Dylan has been with us in the EFS kitchen this week as part of his work experience. As an S4 at Castlebrae, Dylan first learnt about EFS when he took part in our Food Truck in Schools project a couple of years ago. This left a mark on him as he really enjoyed providing food to the local community. After coming along to our recent farm trip to The Free Company in Balerno where he learnt about organic meat production, Dylan decided he wanted to spend more time in the EFS kitchen to develop his cookery skills.
In his own words, Dylan decided to come to do work experience in the EFS kitchen because he “wanted to have a good time!”. He loves to cook for people and is drawn to the social enterprise element of EFS’s work. Throughout his work experience, Dylan decided to take notes to show the school how valuable the experience was and to encourage them to do more trips and lessons with EFS.
The Farm Trip to The Free Company
Day one of Dylan’s week started with meeting everyone including the EFS chefs. After he’s got his bearings in the kitchen, Dylan got to work prepping seasonal veg under the tutelage of the EFS chefs. The first thing he learnt was how to cut properly using the infamous ‘claw’ method, and he quickly moved onto preparing beetroot with Chef Fergus. One thing that stood out to Dylan on day one was the kitchen, and he’d never seen such big pots, pans and sieves before. Later in the day, Dylan learnt how to put through an order of vegetables from our local supplier, which, despite almost ordering 70kg of potatoes, went without a hitch!
Dylan was early arriving to the kitchen each day, and keen to get stuck in. Day two involved getting to meet more members of the local community as there was a project with the Bothy happening in the kitchen. With more confidence and familiarity with where everything in the kitchen was, Dylan was quick to get involved in the community cooking class and get his newly-delivered order of veggies away.
Lunch outside at EFS
The next day, an event at Prestonfield Primary School meant that a class of P7 pupils came to the kitchen to help make fried broccoli, pumpkin pakora, and chickpea curry. This was an exciting opportunity for Dylan to help with a different kind of event – this time in a new location. Along with the chefs and pupils, Dylan got everything together and went to Prestonfield Primary School to set up tables and serve food. The whole school was invited, and the event was buzzing with more than 60 attendees. Dylan was delighted to report that absolutely everyone came back for seconds, and that the chickpea curry was a smash hit as it looked so appetizing and colourful. With all the food “totally demolished”, Dylan was excited to have tried a new cuisine and new flavours, and also managed to correctly guess the amount of donations the meal had received!
Day four was back to preparing veggies for events and Dylan steadily worked through a
cauliflower, peppers, broccoli and onions while learning tricks on how to not cry while cutting onions. Initially, finding ways to cut veggies the veggies was tricky but with guidance, he quickly picked up new ways to cut safely and efficiently. Next, it was on to making butterbean mash, which was totally new to Dylan and ‘tasted nutty and really good’ when seasoned with paprika and cumin seeds. This was Dylan’s first time using seeds rather than ground spices, but he was eager to try pearl barley and pumpkin again after learning about seasonality and growing vegetables on the farm trip.
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- Dylan’s beetroot salad
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- Dylan’s first omelette
In what felt like no time at all, it was Dylan’s last day of work experience. It also happened to be one of the EFS team’s last day at work, so Dylan took on the challenge of making a leaving breakfast of red pepper omelette. It was another first for Dylan, and despite feeling the pressure he made a perfect omelette to mark the occasion. The day continued by making a beetroot salad for staff lunch, then making a bread and butter pudding with leftover croissants and bananas. By day five, Dylan had learnt how to tell if roasted veggies were ready by feeling their texture – a huge leap from day one. Later, Dylan learnt another new skill of using a food processor to make beetroot and butterbean hummus.
By the end of day five Dylan’s main feedback was that he wished his work experience could last longer! Throughout the week Dylan made huge progress in his skills and was so enthusiastic to learn about seasonality, and new techniques and flavours. His favourite thing to learn at EFS was knife skills because he “was never good at chopping until the EFS chefs helped him with it”.
Dylan in his chef whites
