I went to a cooking lesson on Friday afternoon, It was at L’atelier des Chef, which offers classes at two locations. I signed up for a lesson near St. Paul’s (and Judie’s office). It was on South American street food. I got there and discovered that I was the only person who registered, so I ended up having a private lesson! I learned to make Paco de Queijo, a sort of cheese puff made with tapioca flour, which gave it a odd but pleasant gummy texture, Artichucos, marinated beef on skewers, Peruvian Ceviche in Tiger’s milk and Coxinhas, a kind of dumpling stuffed with chicken coated in bread crumbs and deep fried. The first and last were the most interesting and also the hardest to make. At the end, you sit down and eat what you made (and can order a glass of wine), which would normally be fun, but in this case I was eating alone, so it was a little odd and there was really too much for me to eat (so I took a lot of it home). I’ve included the obligatory pictures of the final product. I’m scheduled for another lesson at their place near Oxford Circus on Monday on Asian Street Food.

On the way to the lesson I had some extra time and was walking past the Guildhall (which you might remember from the story about the birthday party in the crypt) and decided to go the Gulidhall Art Museum. There was a tour starting so I tagged along. It had a great guide and he told one story that was so good I will try to repeat it here. He brought us to two paintings by Sir John Millais, who was guy who had been a rebel studying at the Royal Academy and began the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood with a few of his friends, but while they remained rebellious, he went straight and ended up the head of the Royal Academy. His statue is outside Tate Britain, in a three-piece suit with his paint brushes and kit. Anyway, in 1863, his painting “My First Sermon” (see below left), a picture of his granddaughter at her first Church service, was the hit of the Royal Academy show and was praised by the Archbishop of Canterbury. So the next year the Academy asked him to create sequel and invited the Archbishop again to comment. Millais painted “My Second Sermon” (below right), in which his granddaughter had gotten over the excitement of her first service and was now blissfully asleep. The Archbishop, perhaps surprisingly, was a good sport about it all and made this speech:

I would say for myself that I always desire to derive profit as well as pleasure from my visits to these rooms. On the present occasion I have learnt a very wholesome lesson, which may be usefully studied, not by myself alone, but by those of my right reverend brethren also who surround me. I see a little lady there (pointing to Mr. Millais’ picture of a child asleep in church, entitled My Second Sermon), who, though all unconscious whom she has been addressing, and the homily she has been reading to us during the last three hours, has in truth, by the eloquence of her silent slumber, given us a warning of the evil of lengthy sermons and drowsy discourses. Sorry indeed should I be to disturb that sweet and peaceful slumber, but I beg that when she does awake she may be informed who they are who have pointed the moral of her story, have drawn the true inference from the change that has passed over her since she has heard her “first sermon,” and have resolved to profit by the lecture she has thus delivered to them.