GREEN’S

The Green’s Team mission is to create food which represents the different heritages and cultures at Bedford Girls’ School, whilst providing interesting and nutritious meals. Mrs Katie Tombs, Deputy Catering Manager, lifts the lid on a day in the life in the Green’s Kitchen.

Mrs Tombs explained: “our day starts very early and whilst many of our students are just getting out of bed the team are busy planning the day ahead, making sure we prepare meal options which are healthy and nutritious as well as reflecting modern trends in dining.

6:00am: The Green’s team day starts with preparations for breakfast and lunch service. It’s my favourite time in the day: the kitchen smells of freshly baked pastries for breakfast; Mr Clark, the Sous Chef, is singing along to the radio; and we start working our way through the tasks for the day ahead. It’s also when we receive our daily deliveries of fruit, vegetables and dry stocks. It’s important to our team that we are serving the freshest produce on the counters so we get our produce daily and a thorough quality check is carried out before we put the deliveries away. We work closely with our suppliers and make changes to our menus when needed to ensure the produce on the counters is to the highest quality.

7:00am: The rest of the team start to arrive and Mrs Tobin sets up breakfast ready to serve students and staff. The larder section gets cracking with the preparations for the day’s counters. It’s a busy section as they look after the salad bar, fresh cut fruit, potatoes and vegetables for the lunch service. They also make all the packed lunches for any school trips departing that day. Our self-serve salad bar is always really popular with our students. On an average week they prepare 70 cucumbers, 48 lettuce heads, 10 kilos of homemade coleslaw…the list goes on. On a Wednesday we serve a roast dinner; for this the team prepares and roasts 90 kilos of potatoes…that is roughly the same weight as a new-born baby elephant!

Across the courtyard from the main kitchen, preparations will also be underway in Chequers, our Sixth Form Café. Mrs Hibbert and Café Manager, Mrs Duckworth, offer our students and staff an array of tasty snacks and lunch items. Open from 7:30am for breakfast, our older students can grab a bagel, breakfast wrap, fresh fruit, cereals and a cup of perfectly served Illy coffee. The café is a hub of activity throughout the day providing a lovely space for our Sixth Form students to catch up with friends, work on projects, have informal meetings with their teachers or simply grab a board game from the mantelpiece and enjoy some downtime. Mrs Duckworth works closely with members of the Sixth Form to continuously develop the offering. The Summer Term is going to bring blended drinks like smoothies and iced coffees as well as a salad bar and more cut fruit options. Chequers is also open to Senior School students attending late care after school.

10:15am: Our Senior School tuck shop is ready for the break time rush. In a swift 15 minutes Mrs Tobin and the tuck shop team serve upwards of 500 students, so I am sure you can imagine the pace! We bake fresh cakes on site, most of them have a sneaky vegetable in like our Pastry Chef Mrs Masih’s courgette and lime cake or beetroot brownies…we also serve warm snack items like sausage rolls and pasta pots.

10.40am: With students back in lessons, the kitchen is a hive of activity, as our Sous Chefs Mr Clark and Mrs Traisneau concentrate on the main elements to the day’s counter. Mrs Traisneau is also our allergy champion so she makes all the allergen free dishes; students with an allergy ask for Mrs Traisnueau to help find suitable options and there is always a range of tasty dishes for them to enjoy.

Meanwhile, the pastry team is getting baked goods out of the ovens, finishing decorating cakes and traying up cold desserts ready for lunch. The larder section will be busy sorting the potatoes, steaming vegetables, cutting fruit and creating a colourful salad counter. We also make sure their freshly cut and newly baked bloomer bread is at the salad bar for students to help themselves to.

11:45pm: With final prep finished, the team comes together to set up the hot counters ready for our first lunch sitting at 12.00pm. Menus are printed and placed on each counter. Once the servers are ready Mr Clarke holds a short team briefing explaining the ingredients in each dish and outlining its taste profile, such as how spicy a dish is.

12:00pm: And we are off, the Dining Hall fills with the noise of hungry and excited students; across a two-hour period we serve upwards of 600 students. The chefs keep working behind the scenes constantly cooking fresh food for the counters and the team are talking the students through the dishes available and helping them put together a balanced meal.

1.45pm: As students start the afternoon lesson, we are tidying down the kitchen, prepping for the next day and preparing food for multiple evening events. We spend time discussing what went well, which dishes were popular and looking at where we can do anything differently.”

Whilst the team work exceptionally hard each day to serve delicious dishes, Mrs Tombs and Head of Department, Mr Pickard, are also planning ahead and developing the menus for the next term.

Mrs Tombs concluded: “We are passionate about serving great food the students want to eat and we have set up a Menu Planning Forum both in the Junior School and Senior School. Students on the Menu Planning Forum gained and collated feedback from their peers and we worked through the menu ideas. We reinvented current dishes and discussed what would be popular on next term’s menus. We then have a menu tasting where the Forum sample dishes and provide input on flavour, look and potential popularity of the dish. We also talk about theme days and cultural events we can host in the Dining Hall. We really want the students to have a say in what they eat. Next term our new Tres Leche cake will be featured in lunch, the student tasting panel described it as ‘next level’ and our new vegetarian dhal has been carefully tweaked to pass the student test for spice and flavour.”