The Cream Horns Talk has proved very popular
- Book launch in Putney
- Talk to large audience Putney Library
- Various WIs around London including Putney and Barnes
- Future talks to U3a , National Health Retirement Groups, More WIs and more ….
Category: jenny ridgwell
-
My Cream Horns Talk
-
Awful Offal
Prue Leith has written a passionate piece on her website about the demise of Offal and called it Awful Offal.
I wonder if she got the idea from my I taught them to cook book?
You can read about my disastrous lesson on stuffed hearts here.
We took out bits of veins and flaps, stuffed them with Paxo and roasted them in Bisto gravy. End of the day, only a few were taken home and I had to try and sell the rest to single men in the staffroom.
Thankyou Prue for your review of this book –
‘An accurate, and sometimes very funny, account of the trials of a young food teacher in the 70’s. A light hearted testament to the importance of food, education, and a sizzling expose of the blindness of the powers that be.’
IT’S STILL TRUE – FOOD AND NUTRITION TEACHING NEEDS TO BE VALUED.
-
Ode to Charlie Bigham: A Culinary Love Song
This is my Ode to Charlie Bigham filmed for YouTube
Jenny Ridgwell 2026
Ode to Charlie Bigham from someone buying meals for one
Oh Charlie Bigham marry me
And we’ll go and live in your factory
And make delicious things for tea
Oh Charlie Bigham please marry me.
Oh Charlie Bigham marry me
I’ll help you develop your pies
They’ll be just as nutritious and very delicious
And I’ll lower the cost of supplies.
Oh Charlie Bigham marry me
I’ll help you make smaller dishes
For fatties like me who need less calories
But be sure that I’ll follow your wishes.
Oh Charlie Bigham marry me
We could smother each other in cream
Or I’ll help out in packing, or even some stacking
And then I’ll be part of your team.
Oh Charlie Bigham marry me
I’ll help you when choosing fresh thyme
We’ll go on the razzle in fields full of basil
And pop open bottles of wine.
Oh Charlie Bigham marry me
So I’ll no longer be cooking for one
We’ll experiment with pasta and feast on moussaka
And our kitchen will fill up with fun.
Oh Charlie I know you can’t marry me
As you’ve got a nice wife at your home
But I’ll still buy your dishes which are really delicious
And then heat them and eat them alone. 😩
Jenny Ridgwell 2026
Reply from Charlie Bigham's team about my Ode
-
Seville Oranges and Marmalade: A Culinary Journey
Click to read my story of my school marmalade lesson from 1970s.
It’s from the first book I taught them to cook, about cookery lessons in an east London comprehensive.
There’s also my school recipe for Marmalade. How did I get fifty students to each end up with a well set jar of this delicious sweet and sour jam? I don’t know.
The recipe is on this link. Notice there is no pectin used.
In Valencia last week, the streets were filled with Seville orange trees laden with fruit. They are too sour to eat so the 10,000 trees get left alone.
The city harvests the oranges in January each year and uses the fruit for juice and perfume making. Dundee marmalade has passed them by!
In January the streets of Valencia are filled with orange trees, laden with fruit. -
Thankyou Delia
How Delia stopped me from making 300 mince pies.
Click the link to see my reading from Cream Horns and Vol au Vents at my book launch.
READ the the full story on this link
-
My students in 1974
This photo is a group of my students. I am on the right wearing an all-brown outfit. High, suede leather boots, a brown mini skirt, roll neck jumper, belted at waist and a jaunty cap.
Read about those days in Cream Horns and Vol au vents.
Story on this link
-
I never taught Chicken
In the 1950s, Britain produced 1 million chickens a year – today it is over a billion. Intensive farming in the late 1960s reduced the price of chicken.
In 1972, chicken was too expensive for me to cook at school and there was nothing in the textbooks or exams.
Read about my chicken lesson here. From I taught them to cook
Today chicken is the most popular meat around the world.
Photo by William Moreland on Unsplash
Jenny Ridgwell 