Caboodle Food Cookery School

Teenagers learning to cook at Caboodle Food Cookery School

Basic ingredients: With its background in nutrition and food safety courses, Caboodle Cook School has been training cooks for the past decade. Now home economist and nutritionist Diane Johnson has opened her family kitchen at Hill Head near Fareham to run a range of cookery classes, from chocolate and confectionery to vegetarian. One of her daughters has chosen not to eat meat and Johnson wants to show that by being flexible and planning well it’s possible to cater for a vegetarian even when the rest of the family eats meat. Classes accommodate six to eight students and include demos, short talks and hands-on practical cookery for students. Unusually for a cookery school, Caboodle taps into two growing areas with classes for baby toddler and pre-school food as well as an expedition course for teenagers that is aimed primarily at Duke of Edinburgh award students and centres.

They say:  I love the endless possibilities of engaging people with food and I’m a enthusiast for good local produce and living sustainably. Our courses are all about you cooking and learning new recipes and skills with the opportunity to cook some tasty dishes and take them home to share. Don’t worry, we do the washing up.

We say: It’s good to have an offering from an experienced practitioner in an area that lacks a decent cookery school. We like their commitment to Hampshire’s amazing larder of local ingredients and their sustainability intentions to recycle all vegetable and fruit peelings in tumble composters.