WHO AM I? My kitchen shelves are groaning with cookery books and recipe cuttings, but I don’t cook as often as I’d like. Some fast and simple recipes that are easy to remember are what I need to get me out of my rut of my quick Spanish tortilla or chicken stir-fry suppers. I enjoy healthy food but am bamboozled by the mixed messages in supermarkets and the media about the nutritional value of different foods – I hope this course will clear things up.

THE MENU Poached egg on tomato fondue, herb omelette, smoked salmon omelette, fruit smoothie, roquefort salad, Moroccan chicken fricassee, beef bourguignon, stir-fried vegetables, potage Quat’Seaisons, watercress soup, steak “Maman Blanc” with red wine jus, chocolate mousse and chocolate fondant.

THE COURSE As with all new courses at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, proprietor and world-renowned chef, Raymond Blanc, was overseeing proceedings (a good reason to book onto new courses, although it’s worth asking when you book to check he’ll be there).

Don’t despair if there’s no RB, the doting moniker used by his staff; the Cookery School head tutor, Nurdin Topham, is an affable and well-qualified substitute who rattles off nutritional facts like nursery rhymes and is witty to boot.

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The Cooking School adjoins the kitchens of the famous Oxfordshire hotel, and there are plenty of opportunities to wander through. The staff don’t make you feel like you’re getting in the way, even if you are, and it’s a fascinating insight into a professional kitchen.

Course-goers perch on high stools around a central island unit to watch demonstrations and have tastings and post mortems on their culinary endeavours. The feel is of a Gloucestershire kitchen, looking out through lead-latticed windows, with soft wood units and a gleaming black granite worktop. On arrival this island unit is neatly arranged with chef’s white button-down jackets, burgundy aprons, a course handbook and pencil.

The one-day Nutrition course runs from 9am to 4.30, and includes 13 demonstrations, six practical cooking exercises and a breakfast and lunch that you cook yourself. There are five workstations with sink, oven, hob, utensils and various fresh and store cupboard ingredients.

The brief is to produce fast, simple, wholesome and implicitly nutritious food and to “remove the myth that only lentil cakes and salads are healthy”. Indeed, with cheese, chocolate, red wine and lashings of butter on the menu, I was pleasantly surprised by how indulgent the dishes were.

HOW DID IT GO? Coffee in the Manoir’s elegant lounge was a pleasant start, overlooking the manicured gardens where beyond a high stone wall is the herb and vegetable garden that provides the kitchens and cookery school with fresh ingredients. This is a chance to meet the other course-goers before you’re whisked to the kitchen for Raymond’s flamboyant welcome.

He begins by talking passionately about our disconnection with the food chain: “ We have created a monstrous food chain that has no ethics”; lamenting the death of the family meal around a table, the scourge of the ready meal culture, the rise of intensive farming and our loss of contact with the seasons. This ardent speech, peppered with humour and a touch of flirtation with the ladies soon gives way to the sleeve rolling bit.

Ahead of the breakfast demo we’re told how to tell a good egg from a bad one. “Get to know your egg”, says RB, a phrase we’ll later hear supplementing “egg” for “chicken” and “steak”. It’s invaluable stuff – and I envision us all marching around our local supermarkets like French women in the Dordogne, who prod, smell and eyeball every item before purchasing.

There’s humour too: “That’s the worst omelette I’ve made in 20 years”, says RB of his less-than-perfect-creation, to chuckles from the class.

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