[tiny adventures] Knife skills - fruit, vegetables and herbs

It's my birthday in two weeks' time, so today Adam & I spent the morning at Leiths School of Food and Wine waving knives around, this being last year's birthday present. (It was delayed by surgical recovery, and then availability over the summer, and then buying a house, and then Belfast, because apparently we have done A Lot Of Things in the last twelve months.)

I really, really enjoyed it - every hour or two I'd glance up, catch sight of the clock, and be a little startled by how much time had passed. So here, have some notes.

Access

Leiths were informed at the point of booking that I'm a wheelchair user. There was some discussion (via phone calls with A and e-mails with me) about how to make me as comfortable as possible; I was offered a lower worksurface (so I could remain seated in my wheelchair), a stool provided by the school, or the option (suggested by us) of me bringing in my own (adjustable) saddle stool. We ended up deciding that I'd bring in my own saddle stool and show up a few minutes early so we could get set up before general introductory material, but it was made very clear that I could at any point say "actually, I need a lower table after all" and This Could Happen. I get the impression that if anyone else had wanted a stool at any point during the class they could have requested one and it would have been provided with absolutely no fuss. On the day, everything in terms of set-up went very smoothly.

The building has level access, though it's via a short and fairly steep ramp with a pull-to-open door at the top of it. There were no shortage of people around to open it for me, however, even if I hadn't had Adam with me. Inside the building reception is then off to the side through a slightly awkward door (it's clearly not part of the main day-to-day operations!); there's a cloakroom, a lift, and space in the kitchens to leave bags, and I was able to leave my chair close by me in the kitchen as well.

Evacuation plans are a thing. In my case I Really Hate dealing with detailed evacuation plans because in fact I can walk out even if stairs were involved (in that if I can't walk out I won't have made it to wherever the venue is so it's a moot point), so my evacuation plan was "if I gotta I'll walk it"; I got the impression that had something more involved been required they'd have arranged for that too.

We were prompted to drink water at regular intervals. I might have had a bit of difficulty reaching the handwashing sink had I been remaining in my chair, largely due to the position of the bin for paper towels, but I expect that would have been moved had I needed it. I was at one end of the table (there were about twenty of us plus the instructor), and sometimes struggled to hear the instructor's voice, especially as there was another class (macarons) going on in the other half of the kitchen; I was on her left and she was right-handed, so also sometimes couldn't see demonstrations in detail. Instructions were given verbally and were also (in slightly condensed form) available in writing (not in large print by default); our instructor has apparently spent some time teaching knife skills to blind and visually impaired people, so has a bunch of established techniques for that, though I imagine that works less well in the large group setting we were in. However, teachers circulated post-demonstration and encouraged questions, left-handers were identified at the start of the session and put in positions where they'd be able to chop easily, and I'm absolutely certain that had I asked to be placed close to the instructor that it would've happened without a problem. We were also encouraged to take notes throughout.

This was overall a genuinely positive experience for me in terms of access. I'd been worried about it, but in fact it all Just Worked.

( As for the actual learning... )