there and learn about the one thing that I had always been passionate about, I just hadn't realised it; food.

So here I was waiting in line, little did I know that I would find myself in this very same place every September for the next five years.
Learning had become addictive, I also loved the language that was an integral part the Classical French kitchen and restaurant and by chance the one and only qualification (O'Level) gained at school. I went on to study the second part of the original course (2 years), Food and Wine Service (2 years), Patisserie (one year) and finally Larder and Cold Preparations (1 Year). Along the way I also won 'Food and Wine Service Student Of The Year', but to be honest I don't think there was much by way of competition. I was in a class with a bunch of 16 year olds that had left school that summer. Many didn't really want to be there, they weren't interested. They would turn up late or not at all, they were rude and were incapable of concentrating; what I was seeing was in fact the old me. During my time at college and for many years afterwards I worked both front and back of house in a number of areas within the hospitality industry, I absolutely loved it.

Although my business now (Salon Glacé) focuses on cake decorations made from 
sugar, I never actually studied Sugarcraft in any detail apart from a couple of lessons within the Patisserie course. During these classes I discovered that I had a talent for manipulating sugar but knew that the traditional tried and tested methods of 90s cake decorating just weren't for me. I would do things my own way, which through a range of unconventional techniques and use of edible gold lustres and other metallic colours evolved into the unique, distinctive and instantly recognisable style of cake decorating associated with Salon Glacé today.